Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 530 – The Real Me

She had never been a good person.

Put that statement to her a few years ago, and she would have admitted it with a laugh herself.

In her eyes, everyone who got close to her served a purpose. Su Xiaoxiao was a servant, Sun Jing was a tool, Zhou Ming was muscle, and Chu Chen was a strategist.

Keep whoever was useful, discard whoever wasn’t.

Simple, efficient, no emotions required.

Back then, she thought that was the best way to survive in the post-apocalypse.

But when had that changed?

Was it when she saw Bai Lu’s memories—how even after becoming a zombie, she still protected civilians on pure instinct? Or was it in the Mist Forest, when Long Yan risked his life to protect her when she was still Long Ningshuang?

Or was it the moment Long Xi’s bloodline merged with hers—that ancestral dragon woman who had lived for centuries, carving a purity that this broken world had never managed to grind away deep into her soul?

She couldn’t say.

She only knew that when Chu Chen informed her Azurewood City was under siege, she didn’t hesitate. Not for a single second.

The reason she rushed back wasn’t because Azurewood City was her territory and losing it would hurt her interests. It was because the people she cared about were there.

Sun Jing, Su Xiaoxiao, Su Yue, Yuzuru, Zhou Ming, Long Yan, Ah Hu, Xiao Wang, Xiao Li.

And the Fox Clan girls brought out of the Slave Market, the brothers and sisters who had walked with her all the way from Fragrant Hills International, and so many more.

These people trusted her, depended on her, placed their lives in her hands.

And she… actually wanted to protect them.

How absurd.

A monster who had climbed to the top by devouring her own companions, now caring about the lives and deaths of those “materials.”

“Still spacing out?”

Rеαⅾ οո KatRеαԁіnɡCafe

The Dragon Emperor’s voice fell from above—neither heavy nor light, his tone flat.

Lin Fan snapped back to attention.

The gray-black tide of death was already three meters from her face. The stench of decay invaded her nostrils, and the cracks on Yui’s skin surface were growing denser by the second.

She could feel the Skin breaking down. The Death Rule was eroding it from the foundation. Yui’s talent was fighting desperately, the power of Reality Rewrite trying to redefine the death energy into something harmless—but the gap in level between the two was far too vast.

Lin Fan gritted her teeth and didn’t move.

Her gaze pierced through the gray-black death mist, looking into the distance.

Long Yan was still lying on the ground. He raised his head with all his remaining strength, the Runic Longblade propped before him, desperately trying to stand. What came out of his mouth was “Lei Jie, run!”—his voice already reduced to a hoarse whisper.

Beside him, Long Teng held his sword horizontally in front of him—not to fight, but to shield. He was using his own body to block part of the Death Domain’s erosion for Long Yan. This old fox, wounded as badly as he was, was still protecting his cub.

Long Yi had it worst. His entire body was pressed flat to the ground, and he was cursing up a storm. “Old bastard,” “son of a bitch”—his voice was as faint as a mosquito’s buzz, but he refused to shut up.

Lin Fan watched the three of them and the corner of her mouth twitched.

Not a pretty sight. Not dignified. Even a little ridiculous.

But it was precisely this stupid, foolish display that made the place in her chest—the place that should have held only crystal and meridians—suddenly feel tight and clogged.

The Dragon Emperor ran out of patience. His right hand slammed down.

The boundless gray-black Death Rule condensed into a crushing weight, as if the entire sky were collapsing, pressing down on Lin Fan with tangible force.

Pfft.

Lin Fan spat out a mouthful of blood.

Yui’s Skin had reached its limit. A crisp sound of shattering was clearly audible.

Cracks spread from her ankles up to her calves, climbed from her calves to her knees, then traced from her waistline all the way to her collarbones.

Reaԁ οո КαtReαԁiոɡСαfe

The white sailor uniform shattered and scattered. The black thigh-highs turned to dust. The pleated skirt was torn into shreds by death energy.

“Lei Jie!” Long Yan roared.

“No—!” Long Yi surged up, forcing half his body upright against the suppression of the Death Domain, only to be slammed back down again.

Long Teng shouted nothing. He simply aimed his sword tip toward the Dragon Emperor, his hand trembling but gripping with fierce intensity.

In the city lord’s mansion, Su Xiaoxiao, who had been unconscious, suddenly woke with a startled scream.

“Sister!”

As if sensing something.

Lin Fan fell from midair.

She crashed into the rubble pile outside the north gate, dust exploding upward.

Everyone’s hearts leaped to their throats. The smoke and dust obscured all vision.

Then.

A silhouette emerged from the haze.

The first thing visible was an arm. It bore a whiteness that did not belong to any human—a translucent, luminous quality.

That hand pushed up from the ground, fingers slender, not a single speck of dust clinging to the nails.

Then came the shoulder.

Thin, yet with smooth, flowing lines. At the shoulder, a layer of translucent membrane peeled up from the skin and drifted away in the wind.

That was Yui’s Skin.

It sloughed off Lin Fan piece by piece. The head separated first—Yui’s innocent, sweet features split open from the neck, the entire mask sliding off. Revealing the face beneath.

Reaԁ оո KαtReadіnɡСаfе

Whiter.

A face so white it seemed unreal, its delicate features trampling the word “perfect” underfoot.

Then the hair.

Yui’s princess-cut locks fell away in strands, replaced by pure white hair that grew wildly from the roots. It reached her waist the moment it appeared, then her knees, and finally her ankles.

Every single strand shimmered with the faint glow of stardust.

Wind swept through the ruins, and the white hair flew.

Yui’s Skin had completely shed. The thin layer of human skin drifted in the breeze like an old garment cast aside.

Standing in the rubble pit was a naked woman.

Her height restored from 1.62 to 1.72. Her curves had transformed from a girl’s innocence into a lethal maturity. Not a single pore was visible on her skin—a translucent, white-jade texture that cast a cold sheen under the moonlight.

She raised her head.

A pair of black eyes ignited in the gray ruins.

Deep within those black pupils, nebulae churned.

Long Yan saw that face.

His mind skipped a beat.

White hair. Starry eyes. That overwhelming presence that dimmed everything around her the moment she stood there.

“Lei… Jie? She’s fine!”

His voice trembled. Not from fear, but because he had finally—finally—matched the woman who had crawled out from beneath another face with the name in his heart.

But then.

Reaԁ οո КаtReаdіոgСαfe

His gaze fell upon the shed Skin on the ground.

Yui’s face.

That face he had seen countless times in Border Dragon City—the face of the maidservant beside Long Wu.

It lay there, hollow and empty, spread across the rubble. A discarded husk.

Long Yan’s expression froze.

Long Teng saw it too.

He stared at the Skin, his pupils constricting violently.

He thought of Long Wu.

Long Yi said nothing.

The entire battlefield of Azurewood City fell utterly silent in that moment.

Lin Fan stood in the rubble pit, white hair trailing to the ground, completely naked. But her expression was colder than when she had worn the sailor uniform.

She glanced at Yui’s Skin on the ground.

Then she looked at Long Yan.

In Long Yan’s eyes, there was shock, confusion, and something else rising from the depths of her gaze—the thing she least wanted to see.

Fear.

Lin Fan looked away, lifting her head to gaze at the Dragon Emperor hovering in midair.

The Dragon Emperor’s golden vertical pupils fixed upon her.

“You’re far more beautiful than she is…”