Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 563 – His Memories

The instant his fingertip touched her brow, the world fell into absolute silence.

Long Hao’s perpetually unchanging face showed, for the first time, an expression bordering on shock and disbelief.

He could feel it—that immense power within him, capable of toppling stars, was now like a caged beast under a single finger of hers. It couldn’t move an inch, couldn’t even muster the slightest thought of resistance.

It was as if all his strength, all his secrets, had been utterly laid bare by that one finger.

And in that very moment—

A torrent of memories, sealed away for three hundred years, belonging to a time and space not her own yet bound to her by blood, came crashing violently into Lin Fan’s mind.

It was the life of a man.

The final legacy left to her by another “Lin Fan.”

…

“Knock, knock, knock.”

The door to Happy Home was knocked upon. Outside stood Liu Ruyan’s pitifully beautiful face, speaking lines identical to those from another time and place.

Only this time, there was no so-called rebirth.

The man in the wheelchair remained that naive, cowardly cripple who still harbored a sliver of faith in humanity.

He opened the door.

He was stripped of every resource he depended on to survive.

Then, under the twin torments of hunger and despair, he was pushed off the high building—wheelchair and all—by the very woman he had sworn to protect.

“Useless trash.”

The woman’s venomous voice dripped with twisted satisfaction.

The wind howled past his ears; the world spun wildly before his eyes.

He saw the faces below, distorted beyond recognition by starvation. He saw the zombies, drawn by the scent of fresh flesh, converging in dense, swarming masses.

He closed his eyes.

The anticipated agony of being torn apart never came.

“Thunk!”

That was the dull sound of a fire axe cleaving through rotting flesh.

A tall, burly figure stood before him like a mountain, shielding him.

It was Zhou Ming—the fitness trainer who had always pursued Liu Ruyan.

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He had summoned the courage to seek out his beloved, only to happen upon saving Lin Fan, who had just been thrown from the building.

“You… are you alright?” Zhou Ming turned back, flashing a simple, honest smile at the pale-faced man in the wheelchair.

He survived.

But during their escape, Zhou Ming’s arm was scratched by a zombie.

Black veins, like venomous serpents, crept hideously upward from the wound.

“Lin Fan… brother, I… I might not make it.” Zhou Ming slumped against the corner of the wall, gasping for breath, his face ashen. “There’s some food in my bag—take it… and live on.”

He shoved his hiking backpack toward Lin Fan with what strength he had left.

Lin Fan stared at him, at that face convulsing violently from the viral infection.

Survive.

A cold, emotionless mechanical voice rang out in his mind.

[Skin System Activated.]

[Host: Lin Fan]

[Ability: Can craft unresisting targets into perfect human skin suits.]

Lin Fan looked at Zhou Ming’s pained face—a face that still bore the last trace of human kindness.

I’m sorry.

He murmured silently in his heart.

[Skin Crafting in progress…]

He survived.

After Zhou Ming was crafted into a skin, his infected body miraculously restored itself on its own.

He donned Zhou Ming’s skin and, for the first time, rose from that damned wheelchair.

That body brimming with explosive power, that honest, simple face—they became his first mask in the post-apocalypse.

He swallowed the first Crystal of his life.

He awakened his Special Ability.

That space ability was not his own, but Zhou Ming’s—unique and unparalleled.

From that moment on, he became the sole “Chosen One” in a world where no one else had been reborn.

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He began to hunt.

To survive, to grow stronger, he stopped trusting anyone.

In the abandoned city, a tall, burly figure always lurked in the shadows.

Wearing Zhou Ming’s face, he challenged stronger Evolved beings.

Then, after defeating them, he turned them into his collection.

Powerful Evolved beings, rare Ability Users…

Once they caught his eye, they would eventually become a cold, lifeless Skin stored in his System Space.

His humanity was worn away, piece by piece, through the endless cycle of skinning and wearing.

Until he arrived at Fragrant Hills International.

There, he met Lei Li.

That woman—strong, decisive, carrying an air of boldness he had never seen before.

She was nothing like Liu Ruyan, nor like those “materials” he could crush with a flick of his fingers.

For the first time, he felt pressure in the presence of a woman.

He wanted her.

But not the kind of possession that came from turning her into a Skin—rather, a longing to stand shoulder to shoulder with her.

As if guided by some unseen force, he stayed.

Using a shape-shifting Special Ability he had acquired from another, he transformed back into his original “Lin Fan” appearance and became a member of Fragrant Hills International under his true identity.

Here, he came to know Xiao Yao, the loud but kind-hearted doctor; Ah Hu, who initially refused to submit but was eventually won over by his sheer strength.

And everyone else at Fragrant Hills International.

Gradually, he stopped hunting his own kind with the same frenzied obsession.

He began using his power to protect this small stronghold.

He started to savor the feeling of being relied upon, of being trusted.

He even began to believe that perhaps he could live like this, just as he was.

Until the massive Rift leading to another world appeared in Hangzhou.

For the sake of the base’s survival, he traveled to the Magic Capital and met the man named Chu Chen.

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That man, with two enormous dark circles under his eyes, a lollipop dangling from his lips, crouched on a chair like a monkey, sizing him up with eyes that seemed to pierce straight through to his soul.

There, he learned the truth behind the Rift’s appearance—and that on the other side lay a place called the Dragon Spirit Continent.

A place with enemies far more terrifying than Zombies.

The Dragon Clan.

To protect the people behind him, to protect this blue planet.

He plunged into endless, frenzied battles against the Dragon Clan.

In countless near-death moments of agony, he met Sun Jing—a woman who would risk her very life to heal him.

From Level 3 when he first joined Fragrant Hills International, he climbed all the way to Level 8 in just a few short years.

He crafted countless Skins from powerful Dragon Clan members, fusing their Bloodlines, his strength growing with each passing day.

But the enemies only grew stronger.

Finally, the Dragon Clan’s high-ranking members descended.

It was a war with no hope of victory.

The Dragon Emperor, accompanied by several elders, tore through every line of human defense with ease.

And at that time, he was merely at the early stage of Level 8.

Fragrant Hills International was surrounded on all sides.

Lei Li and Sun Jing piled every high-tier Crystal they had painstakingly accumulated over years of sleepless nights before him.

“Lin Fan, survive.”

Lei Li gazed at him, her sharp eyes devoid of any fear—only a heavy, weighty trust.

“We… will wait for you to come back.”

Sun Jing had already dissolved into tears.

He pushed his spatial ability to an unprecedented limit with those Crystals.

What he intended to do was forcibly close the massive Rift connecting the two worlds.

As long as the Rift closed, Blue Star would still have a chance at survival.

He succeeded.

All members of the Dragon Clan were forcibly teleported back to the other side of the Rift.

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He twisted the laws of space through sheer brute force, and the colossal Rift slowly sealed shut before his eyes.

But in that very instant of closure, the violent spatial energy triggered a chain reaction explosion, which in turn set off a spatial resonance unseen in ten thousand years.

Amidst endless distortion and tearing, his consciousness sank into darkness.

When he awoke again, he lay upon a stretch of barren, scorched earth.

Beside him was a faintly glowing arc of spatial light.

On the other side of that arc was his home.

He wanted to go back.

He exhausted every ounce of his power—that Level Eight Special Ability capable of tearing space apart—yet no matter what, he could not budge that arc of light even a fraction.

Once. Twice. Ten thousand times…

He went mad.

Lei Li and Sun Jing and the others had placed all their hopes on him, yet he had been exiled to another world.

The Rift would eventually open again.

He dared not imagine how Lei Li and the others would face the returning Dragon Emperor without him.

They would die.

Everyone he cherished—everyone who had helped him rediscover warmth and humanity—would die.

Just as he teetered on the brink of despair, frantically channeling his spatial ability—

Another unfamiliar force resonated with his own.

A brand-new Portal, one that did not belong to him, slowly yawned open before his eyes.

On the other side of the Portal stood a pair of young Dragon Clan members—a boy and a girl.

The girl had white hair and Dragon horns, an adorable doll-like face, her large eyes brimming with curiosity.

The boy had black hair and golden horns, expressionless, his gaze cold and sharp.

They were Long Xi and Long Hao.

In his memories, they still carried the rawness of three hundred years ago.

An experiment meant to open a passage to Blue Star had, by sheer twist of fate, connected to the remnants of his spatial beacon.

And just like that, he became the first human from Blue Star to set foot on the Dragon Spirit Continent.