The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 383: Yun

A dense cluster of explosions hit a large area around Gao Yang, sending shards of rock everywhere while the light of the flames pierced through the sky.

Gao Yang had teleported twice to the top of a newsstand, but not without suffering some injury given how large the scale of the attack was.

Merely a brush from the red ray had left the muscles of his left arm torn and bleeding nonstop. Fishing out a syringe of Medicine C with one hand, Gao Yang took off the cap with his teeth and gave himself a shot in the left arm.

As soon as he finished doing that, he sensed killing intent coming from behind him.

It was Lilia.

Gao Yang’s heart stuttered in shock.

He had been keeping an eye on Lilia, and she was still a short distance ahead of him. Immediately, though, Gao Yang realized that the Lilia he saw was nothing but a temporary illusion created with elements.

At the same time, translucent walls of wind elements appeared in front, above, left, and right of Gao Yang, preventing him from teleporting away.

She was too quick!

In addition to her mastery over elements, Lilia was also unrivaled in her physical abilities. Her speed could almost match his Teleportation.

At that moment, Gao Yang realized how naive he had been.

He had thought that he would be able to buy at least ten minutes, but now it seemed even a minute would be a tall task.

He didn’t have the time to turn around and block the incoming attacks. Neither could he teleport his way out of here.

He could already see it—in half a second, Lilia’s hand, having turned into a sharp blade, would easily pierce through his back and protrude from his chest, carving his heart out.

Is this it for me?

Is fate impossible to change?

Suddenly, there was an explosion. Gao Yang sensed a gust sweep over him from behind, the irresistibly powerful currents almost throwing him off his feet. And the walls of wind elements around him dispersed.

Then, there was the sound of a building collapsing. Gao Yang whirled around to find Lilia lying prone amid the rubbles of a crumbled wall. Before her stood a figure.

That must be the one who had come out of nowhere and slammed into Lilia with tremendous speed, catching her off guard.

Gao Yang looked closer and realized that it was a white-haired elderly woman, still dressed in a homely pajama with cute bear patterns; it was a birthday gift from her granddaughter last year.

She was barefooted. On her messy hair was a pink, girly hairpin the shape of a strawberry cake, making clear her love for sweets.

She slowly opened her mouth, her old voice booming with fury.

“You are not hurting my Yang Yang.”

Gao Yang was both shocked and overjoyed. Granny!

She was a pride monster, and a lightbringer at that! She’d always known what he was!

With the help of her elemental wings, Lilia quickly stood up from the rubbles. She didn’t seem too surprised, not because she had predicted the turn of events, but because her indifference allowed her to easily come to terms with any possibilities.

She didn’t seem in a hurry to fight back. She coldly said, “It seems that you have your answer, Yun.”

Yun, Gao Yang’s grandmother, answered in a low voice, “Yes, this is my answer.”

With her empty eye sockets, it was the purple vertical eye on Lilia’s forehead that glinted with curiosity. “To protect awakeners and allow them to cling onto their lives?”

Yun chuckled. “Hoho, I don’t care about awakeners.”

“Then what do you care about? A fake grandson?” Lilia said with some regret. “Were Epilogue still around, they would’ve felt sorry for you.”

“I am the one feeling sorry for Epilogue. They’d become more and more lost in their old age and ended up cornering themself.” Speaking of her once companion, Yun sighed. “Be it human or monster, I’ve learned only one thing after living to this age.”

“What is it?” Lilia didn’t understand despite having once been a human.

Rather than giving her an answer immediately, Yun turned to Gao Yang with an approachable, kind smile.

Gao Yang opened his mouth, but couldn’t say anything.

He had considered the possibility that his grandmother could turn out to be an elite monster, and he had mentally prepared himself for it, but the fact that she was a lightbringer still shocked him to the core.

He was beside himself with surprise, but also with relief. There was warmth to the complicated feelings hitting him too.

He looked at the old woman who was both utterly familiar yet totally strange to him. The countless words he struggled to say come out simply as, “Granny”.

“Yeah.”

His grandmother responded with a smile before slowly turning back to answer Lilia’s question.

“Family matters most.”

“Family?” Lilia was disappointed. “So your answer is to fool yourself.”

“The one fooling herself is you, child,” she said ruefully.

Those who walked on different paths could not journey together.

They shared a quiet look for three seconds.

In an instant, Yun turned into a ball of flames and shot toward Lilia—it wasn’t in the metaphorical sense. She had turned into demonic flames that were deep purple at the heart and deep blue on the peripheral.

Her power was Pride Demon.

The vertical purple eye on Lilia’s forehead flickered as her giant elemental wings shot to the sides, sending countless magnificent elemental blades at the demonic flames.

The fire scattered instantly into about a dozen rays of light and agilely dodged the blades before converging, turning back into Yun the moment she reached Lilia.

With fist covered in beautiful fire, Yun punched Lilia in the face. Lilia lifted her right hand, wrapped in elemental power, to take the punch, but failed to offset the power.

Boom!

The two figures grappled and slammed through a wall, into the mall inside. The pitch-black interior was quiet for a second. Then rays of blue, red, and multiple colors flickered in quick succession. Explosions continued to wreak havoc in the building.

Gao Yang would like to fight for his grandmother, but he knew there was nothing he could do.

The battle between the leader of the lightbringers and the leader of the shadowstalkers wasn’t one he could intervene.

Clang, clang.

Thirty seconds later, an eerie blue figure and a dark red one slammed through the top of the building one after the other.

They were so quick that they looked like two phantoms in energy form, jumping quickly between the buildings lining the crossroad with long trails behind them.

They chased each other at high speed, grappling as all kinds of elemental powers sputtered and blew up like two elemental spirits running amok, triggering a festival of fireworks that filled the three-dimensional space.

Gao Yang stood at the crossroad, feeling helpless. With shimmering, changing lights cast on his face, he looked up at the fireworks of elements, praying that at the end of the show, the one to survive would be his dear grandmother.

The battle between the two pride monsters lasted a minute. Then the two trailing phantoms intersected above the crossroad like colliding shooting stars.

Boom!

A giant cluster of energy blew up in the air with particles of all elements. Gao Yang raised his hands and tried to maintain balance, and he managed to stay on his feet, but only barely.

As soon as the explosion ended, the two phantoms intertwined and rose like fireworks. Then a giant, extravagant-looking multi-colored wings expanded, filling the sky. The rippling light shrouded the entire street block.

Those were Lilia’s wings!

“Ahhhh—”

The ringing scream threatened to break eardrums. From under the multi-colored wings, a cluster of blue demonic fire quickly expanded and spread like a spider lily blooming at Lilia.

Clang.

The world paled for a few seconds.

When Gao Yang’s vision cleared, the night sky had turned back to crimson.

The two figures were in free fall, dropping quickly down into the crater Spring had left on the ground in intertwining trajectories.

“Granny!”

Gao Yang rushed toward the crater.

At the center of it, both pride monsters were covered in injuries. Yun, especially, was entirely covered in open wounds deep enough to reveal the bones, embedded with elemental particles of different colors.

Even so, Yun seemed to have the upper hand at the moment, and she straddled Lilia with both hands on Lilia’s chest, her face horrifyingly twisted with elemental burns.

“Aghhhh—”

Howling, Yun yanked upward hard, and the elemental armor shrouding Lilia and the elemental wings on her back retracted to her chest, peeled off by Yun like snake shedding and quickly turning into a cluster of elemental energy.

Yun transformed into demonic fire again to take the elemental energy from Lilia.

A second later, the fire returned to Gao Yang’s side, converging as Yun, still covered in injury.

The elemental power she carried had reverted back into the form of a Rune Circuit. Yun put it in Gao Yang’s hand.

He took it. The Rune Circuit was covered in his grandmother’s blood.

She threw up blood and collapsed to her knees.

“Granny!”

Gao Yang crouched down to help her up. The fight had exhausted the last of Yun’s vitality and energy.

She slowly reached out her torn, bloodied hands, covered in elemental particles. She wanted to touch her grandson’s face, but slowly pulled back when she thought about how dirty her hands were.

Gao Yang grabbed her hands and placed them on his face.

“Yang Yang, don’t be scared... Granny isn’t a bad person.”

“Granny, don’t go, don’t leave me...” Gao Yang held her hands tightly and sobbed. “You must live past a hundred. There are still so many delicious sweets you haven’t had. You must not...”

“Granny loves you.”

Her eyes quickly lost their light, and with her lips still curved into a smile, her bloodied hands fell from Gao Yang’s face.

No!

This isn’t happening!

Granny isn’t going to just die like this! It can’t be real!

Ring.

The familiar sound of tinnitus returned, filling his head.

“Granny doesn’t have a lot, so don’t think I’m being stingy. Here. Buy anything you want to eat once you’re there.”

“Our Yang Yang has gotten more and more dependable. One day, you’ll become an even more successful man than your dad!”

“Granny doesn’t need to live that long. As long as Yang Yang and Xinxin grow up safely and the family continues to live happily, Granny can leave in peace.”

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