Chapter Ninety-Eight: Wei Si

Lingmo’s gentle voice reached Catherine like heavenly music, yet the pale-blue apparition recoiled as if pricked by a needle, quickly withdrawing her hand and taking up a defensive stance.

Lingmo’s figure emerged from the shadow, an odd expression on his face as he fixed Catherine with a sharp gaze. “I was gone only a moment. How did you let yourself become such a mess? What are the two of you doing?”

“I, we were…” Catherine stammered. She did not know how to describe what had just happened. Before she could form the words, Lingmo turned toward the apparition and, with a half-amiden smile, said, “Or then, Visse? Explain this for me.”

“I? I was only trying to treat Miss Catherine’s frostbite,” Visse replied, her voice edged with an unfamiliar stiffness. After a pause, she added, “After all, she was hurt because of my sister. I have a duty to heal her.”

“Frostbite?” Lingmo let out a brief, mocking laugh. He moved in a flash to Catherine’s side and seized her wrist. A surge of extraordinarily pure energy flowed through her from that point, spreading through every part of her body. The Anthon Flame hidden in her core suddenly roared to life, sending warmth coursing through her whole frame and driving away the icy, soul-deep chill Visse had brought. Catherine found herself unable to suppress a soft cry of relief.

As the Anthon Flame burned hotter and brighter, it began to shine outward through her. The strange sensation within her had vanished completely, and as she started to relax in relief, she saw, reflected by the fire’s glow at her chest, a half-palm-sized phantom of an Original-Sin Crystal Spider clinging there, desperately trying to dig into her body.

Half of the creature’s front half was already inside her, leaving only a smooth shell-like back shining like a mirror outside. Beneath it, beneath that reflective carapace, a twisted human face arched up and revealed itself to Catherine with an innocent smile.

“Ah————!”

Catherine screamed in panic. Anyone who saw such a thing possessing her could hardly stay composed. She reached out to grab the spider, then withdrew her hand, afraid a rash move would bring worse consequences. She spun in frantic circles, and every now and then cast a pitiably pleading glance toward Lingmo.

Lingmo paid her no mind. He turned instead to Visse’s apparition and asked with mockery, “Oh? Not treating, then? Why plant an Imprint Spider in my disciple’s body?”

With that he held Catherine’s hand again; a faint light bloomed from his palm, and another stream of pure energy surged into her. The Anthon Flame flared again, and the Original-Sin Crystal Spider’s phantom, scorched by that fire, squealed and shrieked. It tugged frantically, pulling its head out of Catherine’s body. The twisted human face beneath its carapace could no longer hold its smile; it twisted into one of extreme fury.

As the fire on Catherine’s skin surged higher, the phantom spider could no longer stay with her. Several legs tensed at once and, like a flea, it sprang from her body in a violent leap, trying to return to Visse. Lingmo caught it out of the air, held it in his palm, and crushed it to dust.

“You!”

In the instant he crushed the phantom, the pale-blue apparition of Visse lost all composure. Her whole form shook. All the green hair at her forehead floated upward, and a full, mirror-smooth “face” was laid bare. A second later, an eye as large as a clenched fist, occupying nearly the whole face, burst into view beneath that sheen, hurling a hatred-soaked stare at Lingmo, as if she wished to flay him apart.

“You couldn’t simply return the Imprint Spider to me and leave it be? You had to crush it?” Visse’s voice was ice itself. She spat, “Still that same old face—you never learn!”

“Pretending you don’t recognize me?” Lingmo said with a laugh.

“Who could have known you’d become this?” she snapped back. “And now you’re doing childcare work too? Are you really that idle?” With each sentence her anger climbed, and her specter’s body trembled so violently the form itself seemed close to collapsing.

Only Catherine was lost in confusion. When the pace of their exchange finally paused, she blurted to Lingmo, “Master, what was that just now? What on earth was that spider on me?”

“An Imprint Spider,” Lingmo answered briefly.

“This spider…isn’t it called an Original-Sin Crystal Spider? Why call it something else now?” Catherine asked, and then hurried on, anxious: “Master, I’m not asking what its name is. What does it do, and why did it try to burrow into my body?”

“For that,” Lingmo said, nodding toward Visse’s apparition, “you should ask your revered Law Saint. Of course she won’t answer you plainly, so I’ll do it. An Imprint Spider is not harmful to you. If you are a mage, it can even speed your casting and increase your total mental force. The only drawback is this: your host can at any time transfer her own soul into your body and swallow you from within, achieving what we call soul-transfer resurrection.”

“Soul-transfer resurrection?”

The weight of the words settled into her, and Catherine shivered at the true meaning of them. She turned to Visse with the last flicker of hope. “Is that true, Visse? Is what Master said true?”

How she wished Visse would deny it, even with a lie. But all she heard was Visse replying, not entirely pleased, “Soul-transfer resurrection is real. But I have no intention of devouring Miss Catherine. I only intended to share a body with her for a while, just as I did with Vien.”

“Oh, spare me with this ‘sister’ talk,” Lingmo sneered. “You Law Saints are the least admirable of your kind, each of you changing bodies again and again, yet you still play at innocence. Visse, you are a hundred-year-old demon relic by now, more than old enough to be Vien’s many-times-great-grandmother, and you still have the nerve to call her your sister.”

Visse was silent for a moment, then answered evenly, “Believe it or not, I have never changed my body. Vien truly is my sister. I wished to transfer to Miss Catherine only because she carries the Anthon Flame; I wanted to understand the nature of an eighth-tier beast’s power.”

“Never changed?” Lingmo’s voice dripped with contempt. “So you’re telling me you are truly in your twenties? Then tell me: where did you get that Law Saint-level strength of mind? Mental force of this kind grows so slowly that even if you had been meditating since before birth, it would still be far from enough.”

Visse said nothing. She exhaled, her form growing faint, her apparition steadily sinking inch by inch back into Vien’s body below. “Whether you believe or not, I cannot force you. Since this is how you regard me, there is nothing left to discuss. We can part in good order; I’ll leave now with my sister.”

“Who said you’re leaving?”

She had already disappeared halfway into Vien’s body when that word snapped like thunder. The ghost-faced expression of a single huge eye widened in bafflement toward Lingmo. He was holding a lustrous, deeply crimson pill up and down in his hand. Seeing her turn, he smiled and said, “No sense in wasting time. Bring your sister up. It’s time for cultivation training.”