Chapter 240: The First LV3?
Nobody else came to talk to Momo because everybody knew that this wasn’t something that could be fully thought through in a short period. Momo was different from the rest of them. All of them had grown up in the normal world and had already formed their worldview before the Devil Isles existed. It was a grey world they lived in, and even if they hadn’t truly encountered the darker side of the world, they still had some understanding of it. However, Momo grew up in the Devil Isles. Everybody around her loved and protected her. She had never experienced the complexities of society and hence couldn’t understand this kind of apathy and cruelty.
The sky gradually grew dark as Momo sat alone on a rock by the lake and stared at her dim reflection on the water’s surface. On a peak nearby, Bai Yi sat on top of a tree and silently watched Momo sitting by the lake. From even further away, Alodia, in turn, watched Bai Yi sitting on the mountain’s peak.
To protect!
It really was a hard-to-describe feeling.
This world was indeed grey, but it was a color born out of the mixing of two other colors. When one saw the black, they could also see the white bright world. Bai Yi’s excessive doting on Momo, Alodia’s secret love toward Bai Yi, and much more... Bai Yi only said what he had to say without intending to influence Momo’s actions or beliefs. Those should entirely be her choice; Momo should walk on her path based on her wishes, and not follow his wishes.
After a long while, Alodia came up and asked Bai Yi, “What will Momo change into?”
After a moment of silence, Bai Yi said, “I don’t know!”
In truth, not only was Alodia curious about this but the others were curious as well. If she were a normal child, Momo would have already known a lot about how complicated the world was. However, the unique environment of the Devil Isles made it so that Momo rarely had to face any issues regarding the human heart and nature. Now, her first encounter with this issue had become an extremely crucial crossroad because Momo wasn’t a normal human. The more powerful somebody was, the greater the influence her choices would have on the world.
A night passed in this way.
Momo continued to sit on the rock by the lake looking at her own reflection. The Momo in the reflection was very unfamiliar to her because she had already fully regained her human appearance and looked extremely adorable now. However, what Momo was more accustomed to was her non-human appearance because she’d had it for a long time. Without noticing, Momo slowly went into a daze as she stared at her reflection in the lake. Slowly, the water in the lake started to ripple, and in Momo’s heart, the reflection in the lake became her original non-human appearance.
The image changed continuously in Momo’s head, transforming into countless other images as her emotions changed.
Calm: the peaceful daily life!
Warmth: daddy’s excessive love and everybody’s care and concern!
Joy: teasing Sharpei and Pupu and playing around carefreely with Chinchilla!
Pride: the first time she beat her daddy and received his praise.
Fear: the immense impact on her immature heart seeing the many different monsters.
Sadness: Sara and Teacher Vala dying right in front of her, and her only being able to wail helplessly to deal with that sorrow.
Loathing: the dislike toward Yu Han that came from the bottom of her heart. It was he who had caused so many people to be separated by life and death.
Wonder: the first time seeing the vast beautiful world, the first time smelling the Great Stink Bomb Fruit, the first time...
Guilt: when she saw that the animals she brought back had been subjected to experimentations and their eyes full of hatred directed at her, the immense guilt that grew deep in her heart.
Anticipation: ...
Various emotions seemed to project clearly on her reflection in the water and manifest in Momo’s mind. Without noticing, Momo’s eyes had already gone out of focus. The only thing on her mind right now was the image of her original appearance. As for the reflection of Momo, it continuously changed and merged in her mind as it slowly fused everything and formed Momo’s most true self.
Momo continued to sit motionlessly on the rock by the lake into the next day, and everybody felt that something was wrong by now. It couldn’t be that a problem like this had been able to make Momo this dispirited, right? Everybody was incredibly concerned about this, but since Bai Yi didn’t say anything, it wouldn’t be appropriate for them to interfere.
In truth, Bai Yi was also confused. His daughter couldn’t be that fragile, right? It couldn’t have been that she was still struggling with this problem?
Bai Yi stood up. Just when everybody thought that Bai Yi would go and console Momo, he just stopped there and stood motionlessly on the peak, and watched Momo from afar.
By the end of the second day, the sky had turned dark and it had started to rain.
On the third day, the rain poured even heavier, and it had become freezing cold. It was then that Bai Yi thought that something had happened to Momo. However, at that moment 21 floating souls came out from Momo and danced around her. Their dim and eerie light carried through the stormy night and Bai Yi suppressed his urge. Vala and the others were still with Momo. If something had really happened to Momo, Vala would have definitely come to inform him. However, Bai Yi didn’t know that at this time, Vala and the others seemed to be under an invisible pressure and weren’t able to appear at all.
The natural subservience and fear that souls had toward Momo!
“Uncle Bai, you should go and take a rest. I’ll keep watch here,” Alodia tried to persuade Bai Yi.
“No need. I’ll continue to stay here,” Bai Yi shook his head. Bai Yi didn’t know if he was making the right choice. Perhaps, something abnormal had happened to Momo long ago and he should have woken her up, but he hadn’t and just allowed things happen naturally. Since he chose to let Momo change freely, he also chose to stay by Momo’s side to guard her without taking a single step away.
The fourth day...
The thirtieth day...
The second month...
The sixth month...
By now, everybody knew that Momo was definitely undergoing some sort of change, but they didn’t know what kind of change it was exactly.
Momo sat by the lake quietly for half a year, and Bai Yi also guarded Momo from the mountain peak for half a year without ever leaving. For half a year, Momo and Bai Yi didn’t eat a single thing nor sleep a wink. Everybody thought that Bai Yi had gone crazy, but Doctor Wang was extremely curious about Momo and Bai Yi’s strange state now.
Even if they were evolved humans, their bodies still became extremely weak. Their bodies had greedily absorbed the precious dew of every downpour and every sunshine. However, what nobody noticed was that over the half a year, Bai Yi’s eyes had become more and more abstruse, while Momo’s eyes seemed to lose their focus and turned empty.
Another torrential downpour came. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck the surface of the lake with a ‘BOOM!’. The lightning bolt seemed to wake Momo out of her trance, and her eyes finally moved as she slowly stretched out her right hand.
‘WHIZZ!’ A loud buzzing sound filled the air!
Something seemed to break through Momo’s body and unleashed itself! Her clothes that were already very worn turned to dust instantly. Momo’s petite and skinny body floated into the sky as her hair waved about in the air. At this time, the two Soul Release Wood necklaces around Momo’s neck suddenly broke. All the souls inside flew out, turned into the floating soul form, dancing and circling around Momo continuously. At the same time, with Momo as the center, all livings things started to die and wilt around her.
Immediately, everybody in the research lab felt something sweeping over them and looked in Momo’s direction in alarm.
All of them immediately ran outside and what awaited them was a shocking scene. In a radius of a few hundred meters, countless floating souls danced and circled around Momo. It seemed incredibly beautiful, yet, within this range, not a single trace of life could be seen as if life itself was banned from the area. In the center, was the naked Momo, but nobody had any profane expressions on their faces but only extreme astonishment. All of them could only stand stunned in place.
The dance of the dead was poignant, beautiful, and deathly silent!
“Daddy!” Momo said softly when she saw Bai Yi on the peak before falling towards the ground. The countless floating souls rapidly entered Momo’s body as if they were going back to their home.
Bai Yi had long stood up when the changes in Momo had begun. When she called him, he dove from the peak to catch her as she fell. Bai Yi looked at Momo and realized that although her face had become skinny from the long period of starvation, her face had a serene air to it.
“Uncle Bai!” Alodia swiftly ran over and passed him a shirt to wrap around Momo’s body.
“Take care of her!” Bai Yi said as he finished wrapping Momo and collapsed on the ground.
Seeing Bai Yi collapse, Alodia immediately panicked and hurriedly tried to help him. The rest of them moved quickly and brought Bai Yi and Momo back into the research facility. Out of all of them, only Doctor Wang and his student Cheryl still remained outside. Doctor Wang looked at where Momo had fallen. Deep in thought, he walked over to the wilted plants and examined them carefully.
“LV3? How did she break through?”
That’s right, anybody could tell with a look that Momo had broken through and entered LV3. As for how she broke through and what LV3 meant, those weren’t questions that could be figured out so quickly. It couldn’t be that they had to sit silently by a lake for half a year? It obviously couldn’t be that simple, but these questions had to wait for Momo to wake up to be answered.
When Bai Yi and Momo fainted, Nancy immediately fed the two of them the nourishing medicine that she had prepared long ago. After more than half a year of starvation, it was easy to imagine just how frail their bodies had become. If not for them having already entered LV2 and no longer being normal humans, they would have probably died dozens of times over by now.
At this time, Betsy hurriedly sent the others out to collect all sorts of ingredients. From the looks of it, Momo and Bai Yi’s appetite would definitely be monstrous when they woke up.