In a world of gray, haunted by wandering souls, Luo Shuangyue couldn’t help but wonder if she’d fallen into hell itself—if not for the faint sense of rejection from her body, reminding her she was still alive.
Unconsciously, her hand drifted to the throat of the sleeping girl beside her.
Sharp nails pressed against delicate skin; a gentle press would send blood spraying from the severed artery, ending the girl’s life in an instant.
“Tch, not again.” Luo Shuangyue hurriedly grabbed her rebellious hand.
The moment she relaxed her vigilance, the other consciousness in her body tried to seize control.
If she could, she would rather tie herself up with rope right now, just to avoid hurting Xia Mo by accident.
From the moment she arrived in this strange space, the taste of blood in her mouth and the messy wound on Xia Mo’s shoulder were stark reminders of how terribly she’d treated Xia Mo.
This made Luo Shuangyue feel nothing but disgust.
She hated this feeling—hated the sensation of hurting someone precious to her.
“Phantom Scythe, Phantom Scythe, can you hear me?” She lightly knocked her own head, attempting for the third time to communicate with her artifact spirit.
After being teleported here, Xia Mo had fallen into a deep sleep from exhaustion, and Luo Shuangyue herself was in a terrible state, unable to carry the unconscious Xia Mo anywhere.
She could only sit where she was, trying to awaken Phantom Scythe and get used to her new body.
Yes, a new body.
If the previous Dark Moth was merely an image constructed from magic, then now, Dark Moth had become Luo Shuangyue herself.
This was no transformation—this was her true form.
Her existence now differed greatly from a Magical Girl.
She was more like a Demon Emperor—a Demon Emperor so weak she could barely function.
Having always lived as a human, Luo Shuangyue had no idea what a Demon Emperor really was.
All she knew was that, feeling her own body turned to mush, she definitely couldn’t be called human anymore.
She had no heartbeat, no breath, no flowing blood—her body was composed of Demonic Energy, her appearance nothing more than a shape fashioned from that energy.
Strip away this skin, and she was fundamentally no different from those terrifying monsters.
Hungry—a feeble voice sounded in Luo Shuangyue’s ear.
Phantom Scythe finally responded, flowing out from Luo Shuangyue’s fingertips.
Once, she could maintain the form of a little girl; now, she resembled a wisp of smoke.
It was clear that everyone’s condition was poor.
A Phantom Scythe like this couldn’t be of much use.
Luo Shuangyue had no choice but to let her rest within her body for now.
She would wake the little one up again after finding something to eat.
But in this desolate land, where only Souls seemed to wander, would there truly be anything edible?
A translucent white Spirit drifted through Luo Shuangyue’s body.
She tried to catch it and see how it tasted, but her fingertips simply passed through its form.
These things have no substance at all.
Just as she thought this, her other hand moved on its own.
Dark magic covered her palm as she grabbed hold of a Spirit trying to escape.
This time, her hand didn’t pass through; she firmly grasped the being.
It felt soft, like holding a fluffy bit of cotton.
Its struggle was weak, unable to escape her grip.
No particular taste—like eating a cloud.
The energy gained wasn’t even worth the energy spent.
There was no point in hunting these Spirits… Huh?
Staring in shock at the half-devoured Spirit in her hand, Luo Shuangyue’s pupils shrank.
What had she just done? Why was she completely unaware of what she’d just done?
If it were really her, there’s no way she would so naturally snatch up a Spirit and eat it, then so coldly assess its flavor and nutritional value.
Had she gotten this hungry? Was she truly willing to eat even these things?
Watching the Spirit dissipate in her hand, Luo Shuangyue felt another wave of “don’t waste it” rise in her heart—but this time, she firmly refused that terrifying impulse.
She would not eat such disgusting things!
No matter how weak she became, how hungry her stomach was, even if she died here, there were some things she simply could not eat!
If she truly became a beast, eating whatever she saw in desperation, Luo Shuangyue herself would be completely replaced.
It was an instinctive warning—a forbidden line she must never cross.
Fortunately, it seemed the beast within her also realized that forcing Luo Shuangyue to eat Spirits was a waste of effort.
For a long while afterward, Luo Shuangyue didn’t feel her body rebel against her again.
She didn’t know how much time had passed.
But after seeing a certain familiar Spirit wander past her eighteen times,
Xia Mo finally awoke with a soft groan.
“Shuangyue? Are you alright?” The very first thing Xia Mo did upon waking was check on Luo Shuangyue.
She cupped Luo Shuangyue’s cheeks, staring intently into her eyes.
Their noses were almost touching.
“I’m fine, I’m fine! But don’t get so close—I can’t control myself.” Luo Shuangyue tried hard to suppress the strange agitation inside her.
It was fine when Xia Mo was lying down, but now that she was near, Luo Shuangyue could smell that special scent from Xia Mo.
It was floral, yet also like food.
The beast within her was nearly breaking free!
“Hurry—hurry up and tie me up!”
“Huh?”
Luo Shuangyue shoved the still-dazed Xia Mo away, then proceeded to put on an impressively dramatic show of left-hand-fighting-right in front of Xia Mo.
Just look at how her left side fought with her right—so realistic! The constantly changing expressions on her face put famous actors to shame.
A few seconds later, after finally processing Luo Shuangyue’s earlier words, the still-groggy Xia Mo understood what was happening.
Luo Shuangyue had regained her consciousness, but not entirely.
The “Luo Shuangyue” who had bitten her before was still fighting for control over her body.
“I can’t use magic right now!” Yet even after realizing this, Xia Mo had no way to resolve the immediate problem.
She had been forcibly deconstructed earlier, and her Magical Gemstone was still recovering its energy.
One nap wasn’t nearly enough to restore her transformation ability.
“How about I just hold you so you can’t move?”
“No! The farther you are from me, the better. The closer you get, the less I can control myself!” Luo Shuangyue, snatching back control of her own mouth, hurriedly warned.
After several minutes, Luo Shuangyue finally won back control of her body from the other consciousness, but she could still clearly feel that lurking desire inside, waiting for a chance to pounce and take a bite out of Xia Mo.
At least until Xia Mo was strong enough to restrain her, Luo Shuangyue couldn’t let herself get too close.
“That’s right, just stay there. If you get any closer, I’ll be able to smell your scent.”
Banished fifty meters away by Luo Shuangyue, Xia Mo squatted on the ground, looking at her innocently.
At this distance, they had to raise their voices just to speak.
“Shuangyue, what happened to you earlier?” Once she was certain the distant Luo Shuangyue was still her familiar friend, Xia Mo finally remembered to ask about what happened.
What on earth had happened to make Luo Shuangyue run into trouble just as everything was going so well?
Wasn’t it White Night beating up the Demon Emperor one-sidedly at the time? The Demon Emperor was barely clinging to life—how did things suddenly go wrong?
“I’m not sure myself.” Luo Shuangyue was just as confused about what happened before.
“Maybe this is just the process I have to go through to advance.”
“I’ve never heard of a Magical Girl needing to go through something like this to level up.”
“That’s because I’m not a Magical Girl at all. I’m a Demon Emperor now!” Maybe it was because the girl across from her was the one person she trusted most in this world, but Luo Shuangyue didn’t try to hide her current identity.
She was no longer human—now she was a monster, a creature wrapped in human skin.
Even her way of thinking was starting to resemble a monster’s, wasn’t it?
If she were still normal, how could the first thought in her head upon seeing Xia Mo be to pounce and take a bite?
As she spoke, she removed the butterfly hairpin from her forehead.
Normally, doing so would force her out of her transformation and back into her usual Luo Shuangyue form.
But now, the butterfly hairpin felt like a simple ornament—removing it didn’t change her at all.
And the texture of the hairpin was off, too. It felt nothing like a regular accessory—softer, more like some sort of biological tissue.
Not just the hairpin, either.
The clothes Luo Shuangyue wore felt different, too.
Their texture was nothing like ordinary fabric.
It was as if they’d become part of “Luo Shuangyue” herself, another layer of her skin.
If she scratched it with her nails, faint white marks would appear and then quickly disappear.
The butterfly wings on her back were also firmly attached, a real part of her.
Pulling on them caused a strange kind of pain—something that never happened before.
In that Black Cocoon, everything about her seemed to have changed.
The only thing left untouched, perhaps, was her consciousness.
“So where are we, anyway?” Xia Mo showed no reaction to Luo Shuangyue calling herself a Demon Emperor.
Whether she was human or ghost, as long as the one before her was still the Luo Shuangyue she knew, that was all that mattered.