So warm... so comfortable... It's like soaking in a beautiful, perfectly temperate wild mountain spring, swimming freely, enjoying it... My mind is hazy, unable to think, feeling as if I'm dreaming, my body is warm, so comfortable it's deadly... Ah~~ kimoji~
Ikenouchi Maki felt as if she was floating in some invisible, beautiful world, from inside to out, from soul to body, feeling incredibly warm and comfortable. A warm current constantly enveloped her, and even the pain disappeared...
Wait... the pain is gone?
Ikenouchi Maki's mind slowly began to regain clarity and reason, and she started to think. At this moment, she understood: she was inside the Stone Wing at her master's house... She was more than familiar with this place...
As Ikenouchi Maki's mind returned to normal, her eyes lit up. Familiar light enveloped her, forcing her to close her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw a familiar living room.
Outside, the sun was shining brightly, casting light into the living room through the large floor-to-ceiling windows of Fang Wuwei's house.
This strong sense of déjà vu left Ikenouchi Maki stunned. She took a deep breath. The Stone Wing truly was as comfortable as ever... Then, she subconsciously raised her hand to touch her face... Hmm? No, something felt hard. She touched it again...
Fang Wuwei came downstairs and saw Ikenouchi Maki standing still, pinching her own face and trying to pull it outwards.
...I remember the Stone Wing was supposed to restore one's mind.
"Dumbfounded? If you're not better yet, want to go lie down again?"
Hearing the voice, Ikenouchi Maki finally lowered her hand and turned to look at Fang Wuwei, who was at the top of the stairs. Fang Wuwei had just finished showering, washing away all the blood and fatigue. He looked completely relaxed, dressed in casual clothes, his face, body, and head clean. His hair was still slightly damp, making him look exceptionally handsome.
Ikenouchi Maki rubbed her small face. She had seen Fang Wuwei like this before, but what she was most concerned about now was her own face... Although she trusted the Stone Wing, her hand told her that there was something on her face...
"Master... my face, it's not disfigured, is it?!"
"Hmm?"
"No! I'm still young, how can I be disfigured? I don't want to be an ugly monster! I don't have a boyfriend yet! I don't want to... No, wait, that setting sounds pretty cool..."
Ikenouchi Maki cupped her face and rambled on to herself. Seeing this, Fang Wuwei immediately kicked her.
"The blood just congealed on your face; the Stone Wing won't clean you! Get your ass to the shower!"
"Oh~"
Ikenouchi Maki clutched her little backside, which Fang Wuwei had kicked, and trotted upstairs to get the clothes she kept at Fang Wuwei's house, then went to shower.
When Fang Wuwei first suggested she shower at his house, Ikenouchi Maki was a bit resistant and confused. But then, during a sparring session, Fang Wuwei cut her with a sword, making her bleed profusely and staining all her clothes red, and she understood why... Even now, she still has over a dozen sets of clothes at Fang Wuwei's house, and Fang Wuwei doesn't mind. With such a large house, even the guest rooms number three or four, so space isn't an issue.
However, Ikenouchi Maki still had complaints... Her master was quite inhumane, saying he'd cut her if she got injured, and then claiming there was nothing to fear with the Stone Wing... Hmph!
Thanks to this, she now had a high tolerance for the pain of external injuries.
Ikenouchi Maki went upstairs to shower, so Fang Wuwei lay down in the Stone Wing himself. From the previous battle, he was also not lightly injured...
Fang Wuwei transformed into a beam of light and entered the Stone Wing. Soon after, the sound of water could be heard from upstairs. Ikenouchi Maki was in the bathroom, looking into the mirror, leaning her head close, and rubbing the congealed blood off her face with water. Her light purple long hair was wet and draped over her body, with the showerhead behind her keeping her warm. Water splashed onto her smooth back...
Ikenouchi Maki leaned over the sink, letting the water from the shower spray onto her back. Her hands continued to rub the blood off her face, but her mind replayed the moment before she lost consciousness, that night... that demon who was like a madman.
She lowered her head and looked at her hands. Her hands, washed clean by the water, were pristine, yet no longer pure...
Girls always take a long time to shower, and even Ikenouchi Maki was no exception. Fang Wuwei had already emerged from the Stone Wing, but Ikenouchi Maki was still showering.
As a result, when Ikenouchi Maki came downstairs wrapped in a clean white bath towel, Fang Wuwei was already leisurely sitting in the living room drinking tea.
"How was it?"
"Hmm?"
Fang Wuwei spoke a non-sequitur to Ikenouchi Maki, who was walking and wiping her hair with a towel, leaving her a bit confused.
"The shower? It was quite comfortable..."
"You know what I'm talking about."
Ikenouchi Maki fell silent. Of course, she knew her master wouldn't inexplicably care about her, at least not about whether her shower was comfortable.
"How does it feel to kill someone for the first time?"
Hearing this, Ikenouchi Maki understood. It wasn't that her master had rushed to save her. She hadn't been mistaken before she passed out; that Mantis had indeed died by her hands.
"It feels... just like that, I guess." Ikenouchi Maki shrugged, but in her heart, Mantis's frenzied appearance couldn't help but surface, along with the dirty and cruel anti-human statements she had uttered. Even now, she felt a slight anger at Mantis's words... That attitude of treating human lives like dirt, that personality of not treating people as people, that inexplicable, extremely uncomfortable sense of superiority... "Perhaps that person was just very... deserving of death, Master, listen to me, she didn't even see humans as humans, she was completely anti-human, she..."
Fang Wuwei reached out and interrupted Ikenouchi Maki, who was about to continue. He wanted Ikenouchi Maki to formally understand what they were truly doing.
"Maki, that 'anti-human' you speak of, what do you think of her?"
"What do I think? She was just very... deserving of death, I guess. Someone who treats human lives like grass is only a scourge alive."
Fang Wuwei nodded with satisfaction, feeling very relieved in his heart.
"Master... don't tell me, the enemies you told me we need to resist before..."
"Exactly, they are all people like that."
Ikenouchi Maki fell silent. Even one such person was a huge scourge, and there were many more...
"The Main God Space is our enemy. Almost all of the Reincarnators under Its command are people like that, the anti-human scum you speak of.
They will, for their own benefit, unhesitatingly kill other innocent people, destroy others' beautiful lives, and even shatter a beautiful world, pushing countless beings within it into hell... merely for profit, their own selfish profit. They are almost devoid of humanity.
They treat life as grass and mortals as livestock. They possess transcendent power, yet lack the heart to control that power, and even more, they lack rules to restrict them. Everything is based on their mood and self-interest, and they come from outside the world, with no weaknesses, appearing and disappearing without a trace...
They might even casually pick people to kill just because they are in a bad mood, even if some of them might seem gentle, polite, and well-educated. But... their essence hasn't changed. They are just a pack of hyenas who will stop at nothing for their own gain, and even more, a group of unrestrained natural disasters, a group of inhuman scum...
Maki, to the invaded worlds, they are a natural disaster, and their natural enemy is only us, understand?"
"Master... just the two of us?"
"No..." Fang Wuwei lowered his head, and with a flip of his palm, something appeared in his hand—an emblem, the emblem drawn by the system. He had already vaguely guessed what this thing represented... But he had never personally seen anyone from that organization, so he dared not jump to conclusions. However, he was certain that behind him, or rather, behind the system, there might be another organization... an organization specifically dedicated to opposing the Main God Space...
"Never mind... Maki, it's good that you understand. That person was just your beginning, not your end. As I said, to protect the world, to guard what is beautiful, our responsibility is to kill all those invading locusts."
"Understood, Master..."
"Alright, go to the backyard. I want to see your Gale Sword Technique..."