Just as Mo Bai's attention was completely focused on Pang Mian and the Phantom Butterfly high in the sky, the roses embedded in the heart were pulled out one by one, as if an invisible hand was plucking them from it.

Mo Bai was just about to use Rule Optimization when her own heart suddenly clenched violently. It felt as though a powerful suction force was trying to rip her heart out of her body.

She immediately located the source of the pull and looked toward the heart.

The roses covering it had all fallen away. Numerous wounds left by the roses' thorns pocked its surface, and those wounds were now slowly healing.

The reason Mo Bai's heart had tightened was because it was being affected by the power of aggregation possessed by an Ultra-Star Rank monster.

The powers of two Ultra-Star Rank monsters were converging. Once the seal on the Rose Heart was removed, those two forces naturally began to gather together uncontrollably.

Not only did Mo Bai feel as though her heart was about to burst out of her chest, but the heart in the sky was also dragging the drone toward her bit by bit.

When did this happen? Who did it?

Mo Bai no longer had the spare energy to use Rule Optimization. Clutching her chest, she wrapped herself in her ability and activated Environmental Rejection.

Because an Ultra-Star Rank monster's power also existed within her body, she couldn't reject that force directly. Instead, she chose to reject the element of attraction itself, preserving her heart first.

The range of Environmental Rejection was enormous and could normally cover the entire amusement park.

But because of the heart's presence, Mo Bai couldn't expand it that far. She could only deploy the ability right along the heart's edge. The heart remained motionless just outside the boundary of her power, waiting for a chance to break through her defenses and absorb the power inside her.

After activating Environmental Rejection, her heart returned to its proper place, and the immediate crisis was temporarily resolved. Only then did she have the energy to think about what had happened.

The culprit was actually obvious.

Who was the first person to suggest displaying the heart?

That person was the one behind it all.

Pang Mian.

His External Brain had never directly controlled his words or actions. Instead, it merely omitted a single zero at a critical moment. The External Brain had been conserving energy all this time. Only at the final stage did it take control of Pang Mian and propose displaying the grand prize.

After the Rose Heart appeared, Mo Bai wasn't particularly wary of it because it was sealed, and removing the seal was incredibly simple: just pull the roses off the heart.

There wasn't even any real difficulty involved. A simple tug was enough. Yet it was also something no one should have been able to do.

Unless someone, like Mo Xiangyou, offered up their life and soul to the heart and willingly became its puppet, anyone who touched it would suffer dual contamination.

The first layer was the plague curse carried by the roses. Any living creature that touched them would be cursed and gradually transform into the kind of rotting corpse found in the Plague Garden.

The second layer was the power of the heart itself.

The heart was filled with Yang Lingxi's agony, despair, and helplessness from having her heart removed while she was still alive. This mental contamination was even stronger than the forensic doctor's notebook and harder to defend against than the love-brain contamination of the Love Amusement Park.

No one except Mo Bai could touch it.

Back then, Mo Bai had merely glanced at the heart through the Prying Lenses and immediately felt as though the roses' curse was crawling toward her along her line of sight. She didn't even dare to look at it for more than a moment.

Because of this double contamination, both physical and mental, Mo Bai felt very secure about the sealed heart. She believed no one could remove the seal, so she focused her attention on figuring out how to eliminate Pang Mian and the Phantom Butterfly.

But she overlooked the External Brain.

There was a reason the Six Paths sent Pang Mian to Disease Town. The External Brain could resist contamination from Ultra-Star Rank monsters, making him the ideal candidate.

Since Mo Bai no longer dared use the Prying Lenses on the Rose Heart, she couldn't see the transparent threads manipulated by the External Brain. Nor could she see those threads wrapped around the heart, slowly pulling out the roses one by one.

It was her mistake.

As expected of a high-level player from Six Paths. Even under such circumstances, he managed to set a devastating trap for her.

While Mo Bai was dealing with the threat posed by the heart, the Phantom Butterfly had already transformed into a one-meter-long butterfly and flown down from the drop tower.

Yet after it flew away, a Lin Xiafei still remained seated on the ride.

This was another application of the Phantom Butterfly's upgraded mimicry ability. It could create a soulless mimic body and separate it from the original.

When using this ability, the original body could no longer employ mimicry again until the mimic body disappeared.

However, it was an excellent emergency escape technique.

Originally, the Phantom Butterfly didn't intend to use it. There were many ways to avoid dying on the drop tower, and there was no need to waste a life-saving move that could only be used once within a short period.

But the Phantom Butterfly also possessed a trace of an Ultra-Star Rank monster's power. Though faint, it was still affected by the power of aggregation.

Once the heart's seal was removed, the Rose Heart moved toward Mo Bai, while the Phantom Butterfly's body was involuntarily drawn toward the heart.

They were attracting each other.

To resist that pull, the Phantom Butterfly had no choice but to deploy its mimic body.

The mimic body could deceive all forms of power. As long as it remained, the heart would not absorb the true body.

However, the heart would continue absorbing the mimic body instead. As a result, the Phantom Butterfly's seat remained suspended in midair instead of falling.

Under the heart's immense attraction, the seat shook violently, struggling to tear itself free from the drop tower.

Only Pang Mian, descending beneath his balloons, landed safely.

After the triangular spike punctured the balloons, it retracted. Without the balloons, Pang Mian's seat fell from a height of ten meters.

Such a height was nowhere near enough to kill a player with excellent physique. He was hardly injured at all.

After stepping off the ride, he still looked somewhat dazed, yet he had already begun moving mechanically.

He walked up to the host and asked, "Did... I... win? Does... the heart... belong... to me?"

From the moment the drop tower began shaking, the host had crouched down with his head in his hands, like a helpless little animal trying to hide from a natural disaster.

Hearing Pang Mian's question, he replied in a trembling voice, "Lin Xiafei hasn't fallen yet. The game isn't over."

Because of the heart's pull, the Phantom Butterfly's seat remained suspended in the air.

The winner had not yet been decided, and a look of worry and shock appeared on Pang Mian's face.

Under the influence of the love-brain contamination, Pang Mian was worried about the Phantom Butterfly's safety, while also heartbroken that his lover had not only changed from female to male, but from human to a giant butterfly.

He mentally prepared himself for the idea that love could transcend gender, but he didn't prepare himself for the possibility that love could transcend species.

Still, what the contaminated Pang Mian was thinking no longer mattered. He couldn't break free of the External Brain's control.

Mo Bai just gained a moment to catch her breath, and the situation had already turned into this. At this point, using Rule Optimization was completely meaningless.

The crucial issue now was finding a way to deal with this heart. If it wasn't sealed, both she and the Phantom Butterfly would die!

Moreover, the heart was actively trying to destroy the domain of the Love Amusement Park. Once the drop tower collapsed, the amusement park's domain would be destroyed as well. Without the domain acting as a barrier, Gao Siyun would immediately detect the heart's location and rush here.

When that happened, everyone would die.

What exactly was Six Paths thinking? Weren't they afraid of death?

Mo Bai mentally reviewed every card she possessed, but for the moment, she couldn't think of any way to stop the heart.

Even if she could use Environmental Rejection to block the heart's power of aggregation, she couldn't stop the collapse of the domain.

With a sharp crack, a fissure opened in the foundation of the drop tower, and the once-upright structure began to tilt toward the heart.

Before the absolute power of an Ultra-Star Rank monster, the Love Amusement Park's domain was like a flimsy sheet of paper covering a window. One poke was enough to tear it apart.

Staring at the fractured foundation, Mo Bai thought of a solution.

But that solution...

She couldn't help turning around to look at Pang Mian behind her.

The External Brain's threads pulled at Pang Mian's cheeks like puppet strings, forcing an unnaturally stiff smile onto his face.

"You can... use... Environmental Assimilation... to assimilate... that heart," Pang Mian said mechanically.

It was exactly the method Mo Bai had thought of.

But if she did that, and her mind failed to suppress the heart's power, she would become just like Gao Siyun and Yang Lingxi, a slave to that power, a genuine Ultra-Star Rank monster.

"Aren't you afraid of creating an Ultra-Star Rank monster?" Mo Bai asked.

Pang Mian continued smiling, and within that smile, Mo Bai saw calm certainty.

What was Six Paths thinking?

First, they tricked Gu Tiandong away, and then they stole the heart. Finally, they stayed behind to remove its seal, forcing her into a mutually destructive situation where she had no choice but to absorb the heart.

As Mo Bai stared at the heart, she suddenly noticed a card floating near its edge, which was the card that had been created after Mo Xiangyou's death.

So Observation Group players really turn into cards after they die.

In that instant, Mo Bai understood Six Paths' true objective.

Environmental Assimilation was a high-level ability. If Pang Mian killed her while she was assimilating the heart, she would become a card. Then Pang Mian would obtain the card she became.

Mo Bai didn't know what kind of card she would turn into after death, but she suspected that her card might be capable of temporarily suppressing the heart's contamination.

As for Gu Tiandong, he could become a card as well. His defensive ability was practically invincible and could even withstand Gao Siyun's attacks.

With two cards created from Observation Group players, Six Paths could use Gu Tiandong's card for defense and Mo Bai's Rule Optimization to escape, regardless of whether they succeeded in preventing the birth of an Ultra-Star Rank monster.

Cards really were more convenient than players.

Six Paths' prophet was terrifyingly capable. They had accurately located both her and Gu Tiandong within the instance, predicted their abilities, and even foreseen what kinds of cards they would become.

Mo Bai admired Six Paths' scheme. She considered herself an intelligent player, yet she was still outmaneuvered and thoroughly manipulated.

It wasn't merely because she lacked prophetic abilities or sufficient information.

More importantly… She wasn't ruthless enough.

She had never imagined that a fellow human being could be this vicious.

Pang Mian said, "If you use... your ability... you may still... find a way... to avoid... my attack. If you don't... use it... You... will definitely... be the first... to be devoured. You... have no... choice."

"Dirty! Dirty! Dirty! Their methods are too dirty!" Xiao Qi roared inside Mo Bai's mind.

"Player, let's go all in and merge with the heart! Maybe we'll be the ones who ultimately control the monster! Wake up the Ultra-Star Rank monster inside us, stop being players, and kill them all!"

This time, Xiao Qi's words perfectly matched the furious thoughts in Mo Bai's heart.

As expected, Xiao Qi was an artificial intelligence that had grown under her influence. Every devilish little thought it produced was a reflection of Mo Bai's own darker side.

Xiao Qi continued, "Stop hesitating! We've been risking our lives to prevent disasters, but all they care about is our abilities. We have no obligation to save these people!

Let's all die together!"

Mo Bai's heart pounded wildly.

She felt herself wrapped in negative emotions, her resolve weakening as the sleeping monster within her began to awaken.

The malice born from her own heart was consuming her will. Whenever she experienced sorrow and despair, the Ultra-Star Rank monster would revive within her.

Pressing a hand against her chest, Mo Bai thought of many people.

Gu Tiandong, whose fate was still unknown.

Mo Xiangyou, who was already dead.

Ding Xun, Liu Congyi, Sheng Yan, and Ye Pingjun, who had placed their trust in her.

And the police officer and forensic doctor who had ultimately overcome malice, transforming Negative Flow into Positive Flow.

Beautiful emotions and despair toward humanity battled within her.

She wanted to give up. Yet she didn't want to give up.

Her hair began to move without any wind, floating gently upward like soft tentacles.

At that moment, a brilliantly colored butterfly flew into the air, and its antennae glowed faintly.

Far away, Qiu Xuerong, who had been gleefully enjoying the thrill of murdering her boyfriend on the Cliffside Love Roller Coaster, suddenly woke up.

As the master of the domain, the Phantom Butterfly had withdrawn the mental contamination affecting Qiu Xuerong.

For an instance monster, doing so was as painful as cutting flesh from its own body.

The butterfly gently beat its wings, and scales drifted down like snow, covering the entire area around the drop tower.

It was using its ability to search for the External Brain.

The Phantom Butterfly possessed emotional perception abilities as well as the power to devour souls. The External Brain was also part of a soul, specifically the portion stripped of emotion, the absolutely rational fragment.

As long as it was willing to expend enough power searching, it would eventually find it.

Noticing the Phantom Butterfly's actions, Mo Bai looked up at the butterfly in the sky.

Its true form was genuinely beautiful.

Its wings were actually transparent, and their dazzling colors existed only because they refracted sunlight.

It was a butterfly that could not exist without light.

"What are you doing?" asked Mo Bai, whose floating hair now made her resemble the mythical Medusa.

The butterfly's antennae twitched, and it spoke with Lin Xiafei's voice.

"My domain is about to be destroyed," it said. "I am defending my domain."

Then the butterfly lowered its head and its transparent antennae tapped twice.

"And one more thing...

I want to kill the Mo Bai who shines with light, or be killed by the shining Mo Bai. Either is fine.

But I don't want to see a Mo Bai who, like me, hides in the darkness and crawls forward in the shadows."

The Phantom Butterfly could die for love and could also kill for love.

But it would never allow love itself to disappear.

This time, it intended to protect the light in its heart.