The Phantom Butterfly said, "Mo Bai, go ahead and do what you need to do. Leave your back to me."

Mo Bai: "..."

What an incredibly difficult teammate to trust.

Seeing that Mo Bai didn't believe in it, the Phantom Butterfly added, "Mo Bai, don't worry. If I can't stop Pang Mian, I'll kill you before I die. I won't let you die at anyone else's hands!"

Mo Bai: "..."

It was a very Phantom Butterfly-style form of protection, certainly unique.

But there was no time left to hesitate. The drop tower was already tilted at thirty degrees and looked ready to collapse at any moment.

She had two choices: either awaken the monster inside her and compete with Gao Siyun for the position of Ultra-Star Rank monster, or trust the Phantom Butterfly and take a gamble.

"How are you going to choose, Player?" Xiao Qi asked.

"The Phantom Butterfly has removed Qiu Xuerong's love-brain contamination, so she is on her way here now. But the heart has erected a barrier to prevent anyone else from joining the battle. Qiu Xuerong can break through it, but it will take time." Xiao Qi was reminding her that Qiu Xuerong might not arrive in time.

For now, she would have to rely on the Phantom Butterfly's protection.

Mo Bai smiled. "The truth is, I don't have a choice anymore."

The monster inside her could only awaken when she was completely consumed by despair, but she was not someone who easily despaired.

As long as there was even the slightest hope, she was willing to gamble.

Ever since the Phantom Butterfly had begun searching for the External Brain, it had become very difficult for her to fall into despair, and even her hair returned to normal.

There was only one path left to take.

Mo Bai tried to use Environmental Assimilation on the heart, but without physically touching the target, she couldn't activate the assimilation ability.

The heart was clever. It had no intention of approaching Mo Bai. Instead, it lingered outside the range of her ability, planning to absorb the Phantom Butterfly's power first and destroy the domain.

From their earlier clash, the heart realized that it and Mo Bai were evenly matched. It might not be able to devour her in one bite.

Rather than confronting her directly, it would be better to break open the domain and summon its original body.

Seeing that the heart refused to come closer, Mo Bai took out Inequivalent Exchange.

It was an extremely useful card. She had originally intended to save it because, after all, her enemies weren't just instance monsters. There were also players from Six Paths and Avici.

The card could exchange powerful cards from another player's possession and save her life in a critical moment. But this card was originally acquired for the purpose of stealing the heart.

There was no reason to conserve it now. When it was time to use it, she would use it.

Mo Bai took out the rotten heart and activated Inequivalent Exchange, swapping it for the Rose Heart.

The heart was completely unprepared for the card's power. In an instant, it appeared in Mo Bai's hand.

The moment she grabbed it, she quickly glanced back and saw that the Phantom Butterfly had spread its transparent wings.

Its body was growing larger and larger. One wing alone was now three meters long, forming a wall between Mo Bai and Pang Mian.

For a brief moment, she actually felt safe.

Gripping the heart tightly, Mo Bai activated Environmental Assimilation, voluntarily drawing the heart into herself.

The instant the ability took effect, the blood vessels in her left arm burst through her skin and plunged into the heart, pulsing as they absorbed its blood.

Soon, every blood vessel on the left side of her body became visible.

The veins in her arm, neck, face, and every exposed area writhed beneath her skin like green snakes, twisting and moving with the heart's rhythm.

The green snakes shifted constantly. Sometimes they moved toward Mo Bai. Sometimes they moved toward the heart.

This was the heart resisting her ability, and that resistance made Mo Bai realize something.

Environmental Assimilation could mean assimilating the environment, but it could also mean being assimilated by the environment.

At this moment, if she relaxed even slightly, the heart would assimilate her in return. Her body and energy would become nourishment for the heart and be absorbed completely. She had to devote every ounce of concentration to suppressing it.

The moment Mo Bai activated her ability, the External Brain, which had been quietly observing all along, recognized that the time had come.

Using its threads to manipulate Pang Mian, it made him take out a card.

The Phantom Butterfly's mind was highly focused as it searched for the External Brain's location.

The instant the External Brain launched its attack, the Phantom Butterfly immediately sensed an extremely rational soul fluctuation.

It was coming from the air.

Looking up, it discovered that the source was actually the drone flying overhead. The same drone that had previously been carrying the heart.

After Pang Mian requested that the prize be displayed, the External Brain had secretly transferred itself onto the drone while the Phantom Butterfly was calculating how much Love Value needed to be entered.

Controlling objects other than its host body required tremendous effort from the External Brain.

Unless the target cooperated, it needed to be extremely close to establish control.

The drone had been the closest object to the heart.

"So that's where you are!"

The Phantom Butterfly shot upward and landed lightly on the drone.

At that moment, Pang Mian had already activated the card against Mo Bai.

The card flipped over.

The Phantom Butterfly saw its description.

Card Name: Blade of Manga

Card Type: Item Card

Card Rank: S-rank

Card Effect: A guaranteed-hit attack card. It produces only the result of an attack and skips the process of attacking entirely. Since there is no attack process, there is nothing to block or defend against. It is a blade that never misses.

Usage: Imagine the target location and attack method in your mind, then loudly shout the extremely chuuni phrase: "This is a strike that wagers my soul!" The attack will then activate successfully.

Usage Limit: S-rank cards have no usage limit. However, this card may only be used once per instance. Each use consumes 1,000,000 points.

Description: Can you see the techniques used by manga protagonists when they're pushed into a corner? In the world of two-dimensional stories, attacks that wager the user's soul will always hit the villain, no matter how vast the difference in strength, how powerful the enemy's defenses, or how overwhelming the protagonist may be. Even if the villain can foresee the future, they cannot see this attack coming and cannot dodge it. On one page, the protagonist shouts the attack's name and a declaration of victory. On the next page, the villain is struck. Either they are torn apart, or they leave behind their final words before collapsing. Once the Blade of Manga is unleashed, it cannot be resisted.

If the Phantom Butterfly's physical abilities hadn't improved after its upgrade, granting it extraordinary dynamic vision, it wouldn't even have been able to read the card's description in time.

This was a conceptual-level card. Because only the result existed while the process did not, it wasn't considered a conventional act of violence and therefore wasn't restricted by the rules.

The External Brain was controlling Pang Mian as he spoke the critical activation phrase: "This is... a strike... that wagers... my…"

Fortunately, under the External Brain's control, Pang Mian spoke painfully slowly, so the Phantom Butterfly still had time to deal with the card.

It was the instance boss, and its domain had not yet collapsed; thus, he still possessed the authority to seal a card.

As long as they remained within its domain, Blade of Manga would not be allowed to activate.

The tips of the Phantom Butterfly's antennae lit up like fireflies, and the power of the domain took effect.

The entire card turned gray as the Phantom Butterfly sealed it.

"The domain still stands," the Phantom Butterfly said. "I am the master here."

With a powerful flap of its wings, it knocked the drone out of the sky, and the machine crashed heavily at Pang Mian's feet.

After all, it was the Phantom Butterfly's own drone.

As a personal possession, it had the right to dispose of it however it wished, so that didn't count as violence either.

The Phantom Butterfly continued beating its wings as waves of mental energy spread outward, enveloping both the drone and Pang Mian.

This was a new technique gained after the upgrade of its charm ability, Heart's Net.

It could capture a single prey, and that prey had to be someone deeply in love with it.

Once captured, the prey would unconditionally fulfill one of the Phantom Butterfly's wishes.

If that prey happened to be under the control of another manipulator, the Phantom Butterfly's wish would take precedence over all other forms of control because, in the Love Amusement Park, love comes first.

The Phantom Butterfly spread its Heart's Net and asked Pang Mian,

"Do you love me?"

Pang Mian nodded, "I do. Whether you're male or female, human or butterfly, I love you."

"But you've harmed me many times. Does that still count as love?" the Phantom Butterfly asked.

Holding his head in pain, Pang Mian said, "I didn't want to! I was being controlled! I couldn't stop myself!"

The Phantom Butterfly replied mercilessly, "That's fine. You can prove it to me."

"How?" Pang Mian's eyes lit up.

The Phantom Butterfly said, "Give me the heart that loves me."

It was telling Pang Mian to remove his own heart and hand it over.

The Love Amusement Park forbade violence, but it did not forbid visitors from dying for love. Here, love stood above everything else.

Pang Mian froze slightly and touched the place where his heart lay.

His mind was simultaneously clear and muddled as he recognized that he was a player on a mission to confront the Phantom Butterfly, an instance monster, and his enemy.

However, none of that mattered in the face of love, as neither his identity nor his status could change his feelings.

Not having a weapon was no problem. He was a high-level player with exceptional physical abilities. He could tear a tree in half with his bare hands, so tearing open his own chest wasn't difficult.

Pang Mian bent his fingers and pressed both hands against his chest.

The External Brain desperately manipulated his body through its threads, only to discover that his rational thought could no longer control a body intoxicated by love.

The External Brain, the rational Pang Mian, looked up at the instance monster before him.

The butterfly was now four meters tall, with a wingspan exceeding six meters.

He underestimated the Phantom Butterfly. Because it had spent so much time foolishly following Mo Bai around, he had forgotten that it was an S-rank monster.

There were no weak S-rank monsters in the instance world.

Whenever high-level players encountered one, they had to proceed carefully, coordinate strategies, and work together just to kill it.

The Phantom Butterfly seemed too foolish and too harmless that people had forgotten that it was also a top-tier monster.

So what if the External Brain couldn't be contaminated? If the host body died, the External Brain would disappear as well.

The Phantom Butterfly accurately identified the External Brain's weakness and was using Pang Mian himself to destroy it.

Pang Mian tore open the flesh of his chest. The agony was intense, and his hands trembled uncontrollably.

Bathed in dreamlike colors, the beautiful butterfly asked softly, "Does it hurt?"

Pang Mian nodded, and the Phantom Butterfly laughed lightly.

Happily, it said, "I love the souls of lovers in pain. They are my most delicious food. So stay like this, stay by my side, and stay in my heart. Your soul will become one with mine forever, and we'll never be separated again."

"It hurts so much... but I'm so happy," Pang Mian said dreamily as he gazed at the Phantom Butterfly.

"We're going to be together forever."

"Yes," the Phantom Butterfly promised. "Forever."

That promise gave Pang Mian limitless courage. He drove his hand forward, and like a blade, it pierced into his own heart.

Unable to endure any longer, the External Brain left the drone.

A white, translucent brain-like mass resembling a jelly emerged and attached itself to Pang Mian's head.

It didn't return to the body and remained separate, allowing it to resist the Phantom Butterfly's mental control slightly.

Returning inside would be suicide, but the closer the External Brain was to the original brain, the stronger its control over the body became.

When the two brains completely overlapped, it finally regained control of Pang Mian's body and roared, "Xie Xingchen! I agree to give you the Blade of Manga! Make your move!"

Xie Xingchen? Who's that? The Phantom Butterfly blinked.

It had never heard that name before. There was no one by that name in the Love Amusement Park.

But Mo Bai, who was locked in fierce combat with the heart, suddenly opened her eyes.

Xie Xingchen. A player from Avici.

One of the people responsible for the deaths of Sheng Lei and Mo Xiangyou, who entered Disease Town together with Li Ming.

Li Ming had gone to the Abandoned Hospital while Xie Xingchen's whereabouts and abilities had remained unknown.

The moment the name crossed Mo Bai's mind, a door silently opened beside her.

A beautiful hand holding a card extended from the doorway.

The card was facing Mo Bai, so she could clearly read its name.

Pause Button, an A-rank card that could suspend the rules of a domain for three seconds.

Only three seconds, but three seconds were enough to break the Love Amusement Park's rule: No violence allowed.

Mo Bai was currently locked in battle with the heart and couldn't spare any power to defend herself, while the person behind the door seemed unwilling to enter the amusement park personally.

Instead, he raised a cannon-like weapon, and a strange light glowed inside it.

This wasn't an ordinary weapon; it was an antimatter weapon capable of annihilating all matter in an instant.

However much antimatter it contained, it could neutralize an equal amount of normal matter.

No matter how powerful Mo Bai was, or how terrifying the heart she was assimilating might be, the antimatter weapon would still erase an equivalent quantity of matter.

It ignored all defenses, and even an Ultra-Star Rank monster would be severely injured by such a weapon. Moreover, any area struck would be unable to regenerate for a long time.

The weapon was pointed directly at Mo Bai as annihilating light poured from its barrel.

Yet Mo Bai could not move, and she was about to be hit.

And yet, as though fate itself intervened, a transparent butterfly appeared before her.

Its body reflected the light of the antimatter weapon and shone brilliantly.

This was the final radiance of the Phantom Butterfly's life.

The antimatter weapon neutralized the matter composing its body.

More than half of it vanished into thin air, and only half of a transparent wing remained, which drifted gently down to Mo Bai's feet.

What was the Phantom Butterfly thinking in its final moments?

Suddenly, it remembered the first time it had absorbed a soul.

Professor Yang had been standing outside the laboratory, watching through the glass.

"What method did this butterfly use to consume mutant souls?" Professor Yang asked. "Why didn't the mutants resist?"

The assistant replied, "According to hormonal readings and brainwave scans, after coming into contact with the Phantom Butterfly, the mutants develop emotions similar to love. They willingly die in the Phantom Butterfly's hands like dying in the arms of a beloved."

Professor Yang chuckled.

"A butterfly? In the legend of The Butterfly Lovers, they ultimately become butterflies, don't they? Love and butterflies go together rather well. Let's conduct an interesting experiment.

Write a program for the Phantom Butterfly and implant a chip into its brain. Instill a single idea: Either be killed by your beloved, or kill your beloved, so you will never obtain love."

The assistant asked, "Why conduct such an experiment?"

Professor Yang replied, "Emotion is the source of a monster's evolution. At present, our laboratory can only create A-rank monsters. I want to know whether this emotion can create an S-rank monster."

Therefore, a chip was implanted into the Phantom Butterfly. It repeated that command again and again, that even when the chip was removed, that thought remained and couldn't be forgotten.

For all this time, it believed this was its destiny. Until the very end, when it threw itself in front of Mo Bai, it did not extinguish that light, but protected it.

It neither killed its beloved nor was it killed by its beloved.

It died to save its beloved.

For the first time, it escaped the fate that had been imposed upon it, and it was happy.

Half of its wing dissolved into countless specks of light and became Positive Flow. The lights circled Mo Bai once, affectionately brushing against her as they silently disappeared.

At that moment, Qiu Xuerong finally arrived, and countless snowflakes descended from the sky.

Seeing the situation turning unfavorable, Xie Xingchen acted immediately. The door closed, and then it reopened behind the heavily wounded Pang Mian.

Xie Xingchen grabbed him and pulled him through the doorway. Together, they escaped from the Love Amusement Park.

Only Mo Bai remained behind, still battling the heart.

Not fully understanding what had happened, Qiu Xuerong placed a snowflake leaf upon Mo Bai, and the leaf helped suppress the heart's power.

With Qiu Xuerong's assistance, Mo Bai unleashed her abilities without restraint, and finally, she completely absorbed the heart into her body.

She used her own body as a cage, trapping the heart inside.