In the arena, nearly everyone had caught that fleeting, heart-stopping moment—a palpably oppressive force. But like a thin mist scattered by the wind, it disappeared without a trace the instant the winner was declared, so fast one could mistake it for an illusion.
The young man who stepped out of the mecha was breathtakingly beautiful. A tsunami of cheers erupted instantly, the sound waves rattling the steel beams of the dome. Bai Ruonian, panting, climbed out of his cockpit, a strange heat rising from within his body.
So hot…
This feeling was both unfamiliar and familiar. It wasn’t the stifling heat of the mecha cockpit, but how exactly it felt was hard to describe.
In short, the last time… the time before that… every time he had been cuddling and nuzzling his Master, he felt this way.
But it had never been this overwhelming.
Bai Ruonian shook his head. He didn’t know what was causing it.
The cheers in the arena continued. No one noticed anything wrong with the omega on the field, because even the omega himself hadn’t realized it, simply attributing it to a natural reaction after an intense fight.
On the field, sweat soaked through his combat suit, clinging to his skin and clearly outlining the young man’s slender waistline and back—lines that held astonishing explosive power. A few red roses were thrown onto the field. Bai Ruonian caught them, his eyes sparkling as he stared intently at the spoils of war automatically rising from the arena floor.
That Blue Snowflake seed.
Wrapped in a precious Mental Stone.
Bai Ruonian suppressed the heat rising within him. A flicker of joy rose in his heart. With this, he could save Uncle Cao’s daughter.
The Blue Snowflake was very beautiful.
Even its seed was beautiful, shimmering with the translucent quality of life just beginning to bloom, a bit like jelly—looking fragile, yet pure.
The omega on the platform, looking at the flower seed, was even more beautiful.
The young man held a rose someone had thrown in his teeth, his silver hair dazzlingly bright, his blue eyes like crystal. Beautiful beyond compare.
Meanwhile, in the mecha wreckage at the other end of the field, Jes scrambled out of the twisted, deformed cockpit with difficulty, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on that silver-haired young man.
The searing pain from his spine was nothing compared to the boiling humiliation and rage in his heart. He touched the scar on his face. The bloodlust and destructive urges brought by the Zerg Gene, catalyzed by this humiliation, were growing wildly.
If he had paid the price of becoming this half-human, half-monster creature and still couldn’t even conquer a single omega… then what the hell was the point of the inhuman torture he had endured?!
This creature, invigorated by the stimulus, had forgotten pain as soon as the danger passed, or so he was convinced. He had completely forgotten the terror of that suppression earlier. In his mind, it was all just an illusion.
If his pheromones hadn’t suddenly malfunctioned earlier, he would have won.
The Alpha’s pheromones spread again. Compound eyes swayed, their ghostly green facets buzzing, adding another bucket of hot oil to the already agitated crowd.
Bai Ruonian was struggling to suppress that hot sensation, his eyes fixed on the flower seed in his hand, completely unaware of his defeated opponent’s intentions.
Uncle Cao wouldn’t be sad anymore. He wondered how he was doing…
This wasn’t something he got from his Master; he had won it himself.
If he could grow lots of flowers, would everyone not be unhappy…
But—
So hot.
He didn’t know why, but he was sweating more and more. His combat suit was almost soaked through. His vision swam slightly, the heat growing thicker and thicker.
What’s happening…
At the same time, a subtle pheromone scent gradually intensified.
The fragrance of Lily-of-the-Valley pheromones almost formed a thin mist around the silver-haired young man.
Omega pheromones…
The fresh, sweet scent of Lily of the Valley, thread by thread.
The creatures in the stands and on the field understood this better than this naive omega.
The Underground Arena was a place of primal savagery and intense interactions. In a noble stronghold like Star One, it brought out the hidden, restrained beast in people to the fullest.
Such places were not often visited by omegas, much less did they come to compete. Below, the audience was entirely Alpha.
In the air, the pheromones of different Alphas, carrying auras of predation and brutality, began to stir, to clash, tentatively extending invisible tendrils, wanting to seize that sweet source. But blocked by the arena’s Mental Barrier, they couldn’t enter. They could only probe repeatedly with their mental power.
Yet even these probes were too much for the omega on the field. Bai Ruonian only felt hotter and hotter, the scene before him blurring more and more.
Feeling a bit unwell…
What’s going on?
The omega instinctively leaned against the cold wreckage of a mecha nearby, finally realizing something was wrong. He only heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching him.
Jes’s expression was utterly twisted. Step by step, he walked towards the silver-haired omega emitting that enticing, sweet fragrance, his compound eyes flickering.
At that moment, Shen Zeyi’s furious voice came through on Jes’s terminal.
“Jes, what the hell are you doing?”
Shen Zeyi hadn’t watched the match at all at first. If Jes, after being enhanced, still managed to lose, then the whole thing was utterly pointless.
By the time he learned the result and focused his attention, Jes was already like a stray dog at the roadside, walking toward the beautiful omega who had defeated him.
That omega was truly beautiful.
The kind that could capture the entire audience’s attention instantly, like a fragile yet dazzling piece of art.
But right now, Shen Zeyi was in no mood to appreciate beauty. He was only shocked and furious. “You damn bug, do you want the whole world to know?”
Back then, his laboratory had been destroyed by that madman Lu Mingjin, along with his team and most of his research products. After desperately salvaging whatever he could, all he managed to save was this useless waste.
And now this waste was acting up.
The compound eyes flickered, gleaming. The faint sound of cracking bones could be heard. He was on the verge of sprouting extra limbs, for god’s sake.
Did he modify this thing just to embarrass himself in public?
But Jes could no longer hear a word. His compound eyes spun wildly. His vision split into hundreds of images of the silver-haired omega gasping in pain, struggling helplessly.
Creatures like bugs had no innate reason. Later modifications heavily eroded their minds as well. Without control, only the most primal instincts of destruction and possession remained. He grinned, a savage, inhuman smile spreading across his face. Something sharp seemed to stir restlessly beneath his skin.
Shen Zeyi was apoplectic with rage. He roared at his subordinates, “Now! Get the White Blood Cell Squad over there! Drag that trash Jes back! Immediately! Now!”
His men hurriedly acknowledged the order.
“Wait!”
Shen Zeyi suddenly stopped them.
“Bring that omega back too.”
He stared at the omega on the screen.
Truly beautiful.
And an omega who had defeated Jes.
He wanted to study this.
But suddenly, the screen went black.
The sound of static crackled, eerily abrupt in the quiet space.
At the same time, on the arena field, the tension reached its peak. Like drops of water hitting a pot of boiling oil, the situation was about to explode—
Jes repeated his words with near-paranoid fixation, grinning. “This little thing… if my pheromones hadn’t suddenly stopped working, he would’ve lost.”
A disgusting tactic. A disgusting pheromone.
“Have you ever considered why they stopped working?”
A voice sounded directly in Jes’s chaotic mind without any warning, startling him deeply.
That primal fear of a fellow predator returned.
It wasn’t an illusion.
It really was one of our kind.
Simultaneously, the arena’s Mental Barrier shattered like a soap bubble before this power. Yet even without the barrier’s obstruction, the Alphas who had been eyeing their prey moments ago did not dare move a single step.
All their previously surging pheromones instantly evaporated into nothingness.
These Alphas, who loved suppressing omegas with pheromones, now got a full taste of being absolutely dominated, of being completely controlled.
It did not feel good.
A terror born from the most primal life instinct prevented them from mustering even a sliver of resistance. They could only stand frozen.
The entire arena instantly plunged into an absolute silence, more deafening than a vacuum.
Jes’s forward lunge froze mid-motion. The madness in his compound eyes was replaced by boundless terror. Stiffly, inch by inch, he tried to turn his neck to look toward the source of that cold, overwhelming menace—
Too late.
He didn’t even see who it was. In that moment, it felt as if an invisible giant hand had seized his entire body. Mad fury froze on his face, his compound eyes now holding only infinite, incomprehensible fear.
“Guh?!”
A scream of terror caught in his throat. He could only watch helplessly as his own hand—unstoppable, inexorable—was forced, slowly and cruelly… into his own mouth, opened wide in sheer horror!
“Crack… squelch…”
The chilling sound of shattering bone and the muffled noise of flesh being brutally crushed echoed clearly. Jes’s body convulsed violently, twitching. His throat was completely pierced and pulverized by his own fist. He couldn’t even let out a complete scream. The light of life extinguished instantly, leaving behind only a twisted, grotesque posture—mouth stuffed with his own arm in a scene of utter horror. His corpse crashed to the ground, kicking up a small spray of debris.
The arena’s Medical Team—the White Blood Cell Squad Shen Zeyi had mentioned—had just charged to the edge of the area when they witnessed this.
A silver-eyed Alpha, having crossed the Mental Barrier, now stood in the arena, his pupils flickering with an inorganic light.
Their feet were nailed to the spot. They didn’t dare take a single step closer.
Dangerous.
So they just watched as he walked past Jes’s mangled flesh, heading toward the omega in the center of the field.
At that moment, the squad leader’s communicator crackled with Shen Zeyi’s demand: “What’s going on?”
The squad leader’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His voice was dry and trembling. “Jes… is dead…”
Bai Ruonian was burning up all over. In a daze, weak as if drained of all strength, he leaned against the mecha. Amidst the confusion, a familiar figure tore through the chaotic light and shadows around him, walking toward him step by step.
He wrinkled his nose.
It was Master…
He raised his face, still clutching the flower seed, trying hard to bloom a smile to show he was alright. He even wanted to show off. But all his strength drained away the instant he clearly saw the newcomer. The willpower he had forcibly maintained snapped like a bowstring. The world spun. His body went limp as if his bones had dissolved, and he pitched forward.
He collided into the other’s icy embrace.
“Master… Little Bai is so hot…”
The body in his arms was burning, soft, trembling slightly. The thick, sweet scent of Lily of the Valley mingled with sweat and blood, assaulting the Alpha’s senses.
At this moment.
Lu Mingjin stared at the person in his arms, his face expressionless, but his hands trembled slightly.
Just now.
He had called him.
Master.
