If the missionary had been calm before, now he was utterly panicked. 

The power of the archon residue had always been his main weapon and his greatest reliance. 

The only reason the Doctor hadn’t discarded him—aside from the fact that he was among the first to defect to Snezhnaya with him—was that he had willingly accepted the injection of the archon residue.

And now... that power had vanished.

His immediate concern wasn’t whether he would die here, because he believed the Ausbilder wouldn’t stand by and let that little brat kill him. 

What he truly worried about was whether his power would be gone forever and if the Doctor would abandon him because of it. 

He knew the Doctor’s temperament all too well.

Barely avoiding the boulder Collei had pushed down, the missionary took advantage of the brief moment she spent moving another stone to climb back up. 

But once he reached the top, Collei was nowhere to be seen.

This immediately put him on alert. 

He didn’t believe she had fled; she was most likely hiding somewhere, preparing for another attack...

“Hiss—”

Suddenly, he felt a cold sensation in his lower back, followed by searing pain that cut deep into him. 

Gritting his teeth against the agony, he swung his blade behind him, but hit nothing but air.

What he had forgotten was that Collei wasn’t an adult—she was a child. 

From the way he moved, she could already tell that his attack wouldn't land. 

As soon as she pulled out the dagger from one side of his back, she plunged it into the other side, aiming for symmetry.

“Tsk tsk, just watching that makes my back hurt,” Bai Luo muttered from his hiding spot, feeling a cold shiver run down his spine. This girl wasn’t holding back at all!

With both kidneys stabbed, the missionary almost blacked out. 

However, his willpower was far stronger than that of ordinary people. Plus, his body had been enhanced by the archon residue, so he didn’t completely lose his ability to fight back.

But, he had underestimated the depth of Collei’s hatred.

The sound of a mechanism clicked again. 

The missionary felt a tightening around his knees, and the steel wire, which had been gradually retracting, forced him—already unsteady on his feet—down onto his knees.

Before he could get up, Collei’s dagger slashed at his Achilles tendon.

“Aah—!”

Even the missionary couldn’t suppress a howl of pain in the face of such an injury.

“Ausbilder! Ausbilder, help me!” he cried, reaching out toward Bai Luo, who sat not far away, hoping for assistance.

But the hand that grabbed his wasn’t Bai Luo’s. It was a small, bloodstained, and childlike hand.

With a look of utter despair in his eyes, the missionary watched as Collei, holding the dagger, slowly sliced through the tendons in his wrist. She did it deliberately, torturing him, making sure he felt every bit of the pain.

Seeing that Bai Luo still showed no reaction, the missionary finally understood. This so-called “training” had been a trap from the very beginning.

“Do you remember me?”

Taking off the mask of the Pyro Agent, Collei spoke expressionlessly. Yet, the slight trembling of her hands betrayed her true emotions.

"It... it’s you?!"

The missionary did remember Collei. She was the last test subject from his earlier experiments. 

In his memory, this child had died in the prison because she couldn’t bear the power of the archon residue. He had even personally ordered Bai Luo to dispose of her.

"Bai Luo!!!"

At that moment, the missionary finally understood what had happened. 

He couldn’t believe that Bai Luo had disobeyed his orders and spared the child, raising her to this point!

"You don’t deserve to say that name!" Collei snarled, kicking his jaw with enough force to dislocate it. 

She then swiftly straddled the missionary, who was attempting to rise, and raised her dagger high.

Once, twice, three times...

Flesh was torn apart, and blood splattered everywhere. Collei repeatedly plunged the dagger into his back, each strike releasing the years of resentment and suffering she had endured. 

Bai Luo did nothing to stop her.

He knew this wasn’t something a child like Collei should be doing. 

Everyone understood that much. 

But some things simply had to be resented, some people had to be cursed, and some anger had to be released. 

A lifetime of hatred and pain wasn’t something that could be resolved by reason or softened by time.

Time doesn’t solve problems—it only makes what’s already trivial seem less important. But hate and pain grow more profound, more unforgettable.

To outsiders, this might seem like an overreaction, but only Collei knew the unbearable weight she had carried all this time. 

Perhaps this too was a form of erosion.

No one knew how long it went on. When the missionary’s screams grew faint and the dagger in Collei’s hand became caked with dirt, it finally slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground.

Sob, sob…

Collei had believed that she would never cry again. When she began wandering the world, she thought she had already shed all her tears. But seeing the bloodied, mutilated body of the missionary in front of her, a wave of overwhelming grievance surged in her chest.

"Uwaaaaah—!"

She tilted her head back and cried out loudly. Tears mixed with the blood on her face, dripping onto the missionary's ruined body.

She had killed the missionary, killed her past, and in the process, had killed all the hatred that once consumed her heart.

Her cries were those of a child—like a newborn given a second chance at life.

No... perhaps she had always been a child. 

A little girl forced by the world to grow up too soon, who deep down still loved pretty clothes, cute stickers, and longed for someone to rely on. 

She had cut off her beautiful long hair and wrapped herself in a thick, protective shell, all just to defend herself from the world's malice.

Her voice grew hoarse, and her eyes were swollen from crying, but she did not stop.

"Hmm?"

Bai Luo, who had been waiting for her to finish venting so they could leave, suddenly froze. He sensed something shifting in their surroundings—especially beneath his feet.

A faint rustling sound began, and the once blood-soaked soil began to crack.

"Could it be…?"

A smile appeared at the corner of Bai Luo’s mouth. He realized that his plan had likely succeeded.

Crack—!

Cracks spread across the cliff, and countless tender shoots burst through the hardened soil, stubbornly forcing their way to the surface. 

They grew rapidly, almost as if they had been fed fertilizer, entwining and wrapping around everything in their path. 

Eventually, they formed a circle around Collei at the center.

A flower bud, bending under the weight of its delicate stem, hung right in front of Collei. Slowly, it began to bloom. 

A Cecilia flower, symbolizing a wanderer’s true feelings, unfurled, revealing a radiant green gemstone at its core.

As Collei wavered, looking like she was about to collapse, Bai Luo reached out and caught her.

"Alright, let’s go home," he said softly.

Hearing Bai Luo’s familiar voice, Collei finally calmed down and drifted off to sleep.

As for Bai Luo, he glanced at the Dendro Vision on Collei’s chest, then looked down at the Dendro Delusion hanging from his own waist. After a long pause, only one word escaped his lips.

“Fuck!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read