Wizard: Unlimited Profession Slots

Chapter 1167: Chapter 478: Human Centipede_3

The impact of learning the truth about one’s bloodline is more deadly than any physical attack.

The captain sat slump on the ground, hands limply at his sides.

The ancestral soul stone in his hand had lost all its luster.

The ancient dragon souls were now completely silent.

He feared they would never respond again, and indeed, he dared not call upon these wrathful ancestors.

"Thousands of years of glory... all lies..."

His voice was hoarse like a broken bellows:

"What are we? Counterfeits? Experiments? Or... a bunch of pathetic self-deceivers?"

The other team members also fell into deep confusion and despair.

All their pride from childhood was built upon the "purity of dragon blood."

Now that foundation had completely collapsed, they couldn’t even determine the meaning of their existence.

"I remember now..."

A young team member said in a trembling voice:

"I always found it strange as a child, why did our ’Bloodline Awakening’ require special rituals? True Dragon Species should be born with power, right?"

"And those ’Blood Purification Potions’..."

Another team member replied with a bitter smile:

"The elders said it was to ’stimulate potential,’ but now thinking about it, what was the real purpose of those potions?"

The truth came rushing like a tide, overwhelming their last mental defenses.

Every ignored doubt now turned into irrefutable evidence.

They were not noble Dragon Race descendants but artificially modified experiments.

The blood they were proud of was merely an imitation cultivated in an Alchemy Laboratory.

"What meaning does our life have?"

The youngest team member completely collapsed, beating his chest:

"If the power is fake, if the bloodline is fake, then what were all our efforts over the years?"

Despair spread like a plague among the team, with everyone questioning the value of their existence.

Just as this collective sinking was about to devour everyone, Baroque suddenly spoke up.

His voice, though hoarse, carried unprecedented determination:

"Regardless of the truth, only living grants the possibility of change."

He pointed to the ongoing Hell ritual in the distant core area:

"Look at those twisted resurrected ones, then look at us, at least we have the chance to choose again."

This statement was also to motivate himself; the Bloodline Power within Baroque began to surge anew.

The other team members slowly stood up, with despair in their eyes beginning to be replaced by new hope.

"Young Master Baroque truly speaks wisely." A team member shook his head with a bitter smile:

"Even if we are experiments, at least we can still survive."

With Baroque’s encouragement, the members of the Burning Scale Clan hastily activated the emergency escape runes treasured within the clan.

......

But Baroque himself, at this moment, was undergoing a deeper inner transformation.

Red’s memories flooded into his consciousness like a torrent.

"The source of power does not reside in bloodlines, but in the soul."

Red’s voice echoed in the depths of his awareness:

"The true strong are those who can confront the truth and draw strength from growth."

This revelation hit Baroque like a moment of enlightenment.

He began to actively embrace the pain brought by bloodline conflict, viewing it as a necessary path to growth.

When artificial dragon blood fiercely clashed with his original human bloodline, he did not run away but bravely embraced this pain.

In the midst of the agony, he found his true self—imperfect, full of contradictions, but utterly sincere.

But when Cecilia saw Baroque’s twisted appearance due to the bloodline conflict, she fell into an unprecedented aesthetic crisis.

"No... it’s so ugly..."

She recoiled in fear, her eyes filled with indescribable dread:

"Your face... your body... this asymmetry... this chaos..."

Baroque’s appearance was indeed undergoing drastic changes.

The traits of human and Dragon Race bloodlines alternated in his body.

The left side of his face retained human’s fine skin, while the right side was covered in gold-red dragon scales.

One eye was ordinary brown, the other burned with a golden flame unique to the Dragon Race.

This "mixed blood" state, though real, indeed did not conform to traditional aesthetic standards.

Cecilia’s "perfectionist compulsion" was completely triggered.

She began to unleash her "aesthetic reconstruction" ability, attempting to "correct" Baroque into a perfect form that met her aesthetic standards.

Countless golden threads stretched out from the void, trying to wrap around Baroque’s body.

But Baroque firmly rejected this "beautification."

"Get lost, I won’t accept it!" He dodged the golden threads attempting to transform him:

"This is my true self—not perfect, but genuine."

"I don’t need your perfectionization, I want to maintain this contradiction and conflict; this is what Ancestor Red taught me."

This refusal pierced Cecilia’s heart like a needle.

In her cognition, any imperfect existence should be "corrected," and any refusal to beautify was a desecration of art.

"You don’t understand, you look so ugly like this... it taints the beauty of the whole world..."

Her voice started to become hysterical:

"I must correct you, I must make everything perfect..."

Cecilia’s "aesthetic compulsion" reached a pathological peak.

She began to view the entire battlefield as a giant canvas needing "correction."

Not only Baroque but even those mutated creatures fighting in the distance.

Even the flying dust and bloodstains were added to her list of targets "needing beautification."

Her aesthetic domain began to indiscriminately spread outward.

Golden threads densely covered the air like a spider web, each carrying the terrifying power of "forced perfectionization."

But this ability was too powerful, even she began to lose control.

"Beauty... everything must become beautiful... no ugliness... no flaws..."

Cecilia’s reason began collapsing, consumed by an obsessive pursuit of perfection.

Her aesthetic domain began to recursively correct itself.

Constantly "correcting" things that had already been "corrected," chasing an unattainable absolute perfection.

In the end, this infinitely recursive perfectionization process created a "work" that completely conformed to her aesthetic standards.

A prison made entirely of crystal.

Every angle of this prison was precisely calculated, and every refracted light reached mathematical perfection.

There were no irregular elements inside, no factors that could produce "ugliness."

Cecilia was trapped at the center of her self-created "masterpiece."

She gained eternal beauty.

But at the same time, she lost all possibility of change.

In this absolutely perfect space, life also lost vitality.

She became a breathtakingly beautiful, but lifeless work of art.

Through the crystal cage, her eyes were still able to move, her consciousness remained clear.

She could see the "imperfect" world outside, could feel the vitality of life and the chaotic beauty.

But she could no longer touch, no longer change, no longer participate.

She could only observe forever, desire forever, be trapped forever in the perfect prison she had created.

This punishment was crueler than death.

She gained the perfection she had dreamed of, but the price was losing every possibility of being alive.

Baroque watched this scene, a complex emotion surging in his heart.

There was regret, sympathy, but more importantly, a profound understanding.

"True beauty does not lie in flawless perfection, but in accepting imperfections and finding value within them."

He caressed his face, half human, half dragon:

"Imperfect, but genuine, this is enough."