Only the Moon Was Higher Than I

The entire vial emptied in an instant. Bianka pulled out the needle.

THUMP—

A powerful, rapid heartbeat suddenly echoed through the room. Bianka's body seized up, her eyes flying wide.

Back in reality, Bianka violently clutched her chest. Two full vials and one empty one clattered to the floor.

Her legs gave out, and her body crumpled, kneeling on the ground.

She was doubled over, mouth agape, gasping for air for her constricted lungs.

Her heart rate had soared far beyond any normal range. The flow of returning blood couldn't keep up with the frantic pumping; it was forced back toward her heart at an impossible pressure, its usual leisurely pace replaced by a violent torrent.

So this is the Last Stand Serum?

Bianka's hand gripped the ice-blue core tightly. She glanced down at it. The core was still gushing energy, and strange pink patterns had appeared on her skin.

No, her skin seemed to be peeling away, revealing not flesh and blood, but patches of pitch-black nothingness.

The pain in her hand intensified several times over. Gritting her teeth, Bianka carefully assessed her body's condition.

Something foreign had definitely entered her system, something that felt like the residual energy from those new-model weapons...

But it wasn't enough... far from enough!

Bianka took two deep, ragged breaths to regain control of her body. Trembling, she picked up the second vial. This time, she aimed it at her own heart!

The sharp needle easily pierced her clothes. Bianka pushed the plunger with all her might, and soon, a second empty vial fell to the floor.

Bianka fell with it.

Her eyes were wide with a feverish energy, but she had lost almost all control of her body. She could only lie on the floor, twitching.

Only her hand still held the core in a death grip, pressing it against her chest.

Her breathing could no longer keep up with the torrent of her blood, and her body began to shut down non-essential functions.

Color, sound, temperature...

Strands of white began to appear in her hair, a sign that her body was ceasing pigment production. And that wasn't all...

Smell, pain, taste... Bianka could clearly feel what she was losing, but she couldn't stop it. She was powerless.

And she didn't want to stop this "loss."

After injecting the second serum, Bianka could feel the energy from the core surging into her body, taking the place of the functions that had shut down, the ones deemed "unimportant."

Her vision returned, but the world was a murky gray. Only the figures in the cultivation pods glowed with brilliant color.

She could hear again, faint voices from far, far away...

"O... the second... she'll die... she really will..."

"...llen... I... we should... pray for her..."

And temperature... Her surroundings became incredibly hot... so hot it was agonizing. For the first time, she felt an overwhelming urge to dive into a snowdrift to cool down.

She squeezed her eyes shut in pain, her grip on the core tightening.

Only a single thought remained in her mind.

Still not enough!!

I need more, MORE!!

Bianka suddenly regained control of one arm. Before she could even process it, she raised the final vial high.

But she couldn't aim. Her violently shaking hand was frozen in mid-air, unable to guide the needle.

Would the third serum even work? Bianka didn't know. In truth, she never knew how to harness the core's power in the first place, or what effect the Last Stand Serum would even have.

She had done all of this based on pure instinct.

She stared blankly at the vial in her hand, her gaze suddenly falling on the hand itself.

It was covered in a network of small cuts and scratches. Most had faded to faint marks, but a few larger wounds were still on the verge of healing.

An idea suddenly sparked in her mind.

A brilliant, desperate idea!

Bianka crushed the vial. The Last Stand Serum trickled down her raised arm, running over the open wounds.

Suddenly, a jet of blood shot from one of the cuts. The heavy, oppressive feeling finally gave way to a sharp, stabbing pain.

Blood poured from her wounds. Bianka's body convulsed violently, shaking more than a patient in seizure.

The tearing agony, combined with the inescapable, crushing pressure, sent her into spasms.

Three Last Stand Serums. This was a form of torture that not even the most vicious warlords in the most war-torn lands had ever conceived.

A single vial could kill a person with a weaker constitution on the spot from cardiac arrest and blood pressure spikes. Two vials would make a person feel the agony of losing everything in a matter of seconds. To date, no one who had taken two had ever survived.

And Bianka was likely the first person in the world to take three.

She felt something growing inside her, savage and wild, trying to twist her into something else entirely.

A murky sense of chaos easily shattered Bianka's mental defenses, pulling her mind into an illogical dream.

From her open wounds, hard, black chunks began to grow, spreading across her body and forming a thick layer of armor.

The hand that had crushed the vial began to twist and grow. A single black horn sprouted from her forehead. A thick, powerful tail emerged from her lower back, and heavy, bone-white armor covered most of her back.

The armor continued to spread, connecting and fusing, until Bianka had become a half-monster.

Suddenly, Bianka's lips moved.

"Rita..."

The transformation stopped, leaving Bianka in this half-human, half-beast form.

She sat up blankly from the floor, her eyes devoid of any light, as if she had lost all memory and consciousness. She was like a sleepwalker.

"...Rita..." she repeated, then slowly rose to her feet. With her arms hanging limp at her sides, she staggered toward the elevator she remembered from her chaotic memories.

Her path was clear. Soon, Bianka stood at the entrance of the MOTH base.

She looked up, surveying the empty city, then fixed her gaze on a single direction and bent her knees slightly.

The next instant, the ground at the entrance of the MOTH base shattered. Bianka's figure shot into the sky like a cannonball.

In that moment, she rose to the very zenith of ARC City, looking down upon all its towering skyscrapers!

Only the moon was higher than her!!