Chapter 9: Crown of Shattered Ice

Elena's Perspective: The Puppet Lover

Cain's fingertips crushed the thorny pattern between her collarbones, and Lillian's pale - gold blood seeped from the cracks. Elena's wolf claws stabbed into his chest, yet were repelled by a data stream the moment they touched the mechanical heart. Lillian sneered through the projection on Cain's retina, "Can you bear to destroy this face? He has reincarnated three hundred times for you..."

"Shut up!" Elena's fangs bit through Cain's shoulder, and the Nightborne blood mixed with the mechanical lubricant, turning into a toxic blend. "Cain Lupin! If there's even a single cell of yours that still belongs to you—"

"He's always been here," Lillian controlled Cain's left hand to caress the back of Elena's neck, while her right hand suddenly tore off the spinal cable. "Kill me quickly... while I can still hold her off for thirty seconds..."

The real Cain roared in the consciousness cage, and the countdown of the mechanical heart accelerated due to self - damage: [Host Health: 00:04:59]

Selena's Perspective: The Queen's Price

When the coffin of the Nightborne Queen engulfed Selena, she tasted the truth, tinged with the flavor of rust. Three hundred ice coffins rose from the depths of the glacier, and each one held Selena's face. It turned out that she was a clone of the first - generation Nightborne Queen, discarded in the wolf pack by Lillian after having false memories implanted.

"You are my most successful failure," the queen's consciousness revived in Selena's mind, and mechanical bone wings burst out from her back. "Now, ignite the crown with your hatred."

Selena's metal fingernails pierced into her own temple, pulled out the Holy See chip, and crushed it. Amidst the excruciating pain, memories of past lives surged forth. She had once fought side by side with Lillian until she discovered that the latter was feeding the core of Lucifer with Nightborne infants.

"This time..." she bit off her bone wing and injected it into the queen's coffin, "I'll trap you in your own ambition forever."

Lillian's Perspective: The Triple Trap

Lillian danced on Cain's brain nerves, relishing in Elena's despair. When Elena's tears dropped onto Cain's mechanical heart, a hidden protocol was suddenly activated. The thorny pattern faded from her neck and instead coiled around Lillian's phantom.

"Do you think I care about this body?" Lillian's laughter set off a data storm. "Look at the Antarctic sky, my dear sacrifices."

The aurora turned blood - red, and seven Nightborne laboratories around the world simultaneously launched light columns. The hybrid children, enveloped by the beams, levitated into the air. Their blood vessels wove into a thorny crown in the sky, slowly descending onto the coffin of the Nightborne Queen.

"While you were fighting, I had already disassembled the real crown into seven parts," Lillian's phantom emerged from Cain's body. "Goodbye, defective products."

Elena held Cain's broken body and leaped into the ice - cold sea. Maggie's spell froze the sea surface. However, Lillian's light column pursued them beneath the ice. The cries of the hybrid children transformed into energy streams. Suddenly, Selena's bone wings blotted out the sky. She grabbed the head of the Nightborne Queen and smashed it towards the core of the light column.

"Your crown is missing the eighth piece of the puzzle—an angry mother!"

Red light burst from the eye sockets of the queen's head, and the global light columns suddenly shifted direction, hitting Lillian's phantom. At this moment, Cain woke up and used his last bit of strength to push Elena towards Selena. "The termination condition of the protocol is... the betrayal of the lover..."

Elena's fangs pierced Selena's neck, and the hybrid blood poured into her body. Amid Lillian's scream, the thorny crown suddenly shattered, and all the hybrid children landed safely.

Before Cain's mechanical heart stopped beating, he inserted a chip into Elena's thorny pattern. "Go to the place under the Tokyo Tower..."

Lillian's phantom chuckled before dissipating. "Do you think you've won? Look at Selena's bone wings."

In the moonlight, Selena's metal skin was crystallizing. The queen's memory virus had infected her through the blood. And deep in the Antarctic ice, the fingers of the beheaded queen's corpse suddenly twitched...

Next Chapter:

When the neon lights of the Tokyo Tower illuminate Cain's clone, and when Selena's crystallization spreads to her heart; "He's going to be resurrected," Maggie wiped the blood - stained crystal ball, "but is the one who comes back... really Cain?"