White.
The first thing Mobius saw when she opened her eyes was pure white.
A white ceiling, white lights, white walls.
Every inch of her vision was covered by that almost sterile color.
Mobius blinked.
Her consciousness was still a little hazy for the first few seconds.
But that haziness soon vanished rapidly under the effect of her Dragon Sovereign constitution.
Then, one by one, her various senses began to return.
Mobius moved her body slightly and found that she was still in some pain.
That sensation was not much better than when Kallen had forcibly tanked Lan's attack.
There was nothing she could do about that. For the sake of performing this "dragon skewer" scene, she really had allowed herself to be pierced through inside the Prison Realm.
Then Mobius lowered her head slightly and glanced at her body.
The wound on her left shoulder had already been bandaged. White gauze was wrapped tightly around her shoulder, and through the gaps in the cloth, she could see tender new flesh slowly growing back inside.
The wound at her waist and abdomen was the same. Although it had not fully recovered yet, at the very least, that terrifying sensation of having a foreign object piercing through her was gone.
As for her back…
Mobius tried moving her spine and felt a wave of soreness, but nothing serious.
It seemed those damned spikes had already been removed.
Thinking this, Mobius breathed a small sigh of relief.
However, what concerned her most was still her forehead.
Cecilia was not here right now. If she had really ended up disfiguring herself through her own operation, that would be far too much of a loss.
Mobius raised her hand and gently touched the area in front of her forehead with her fingertips.
It was already covered with a layer of soft medicated cloth. The spike that had made her suffer unbearable pain was gone.
Although there was still some residual stinging on the surface of her skin, with the recovery ability of her Dragon Sovereign constitution, a wound of this degree would completely heal before long.
It looked like there should be no scar left behind.
Mm…
After roughly confirming her own condition, Mobius could finally relax a little.
The moment she thought of that dark, sealed space filled with malice, Mobius could not help but frown.
As a professional actor, Mobius understood very clearly that when performing such a grand scene, only by immersing herself in it and truly experiencing the situation could she deliver the most shocking experience to the audience.
The audience's eyes were sharp. They could distinguish real suffering from performed suffering.
If she had only relied on imagination, there was no way she could have acted out the despair of being imprisoned for a hundred years.
Ahem. That was a joke.
She was not some masochist. How could she possibly have really locked herself inside the Prison Realm for that long?
A place like that was torture even if she stayed for one extra second.
Although Mobius's body had indeed spent over a hundred years inside the Prison Realm during this period, Mobius's consciousness had long since switched accounts and gone elsewhere.
Strictly speaking, only at the very final moment did Mobius log back in, then begin injuring herself.
"Yo. Awake?"
A voice came from the right side of the hospital bed.
The tone was light, even carrying a bit of teasing.
Mobius slowly turned her gaze to the right.
Then, she saw a white figure.
That person was sitting in the chair beside the bed in an extremely casual posture, one leg crossed over the other, still holding a drink from who knew where.
Mobius: "..."
Mobius glared at Kiana in irritation.
"Awake? Awake, my foot."
"In that damned place, it was so dark I couldn't see the sky, so black I couldn't even see my own hand in front of my face, and my body was covered in those disgusting spikes."
"I couldn't eat, couldn't drink, and the only thing I could do was sit there and wait for time to pass."
"Do you know how boring it was in there? How suffocating it was?"
"I nearly died of boredom inside!"
By the end, Mobius's tone had almost gained a gritted-teeth quality.
However, Kiana looked at Mobius with equal speechlessness.
"It's one thing to fool everyone else, but you're even trying to fool one of your own? You were clearly just idling in the Prison Realm for a century or so."
Heh.
Mobius merely glanced at Kiana indifferently.
Kiana did not care much. She simply held her cup and looked thoughtfully at Mobius for a few seconds.
Then her gaze began to size up the other girl's body from top to bottom.
"But now that I think about it…"
"You were in there for that long, and your body actually developed pretty well."
Mobius: "?"
She lowered her head and glanced at herself.
Then her expression changed subtly.
Yes. She had indeed grown up.
When she had entered the Prison Realm, her appearance was still that of an eight- or nine-year-old child.
Although she still had not fully matured, at least from the outside, she now looked about fourteen years old.
She had grown quite a bit taller, and her limbs had become much more slender.
Although her body was still wrapped in bandages, through the gaps in the cloth, one could still see that her figure had begun to possess the contours of a young girl.
At the very least, she no longer looked like a child at first glance.
Wait. Looking at it that way, didn't this operation turn out to be an enormous win?
Theresa's persona next door had never gotten this kind of treatment.
Thus, in response to Kiana's teasing, Mobius was not angry at all. Instead, she raised her chin slightly, the corners of her lips curving into a rather pleased arc.
"Of course."
Although her voice was still hoarse, the pride in her tone was entirely undisguised.
"My setting has already changed."
"Before, not only was I stuck in a child's skin, my age was only three!"
"But now?"
Mobius reached out and brushed through her dark green hair, which had grown down to her waist.
"Now, I am a young Dragon Sovereign maiden who was trapped in the Prison Realm for a hundred years."
"From now on, whoever dares call me short will learn what the wrath of a divine dragon means."
Kiana: "..."
Kiana looked at Mobius's perfectly justified expression, and the corner of her mouth twitched.
No, the way you're saying that makes it sound like after suffering so much inside the Prison Realm, the greatest thing you gained was getting taller.
Although that was what Kiana was roasting inwardly, she had to admit that the emerald-haired girl before her did look much more pleasing to the eye than before.
"Wait—"
Mobius's movements suddenly froze.
The hand she had used to play with her hair stopped in midair. Her slightly pink-gray eyes widened faintly, her pupils reflecting the few strands of hair pinched between her fingers.
No.
This length was completely wrong.
Mobius abruptly sat up. The movement pulled at the wounds on her body, making her inhale sharply from the pain, but she could not care about that right now.
She lowered her head to look at the hair falling over her chest, then reached back to touch the back of her head.
Then, her expression changed completely.
"Where is my hair?" Mobius was shocked.
She remembered very clearly that during those long years spent inside the Prison Realm, her hair had already grown long enough to cover the floor.
That ankle-length hair, even longer than that, was something she had accumulated over more than a hundred years.
Although the process had indeed been painful, it was still proof of those hundred years!
But now—
That hair was gone.
In its place was hair that barely reached her waist.
Although it was still considered long compared to others her age, compared to the length in her memory, this was practically no different from being shaved bald.
"Wait a minute!"
Mobius turned her head, her gaze locking firmly onto Kiana, who was leisurely drinking beside her.
"Where is my hair? Where did it go?"
Being glared at like that, Kiana paused slightly with the cup in her hand.
"Oh, that."
"When you were unconscious, Herta had people conduct an examination on you. There were so many spikes stuck in your body, and your hair was long enough to spread everywhere. It was tangled around your wounds and around the spikes. There was no way to handle you properly."
"So she had someone cut off the hair that was in the way."
"Cut… cut off?"
At that moment, the expression on Mobius's face was spectacular.
Anger, shock, grievance, disbelief!
All sorts of emotions flashed across her face in turn before finally freezing into an almost ferocious expression.
"What right did she have to cut my hair?!"
"That was hair I spent more than a hundred years growing!"
However, these two, who were about to start arguing, ultimately failed to continue.
Because they sensed Herta's arrival.
In an instant, both of them returned to normal.
The door opened.
Then, Herta walked in.
The first thing she saw after entering was Kiana sitting beside the hospital bed.
"Kiana?"
Herta raised an eyebrow slightly, her tone carrying a trace of doubt.
"Why are you here?"
She remembered Kiana saying earlier that she was going to spend some time in the space station's rest area.
How had she ended up here?
Hearing this, Kiana leaned back against the chair as though it were completely natural and shook the drink in her hand.
"Nothing much."
"It's just rare to meet someone my age, so I wanted to chat with her a little longer."
Herta: "…Someone your age?"
Her gaze moved away from Kiana and landed on the emerald-haired girl lying on the hospital bed.
Then, Herta's brows furrowed slightly.
In what way are you two the same age?
If one really insisted on getting into the details, Kiana's age was even higher than Herta's own.
Of course, now that Herta considered herself Kiana's adoptive mother, she naturally would not say such thoughts aloud.
Then Herta looked at Mobius.
This Lord Jadebearer from Yuanqiao was currently half-sitting on the hospital bed.
Her face was still somewhat pale, and her lips showed traces of dryness.
But those emerald vertical pupils had already looked straight at Herta the moment she pushed the door open.
That gaze could not be called sharp, nor could it be called gentle.
Herta met those eyes for a moment.
Then, a strange thought suddenly arose in her heart.
For some reason, Herta felt that this girl actually resembled Kiana a little.
But why? One of them had white hair, and the other had green hair. Whether in facial features or temperament, there was no overlap at all.
And yet, Herta just felt that… something about them was the same.
Perhaps it was a shared quality about them?
Several images suddenly flashed through Herta's mind.
Before Kiana arrived at the space station, she had also once experienced a long period of slumber.
And this emerald-haired girl before her—
She had spent a time far exceeding the lifespan of a short-lived species inside the Prison Realm.
Inside that pitch-black, sealed space, she had been alone, enduring both physical torment and mental isolation.
That kind of experience… perhaps, in some sense, truly did share some similarity with Kiana's past slumber.
Thinking this, Herta suddenly felt somewhat unpleasant inside.
Although she had always considered herself a genius who put reason above all else and was not particularly skilled at handling sentimental emotions, when she looked at this girl covered in wounds before her, then thought of all those years she had endured alone in that damned place…
Herta still could not help sighing inwardly.
Too miserable.
As a genius, she had seen many cruel things.
But to be honest, an experience like Mobius's was indeed rare.
The people of her homeland had chosen to sacrifice themselves for the entire galaxy, and in the end, only she had been left behind.
Then, after she had finally been found and brought back to the Xianzhou Alliance, she was sealed inside that damned thing by the Witch of Nihility.
Then, after she had finally been found and brought back to the Xianzhou Alliance, she was sealed inside that damned thing by the Witch of Nihility.
Afterward, Herta walked to the front of the hospital bed.
"You… how are you? Does anywhere on your body still feel uncomfortable?"
However, faced with Herta's sudden question, Mobius frowned.
Right now, she was Mobius, not Kiana.
So why did this woman's gaze still look wrong?
Could Herta really have some kind of fetish for being people's mother?
Forget it. According to Mobius's character setting, she should not know Herta. She had better go through the process first.
Mobius asked, "…Who are you?"
Hearing this, Herta's movements paused slightly.
Then she coughed dryly, and the expression on her face quickly switched from concern to confidence.
"Ahem. My apologies, I forgot to introduce myself."
"My name is Herta. Member #83 of the Genius Society, and also the master of this space station."
"Like Theresa, whom you saw in Aha's livestream, I also belong to the Genius Society."
"To put it simply, I am a genius on the same level as her."
After saying this, Herta seemed fairly satisfied with her own introduction, and the corners of her lips lifted slightly.
However—
Mobius merely tilted her head slightly. Those emerald vertical pupils swept across Herta's face, and then…
She looked away.
What was going on? Wasn't this reaction a bit too bland?
She was a genius.
A title with this much weight would be enough to command awe anywhere in the galaxy.
And even if one ignored her title, after seeing a beautiful girl of her caliber, there should at least be some kind of reaction, right?
But this Lord Jadebearer looked as though… she did not care at all.
The corner of Herta's mouth twitched faintly.
Uh… It did seem that she had been too impatient.
Although because of her experience in the Prison Realm, the other party had already reached over a hundred years old.
Before that, however, she had only been a three-year-old child.
Mobius then asked, "…Where are Jing Yuan and Yaoguang?"
Her voice was somewhat urgent.
"Before I fainted, I think I saw those two generals."
"Are they… here too?"
Herta looked at Mobius's expression and fell silent briefly.
Then, she turned slightly sideways and raised her chin toward the door.
"The two generals you mentioned are outside right now."
"Ever since you came out, they went with me to handle some urgent matters."
"As for why they haven't come in yet… Mm, I think they're probably feeling too ashamed."
She paused, then added, "But now… since you're awake, they should come in too."
As soon as she finished speaking, Herta turned around, walked a few steps toward the door, then raised her hand and lightly knocked on the doorframe.
"Come in."
The door was pushed open almost at the exact same instant her voice fell.
It opened so quickly that one might suspect the person outside had been keeping their hand on the handle the entire time.
The first to enter was Yaoguang.
This General Rongtao, normally known for her steadiness, now clearly walked with hurried steps.
The instant she pushed open the door, her gaze had already locked onto the figure on the hospital bed.
Jing Yuan followed closely behind. Although his steps were steady, a closer look still revealed his anxiety.
Yaoguang walked to the front of the hospital bed and stopped less than half a step away from Mobius.
She lowered her head and looked at the girl before her.
That little one who had once only reached her waist had now grown into a graceful young girl.
Although her hair had been cut shorter, it still fell to her waist, setting off that pale yet beautiful face.
The bandages were still wrapped around her body, and through the gaps in her clothing, one could faintly see pale pink new flesh left behind after her wounds had healed.
Yaoguang's lips moved.
She wanted to say something, but her throat seemed to have been blocked by something.
Then, she hesitated no longer.
Yaoguang stepped forward, bent down, and gently took Mobius into her arms.
The embrace was very light, so light it was as though she feared breaking something fragile.
"…Little Dragon Sovereign, you have suffered."
Yaoguang's voice was very low, so low that only Mobius in her arms could hear it.
Jing Yuan stood behind Yaoguang and watched this scene. That face of his, which always carried a lazy smile, had now completely darkened.
"Little Dragon Sovereign, the Xianzhou Alliance will definitely give you an explanation for what happened this time."
His gaze fell on Mobius's bandaged forehead, then moved toward the still-not-fully-healed wound on her shoulder, before finally settling on her body, which looked especially frail from excessive thinness.
"No matter the cost, the Xianzhou Alliance will make that Witch of Nihility pay this blood debt."
However—
Mobius did not respond.
She neither nodded nor spoke.
Yaoguang's embrace was warm, and Jing Yuan's words were firm.
But Mobius merely looked at them quietly. In those slightly pink-gray vertical pupils, the faces of the two generals were reflected, yet her focus seemed to have fallen somewhere much farther away.
That gaze was far too quiet.
So quiet it made one's heart grow uneasy.
Yaoguang sensed the abnormality in the girl in her arms. She leaned back slightly and lowered her head to look at Mobius's face.
Then, her heart clenched violently.
Mobius's expression was calm.
So calm it could almost be described as blank.
That was not the expression someone who had just crawled out of hell should have.
Yaoguang's breathing hitched slightly, and a guilt and heartache even greater than before surged from the bottom of her heart.
More than a hundred years.
More than a hundred years.
With her whole body pierced by spikes, she had spent more than a hundred years alone in that pitch-black, sealed prison.
No light, no sound, no trace of anything alive.
Only pain, only darkness, only endless loneliness that seemed as though it would never end.
That kind of experience… what would it grind a person's mind into?
Yaoguang did not dare think about it.
She merely tightened her arms even more gently, as though trying to use her own body heat to melt something that had been frozen for far too long.
And Jing Yuan's fist silently clenched beneath the cover of his sleeve.
He looked at Mobius's empty eyes, and it felt as though knives were carving through his heart, one after another.
That child had been brought back to the Xianzhou Alliance when she was only three years old. Before the welcome ceremony could even be completed, that witch had taken her away.
Then, inside that damned Prison Realm, she had lived from three years old to over a hundred.
And all the most precious years of her life had been sealed away in darkness.
This debt…
Jing Yuan took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the surging emotions within him.
Not now.
The most important thing right now was the child before him.
However, while the two generals were each drowning in self-blame and guilt, Mobius moved.
She tilted her head slightly and lifted her face from beside Yaoguang's shoulder.
Then, she smiled.
It was a very light, very faint smile.
"I counted inside the Prison Realm."
"There was nothing to do in there, so all I could do was count the days."
She lowered her head slightly and looked at her open hands.
Those hands had grown a great deal compared to before. Her nails were slender, yet they still carried a bit of girlish immaturity that had not fully faded.
"But because it was completely dark inside, I didn't know when it was daytime or nighttime, so I could only count second by second."
"5,579,542,411 seconds. A total of 177 years."
"Counting up to today… I am already 180 years old."
She raised her head and looked at Yaoguang, then at Jing Yuan.
At last, a faint light appeared in those eyes.
"Today happens to be my birthday."
The hospital room fell silent for an instant.
Even Herta, who stood in the distance, could not help turning her head aside.
But Mobius seemed not to notice their reactions. She merely continued speaking, her tone carrying a faint trace of nostalgia.
"According to Yuanqiao tradition…"
She paused, and the curve of her lips grew slightly wider.
"One hundred and eighty years old means I'm a big girl now."
Join here to read ahead.
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 180)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl 285
"Is this chat group even serious?" 150
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (This matter is completely finished.)
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 255
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 210
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass Volume2/20
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 305
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer (This matter is completely finished.)
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 154
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player Volume4/40
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 130
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 155
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 120
I Can Copy Unique Skills 120
Summoning an Evil God, but the 75
Supernatural Multiverse 155
My Harem Is Indescribable 105
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 110
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 110
Still playing traditional Honk 96
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 95
What Should I Do After Switchi 51
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 80
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 55
Transmigrated as Sukuna 105
Checking In in Demon Slayer 95
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 105
I Refuse to Become a Heroic 95
My Best Friend Into a Slime? 80
A Saiyan Stands Above Marvel (This matter is completely finished.)
What Do You Mean by Using a Lab Mod to Be the Hero? 95
Tanya Starts from Re:Zero 90
Why did they assign me to Uma 80
MYGO Beauties 75
DanMachi: Emiya the Giant Hero 80
The Gacha Merchant Who Started 100
Honkai's Otherworld? Wait—Who Are You People?! 120
Emiya Shirou, Determined to Slay Every Curse and Evil Spirit 65
The Uma Musume Who Became 70
I'm Definitely Not the King of 105
After Maxing Out Every Class 110
Honkai: World Modulation Mode 95
I, the Elden Sword Saint 60
Dio Brando Is Challenging FGO 60
No One Knows Pokémon Better 60
I, Sakazuki, Won't Go Down Tha 69
From Trilobites to Titans 57
Chainsaw Man: Contracted with 75
DanMachi: My Party Members Are 86
An Anime Heroine Darkened 60
Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Links 70
Honkai: The Fire Devil 70
Honkai Transformation Cards Volume2/30
Age of Heroes, I'm Just a Back 60
Uma Musume Has No Weird Fan Le 74
At age 8, she co-starred with 45
Honkai: Schicksal Media 53
An Extremist in a Slice-of-Lif 30
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