Chapter 301: Ice Cream Transformation (Patreon)

The sound grew closer, accompanied by the heavy roar of an engine. A huge red-and-white striped tent flap was smashed aside!

A retro ice cream truck, wreathed in an eerie purple glow, barged in.

Its headlights were two enormous eyes with long, slender lashes, the pupils crimson Uzumaki spirals. They swept indifferently over the wreckage inside the tent.

A white-haired, uncanny man sat in the driver's seat, a faint smile on his lips, watching the man and the demon on the stage through the windshield.

Inside the deathly silent tent, the frozen air was torn apart by a cold electronic broadcast.

A chill, gloomy atmosphere seeped quietly into the domain Babirus ruled alone.

What had been a single, murderous malice was now two eerie powers tangled together, and the mood in the tent changed completely.

Babirus stopped mid-stride. The ease drained from his face. He slowly turned his head toward the intruding ice cream truck, while his formless malice churned and lay in wait beside him.

"You've overstepped. This is not your territory."

Babirus's voice had lost all its excitement and carried a sharp warning.

On the driver's seat, the handsome white-haired man curled his lips into a smile without a trace of warmth. His pale face was like a flawless doll's, but his eyes were hollow, holding nothing but absolute indifference.

His gaze passed over Amamiya Rin, whose body was wrecked and who was hanging on by will alone. Finally it settled on the audience seats, and his smile deepened slightly.

"I meant no offense."

The man's voice was like the truck's broadcast: cold, flat, utterly without inflection, giving away not a trace of emotion.

"It's just that something of mine has fallen into your domain."

The instant the words fell, an eerie cold surged through the tent.

"What's happening?"

Behind them, Kawakami Tomie's face suddenly changed.

Her body was undergoing a transformation at terrifying speed.

Her smooth, fair skin lost its human warmth before their eyes, layer by layer turning into the cool, soft, milky white texture of ice cream.

Translucent, cold, and lifeless.

A fine, sickly sweet liquid slowly bled from the surface of her skin and ran down along her contours. The tips of her jet-black hair frosted over with a creamy white rime. Her whole body was melting bit by bit, slowly and irreversibly.

"Hey, hey, hey?! What the hell!"

Seeing Kawakami Tomie like this, Azawa Tomie jumped in fright and hurriedly threw away the ice cream she hadn't finished eating.

Watching this, Babirus's expression grew even colder.

Something of his? That was nothing but the clumsiest, most perfunctory excuse.

From start to finish, the other party's goal had been to use this trivial thread of connection to force his own rule-based power into Babirus's domain.

The two demonic powers clashed, and the law of death on the stage fell into disorder.

Babirus could still kill Amamiya Rin. But, eroded by another domain, he could no longer be sure of harvesting that dazzling soul in time.

The soul he had coveted for so long would fall straight into the Underworld, like any other mortal's.

True, that fellow would gain nothing from it either. But he didn't care. As long as Babirus gained nothing, he'd be happy for several hundred years.

"What the hell? My body… why is it like this? Damn it! I can't recover! What are you dawdling for? Life force, or whatever else, just help me, quickly!"

On the other side, Kawakami Tomie had gone frantic. She stared down at her hands. Those once pale, slender hands now shone with a sickly sweet milky luster, and the fingertips had begun to soften, dripping downward like ice cream under a blazing sun.

She tried to move her fingers, only to find every joint stiff as if frozen, sluggish and utterly numb.

"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! What are you waiting for?! Save me, quickly!!"

Kawakami Tomie's voice was filled with panic, and she screamed in a frenzy.

(Serves you right. Who told you to tag along?)

(Turning into ice cream? Hahaha, that's actually a fitting way for you to die. Sweet and lovely.)

(Forget her. It's not like she'll really die.)

(Let her melt. It'll stop her from clinging to Rin.)

(One less knockoff, and the world gets a little more peaceful.)

(But come to think of it, the state she's in… don't you think something's off?)

(What's off about it? She's just melting. It's not like we've never died before.)

…

The mocking thoughts rose and fell across the [Tomie Network], like a pack of sharks that had caught the scent of blood, surging up to tear at her.

Sharp, spiteful, gleeful, gloating. Every thought wished it could stomp on the melting woman a few more times.

But soon the mocking voices gradually faded.

In their place came confusion, unease, wariness, and fear.

(…Wait.)

(What's going on?)

(She can't regenerate.)

(What do you mean?)

(Exactly what I said. Her flesh is changing, not being damaged.)

…

Wary voices began to spread through the Network, like a cold snake sliding along every spine.

They could sense that Kawakami Tomie's body was undergoing some irreversible change. Her self-healing immortal body had lost its effect and could not resist it.

For a moment, a violent palpitation gripped their hearts. Instinctive unease and the will to survive forced them to act at once.

(Enough.)

Swordmaster Tomie's thought coldly cut off all the noise, clean and decisive, like a blade cutting through tangled hemp.

The next moment, a warm, overwhelming surge of life force poured into Kawakami Tomie's body along an invisible line of nerves, washing through every inch of her flesh like a burst flood.

It was life force stored in the Soul Reviver's Sword, enough to regrow severed limbs and raise the dead, the closest thing in this world to a panacea.

To the Tomies, it was no different from a toy, since every Tomie had an immortal body down to the cellular level.

But today, this sword had to be used on a Tomie.

Yet it was meaningless.

The vast life force surged, circulated, and mended inside Kawakami Tomie's body, but the melting skin showed no reaction at all.

Milky white liquid still seeped from the surface of her skin and trickled down between her fingers.

The life force was like water poured into a leaking vessel. No matter how much was poured in, it could not fill the widening hole.

(It's useless.)

Swordmaster Tomie's voice rang out in the [Tomie Network], betraying an unease she hadn't even noticed herself.

(Life force doesn't work on her. This isn't an injury. It's a change, a change in the very essence of her life.)

Almost at the same moment, Flesh-Mod Tomie's breathing cut into the Network.

Deep, slow, with a strange rhythm. It was the rhythm of the Hamon Qigong she had created herself.

She was trying to match her breathing to Kawakami Tomie's, using the life force within her, vast as an ocean, to wash over, cover, and guide Kawakami Tomie's body.

The breathing grew heavier and faster, like an enraged beast panting in the dark.

Then it stopped abruptly.

(…It's no good.)

Flesh-Mod Tomie's voice was extremely heavy, and then there was no more sound from her.

There was no solution. A seemingly ordinary ice cream had left them with no way out.