The Mother Demon Appears!

Zhao Manyan's expression darkened. If not for Lingling's accidentally-useful detection device, who would ever have guessed that these female volunteers were wearing an entirely different skin beneath their own?

"Leave this to me." He surveyed their surroundings and noticed more and more girls in volunteer uniforms drifting toward them, drawn as if by some unconscious pull.

Something was deeply off about this group. If two outsiders had simply stumbled into the wrong corridor, there was no reason for all of them to mobilize at once like this.

Ahead and behind, doors were swinging open along the corridor — heads peeked out — and even among those who looked like stagehands preparing for the next major act, eyes kept sliding in their direction.

"Watch yourself." Mo Fan said it once to Zhao Manyan, and then his body began to sink in a strange, fluid motion — slipping down into the shadow pooled at his feet.

Zhao Manyan nodded, his gaze sharp and watchful as more and more "people" closed in around him.

When he turned slightly to check how Mo Fan intended to slip past the crowd of minor demons, he was stunned to find that Mo Fan had already vanished.

Lights crisscrossed through the corridor, but one of the fixtures had blown out, leaving a stretch of dim shadow. In that darkened patch, a silhouette flickered past in an instant — and then Mo Fan was gone without a trace.

"Shadow skill Enchanted Gear?" Zhao Manyan murmured to himself.

Zhao Manyan was a Light Element Mage. With Radiant Blessing: Holy Shield — an extraordinarily powerful Intermediate-Level defensive spell — at his disposal, death was hardly going to come for him easily.

Mo Fan didn't look back to check on Zhao Manyan's fight. A Noble Clan scion like him couldn't possibly have shown everything he had.

What Mo Fan needed to do right now was kill the Scale-Skin Mother Demon as quickly as possible. Once all the red dots scattered across the stadium converged on the central arena, things would spiral beyond control.

"Mo Fan, faster!" Lingling's voice was growing more urgent by the second.

"I've reached the lift platform entrance you mentioned. There are a few people here — one girl in a particularly eye-catching outfit, must be the star of tonight's stadium rehearsal. She's got people doing her makeup, fixing her clothes, a manager..." Mo Fan relayed what he saw to Lingling.

He stood at the corner, watching the entrance to the lift platform.

There were roughly seven or eight people at the entrance, with a few staff members bustling back and forth.

"Please, you have to be careful," the female manager said with a worried expression. "If anything goes wrong with this lift, I won't know what to tell the boss."

"It'll be fine," said the girl surrounded by attendants, flashing a sweet smile.

Mo Fan took a deliberate look and confirmed that the girl matched the idol from the large poster at the entrance exactly — the kind of smile that made you feel utterly at ease.

"Alright, alright. Ms. Technician, please keep things steady — don't let our Cucu take a tumble."

"Don't worry, the equipment is perfectly fine. Come on in, young lady — your performance is about to start!"

"'Young lady'? She's a major celebrity!" the manager said, indignant.

"Yes, yes, of course. A major celebrity."

Mo Fan continued watching in silence, listening for Lingling's instructions at the same time.

When the moment was right, he activated Shadow Fade once more and glided silently into position behind the group — not a soul the wiser.

"Alright, we're sealing up." The technician pressed the button, slowly closing the entrance door.

The lift was essentially a large suspended elevator, designed to look like a miniature aerial stage. When the performer descended from this floating stage, every spotlight in the stadium would converge on a single point — the effect would be breathtaking.

"Cucu!"

"Cucu!"

Down in the main arena, the audience — already riding high on the energy of the music — had broken into a chant of her name.

This idol had long since captured hearts far and wide: sweet and adorable with just the right touch of allure, her voice melodious and hauntingly ethereal. Whether she was singing or dancing, it was easy to lose yourself in her world.

In the central arena, her name was on every tongue.

Cucu stood at the very center of the lift stage with her eyes closed, quietly taking in the sound of the crowd.

This was only a rehearsal, and already so many fans from the academy had turned out for her. Plenty of second- and third-tier celebrities couldn't draw a crowd this size for a full-scale concert.

She felt a quiet warmth in her chest. Silently, she told herself to give a perfect performance — even if this was only a rehearsal.

"Ready whenever you are," she said, opening her eyes and looking earnestly at the technician controlling the aerial stage. "You can lower it now."

"No need to be nervous," the technician said with a cheerful smile.

"I'm not nervous. I feel great."

"Oh, that's not what I meant." The technician — who had seemed perfectly pleasant until now — let a strange smile creep across her face. "I just meant you don't need to worry about anything. Because today, I'm the one who's the star here."

That smile made Cucu's skin crawl. The woman's mouth seemed to stretch impossibly wide, revealing a jaw full of needle-sharp teeth stained with dried brown blood.

The technician's hands were changing. They elongated like rubber, fingers extending far beyond their natural reach.

It wasn't just the bones that stretched — her nails grew long and darkened to a sickly green, each one sharp as a whittled dagger, with fine barbed hooks lining their edges.

Skin peeled from her body in patches. The face of what had been an ordinary woman in her thirties dissolved as dark greenish-black scales emerged beneath — slick with some viscous fluid, revolting to look at.

**RIIIP!**

Her clothing shredded like paper under those razor claws, and what was exposed beneath was no woman's body — but a form encased entirely in scales.

A long tongue shot out, stretching all the way to the girl's face.

That crimson tongue writhed and lashed mere inches from her nose. Cucu stood completely frozen, rooted to the spot.

For her, there was nothing in the world more terrifying than watching a perfectly normal person shed their skin and become a scaled monster. Her mind had gone blank. Her legs had turned to water. She could barely keep herself upright.

"My children will finally get a proper feast today — and your little concert is the one to thank for that..." The scaled creature could speak in human tongue, but its voice sounded like something jammed inside its throat — a raw, grating rasp.

**SKREEEE—!**

**SKREEEE—!**

Without warning, the Scale-Skin Mother Demon threw its head back and let out a shrieking cry that tore through the entire central arena.

It was the cry of a mother calling her monstrous children awake.

The sound needed no amplification — it filled every corner of the arena and kept echoing, on and on without end.

With great effort, Cucu managed to tilt her head and look down. The dense crowd below had erupted into chaos.

They were seeing something just as horrifying as she was, and began scattering in every direction.

But as they stumbled backward, the same nightmare unfolded beside them — patches of skin dropping to the floor, one scaled monster after another emerging from the crowd around them.

"AAAH—!"

"AAAAAAH—!"

In an instant, screams filled every corner of the central arena as terror spread unchecked through the crowd.