Chapter 193 - 181: The Mutated Serpent Woman

The woman squeezed her eyes shut, fearfully covering her face with her hands.

But the backs of her hands and arms, now exposed, faintly shimmered with green scales. An azure light pulsed beneath her skin, both beautiful and bizarre.

"Don’t look at me! I... I’m not a monster!"

Frightened, Annelise Locke suddenly shrank into a corner, her hands emerging from her cloth wrappings to hug her knees as she shivered uncontrollably.

She instinctively sensed a comforting energy emanating from Flora Bloom, yet she was afraid to get too close to the strange woman.

The deep blue Water Energy radiating from Flora Bloom was like a calming potion; proximity to it made her entire body relax.

Flora Bloom raised her hand, slowly reaching out until she touched the top of the woman’s head.

The deep blue energy rippled outward, enveloping Annelise Locke the moment it made contact.

Annelise Locke, who had been tense just moments before, gradually began to relax as the deep blue energy surrounded her.

She slowly looked up at Flora Bloom and pushed aside the cloth covering her face, revealing an otherwise ordinary face. The only difference was the scattering of azure scales covering the skin on her cheeks, chin, and brow bone.

"What’s happened to you?"

Annelise Locke was taken aback by Flora Bloom’s lack of surprise. She loved the energy coming from Flora Bloom; it calmed her and lessened the pain of her mutation.

"I... I’m human," Annelise Locke said, her voice still trembling. But after everything that had happened since the apocalypse began, she truly doubted whether she could still be considered one.

The sound of footsteps, TAP TAP TAP, drifted down from the second floor.

Jade led Caleb and Lisa downstairs. When they saw Flora Bloom with the strange, scale-faced woman, they all froze in shock.

Seeing the three approach, Annelise Locke scrambled behind Flora Bloom in fear.

Flora Bloom turned and patted her on the shoulder. "Don’t be afraid. None of us will hurt you."

Annelise Locke’s unusual eyes suddenly narrowed into slits. She opened her mouth, her tongue coiling as she let out a breath that sounded like a snake’s HISS.

"This is my mother and my brother, and this is Lisa. Don’t be afraid."

Just then, Flora Bloom felt Caleb once again emit that black energy magnetic field from his Spiritual Ability. The energy rippled through the air, gently touching the Serpent Woman before her.

Strangely, upon coming into contact with Caleb’s magnetic field, the Serpent Woman seemed to relax completely. Her eyes slowly returned to their normal human appearance, and even the scales on her skin gradually faded away.

Flora Bloom soothed the strange woman, then said to Jade, "Mom, don’t worry about things here. Take Lisa and go play for a bit. Caleb, you stay."

Caleb nodded and quietly walked over to Flora Bloom, crouching beside the Serpent Woman to study her with curiosity. The Serpent Woman, in turn, seemed less afraid of Caleb, her eyes now crystal clear as she looked back at him.

"This is my brother, Caleb. What’s your name? May I ask what happened to you? I feel like there’s something not quite right with your Beast Ability."

Flora Bloom handed the Serpent Woman a bottle of water. Seeing her gulp it down and look as if she wanted more, Flora Bloom poured her a glass.

Although her family mostly drank her Space Spirit Water, she had taken out a large dispenser jug of water—previously scavenged from a supermarket—and placed it in the kitchen. This served both as regular drinking water for her family and as a cover for her spiritual water.

"My name is Annelise Locke. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I suddenly became like this after the apocalypse started. At first, it was just intense pain all over my body, but then I started growing snake scales." As she spoke, Annelise Locke took several more large gulps of water. With each swallow, faint azure scales flickered in and out of sight on her neck.

Flora Bloom asked, "Did anything strange happen to you before the apocalypse? For instance, were you bitten by a snake? Or did your family keep snakes or anything like that?"

Annelise Locke’s eyes darted nervously. After a moment of hesitation, she looked up and met Flora Bloom’s gaze.

"My brother and I... we were snake handlers in the conservation area of the Morhaven Zoo."

"Are you saying your brother is the same as you?"

Annelise Locke nodded, tears suddenly welling in her eyes. "My brother suffers every day... for my sake. I don’t know why, but ever since this started, it’s excruciatingly painful whenever new scales grow. And we have to ingest snake venom to lessen the pain."

Flora Bloom finally understood. "So your mission’s objective is live, venomous snakes? But why Sea Serpents?"

"Because... because land snakes don’t have any effect on me anymore. So... I wanted to see if Sea Serpents would work."

A black magnetic field suddenly pulsed around Caleb. He looked at Annelise Locke and said, "Sister Flora, she’s lying!"

Caleb’s words made Annelise Locke flinch. She stared at him in disbelief. "I... I’m not."

Flora recalled how Caleb had sensed Sherman Lynch’s call for help back in Azuregard City. He was, after all, a Spiritual Ability user. Although his power had so far only manifested as controlling living creatures, it seemed there was more to it.

Flora Bloom looked at Caleb. "Caleb, tell me, how is she lying?"

"She said she needs venomous Sea Serpents, but they’re not for her!"

’How does this child know? Does he know about my brother, too?’

"Sister Flora, she..."

Seeing the change in Annelise Locke’s expression, Flora Bloom knew Caleb was right. She cut him off. "Caleb, I’m busy right now. Go check if Dabai is awake yet. We’ll figure out how to wake him up faster later."

The obedient boy nodded and went to his bedroom on the second floor.

Dabai had been asleep for two days and still hadn’t woken, just like Xiaobai in Flora Bloom’s space. This morning, however, energy had begun to fluctuate around Dabai’s body, something Caleb could feel through his mental link with the creature.

The little white tiger in Flora Bloom’s space, however, showed no signs of stirring.

After Caleb left, Annelise Locke pursed her lips and looked at Flora Bloom. "Miss Bloom, does it matter whether I lied? The important thing is that I need live, venomous Sea Serpents, and you want my reward, don’t you!"

Although Annelise tried to appear calm as she negotiated with Flora Bloom, a deep-seated uncertainty made her want to back down.

Flora Bloom smiled. "I am indeed very interested in your reward. However, if your target was so easy to obtain, I doubt you would have risked disguising yourself just to post the mission, would you?"

Flora Bloom’s gaze settled on the cloths wrapped around Annelise Locke. Her calm and composed demeanor made Annelise’s heart sink.

She didn’t know why she felt such an affinity for the energy radiating from Flora Bloom. Just being near her was so comforting. The pain in her skin had already subsided.

"Don’t tell me you’re unaware of the situation in the ocean right now. If someone with bad intentions discovered what you look like, you’d be driven out as a monster at best. At worst, you’d be captured and killed as a mutated creature. You must have been desperate to risk going to the mission hall. If what you need from the ocean was so easy to get, you wouldn’t have posted a mission in the first place."

Annelise Locke bit her lip, her eyes fixed on Flora Bloom, before slumping to the floor in defeat.

"I... I..."

"And I can guarantee you this: in all of Morhaven Base, no one but me, Flora Bloom, can get you venomous Sea Serpents."

Listening to Flora Bloom’s words, Annelise Locke’s resolve began to waver.

"So, for a mission this dangerous, it’s not unreasonable for me to investigate the client’s background and verify the reward, is it?"