Chapter 8: The Mysterious Necklace

Sophie raised her head and felt deep surprise when she heard the offer made by her father. Never in her wildest dreams did she think that her fiercely overprotective dad would let her join the tournament.

“Thanks dad! I’ll leave the campus by tomorrow,” she replied eagerly.

The call between the two lasted for a couple more minutes before the duke excused himself to handle some territory disputes that arose among the residents.

He told her to go to the campus gates at around midday where there would be an escort to pick her up.

Sophie leaned her head against the pillow and felt a wave of exhaustion sweep through her. This was one of the longest days of her life.

Suddenly transferring across the boundary of space and time into the body of this girl was still almost like a dream to Sui Meng.

The two reasons she suspected that she was not crazy was the fact that her five senses seemed to be working normally and the strange memories in her head left behind by the original host.

Letting out a small sigh, Sophie rolled around the bed while enjoying the soft fluffy feelings of the mattress beneath her.

The internal injuries were long gone and the cells in her body seemed energized thanks to the gene serum.

The healing effect was so great that Sophie was tempted to experiment with its power. She rummaged around the drawers along her bedside and found a small energy knife.

The knife was only seven inches tall with the hilt being adorned with patterns of wolves and a small white button in the middle.

This was a knife given to Sophie by her father as a hidden weapon in case of an emergency. Sophie pressed the button and with a small hum, a yellow blade popped out from the hilt.

The blade seemed almost like a projection rather than a weapon and its form shifted subtly from side to side. Sophie was very cautious when handling the blade as her instincts gave a cry of warning when she picked up the weapon.

She held the weapon face up in her hand and gently pricked her thumb with the end of the blade.

A cut instantly formed and small drop of blood dripped down her palm like a scarlet teardrop.

Sophie deactivated the blade and glanced at her finger…

Sure enough, the residual effect of the serum was still in her system as the bleeding stopped within two minutes.

There was an itchy sensation in her thumb and Sophie wiped away the blood to find the skin had patched over the wound leaving nothing but a faint white line.

“Hahaha!” a small peal of laughter burst out of Sophie’s lips as she became fascinated by this strange biotech.

She unconsciously touched her bloody hand on her necklace which started to faintly glow, Sophie did not notice this at first until she felt a warm sensation on her chest.

The feeling went from mild to uncomfortable and Sophie could not help but look down.

Her necklace was now emitting a reddish orange glow and the temperature around it was increasing rapidly.

Sophie frowned slightly and tried to remove the necklace from her body, this proved to be a futile attempt as the necklace appeared to be stuck no matter how much strength she used.

Sophie scanned her memories to try and find an explanation for this phenomenon but there were no similar events in the past.

The original host had the star shaped necklace as long as she could remember and would never take it off even to bathe or sleep.

Her father had forbidden her from removing the necklace and said that it was a memento from her late mother.

Naturally Sophie listened to his words carefully as her mother had always been a mysterious figure in her mind that her father would never talk about despite Sophie’s many questions.

Through the information she overheard from the castle maids, she determined no one except her father knew what happened to her.

Snap!

Sophie jerked backwards in alarm as a sudden pain spread through her whole body. She collapsed onto the bed and found that she had lost the ability to move.

Fear and panic began to set in, and Sophie struggled desperately to reach her tablet to contact her father but it was already too late…

“Ahh!! It hurts! It hurts!” Sophie screamed loudly.

The necklace had now reached a boiling hot temperature and her chest began to bubble when exposed to the heat. The blood in her veins started to circulate faster and faster along side her bones feeling as though they were getting crushed.

Her vision became to blur, and Sophie could sense her consciousness was beginning to fade into nothingness.

She tried once more to reach out to the tablet but her trembling fingertips could only lightly touch the screen before it all turned to black.

If someone had entered the room, they would have been shocked in horror at the sight before their eyes.

A normal looking girl was laying down on a bed, but her figure began to warp and shift dramatically.

The girl’s hair began to lengthen and wrap around her legs while swaying gently from side to side.

Her fingers started to elongate and resembled claws rather than human fingertips. Even though the girl’s eyes were partially closed, there was a golden glint of light that shone through with an eerie glow.

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of the transformation were the four appendages that suddenly appeared.

Two were located on the shoulder blades while the remaining appendages were found by the girl’s hips.

These new limbs resembled spider legs with sharp pincers protruding at the end of the appendages.

Sophie was blissfully unaware of these changes as she opened her eyes to find herself in a blank empty space.

There was nothing in the area except for a single stone monument in the middle of the room, strange markings were present on the structure that Sophie could not make heads or tails of.

It was not a language that Sui Meng or the original host had ever seen before.

She spotted three words at the end of the long scripture written in universal tongue and read the words carefully.

‘Spider Whisper Art’