The Last Gentleman
Chapter 534: 532: Refusal

Rat Nest basement, taut with chains and plastered with skin.

Three hours had passed, a stark contrast to dealing with the Open Source Skin Slaves—the "Skin Bag Guests" at the Duke’s Chamber of Commerce,

The apostle skin from the Gatekeeper Pim gave William a completely different sensation,

The black liquid filling the magic box was depleted in less than an hour, yet the apostle skin bag showed only a slight change in color. Now, having injected the liquid four times in a row, William was somewhat weakened.

The apostle skin he constantly stirred in the box showed only a superficial blackening,

"It seems I oversimplified the problem. Changing the nature of the apostle skin is no less difficult than confronting the Skin Bag Apostle head-on. Even if I completely drain myself tonight, I doubt I’ll achieve it.

Perhaps I should proceed with the skin fusion instead, as repairing the yellow skin is the most crucial."

Just as William was about to interrupt this transformation process, a deep voice echoed in his mind:

"Hey! Do you have to exaggerate things like this? The gift from the Gatekeeper is just a part of his skin, not a complete skin suit. The difficulty is not at all less than confronting a Skin Bag Apostle. You really come up with excuses for your incompetence, getting more useless by the day, huh, William."

However, William didn’t show any emotional change due to these words; instead, he went along with them:

"Yeah~ I’m certainly ’useless’ when it comes to orchestrating Death. Why don’t you give it a try, Yi Chen? If you can make Black Death Skin, I will genuinely admire you.

If you can’t, then talk less big talk from now on."

"Ah~ Hahaha! William, have you learned to provoke me with words? You’re getting cuter by the minute... Seeing as you might do something fatally foolish later, let me give you a hand.

To handle skin of a rank above ours, using conventional methods is bound to fail.

Move aside, let me do some serious work for you..."

"Please do."

The communication between thoughts ended.

In reality, William began to tilt his head back, going beyond 90 degrees without any intention of stopping, until his cervical spine broke and reached a full backward angle of 180 degrees.

The moment his eyes opened, a pitch-black death aura spread around like a tide,

Fortunately, multiple layers of sealing had been laid in the basement in advance, otherwise such an aura would be enough to cause Keith and his wife as well as all the rats within a few hundred meters radius to age and die.

The invisible umbilical cord around his neck increased its strength, restricting the intense death from affecting the trunk of the Perfect Birth Body and maintaining the balance between life and death as much as possible.

"Ah... this feels good~ William, you really know how to pick a place, this small, rat-stenched basement really makes me nostalgic~

Nostalgic for the happy life in the dark room of the Orphanage, living with the rats, when starving, we’d have a lottery to select a volunteer for my sustenance.

The entire lottery process was quite amusing; some timid rats would even run away, turning it into a cat-and-mouse game~ but in the end, I was always the victor.

All thanks to them, I could withstand the unbearably boring life of the dark room.

Well, I got carried away remembering the good old days~ let’s get to work.

You see William, your thinking is too limited; why must you stick to using containers provided by others? This Magic Box’s Abyss Feature can dilute and affect the effect of the black liquid.

Isn’t our body the best container?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the makeup of the dead was switched,

Making sure he wouldn’t die, Yi Chen directly pulled out a Knight Order level Black Hand Axe and cut his skull cap in a circle,

Clang~ The smoke-emanating skull cap hit the ground.

But it wasn’t over; Yi Chen continued to wield the axe against his Madness Brain, gouging out a hole in the center of the brain with the axe blade.

Once everything was prepared, he pulled the "Apostle Skin Bag" that had been soaked in the magic box, folded it roughly like a newspaper, and then forcibly stuffed it into the hole he had gouged in his brain.

After completely stuffing it in, he collected the scattered brain tissue from the ground and sealed the hole.

Finally, he put the skull cap back on to complete the seal.

With an exhale of black breath,

Yi Chen’s pupils shrunk to a small black dot as he stretched out his arms.

The whole person assumed a cruciform stance and slowly levitated, as if there was also a "Dead Aura" appearing above his head, and his entire brain warmed up as well.

Streams of pitch-black steam surged from between his scalp, and even the boiling noises from inside the skull could be heard,

High-temperature stewing

Yi Chen’s eyeballs melted directly in the process, with a sticky substance flowing from his ears and nostrils that smelled like cooked brain.

The process was similar to that of a master chef from a coastal city in China making soup, using a double-layered, high-pressure sand pot, and the main ingredient was an aged pig skin.

To stew it until it was soft and mushy required increasing the heat and the internal pressure.

In the evening, the Keith couple, sleeping in their room, felt unusually hot and restless, unable to fall asleep.

Time passed without knowing how long,

When William’s consciousness returned, the entire basement was filled with the smell of pig skin broth, and his own brain was buzzing.

However, the Apostle Skin Bag in front of him, measuring 8×13cm, had completed ’coloring.’ Pitch-black gloss meandered across the entire Skin Bag without a flaw, its surface even emanated steaming heat as though it had just been scooped out of the pot.

"Yi Chen, it was still you,"

However, Yi Chen didn’t respond to William’s praise, as he had already fallen asleep in the aquarium due to extreme exhaustion.

The next step was the last,

As William brought the perfectly transformed Apostle Skin close to his clothes, eager yellow threads immediately wrapped around it, drawing it in.

The clothing, which had been damaged by the tail of an Abyss rat, was quickly repaired, and a pure black, oceanic ripple spread throughout, conforming perfectly to William’s body.

William could even discern some of the Gatekeeper Pim’s experiences, feeling his method of ’toughening the skin’... A perfect sense of skin flowed throughout his body, giving William the confidence to withstand punctures from the Abyss rat’s tail.

However,

As William was immersed in the process of combining the Apostle Skin with his clothing, trying to fasten the first button of his suit,

Pop pop pop~ explosions occurred in numerous parts of his body, and the blood that flowed out was absorbed by the clothing, serving as an early breakfast for the Yellow Skin.

The root cause of the explosions was the excessive strain of wearing the Apostle Skin Bag, which was meant to be managed only by those who have completed the Path.

Nevertheless, William, with his ’Perfect Birth Body,’ forcibly endured the strain and pressure brought by the Skin Bag and continued dressing.

By the time he fastened all three buttons of the suit, his blood had soaked his entire body.

The newly revived Yellow Skin had its fill during this process and fully recovered, expressing gratitude to William through his retinas.

"Phew... That was refreshing~ Now I can officially start investigating Rat City, and if there’s a chance, I might even visit the Tower,"

When William reopened his eyes, ready to visually inspect his new clothing, the sight before him made him freeze in shock.

In front of him was a [Door],

A door that should not have been in the basement suddenly appeared, and such a dirty, cramped space was unworthy of it.

The shape of this door was very similar to the ’Sutured Gate’ of the Skin Factory, made from thick skin sewn with wind-dried blood vessel threads.

"Could this be... a Path related to skin! Is it because I accepted the Apostle Skin’s skin with an Open Source attitude?"

As William gazed at the door, the threads on the skin-like door automatically untangled, and the door itself emitted a squelching sound as it opened on its own,

Eagerly presenting William, the young man, with a deep corridor made entirely of skin, leading to the heart of the Old World, the origin of the illness.

The biological instinct for evolution urged William closer,

And the Yellow Skin inside him was silently promoting this process, as its goal was to take control of the Skin Factory, and it was more convenient for this if William chose a path related to the skin.

Just as William approached the Sutured Gate and was about to step through,

Buzz!

He suddenly withdrew his right leg and slapped his own face... Whack! The hurricane from the slap howled through the basement, agitating the iron chains to violently strike the walls.

William’s head was spun 360°, automatically dressed in Dead Man Makeup.

His index finger wavered in the air, and his head slowly turned back counterclockwise to its original position.

"No... I’ve come this far; I can’t simply compromise! I’m truly sorry, proactive Path of the Skin Bag that has welcomed me, I will cherish the Skin Bag illness, but the path I must take has to be chosen by myself."

William bowed deeply to the Sutured Gate, and when he looked up, the gate had vanished without a trace.

If others had witnessed this scene, the tale of William’s refusal of the Path would have spread throughout the entire Old World... Such an event is exceedingly rare, the Path brings an attraction inherent to biological instincts, and only those with extreme willpower, overcoming their biological essence, can reject the invitation of the Path.