The Female Lead Saves the World - Chapter 423

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Yeo Joo Saves the World
Part 3, Episode 27

In that moment, I understood.
I had become Bio-Mother’s target.
In that vertiginous instant when “escape”—that most unrealistic of options—felt like my only emergency exit, someone’s back suddenly shielded me, blocking the path forward.
“Where the hell are you looking, you bastard?”
“Pay it no mind, Yeo Joo. I will not allow it to pass through here.”
Ryu Sang Eun, abandoning his usual playful manner of speech, spat out words with menace, while Bang Wi Jin stood resolute, his expression grave.
They say that if you obscure an animal’s vision, you can calm it.
The moment Bio-Mother’s horrifying gaze vanished from my sight, my mind cleared.
‘Escape? Nonsense.’
Escape was impossible from the start.
My only choice was to reduce that creature to ash and obliterate this Dungeon.
“Ugh….”
“Han Ji Sung, drink this and get yourself together.”
As I steeled my resolve, I pressed a health potion into Han Ji Sung’s hands and rose to my feet.
As if in response, Bio-Mother began to move.
Writhe, writhe.
The creature that had been hunched within the massive test tube, cramped by its confines, twisted its grotesquely warped face upward and wrenched its maw wide open.
I recoiled at the sight of those teeth—jagged and bristling like thorns, crammed densely into that gaping mouth—but what I witnessed next made me doubt my own eyes.
It was drinking the black liquid that filled the test tube, gulping it down greedily.
“Insane.”
Each time its spider-like body convulsed violently, I could see the black liquid inside the test tube draining visibly.
In mere moments, Bio-Mother had emptied the entire vessel.
Its mouth closed again, and in those eyes where the whites were barely visible, I detected a strange, gleaming satisfaction.
It was clear the creature had fed itself in preparation for battle.
I braced myself for an explosion, expecting the test tube to burst, but there was no need.
Slurp.
The surface of what I had thought was glass melted away like water and vanished.
Tap-tap-tap.
The sound of Bio-Mother’s spider-like legs, bent at grotesque angles, striking the floor echoed through the silent Dome.
‘It’s massive.’
Now fully revealed, the creature was larger than I had anticipated, its form deceptively simple.
Six legs supporting a rounded body resembled an insect, while the upper torso and long arms sprouted above were distinctly humanoid and female in shape.
Beneath skin as pallid as a corpse and tinged with an sickly blue hue, veins spread like a spider’s web, visible and pulsing.
And as if the Bio-Mother’s mouth had never gaped open like a hungry ghost, it closed again in perfect condition.
[ “Self-destruct protocol paused.” ]
A mechanical announcement echoed in sync with the movement of her crimson lips.
The guidance voice that had been playing continuously since we entered the Dome—it had been her voice all along.
‘If that’s the case, then the prolonged, sluggish battles where she sent out Chimeras were also decisions made by the Bio-Mother.’
It wasn’t simply a matter of toying with us or acting on a whim.
‘At least the countdown has stopped.’
When I checked the clock that now stood motionless, the time that had been flowing so mercilessly became meaningless.
[ “Promising composite sample detected.” ]
[ “Adjusting primary objective to sample acquisition.” ]
[ “Origin – 001. Switching to combat mode.” ]
Sample? Combat mode?
The questions forming in my mind were answered as the Bio-Mother suddenly kicked off the ground and launched herself skyward.
She shot up to a dizzying height in the blink of an eye, clinging to the ceiling of the Dome.
“Bang Wi Jin!”
Sa Ma Young called out his subordinate’s name, and in the moment a barrier was erected in another layer.
Crash! Crackle—!
Two black tentacles extending from behind the Bio-Mother’s back collided with the barrier wall.
“Ugh!”
Beyond Bang Wi Jin’s shoulders as he hunched down to absorb the impact, more tentacles were being fired directly at me.
Four of them, thicker than the ones before.
Bang Wi Jin’s barrier, already wavering, would not be able to stop them.
Reaching the same conclusion, Ryu Sang Eun moved to evacuate me outside the barrier.
But Ryu Sang Eun’s footsteps, as he held me and ran at a speed I could barely comprehend, suddenly stopped.
The black tentacles had vanished before reaching the barrier wall.
Slash!
It was Kang Han and Sa Ma Young who severed the tentacles in one strike.
“Bang Wi Jin! Get your head in the game!”
“I-I apologize, my lord!”
Faced with Sa Ma Young’s sharp fury, Bang Wi Jin quickly downed both a mana potion and a health potion.
“Battle formation!”
At Kang Han’s command, the scattered Hunters formed ranks with perfect unity.
Front and rear attack squads divided, and the defensive unit tasked with protecting me took positions both inside and outside the barrier.
Those remaining inside the barrier were Ryu Sang Eun and Bang Wi Jin, as before, while Oh Young In stepped forward outside.
While we shifted into combat readiness, the monster remained fixed to the Dome’s ceiling.
It didn’t dwell on the attack that had already failed.
It simply watched the Hunters with eyes gleaming in an eerie manner.
It was a persistent gaze, as if gathering data about us.
Sure enough, her voice echoed through the Dome’s interior.
[ “Data collection complete.” ]
[ “Combat power increase required.” ]
[ “Emergency synthesis protocol initiated.” ]
Splurch!
With a sound like rope unraveling, new tentacles burst from the back of the Bio-Mother suspended upside down from the ceiling.
But the target wasn’t me.
Crash! Bang! Bang!
Multiple black tentacles extended in all directions, piercing the sides of the test tubes and sucking up the black liquid inside like through a straw.
Seriously, pace yourself a little.
Suppressing the physiological revulsion that rose at the sight of the Bio-Mother’s undulating form, I shouted loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Don’t touch it right now! Stay as far away from the test tube liquid as possible!”
“Ah….”
I could see Lee Yu Chan, who had been aiming an arrow at the Bio-Mother in what appeared to be an unguarded state, frown at my words and reluctantly lower his bow.
He stopped because I told him to, but his expression clearly questioned why we were giving the creature time.
Under normal circumstances, I would have been the first to order Lee Yu Chan to attack.
I’d always been a consumer who cursed at villains in any content for stupidly waiting while the protagonist transformed.
But this time, we had to wait.

[ ! Warning !
Synthesis induction liquid leakage!
The surrounding darkness concentration increases further! ]

The synthesis induction liquid, which elevated darkness concentration merely by being contained in the test tube, had triggered yet another warning window.
Just a tiny amount that the tentacles couldn’t fully absorb was trickling out, raising the darkness concentration, and if we carelessly disturbed the creature drinking it like cold coffee—
‘The Justice Guild members could all go berserk at once.’
No purification skill, no matter how powerful, could handle that situation.
Either a few hunters I couldn’t save in time would die, or I would die from exhaustion.
Of course, I couldn’t just sit here fuming about having to wait for the transformation to finish.
“Ryu Sang Eun, please deliver this to Kang Han and Sa Ma Young.”
As Ryu Sang Eun rushed toward the two men with the purification potion, the other guild members seemed to have grasped the correlation between the black liquid and darkness addiction rate.
Lee Yu Eul, who belonged to the front-line attack unit, cupped her hands like a small trumpet and asked me a question.
“Yeo Joo! We just need to avoid contact with the black liquid, right?”
“Try not to get close to it at all if you can!”
“Y-yes, I’ll do my best!”
“The same goes for everyone else! Since I might miss something, if you see any signs of berserk during combat, come to me immediately!”
The moment my instructions to the guild members ended, a horrific noise began emanating from the Bio-Mother’s body.
Crack, snap!
Crunch crunch!
If you broke hundreds of bones all at once and then mended them, tore muscles and reattached them, would it sound like this?
I furrowed my brow but didn’t take my eyes off the creature.
The other hunters did the same.
We waited, each of us prepared with our own means of attack.
And the moment that creature’s transformation ended.
Whoosh!
Lee Yu Chan fired an arrow as massive as Kang Han’s silent spear.
Sung Yo Na, who had coordinated with us countless times before, compressed the space around it to amplify its speed.
But Bio-Mother gracefully descended toward the ground, evading the assault.
Crash!
The arrow that failed to strike Mother shattered the ceiling, and its rank was updated.

[ Bio-Mother ( SS ) ]

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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