Though Love May End, This Regret Never Will

Nora, an undying zombie, and Grace, a pearl merfolk, are partners who write short stories together in America — until an accident sends them both transmigrating to the beastfolk continent ten thousand years in the past. To save Nora, Grace first has her voice destroyed by poisonous smoke, then has all her scales plucked out; the Beast King Leon and the High Priest Elias step in to rescue them, swearing before the Beast God that they will protect them forever. Over the following ten years, to heal Leon's "unhealed old wounds," Nora has her indestructible bone carved out of her body alive year after year, and keeps supplying her own zombie flesh; Grace is tormented by spirit medicine, weeping blood pearls every month. By chance, the two overhear a secret discussion outside the cave — and learn that these ten years of suffering were all a setup by Leon and Elias to please Clara, the "continent's only pureblood female" (who is actually Daisy Miller, their roommate back in America). The two agree to go home when the Beast God sacrifice begins and the seven-colored altar lights up — but Grace dies protecting Nora. Nora feigns obedience, then counterattacks one by one: she drives Leon away, ventures alone onto the sacred mountain, then tricks Elias into opening the altar and calling for help, provoking a bloody battle between Leon and Elias that stains the altar with blood and awakens the Beast God — and the two are hung upside down by the beastfolk and executed with three thousand six hundred cuts. Nora carries Grace's corpse back to reality with the altar; because it was only their souls that transmigrated, both wake up in a hospital. Daisy, who transmigrated body and soul alike, remains in that world forever.