Free Web NovelChapter 845: Devil (3)
BANG!
It embedded deep into the wooden wall, quivering like a scolded subordinate.
"..." Victoria’s mouth opened wide, stunned.
It was exactly as she had witnessed in the mist, no attack could truly touch the girl.
They simply... bent away.
"Don’t look so surprised," Eleanor said with a dry, weary smile. "Very few beings in this world possess the will to inflict a lethal wound upon them. He called it ’the universe refusing to pick a beef for no reason.’" She shook her head, still baffled by Wang Xiao’s crude humor.
What in the nine hells did that even mean?
Was the universe itself scared to provoke him?
In truth, Wang Xiao had meant precisely that, he simply lacked the elegant words to explain it without shattering their fragile minds.
The fundamental forces of existence bowed before a superior power and would not harm what belonged to it.
All his daughters born after Yanyan, Wenxi, and Yue carried this protection naturally, for he had already stepped into the Transcendent realm by then.
The earlier three he had personally enchanted later.
"Come with me," Eleanor rose gracefully, though a headache throbbed at her temples like distant war drums. "Let us check on the wounded first. Only then can we decide how to deal with this... Devil."
These so-called Devils were no invading outsiders.
They were once ordinary residents of Xianthera, poor souls who had lost control of their primal psychokinesis.
Their thoughts leaked like ruptured dams, manifesting as monstrous nightmares on a catastrophic scale.
The power was inherently unstable from birth, breeding failure and madness far more readily than in realms blessed with proper restraint like those with aether.
Such tragedies struck those with fractured minds or souls scarred by overwhelming trauma.
This was why Eleanor maintained her iron grip on every soul in the realm, erasing dangerous memories when necessary, enforcing stability through any means.
She called them Karmic Demons: walking disasters born of their own collective sins.
Ordinary folk like Victoria could not slay them.
Not truly.
It was a cruel irony of the heavens: they could not kill the demon, yet the demon could butcher them without restraint.
And with every life it claimed, the creature’s already twisted mind spiraled deeper into madness, fattening on bloodshed like a glutton at a corpse-feast.
Their ancestors had woven a cruel safeguard into their bloodline when their numbers were perilously low: the people of Xianthera were mentally incapable of killing one another.
Any intent to do so triggered violent, skull-splitting agony, a divine shackle against self-annihilation.
Attempting to kill a Karmic Demon invited the same trauma, twisting the killer into the next devil.
The only end was a willing sacrifice, as had happened three centuries ago: a man who slew one, then hurled himself into a pit of flames before his own thoughts could spiral into demonic corruption.
A Karmic Demon’s emergence was never mere news.
It was an omen of catastrophe. freёweɓnovel.com
Fwoosh!
The three silhouettes glided across the snow-swept expanse, their feet hovering mere centimeters above the pristine white drifts like ghosts disdainfully refusing the earth’s embrace.
Victoria’s grand castle stood in the distance, its spires clawing at the leaden sky.
Flying outright was possible here, yet they shunned it, another hard-won lesson in restraint.
Unlike realms bloated with Aether, where power could be squandered like cheap wine with no consequence, every exertion of psychokinesis here exacted a toll: stressed minds leaked thoughts like open wounds, increasing the black mist and birthing ever more horrors from the collective unconscious.
It was a savage safety mechanism, one Wang Xiao had observed and refined into brutal battlefield efficiency during his time among them.
Looking back, Eleanor’s grand experiment could be deemed a partial success.
Years ago, she had sought a successor not bound by the old cycles of Xianthera’s control mechanism, a fresh mind from beyond their fractured realm to shatter the monotony of eternity.
An outsider untainted by their bloodline’s curses.
Yet none outside possessed the raw capacity for psychokinesis.
Wang Xiao’s fusion with Yin Yue as a hell spirit had mutated both body and soul, forging a mind resilient enough to wield their psychokinesis will without melting from within.
He had landed in Xianthera like a comet from the void.
Eleanor believed she had found her perfect vessel for transition, she had even drawn back the veil, revealing to him the unrestrained underbelly of Xianthera, its ruthless mind control, the casual erasure of inconvenient memories, and the cold machinery of her eternal control.
Yet... Fate... That mocking whore of the heavens, had other designs.
It is the eternal irony of existence: one may align every star, weave every variable with the precision of the Fates themselves, and still fail.
Not through grand tragedy, but the quiet chasm between ’influence’ and ’power’.
Eleanor craved influence, a subtle current guiding the realm’s destiny like a hidden river. She possessed it in abundance, yet her strategies crumbled the moment Wang Xiao surpassed her.
By achieving true power, no web of manipulation could bind him without his consent.
While in Xianthera, he had bided his time like an ancient dragon coiled in shadow. fгeewebnovёl.com
When the realm sought to trap him, he slipped free, not through desperate struggle, but calculated retreat.
Eleanor thought her drugged exile a victory; in truth, he had awaited that very moment, concealing his growing might until he could seize the final threads of Xianthera and the worlds beyond.
One day, when enough strength filled his veins, he would dictate his own fate.
And that is precisely what he did.
Years ago, the moment he emerged from the Graveyard of Gods, his next destination was Xianthera, returned like a storm long overdue, ready to reclaim the threads of fate he had once allowed to slip through his fingers.
Two mindsets, divided by an abyss.
Ultimately...
Manipulation in the hands of the weak is mere survival, a whore’s knife in the dark.
In the hands of the strong, it becomes sublime entertainment.
A supreme being needs no schemes to claim victory; the gods of old did not deceive mortals to achieve petty goals they could seize by fiat. No, they toyed with them as a cat toys with a half-dead mouse, not for sustenance, but for the exquisite thrill of watching lesser souls dance upon strings only they could see.
Once one ascends the solitary peak, all beneath are ants.
You do not crush them outright.
You observe their frantic scurrying, prod them gently with divine whim, while your true ambitions tower far beyond their comprehension.
Such was the nature of this day.
As the three figures approached the castle gates, they froze.
Where Seth and Ray should have stood sentinel, only two crumpled forms lay unconscious in the snow.
"W-What in the world happened here?" Victoria’s voice filled with disbelief.
Eleanor’s brow furrowed, her silver hair whipping in the frosty evening wind. "I will tend to them. You two, go inside, quickly!"
Victoria’s face drained of color.
HISS~~!
From an upper window, a colossal dark-green python slithered forth, tens of meters long, its massive coils emerging from the very chamber where the injured Emma lay resting.
The beast’s eyes gleamed with mocking intelligence, sending an icy chill racing down her spine.
It was no mere animal.
It taunted her, as if the heavens themselves were playing a cruel jest.
Whoosh!
In a surge of fury, Victoria hurled her spear with thunderous force, aiming to impale the abomination.
But the creature had already vanished into the swirling snow and mist.
"This thing-!" Her face flushed crimson with rage. She glanced back at Xue Lan, who had followed despite the danger. "Go check on Emma! I will drag this bastard out today and end it!"
She drew a deep, steadying breath and leaped skyward in pursuit.
Dread filled her gut, the beast’s unnatural size, that chilling, almost human smile.
Had it already devoured Emma?
How had such a monstrosity breached the ancient lantern array?
If the seal had truly failed, their entire fragile peace would drown in nightmares.
Her thoughts spiraled like the devouring clouds overhead as she gave chase.
Nothing like this had ever happened before.
