Free Web NovelAdvancement? A new era? freeweɓnovel.cѳm
She was talking like she was some world-opening, age-defining great hero in a legend... as if she didn’t bother to open her eyes and look at what she was actually doing.
Vieya touched the tentacles in front of her chest, drew all of them back into her body, then looked straight down through the clouds at Youze, whose body was rapidly changing.
A terrifying heartbeat boomed beneath the human-face cloud. Black light surged once again.
A massive black light sphere floated in midair, suspended above the entire city.
It was nearing dawn. The drum-like pounding of that heart startled the people who were already asleep. Many who lived closer to the central district rolled out of bed, unable to resist opening their windows and looking outside—only to see that enormous black sphere in the sky, and the human-face cloud that made their hearts and lungs nearly stop.
“What is that? Why is today so unsettling? Yesterday evening the explosion almost gave me a heart attack, and now this?”
“Where are the city guards? Where’s the Church? They collect so much tax from us every day—why aren’t they handling this?!”
“Oh, Light God above! When did a puddle of fly-pus appear on my bed?! Wait—where’s my wife?”
“That black sphere in the sky... is it a monster?”
Many who had been kept in the dark hadn’t realized the severity of the situation. In truth, because Talin hadn’t had monster incidents for several years, and any trouble in recent months had been resolved quickly by enforcement squads, most people had long forgotten what it felt like to face a monster attack.
But that confusion was destined not to last long.
Because the church alarm bells began ringing throughout the entire city, giant fist-sized flies were swarming the streets, every radio frequency simultaneously interrupted with emergency broadcasts, and screams erupted from the dim districts at irregular intervals.
In an instant, people realized that this city that had been peaceful for so many years... had silently welcomed in something terrifying.
In the sky.
The light sphere vanished, and Youze was nowhere to be seen, but a massive fly-monster revealed its body.
What a group of lunatics.
Vieya cursed silently. The situation was obvious—Youze had also undergone that so-called monster-fusion surgery, just like Aurora.
“That giant fly in the sky—is that the woman we were fighting earlier?”
Irena swung her staff to drive away the surrounding monsters, gritting her teeth as she cursed, “Damn it! If she weren’t in the sky right now, I’d fire at least two mana cannons at her!” ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
“Save your strength. The monsters gathering here are increasing more and more...” Allison’s face didn’t look good. “This phenomenon can only be caused by those monsters who possess a Domain!”
“A Domain?”
“Irena, did you never listen during class?”
“Eh? Little-Fish-sis, you know I always hired private tutors at home. But I can’t stand those teachers. If I scold them a few times they start crying and run away—they’re all money-cheating trash.”
“A Domain is... anyway, just think of a Domain as something that can be maintained indefinitely...”
Suddenly, Allison’s words stopped. Irena looked at her strangely, waiting for her to continue her explanation.
But—
A solemn, alien voice echoed simultaneously in all their hearts: “A Domain is—within its range, only I reign supreme!”
“!”
Irena’s eyes widened. She looked upward, only to see that at some point the massive fly-monster had already appeared directly above the four of them. Its eerie compound eyes gazed down from the sky.
In that instant, Irena felt like she had forgotten how to breathe.
She saw the monster extend a spike-covered limb, sweeping horizontally toward them with explosive speed!
Yuelong stepped forward, raised her sword to block—
CLANG!
A violent spray of sparks burst from the blade. Her arm went numb. She shouted back, “Run!”
The fly-monster had already thrust a second limb toward Jasmine. The speed was extreme. For a newbie like Jasmine, whose level wasn’t even 100, it was as if every inch of space around her was locked—there was no way to dodge.
—“Courting death!”
Another voice roared from the sky!
Vast magic surged through her body. Vieya plunged downward with a sonic boom, ignoring the monsters chasing behind her, focusing only on flying at full power. As she flew, she reached into her body and slowly drew out the Holy Sword wrapped in white cloth strips. Sword-energy fell from the heavens, cleaving down upon the monster’s body.
After the sword-energy descended, Vieya waved her hand to add several follow-up strikes. Golden light instantly purified the fly-monster cleanly, leaving nothing behind.
“Mom!”
Jasmine finally recovered her breath. Her emotions were both shocked and delighted. Shocked that a monster whose presence alone pinned her to the ground had been instantly killed by Mom, delighted because Mom had appeared again. Though she was exhausted, she still forced herself up from the ground, trying to signal through her posture that she was fine, so Mom wouldn’t worry.
In the sky, Vieya saw Jasmine—knocked down by the monster’s aura—stand up again. She immediately relaxed, then continued fighting the monsters chasing behind her.
Ever since Youze transformed into a monster, she could no longer sense Youze’s true body.
Maybe the fly-monster that attacked Jasmine earlier was Youze, but at the moment of its death, it became something else again.
Every fly-monster inside Talin could be Youze. To kill Youze completely... she would have to kill every single one of them.
Even those infected humans vomiting swarms of flies had to be dealt with as well.
“Haha, the Holy Sword is indeed terrifying. But we aren’t like those Demon Kings—afraid of it.” Youze’s voice echoed through the sky.
“Many years ago, we already studied the Holy Sword—this world-class weapon. Do you know? When the previous Swordmaster was dying, we had already attempted to destroy it. Unfortunately... this Holy Sword that has been passed down for millions of years, unlike a Hero’s personal companion-weapon, cannot be destroyed—it can only be sealed.”
“Sigh, originally, you had no chance of ever touching the Holy Sword and becoming the Swordmaster. If not for that Demon King playing dead back then and tricking us—using her last breath to take both the previous Swordmaster’s corpse and the sword away—do you really think a slime-girl like you could have obtained the Holy Sword?”
“Later, do you know how much effort and money we spent searching through the cracks of time to find that Demon King’s tomb?”
“We finally located the timespace. We issued commissions °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° for those greedy adventurers to go die for us, to weaken the life-barrier that Demon King left behind!”
“But we never expected that the fruits of so many years of hard work... would be stolen away by a stupid, lazy slime-girl like you! Hahaha!”
One giant fly-monster after another surrounded Vieya in the sky, all staring at her.
“But to be honest, I have to thank your predecessor—the previous Swordmaster. If he hadn’t fought that Demon King so desperately, we wouldn’t have been able to tighten our net at the last moment. Though the Demon King escaped... from her, we obtained a method to reduce the Holy Sword’s damage.”
Vieya did not speak.
Her face showed no extra expression.
Her emerald-green eyes continued searching nonstop for Youze’s real body, trying to confirm whether the true body was among the dozens of fly-monsters surrounding her.
“Hm... why aren’t you talking, slime?”
Youze spoke provocatively as if fully in control: “Although you’re dumb and lazy, and you spent three whole years rotting in that little border town, making us wait three years, I still don’t mind offering you a chance to join us. Of course, you’d have to start as the lowest Unfaced under me.”
“I have no interest in your stories, no interest in your organization,” Vieya said softly. “No interest in anything about you.”
“Is that so?”
A trace of surprise entered Youze’s voice. “I thought you would at least show a little emotion over the previous Swordmaster’s death.”
“If you’re merely trying to provoke me, then you already succeeded long ago.” Vieya breathed lightly, her voice still devoid of fluctuation. “But the past is past. Right or wrong—I’m not in the mood to argue with you.”
“Oh?”
A humanoid black shadow appeared atop one of the fly-monsters, slowly solidifying into Youze’s form. She examined the white-haired girl with interest, then said unexpectedly:
“So you can’t be recruited. In that case, it can’t be helped. But... you have your Holy Sword, and I also have my weapon.”
As she spoke, she looked at the tense white-haired girl and let out a faint, eerie laugh.
One fly-monster flew to her side.
It opened its grotesque mouthparts, and a faint golden glow seeped out.
Youze reached her hand into the wide-open mouthparts, grabbed the end of that golden light, and slowly drew out the strange weapon hidden inside.
It was a weapon resembling the seven-branched sword of myth, flowing with a liquid-gold luster. In the pitch-black, icy sky, it emitted an unnaturally warm power.
“You... what have all of you done...” Vieya raised her head, staring fixedly at the weapon in Youze’s hand. Her voice turned strained; the corner of her eye twitched.
Youze gently stroked the golden weapon, introducing it proudly as if extremely satisfied with it.
“This is the broken horn of that Demon King. She was truly terrifying—even her final struggles in near-death state were enough to scare someone to death. We spent enormous effort just to slice off this complete—dragon horn!”
Dragon horn...
Vieya lowered her head, covering her face with her trembling right hand. Quietly. Without making a sound. She seemed unwilling to believe what was happening before her, choosing not to look, not to listen—perhaps she was the kind of coward who just wanted to bury her head like an ostrich...
She suddenly remembered the muddled, decadent version of herself six years ago. The living-like-dead herself who drifted through days in a haze. She thought that coward had died in her heart long ago—but now it revived, and what it ignited... was anger. A roaring, drum-thundering anger.
“You... deserve to die... all of you deserve to die...” The white-haired girl, head lowered, released her hand from her face and murmured softly. It was as if an old wound at her heart—one she thought long since healed—was being ripped open and chewed by a hunting hound, tearing her until she bled.
Her voice was soft, but every monster present heard it. Panic rippled through them. The cold, emotionless slime-girl from before had vanished, replaced by a creature that had unlocked all chains within her heart.
That creature’s aura was everywhere. Her rage spread into the mind of every intelligent being in Talin City, dragging their emotions toward an uncontrollable abyss of fury.
At Yun Pool.
The three maids sent by order to cooperate with humans in suppressing monsters also seemed to sense something. Elizabeth and Jiele Xiyin looked at each other, confirming their perception wasn’t an illusion.
The Authority in their bodies was being requisitioned—violently, without asking or warning.
They were very curious now about what their master had encountered... to make her unconsciously begin forcibly requisitioning their Authority.
“Oh my, this is bad, fufufu...”
At the lake’s edge, Elizabeth turned slightly, looking toward a certain direction in the city, her eyes flickering with fear and excitement.
Vieya opened her eyes again. Deep in her emerald-green pupils, blood-red hatred erupted.
It came. That raging, blazing fury burned away all her calmness and coldness, turning her into a freed, chainless tiger.
Youze fell silent for a moment—then began laughing again, jeering:
“Hahaha, what’s wrong? When I hit your daughter earlier, you weren’t this angry. But now that you see me holding a weapon suited to my hands, you’re suddenly unhappy?”
“But it doesn’t matter. I like that unyielding personality of yours. The entire city will be our arena. Before so many witnesses, I will devour you... and evolve into the truly perfect lifeform.”
As soon as she finished speaking, she saw Vieya raise the hand holding the sword. Youze’s pupils contracted sharply; a nameless fear welled up from deep within her heart.
She quickly lifted the dragon horn flowing with golden light, blocking it in front of herself, leaping off the back of the fly-monster.
When Vieya lowered the sword-holding hand—
In an instant, it was as if heaven and earth flipped upside down.
The human-face cloud trembling in the sky halted its downward pressure and began rising upward.
Youze’s expression turned severe. A fine, thin bloodline appeared on her neck—but was quickly patched and stitched together by black mist.
The dozens of fly-monsters that had surrounded Vieya just moments ago had been completely erased by that single strike.
Throughout Talin City, monsters in every street and alley quivered uneasily. An instinctive fear seeped through their bodies as they bowed their heads, no longer daring to look toward the sky.
