“Has Kadosh been dealt with?”

Zagu looked at the scene in front of him and couldn’t help letting out a cold laugh.

“What a beast that doesn’t even bother picking its food...”

It was clearly a place where a fierce battle had just taken place—yet there wasn’t the slightest bloody spectacle. No corpses, no wreckage, not even a smear of blood. It was as if the most professional cleanup team had come through and washed the floor—so clean it was unbelievable.

Aside from some shattered stone, cracked ground, and—at the very center of the site—that boning knife stuck upright in the earth like a gravestone, there was nothing that could prove a battle had ever happened here.

All traces of flesh and blood had been erased... or rather...

Devoured.

Muen Campbell wouldn’t do something meaningless.

Which meant... that strange black flame could actually grow stronger by burning and devouring other people?

No... judging from the way it could even use the Holy Light of the human Church of Life as fuel, having an ability like that wasn’t all that surprising.

But there had to be limits.

Power filled up from external things was, in the end, not one’s own power. Even if it was “refined” through that bizarre black flame, using that kind of power definitely wouldn’t come without a price.

Otherwise, would that Muen Campbell who liked crossdressing really need to disguise himself and sneak in? He could just go to the battlefield, burn every demon to death, then come back with a million portions of “firewood power” and challenge Lord Shenyi directly.

So either it would leave behind indigestible residue.

Or it would place an enormous burden on the mind.

In short, it couldn’t be used without restraint.

“From what I saw earlier, I lean toward the latter.”

Even though he’d never touched that same power, Zagu still arrived at his conclusion quickly.

Because the essence of power was always the same. There was no such thing as a free gift in this world.

That power likely required corresponding mental strength to control it—otherwise the result would be losing control, or being bitten back by that strange force itself.

Which raised the question: Muen Campbell had just used that power in an over-the-limit way not long ago—how much mental strength did he have left now?

Or rather... how much more could he burn before he collapsed completely?

“How intriguing.”

Zagu pulled out the boning knife and toyed with it in his hand.

There were no special marks on it, but from the lingering aura, this knife clearly belonged to Kadosh.

Placing this boning knife here on purpose definitely wasn’t to mourn Kadosh—one of the rare cowardly demons.

A provocation? Trying to lure him out, the commander of this pack of hounds?

Poor Kadosh. He’d been just one step away from advancing further from his current position, but on that very step, he lost his life.

Who told him to be too impatient?

The Enchantress Grand Duke’s favor wasn’t so easy to obtain.

...Though the Enchantress Grand Duke probably didn’t care about any Kadosh at all. She’d likely already forgotten this guy’s name.

But it didn’t matter. For demons, death wasn’t really an end, was it?

Work hard—next life, you might still get a chance to lick again.

“Speaking of it—no matter how fast Kadosh died, no matter how useless these hounds were, they could still bite the prey a few times. That’s why I let them out.” Beneath the cold mask, a trace of mockery flashed in Zagu’s eyes.

That human woman who was like a cockroach, impossible to kill.

And Muen Campbell, the Lion King’s son, who possessed that bizarre power.

These two—young as they were, low as their realms still were—could be called monsters from any angle.

They even made Zagu himself feel a faint, creeping fear.

Besides Lord Shenyi, besides those lofty demon Grand Dukes... how long had it been since he’d felt this kind of fear from someone weaker than himself?

Unfortunately—even monsters this terrifying could bleed.

“So. Keep going.”

As Zagu’s words fell, countless shadows flickered at his side. Once again, following the direction guided by the chains, they swept off at full speed.

Tail them. Bite them. Let them bleed...

Little by little, grind down their lives, their stamina, their minds—along with their hope of escape.

Until they collapsed completely, the hounds’ attacks would not stop.

“After all, the thing demons have least shortage of... is cannon fodder, isn’t it?”

...

...

“Cough, cough...”

I coughed up blood. But after only one glance at the crimson in my palm, I wiped it off casually on the nearby stone wall.

“Tch. Spitting blood already—this is making me look like some pale pretty boy who just went through an all-night battle and got kidney-weak.”

When my best record so far was one tiger versus three wolves! A mere night-long battle was nothing!

Well... even then, the result had still been getting squeezed dry and becoming temporarily kidney-weak.

I ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) let out a self-mocking laugh, stopped, and pulled out my pocket watch to check the time.

I’d been running without stopping for a full two hours. Judging by our speed, that should be enough to buy us some time to catch our breath, right?

After I woke up earlier, I’d been stunned by that unacceptable reality—but after everything I’d been through, if nothing else, my ability to accept things mentally was absolutely top-tier.

After all, I could stay calm enough to throw a few sarcastic lines even when the Love God jumped into my face. There was really no need to be shocked over and over by something like “Ariel caught me in Miss Muse form and even saved my life.”

Run.

Running was what I should’ve done then. Because if, like Ariel said, they’d already locked onto my position, then after those Flayers were killed, the follow-up pursuers would definitely arrive soon.

So I took Ariel and left that place immediately, lowered my head and ran—another full two hours.

For warriors at our level, running was supposed to be the easiest kind of exercise. Forget two hours—running an entire day wouldn’t even make you breathe hard.

But right now, if I didn’t stop and recover soon, then not only me—Ariel on my back would probably die early in a silent sleep. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

That was how serious both our injuries were.

“So you do have a little ups and downs after all.”

I set Ariel down from my back first.

Because of that intimate contact, I could finally feel for myself the rise and fall that was almost impossible to see with the naked eye.

Mm. No matter what, this woman was at least still a “normal” female.

“If only your preferences were normal too, I wouldn’t have to be so miserably scared over this kind of thing.”

I clicked my tongue, thinking bleakly.

How could the world have coincidences this perfect?

An teleported me to an unfamiliar place even I didn’t know, and I just happened to run into Ariel there.

And I just happened to still not have shaken off the potion’s effect, and Ariel also just happened to be obsessed with this version of me...

How much karmic bad blood did it take to line up a chain of coincidences like that?

Still—setting aside those accidental stories—I had to admit one thing.

It was exactly because of that coincidence that Ariel had been able to save me. Otherwise, if the Flayers had caught up while I was unconscious... the outcome really would’ve been unthinkable.