Volume 6, Chapter 54 – Ulutiel’s Manipulation

Inside the safe house at this moment —

Suyu lay slumped against the wall, her mechanical eyes completely dark. Only the core components in her chest flickered with the occasional faint red light, proof that she had not yet fully shut down. On the sofa, Miya lay curled up in a deep sleep, her long lashes trembling softly, the hazy innocence of a child still resting on her face — completely unaware of the crisis unfolding beside her.

Weiya stood rooted to the spot. Her small body trembled slightly, her plush toy crumpled out of shape in her vice-tight grip. Her orange-red eyes swam with panic and conflict.

She had power…

If it came to a fight, she might be able to resist… but then Sister Miya would get dragged into it…

She couldn’t let that happen.

“You… you’d better not be lying to me…”

Weiya’s voice was thin and quavering, tears bleeding into every word — a candleflame shaking in the wind.

“If I listen to you, will Sister really be okay?”

Ulutiel maintained her slight forward lean, her snow-white hair spilling over her shoulders. A faint, barely-perceptible calculation flickered through her dark-blue eyes — but her tone remained sweet and honeyed as ever. “Of course. Why would Auntie lie to you?”

As she spoke, she slowly straightened up. The aura around her shifted, almost imperceptibly.

Weiya instinctively lifted her gaze — and in the next instant, her pupils contracted sharply. The panic and fear on her face were instantly swept away by pure, overwhelming disbelief.

The white-haired girl was gone.

In her place stood an elven girl with long hair in a gradient of jade green and silver-white, dark-red eyes filled with a tender light like moonlight pooled to the brim, a faint and familiar smile resting at the corners of her lips. She wore the ice-blue dress Weiya knew best of all, its hem dotted with tiny flecks of light, her whole presence radiating the kind of warm, steadying comfort that Weiya had memorized deep in her bones. She looked exactly like Mommy — exactly as Weiya remembered her — right down to the arc of each strand of hair as it moved.

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“Mommy…?”

Weiya breathed the word, and tears flooded her orange-red eyes in an instant, blurring her vision. She blinked hard, unable to believe what she was seeing — how could Mommy be here? Had she come to save her and Sister?

“Weiya. My sweet child.”

“Bai Lianyue” spoke gently, her voice carrying the same soft, barely-restrained affection that the real Bai Lianyue always had. “You’ve had it rough.”

She extended a hand slowly, palm upturned, carrying a faint warmth.

“Don’t be afraid. Come~ Let’s go, you and Mommy. Everything will be alright~”

Faced with “Bai Lianyue’s” invitation — listening to that warm and familiar voice — the look in Weiya’s eyes began to drift and waver.

And in the end —

Under “Bai Lianyue’s” watching, playful gaze, Weiya reached out and took her hand.

“Very good. Good girl~”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city — Wishaven had long since been transformed into a living hell.

Smoke and ash hung in every corner of the city. Black soot blotted out the sky, plunging the entire metropolis into a dim, choking murk. Across the streets, severed limbs, shattered weapons, and dark-red bloodstains wove together in a grim tapestry. The air was thick with the heavy stench of blood and the charred, acrid smell of burning curse power — a sickening mixture that turned the stomach.

The battle between the Terrabond Lineage and the Vassals of Sky had entered its most frenzied, white-hot stage.

Corrupted Beasts of the Terrabond Lineage howled as they hurled themselves at the enemy, their claws ripping through the air, their fangs glinting with cold light. The Vassals of Sky spread their enormous wings and wheeled through the sky in wide, circling arcs, raining down streams of dark-colored Abyss Hex Blasts that hammered the ground like falling hail. The thunderous crashes of energy collisions rang out one after another, shaking the earth without pause. Buildings crumbled and fell throughout the battlefield, sending plumes of dust and debris billowing into the air.

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In the midst of this chaos, Wishaven’s defenders were risking their lives — taking advantage of the fighting between the two factions to beat back the smaller groups of Corrupted Beasts pursuing them, while at the same time guiding the city’s civilians toward the safety zones outside the walls.

The civilians sheltered by the garrison moved with terror etched into their faces, leaning on one another as they fled in desperate, stumbling streams under the soldiers’ direction. The wailing of children, the sobbing of women, and the roaring of men all tangled together — a wretched painting of displacement and ruin.

Then, without warning, a blinding red light erupted from high above, blazing like a second sun rising — illuminating all of Wishaven in a single brilliant instant. The shockwave of energy that rolled outward in every direction was so immense that every last person on that battlefield, whether locked in combat or fleeing for their lives, stopped instinctively and looked up.

There, suspended high in the sky, was a woman with short black hair and crimson eyes. Dark-red flames roared around her body, threaded through with coils of black curse power, radiating a pressure that was almost suffocating. She wore a black combat dress, its hem snapping and rippling in the surging energy currents, while several staves of varying shapes floated in orbit around her.

“The Black Witch?!”

More than a few people breathed in sharply at the sight of that figure.

And facing the Black Witch — three great dragons of different shapes encircled her in a triangular formation. All three radiated Vassal Tier power: they were the Dragon Kings, sent down by Ulutiel.

To the left was the Water Prison Dragon King — its cyan scales gleaming cold in the crimson light, roiling deep-blue currents surging around its body, carrying within them a bone-piercing chill and fiercely corrosive curse power. In the center was the Infernal Dragon King — its entire frame covered in dark-red dragon scales, a pair of enormous flame wings spread wide behind it, a torrent of black fire pouring ceaselessly from its maw, scorching the surrounding air. To the right was the Black Meteor Dragon King, the largest of the three — a moving mountain, its hide a deep ashen grey, hard as steel…

Yet for all their fearsome presence, the three Dragon Kings were bound — held fast in the sky by something invisible, unable to move. All they could do was let loose earth-shaking, bone-rattling roars at Yelena, while continuously driving their curse power outward in attempt after futile attempt to break free of the unseen threads restraining them.

“You little ****!! Let us go!!! I’m going to tear you apart AAAAAHHHH!!”

The Infernal Dragon King’s maddened screaming split the sky.

As the three Dragon Kings kept pouring more and more curse power into their thrashing, the force binding them began to weaken in tandem.

Of course — Yelena was not about to simply wait for that to happen.

The very moment her binding array, “Ten Thousand Threads,” was on the verge of being torn apart by the three Dragon Kings, Yelena’s finishing blow reached full charge.

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“Abyss Hex — Chain Collapse.”

As crimson curse power spread outward, the staves previously driven into the three Dragon Kings’ bodies — and the curse-power threads binding them — suddenly blazed with a terrifying red light. Then, an all-annihilating explosion swallowed all three Dragon Kings whole, detonating three doomsday suns high above Wishaven and searing away the darkness of the night in one devastating instant.

When the energy finally dissipated, all three Dragon Kings had had every trace of their curse power scattered and broken. Their bodies were scorched through, and the light had gone out of their eyes entirely.

With the threads released, the three Dragon Kings plummeted from the sky and crashed into the rubble below, sending up great waves of dust and debris.

High above, Yelena slowly drew back the curse power around her — and her body swayed. She fell from the sky, landing hard on the ground. She dropped to one knee, bracing herself on her staff, breathing in deep, ragged gulps, her crimson eyes heavy with exhaustion.

That last strike — Chain Collapse — had burned through nearly every last drop of curse power she had. Yelena was powerful in her own right, but taking on three of the Vassals of Sky’s top-tier Dragon Kings simultaneously and defeating them had driven her body to its absolute limit. Her black dress was soaked through with blood and caked in grime, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, her face as white as paper.

The fighting around her seemed to pause at the sight of it. The Corrupted Beasts of the Vassals of Sky stared at Yelena kneeling on one knee, their eyes full of dread. Their own three Dragon Kings had been taken down — what chance did ordinary Corrupted Beasts like them have of charging in?

The battlefield fell into a strange, suspended stillness.

Then, in that silence — the crisp, clear sound of slow applause rang out, breaking it.

“Not bad. Impressive.”

A voice drifted down from high above — proud, yet carrying a sharp edge of petulance beneath it. Yelena bit her lip and forced her trembling head up.

There, standing before her — when had she appeared? — was a young siren girl with pink hair and violet eyes.

“Polarvitan…”

Yelena struggled to rise to her feet, only to find that the curse power within her had been almost entirely spent. Her body refused to obey. She remained on one knee, unable to do anything else.

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Looking down at the near-exhausted Yelena, Polarvitan gave a light, quiet laugh.

“Not bad at all — worthy of being the old hag’s most trusted subordinate. Cutting down three Dragon Kings on your own. No wonder you spent the past few centuries hunting my Vassals of Sea to use as supplements for the old hag.”

There was something cold lurking beneath the words — and a killing intent that made the air feel several degrees colder.

Sensing that killing intent pointed squarely at her, Yelena let out a soft, dry laugh.

“If you want to kill me… you could’ve just moved from the start… Why drag the Vassals of Sky into it and let them burn time until now… what a waste.”

“Heh.”

Polarvitan crossed her arms over her chest and let out a cold, dismissive snort.

“Excuse me — I am the boss of the Vassals of Sea. When there are underlings present, the boss always makes her entrance last — that’s just how it works. No gravitas otherwise… Besides, don’t think I can’t tell what you’ve been planning.”

Her gaze locked onto Yelena’s face, and her tone turned glacial.

“Lethal venom, blindness, weakness, slow, burn mark, damage amplification… you’ve got all those debuffs hidden inside your body. You think I can’t see them? You — you were planning to sacrifice yourself and transfer all of those onto me the moment I made a move on you, weren’t you? Quite the nasty trick.”

Yelena: “……”

“Normally I wouldn’t care about getting hit with that sort of thing. But right now isn’t the time. I still need to be in top condition to deal with that person… You understand, don’t you?… Old hag.”

As the words left her mouth, Polarvitan slowly raised her head — and looked toward the jade-green silhouette in the sky above.