Chapter 44: The Truth Behind the Magical Beasts and the Wall #5
My heart was burning hot, like I had a fiery ball in my stomach and chest that I desperately needed to eject.
Eating the Eternal Snowthorn granted me Invisibility, demanding a calmness like a placid lake, but the Flame Heart I got from munching on the Fire Dragon’s scales had transformed my mind into a raging volcano.
“Let’s see you regenerate from this…!”
I spat the inferno bubbling in my mouth and stomach toward the dreadful tentacle armor.
With a forceful exhale, flames shot straight toward Harmony.
“Wooosh!”
“Hot, hot! Aaaah!”
The flames shattered the armor’s shape, rapidly melting down the thick, squishy tentacle muscles.
Crackle!
Splutter!
The tentacles shrieked, shriveling up as if they were little rats meeting their doom. I kept spewing fire until every trace of them vanished into thin air.
“But how the heck do I stop this? Do I just stop exhaling?”
Looking at the charred remains of Harmony and the tentacle armor, I brainstormed ways to cut off the fiery output.
Once I stopped puffing, the flames weakened, and soon I heard a hissing sound as the fire inside my mouth fizzled out.
“My lung capacity must enhance the flames and the duration I can spew them! Guess those breathing exercises paid off!”
The skill I’d obtained earlier, Invisibility, was a marvelous trick that concealed me for as long as I held my breath.
With my lung capacity now increased due to my rigorous training, I could hold my breath longer, benefiting my Flame Heart skill as well.
“This power is insane. No, it’s too strong! If I go wild, I’ll incinerate everything around me.”
I gazed at the marble floor where the carpet smoldered and the furniture caught fire. I’d sought to save my breath just in time; it nearly turned into an inferno!
But my body felt oddly different; I felt slightly dizzy. A growling stomach hinted that this technique burned calories like there was no tomorrow!
I approached the burning furniture. A flick of my front paw or tail should easily snuff this fire out.
“What on earth is happening here?!”
Dressed in a purple gown, Baronet Gideon slowly descended the stairs, scowling at me, Harmony lying sprawled on the floor, and the charred remains of the first-floor hall.
“T-the…fire! We need to extinguish it! Everyone, come out! Quickly! Put out the fire! It’s a fire!”
Gideon flailed about, trying to extinguish the flames as they quickly spread.
He spotted a teapot nearby and poured the water wildly, but sizzle! — the water evaporated in no time.
Whoosh!
In response to Gideon’s flailing, the flames spread faster and larger.
“Why won’t it go out…?”
I approached the roaring flames and swung my tail like a helicopter blade. Surely, that tiny spark would extinguish, but curiously enough, instead of dying down, the fire seemed to gobble up the fuel with gusto!
“Fire! Fire!”
“A fire!”
Black-clad maids rushed into the first-floor hall, coughing like a chain smoker. They waved buckets and wet towels around in a desperate attempt to douse the flames.
Yet, their efforts failed; the flames only raged more ferociously.
“Why won’t it go out? Even with water, it’s still blazing!”
“My clothes! They caught fire!”
The fierce heat of the first-floor hall ignited the black veils draped over maids and attendants. The staff of the Mendel Mansion tossed aside their hats and robes in panic.
“We need to escape outside! It’s raining out there!”
“Master, hurry! If we stay here, we’ll all burn alive!”
The maids and servants grabbed Gideon’s arm, pulling him toward the mansion’s exit while he struggled to free himself with bulging eyes.
“My mansion, my possessions…! The materials to resurrect Libga are all in there!”
“Master!”
With an otherworldly strength, Gideon shoved the servants away and dashed deeper into the mansion. He rushed toward the storage room, barricaded by iron doors.
“I can’t let it burn! Years of effort to master necromancy will turn to ashes just like that!”
Gideon stumbled drunkenly while clutching various items from the storage room. The servants, watching in horror, strained to pull him away.
“Master, you’ll burn to d*ath!”
“Let go! I can’t leave this behind! If I’m going, I’m taking them all! Do you understand what I’ve gone through for this… cough, cough!”
“You’re mad! This is a curse. It’s Libga’s curse! An unquenchable flame — it’s nothing but a curse!”
“Let’s escape, even if it’s just us!”
The attendants abandoned the writhing Gideon in the storage room and fled.
Dozens of employees burst through the mansion’s doors, all covering their noses and mouths, streaming outside.
“Where’s Miss Vitali?”
“Where’s Symphony and Master?”
They confirmed each other’s faces in the rain, shedding the black veils. Some stared blankly at the burning mansion.
“A burning mansion… just like twenty years ago and ten years ago! A house plagued by fire every decade! This truly is a cursed house!”
“Are you seriously saying that right now? Someone needs to rescue the lady!”
“But how do we get in there?!”
“Vitali must be trapped! She must be too deep in a slumber to realize the fire!”
“Yingyi is in there too!”
I turned to gaze at the staircase leading to the second floor. The first floor, already engulfed in flames, had begun to consume everything on the second floor greedily.
The smoke rising indicated that toxic fumes would fill Vitali’s room soon enough.
I sprinted up the stairs to the second floor, racing toward the end of the corridor where Vitali’s room awaited. Bursting through the door, I found Vitali sitting on her bed, hugging Yingyi.
“Why haven’t you escaped?! Haven’t you heard the place is on fire? We need to get out now, Vitali!”
I tugged at Vitali’s collar with my mouth, urging her to move. She simply looked at me, a smile creeping across her face.
“I’m not Vitali; I’m Libga.”
“Huh? What nonsense are you spouting? Just get out! Sorry, but I accidentally set this place on fire! It wasn’t on purpose! Just a little mishap…”
“It’s okay. It’s better for this huge house to burn down completely. I didn’t d*e giving birth; I died in flames. Fire is beauty, you know. Even the small glow of a lantern is beautiful, so imagine how lovely and vibrant a towering blaze must be!”
“What the heck are you talking about? Come on, let’s go!”
“This is no madness, White Beast.”
Vitali’s calm gaze fixated on me. How could a person appear so composed and unbothered in such a critical moment as their house was crumbling to ash?
‘This girl is not human.’
A chill ran down my spine. I had brushed her off, yet she felt like she understood my words, as if she were someone distinctly other than Vitali.
Vitali wasn’t the one talking to me. She had morphed into someone else entirely.
“The bl**d of the Gideon family adores vice and taboos. The well-meaning soldier who married in will never grasp that, too blind to see he’s merely a pawn. What a pitiful man.”
Grrr!
Yingyi, cradled in Vitali’s arms, emitted a sharp cry. Then, with a crackling sound, a strong, electrifying force erupted from her.
“Yaaaaaaah!”
Vitali’s eyes rolled back as she slumped to the bed.
“Way to go, Yingyi! No time for chit-chat; let’s get going!”
I grabbed Vitali’s collar as I bolted out of the room. The corridor surged in flames, weaving wildly like a scene from hell.
“It’s not warm to me at all. Am I somehow igniting everything else? Will I burn the entire place down and forever be trapped in this inferno?”
Grrr!
I briefly pondered on that when Yingyi, stationed atop my head, babbled something. She seemed to suggest I shouldn’t linger and should hurry outside.
Heeding her advice, I hastily bounded down to the first floor and out through an open door into the rain-soaked garden, dropping Vitali safely on the ground.
“Miss!”
“Oh, Alpha saved me!”
“Can you breathe?”
The wet maids surrounded Vitali, checking her condition. When they saw her faintly breathing, their rain-drenched faces lit up with a hint of relief.
“She’s alive! Just briefly lost consciousness!”
“Now, we need to save Symphony and Master!”
“But how do we get through that blaze?”
The maids and servants exchanged worried glances, not knowing how to face the inferno before them.
If they referred to Master, it meant Baronet Gideon, who was left collapsed in the storage room. I gently set Yingyi down beside Vitali.
“Stay here; I’ll be right back.”
I wasn’t going to be burned by the flames I created. As long as I was careful of any noxious gas, I was far from being in serious danger. I felt a subtle guilt over the fire I’d caused.
“If I hadn’t used fire, I wouldn’t have trapped Harmony. It was unavoidable under the circumstances…”
Next time, I promised myself to be mindful not to let the flames spread, and with that thought, I stepped back into the mansion.
Inside, enshrouded in black smoke, I plugged my nose with the wet fur on my front paw and cautiously advanced. Upon entering the storage room, I found Baronet Gideon huddled in a corner, trembling like a leaf.
“Maybe this is a curse. A curse meant to resurrect the dead. But darling, I only wanted to know why you had to leave me like that. That’s all I wanted to know!”
“Baronet, if you don’t want to burn alive, let’s get out of here. I have a feeling that if you d*e, a ghost will appear in my dreams, burning to d*ath!”
I gripped Gideon by the scruff and dragged him out from the storage room.
With a CRASH, a cacophony of debris crumbled around Gideon.
“AAAHHH! UAAHH! HAHAHAHA!”
Even being pulled away, Gideon yelled out madly to the world around him. Watching him spiral into insanity from being such a dignified gentleman made my heart feel heavy.
If everything he had meticulously gathered over the years crumbled to dust in an instant, who wouldn’t go crazy?
“Master!”
“Alpha saved Master! Good job, Alpha!”
“It’s just you!”
The attendants took over Master Gideon from me as I emerged through the door. Gideon gaped at his burning mansion, his jaw dropping.
“I never wanted to admit it but this is a curse! Libga, you were a cursed woman to me!”
Gideon raised a toy doll he had gripped tightly in his hand toward the sky.
That stuffed doll looked familiar to me; it was the Curse-Lifting Amulet Doll displayed in the storage room.
“Consider this a divorce, you scoundrel! HAHA!”
Consumed by madness, Gideon hurled the stuffed doll into the blazing house. In that instant, a massive flame shot out from the mansion’s entrance, licking up the doll greedily.
Whoosh!
A bitter scent wafted through the air as something huge exploded inside the mansion.
[Achievement ‘Release’ Completed.]
[You receive a recovery from unnecessary status effects as a reward.]
[You lose your entity name.]
—
Name: White One
Race: Magical Beast lv.21
Strength: 83
Agility: 95
Stamina: 75
Skills: Omnivorous, Sturdy Claws, Curse Pass, Stealth Movement, Invisibility, Dance of Allure, Interbreeding, Fire Breathing, Riding, Destruction Skill, Flame Heart
The darkened sky poured rain relentlessly. The soaked maids wept as they looked at the burning mansion, tears mingling with rain.
“Divorce! Divorce!”
Amid Gideon’s frenzied shouts, I let out a small, anguished cry.
“Oh?”
