Chapter One: The Three Powers
As the sun sets,
the golden sunlight casts a gentle warmth over the sky of Royal City.
More than ten kilometers south of the city, amidst a boundless expanse of fields lies a serene, lush forest. Under the glow of twilight, the emerald trees are sprinkled with scarlet hues, shimmering like gold. A thick layer of clouds hovers above while a babbling creek runs through the woods, with a soft breeze rustling the leaves, creating a soothing sound.
Boom—
Suddenly, a muffled sound reverberates through the woods.
With the tremor of that sound, flocks of birds take flight from the trees, “whoosh” they rise high into the sky. Amidst the dense forest, a tree as thick as three people can hug tumbles down in a series of sharp cracks, crashing onto the ground with a thunderous noise, sending dust soaring.
A girl with bright eyes and pearly teeth stands before the broken tree, her bangs matted with sweat clinging to her cheeks, her black skirt swaying in the wind. As dust erupts from where the tree fell, she quickly covers her mouth and nose and, with a light tap of her toes, retreats ten meters away in a flash, swept back by the gusts.
Once she’s steady, the girl glances down at her petite fists, furrowing her brow slightly.
Strength…
It’s clearly increased.
Breaking such a thick tree only took me three punches… This is beyond human capabilities, isn’t it? I practically have the power of a monster…
Rustle rustle.
Suddenly, a faint sound comes from the bushes on her left, and an old deer leaps into view, hopping away in a panic. A thought crosses her mind, and several wisps of dead smoke drift from her left arm, zipping past and wrapping around the deer completely, followed by the dreadful sound of sizzling.
Two seconds later, blue-white mist rises up, intertwining with the dissipating dead smoke, merging back into her chest.
“Ugh…”
She can’t help but groan. Heat flushes her cheeks, her vision hazy, her body trembling for a moment before she exhales deeply.
…That feels good.
This is my third day in this forest. Aside from the need to fill my belly, I also want to get acquainted with the changes in my body and the strengthening of my inner power.
With my current strength, whether it’s ice, infernal fire, or chaotic power from the abyss, finding a suitable and spacious place within the city to practice freely is nearly impossible. If I unleash my full power, everything around me would be utterly destroyed.
So, I had to come out here.
This place was where I absorbed the Teresa Monster.
I remember back then, the aftermath of our battle left the forest in ruins. Later, Margaret appeared and used a divine miracle to revive the plants and erase the traces of the dead smoke, restoring life to the desolate land. Now it’s even more lush, and with few visitors, as long as I hide deeper in the woods, I can remain undetected. Even the most seasoned hunters would stay away from here, allowing me to do what I please.
However…
I still need to be cautious about controlling my strength.
After all…
I take a deep breath.
In the next moment, a blue glow flashes in my eyes, and thin ice mist rises from my feet, quickly enveloping the surrounding grass in a layer of white frost.
Crackle, crackle.
With the crisp sound of shattering ice, countless ice blocks unexpectedly appear up ahead, crushing together to form a neat shape, their color swiftly turning from transparent to deep blue. In less than a second, a staircase of ice blue formed from the extreme cold appears before me.
The staircase has an ancient yet stunning design, with half-human-high railings carved with intricate patterns, slightly reminiscent of the stairs in St. Zayeli Church… of course, I modeled it after that.
Easily…
I take a step forward and step onto the staircase.
Snap, snap…
The sound of compressing ice echoes incessantly as the staircase extends upwards at a 45-degree angle. The surrounding ice mist grows denser, and the temperature around me drops sharply. Stepping onto the staircase, I ascend into the air, feeling I’ve surpassed the height of most trees, and wave my arm to stop the staircase’s extension, gathering it into a half-meter platform at the end. I step onto the platform, steady myself, and gaze down at the lush woods below.
A gentle breeze brushes my face, lifting my black hair.
I close my eyes and slowly open my arms.
Concentrate, gather…
Whoosh—
A chill wind suddenly becomes fierce, swirling around me in miniature tornadoes. A wild rush of air filled with countless ice crystals whips around my body, freezing the treetops around me.
In the next moment, massive, towering blue ice spikes explode in the dense forest ahead.
Crack crack crack—Boom!!!
With a thunderous roar, a mountain of ice rises from the ground, hurling thick tree trunks high into the air, countless broken branches fluttering like confetti, while a dense white mist bursts forth from the mountain, and the sound of numerous beasts fills the air. Some birds that hadn’t taken flight in time freeze and shatter into fine particles, the piercing cold rushing towards me.
I slowly open my eyes amidst the swirling frost.
…Very smooth.
And I feel absolutely no fatigue. It’s as if my power is endless; I could launch such an attack a hundred more times…
So next…
“Whoosh—”
I stand amid the icy wind and gently exhale a breath of white mist.
The next moment, bright, complex scarlet patterns spread rapidly from my right cheek to my right arm, engulfing my entire upper body, pulsing like a heartbeat, painting my black skirt crimson.
The raging wind still hasn’t paused, blowing away the strands of black smoke that drift from my mouth.
Power…
It has strengthened once more.
I brace my stance, aiming at the towering ice mountain ahead, and suddenly swing a punch forward.
In an instant, a brilliant red light bursts from my fist, illuminating the darkening sky.
Boom—!!!
A torrent of infernal fire erupts like a gigantic whirlpool from the depths of the ocean, spewing from my fist in a fan-shaped spread, crashing onto the ice mountain. In an instant, two extreme temperatures collide before my eyes, the cold wind and hot waves swirling together, forming a monstrous shockwave that sweeps away everything within a hundred-meter radius, lifting sand and dirt high into the air, steam surging upward like tidal waves, accompanied by the deafening sound of hissing, forming a gigantic mushroom cloud.
“Yikes!”
The ferocious gust of wind rushes towards me, almost knocking me off my high platform.
Oh no…
I overdid it…
The massive ice mountain shatters and collapses before me, blazing infernal fire shooting high into the thick mist; the air oscillates between cold and hot. Burning trees fall from the sky, and mud splatters on my body, “hiss, hiss” melting away.
I stare at the disaster unfolding ahead, maintaining my punching stance, blinking in disbelief.
After the ice mountain crumbles, the scattering shards of ice and frost, touched by the raging infernal fire, extinguish it, sending more steam billowing into the sky.
Hmm…
I’ve nearly mastered the power of infernal fire…
Next comes…
The fierce wind gradually dies down.
I straighten up, gazing toward the spread of frost and infernal fire, slowly standing upright.
The scarlet patterns recede from my face.
Whoosh—
Thin black flames burst forth from my right palm; I raise my right arm and delicately tap the air in front of me with my slender fingers.
In an instant, rich dead smoke erupts from within me, the wind beginning to howl as the dead smoke rapidly coalesces, forming crescent-shaped, towering black blades that swiftly materialize, howling forth towards my target.
Swish, swish, swish, swish—
The black blades pierce through the ice mist and slice through the infernal fire, moving at such incredible speed they almost vanish from sight. I quickly tighten my fist, dispersing the black blades back into smoke while directing the black flames to spread across my back, “boom,” transforming into two-meter-wide fiery wings. I bend my knees and lean forward—
The wings of fire suddenly flap downwards.
Whoosh!
My body launches skyward like a cannonball.
The wind roars past my ears.
The clouds above appear to be rushing toward me at a visible speed.
Suddenly, I control the fiery wings to spread again, flapping them twice against the wind to decelerate my ascent, then twist my body, hovering in mid-air, gazing down at the densely packed woods below and the land still shrouded in ice mist and infernal fire. After a moment’s hesitation, I raise my right hand overhead.
In the next moment, dead smoke surges wildly from within me.
Releasing chaotic power…
As much as possible…
The thick dead smoke rolls up, transforming into countless massive smoke serpents, nearly blocking out half the sky above. The serpents twist and turn in the air, then swiftly converge several meters overhead, the density compressing dramatically until, in the blink of an eye, they coalesce into a colossal d*ath black sun, seemingly replacing the faint vestiges of twilight left by the sun, hanging high above my head.
I lower my hand, looking up at the black sun with furrowed brows.
This move…
I got the idea from the Endless Abyss because it seemed really cool back then.
But honestly, its actual function boils down to just blocking living creatures… Like, if I get hurt or don’t want to fight, I can hide in here; unless it’s someone like Nero, no one will be able to do anything to me.
But beyond that…
It doesn’t seem particularly useful.
Unless it’s a special circumstance, it’d be more efficient to just release dead smoke directly; why expend the energy for this… it feels pointless.
…Let me try compressing again.
Whoosh—
As I concentrate once more, the black sun above suddenly begins to shrink, the concentration of dead smoke increasing. With a loud “boom,” the black sun erupts into black flames, transforming into a colossal fireball with a diameter of more than twenty meters, the pale flames nearly brightening the dimming sky again.
Wow…
I’m momentarily blinded by the light but can still feel the tremendous energy contained in the fireball… Is this like a spirit bomb in another world?
I feel like I could still release more dead smoke to make it bigger…
But nah, too dangerous… and it’s exhausting; I’ll save this for a big attack in the future…
I wave my hand.
The black sun rapidly disperses, the sky filled with dead smoke like a gigantic firework scattering everywhere, before rushing back into my chest all at once.
Whoosh—
The wings of fire behind me flap again, my body spinning in mid-air, diving downward, landing with a thud on the ground.
The wind stirs around me, blowing a strand of silver-white hair that’s returning to black back into my face.
I reach out to grab it.
Ah…
It’s happening again.
Over these past few days of practice, I’ve noticed that whenever I fully activate the power of the abyss, the silver-white strand on my forehead begins to spread, turning all my hair white. However, if I only use it in small doses, like releasing a little dead smoke, it doesn’t happen.
In other words, if I fight with all my might, I turn into a white-haired sorceress.
…What’s the deal with that?
I don’t get it…
Regardless, it seems I’ve gotten a bit of a handle on the three powers within me.
Frost Order, Sin Fire, Chaotic Power.
They don’t interfere with each other, harmoniously flowing together, no barriers in using them, and the feeling of infernal fire is no longer cumbersome—it’s as if it belongs to me inherently, or maybe it has already become a vital part of me.
…I can’t really say if that’s a good thing.
But overall…
It shouldn’t be a bad thing.
I’ve come to understand.
In the past, I always suppressed myself, stifling the chaotic power within me, afraid it would spiral out of control and devour too many lives, growing to an unimaginable level until I myself would…
What would I become?
I don’t know at all, maybe something like Iliush’s fate.
But…
No matter how much I try to suppress it, doesn’t it keep growing?
So what’s the point of my insistence…
I can’t stop the abyss from consuming.
So I might as well let it go. As long as I don’t use it to harm others, and instead do something meaningful with it, or use it recklessly for self-preservation… at this level, no one would bat an eye, right?
Clearly having more powerful strength, clearly able to effortlessly deal with enemies, yet I persist in restraining myself, making things more complicated…
That feeling is just…
I lift my fair right hand before my eyes, my slender fingers moving gracefully.
Dead smoke silently drifts from my fingertips, coiling into the earth below, causing the flowers and grass underfoot to wither rapidly.
The last remnants of the sunset fade into the silent dark.
Night has fallen.
A girl in a black skirt stands elegantly in the darkening woods. A gentle breeze wafts by, causing her skirt to flutter, the lace at the hem swaying gently.
Pitch-black smoke envelops the girl, swiftly turning a small patch of ground beneath her into a charred zone, starkly contrasting with the vibrant greenery all around.
Her exquisite face, illuminated by nearby flames, glows slightly with a hint of blush. She raises her right hand, staring intently at the dead smoke flowing from her palm, as if admiring an extraordinarily amusing sight.
After a moment, she curls the corners of her lips.
Whoosh—
In the next instant, the drifting dead smoke swiftly converges before her as if alive, slowly morphing into mud that resembles abyss mud from a chasm, gradually taking shape as it wriggles, sprouting limbs, growing horns atop its head, and developing eyes…
Ultimately taking on the appearance of a deer.
This deer vaguely resembles the one she had previously absorbed. Though entirely black, it shines with a metallic sheen, looking unlike any creature of this world—but it undeniably moves.
The old deer wobbles on its hooves, akin to a newborn learning to walk, limping unsteadily towards the girl before suddenly collapsing to the ground with a “puff,” instantly reverting to dead smoke and rapidly vanishing into the girl’s chest.
“Hee hee.”
The girl seems quite pleased. Her clear, melodious laughter echoes through the dense woods.
…It’s dark now, so that’s it for today.
Time to head back.
I turn towards the direction of the infernal fire, raising my hand.
Boom—
A torrent of ice mist erupts from my palm, spreading out fanwise, instantly freezing everything within sight for dozens of meters. The collapsed ice mountain has shattered into countless pieces of cold ice; the infernal fires, previously unable to blaze in the freezing conditions, are entirely extinguished after this shock.
…Done.
I nod in satisfaction and begin to walk in the night. Suddenly, I see the slanted ice stairs not far away and pause, tilting my head in thought.
…Better smash it.
Otherwise, it would be hard to dissipate… it’s better not to leave the cold air around for too long. Otherwise, it might become as hazardous as dead smoke, turning this area into a barren wasteland.
With that thought, a blue glow flashes in my eyes, and a fist-sized blue ice stone rapidly forms above my head, darting towards the stairs at a speed nearly imperceptible.
Whoosh—
Clang!
The ice stone hits the staircase, producing a metallic clanging sound, and a wave of ice blue swiftly expands before my eyes.
I can’t believe…
Bang!
The rebounding ice stone accurately strikes my nose, causing my head to j*rk back.
…Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch!
I clutch my nose and crouch down into a little ball, feeling liquid flow from my nose, my eyes welling up as I frantically glance around.
“Ugh…”
Fortunately, no one saw that…
