“Stay back, I’m warning you!”
The air shimmered with crimson light as a flurry of sword strikes cleaved through the writhing tentacles barring the white-haired girl’s path.
Noi’s blood-red aura pulsed around her, an impenetrable barrier that halted any sneak attacks from the side.
The tentacles, caught half a meter from her, became mere targets for her swordplay practice, severed with ruthless precision.
Nightmare retreated, her back soon pressed against the cold unyielding wall, next to a rusted iron window in the warehouse.
Though the battle seemed hopelessly one-sided, Nightmare wasn’t defenseless.
Behind her back, a few tentacles secretly wove together a condensed orb of magical energy.
Its overall strength might only rank at A-, but it could still hold its own against Noi—barely.
The chaotic energy reached its peak.
Ducking under a sweeping arc of Noi’s blood sword, Nightmare thrust the orb forward with its tentacles.
‘Hmph, this should do some serious damage.’
But Noi’s reflexes were razor-sharp.
Layers of blood-veiled light shields materialized, slowing the orb’s trajectory.
Calculating its path in an instant, she spun her blood sword and swung it down to intercept the projectile mid-flight.
Unluckily for her, a black blade wreathed in flames beat her to it, slashing the orb aside.
A youth with fiery hair stepped in, blocking the path of her strike.
“Noi, are you okay—”
“Shlick.”
Even knowing Xing Chen wasn’t her true target, Noi didn’t hesitate.
Her blade bit deeper, splitting his chest open with a force that exposed the beating heart within.
Xing Chen opened his mouth to speak.
“You…”
She didn’t give him the chance.
Frowning in irritation at the flame-haired youth obstructing her, Noi drove her sword through his heart with a vicious twist, grinding the blade for good measure.
“…”
Xing Chen’s body stiffened, a reflex to the pain.
A wry smile crossed his face as he coughed up a torrent of blood.
A week after his last death, familiar flames engulfed him once more, ushering him into revival.
Nightmare, witness to the entire slaughter, stood frozen, jaw agape.
‘What? A Guardian of the Empire, just… dead?’
She knew little of Xing Chen, only that he was the elusive fifth of the Four Symbols Guardians, a figure so revered even its honorific title was beyond the reach of a newly appointed Sin Domain captain like itself.
Yet here, before her eyes, Noi had cut him down without resistance.
Terror gripped the Nightmare.
“Shang! Save me!”
When outmatched, call for backup.
Nightmare knew her limits well.
At the warehouse entrance, a colossal, three-headed, six-armed beast hammered at a young hero.
But the boy’s Heroic Power blended offense and defense seamlessly, and Lyte’s sword intent was honed to perfection.
For the moment, Shang couldn’t overpower him.
“Run… now…”
System: Shang’s six arms, each wielding a demonic sword, clashed against Lyte’s radiant golden sword light, barely holding him at bay.
His gravelly voice rumbled in response.
One-on-one, Shang could defeat Lyte as he was now, but the boy’s Heroic Power made him impossible to pin down.
Noi, meanwhile, was a wildcard of immense potential.
Shang’s forced “death” earlier stemmed from bad intel—her strength hovered around B+, but the divine pressure she exuded was the real problem.
As for Xing Chen, the Four Symbols Guardian… his power was sealed, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t break free.
If he went all out, Shang’s fake death wouldn’t compare to Xing Chen’s limitless revivals.
Their mission in Wagner Town was to carry out orders, not to tangle with Noi or test Lyte.
Overplaying their hand and failing the Domain Lord’s task would spell a grim fate for them both.
“Boom!”
Shang, massive in stature, turned his attention to the children in the unloading area.
His six swords descended in unison, forcing Lyte to intercept with his Heroic Power, buying the captain time to escape.
On the other side, Nightmare seized Xing Chen’s revival window and scrambled out the window.
Noi moved to pursue, but Shang, now free of his monstrous form, blocked her with a single sword strike.
This time, he relied purely on physical prowess, suppressing her with raw strength rather than magic.
The captains fled.
Xing Chen was reviving.
The children were too weak to matter.
Noi, shrouded in blood mist, scanned the warehouse like a predator.
Her gaze locked onto Lyte.
“So… delicious…”
Her soft tongue flicked across her cherry-red lips, nostrils flaring as she caught a scent from Lyte, something she craved deeply from afar.
Feeling her stare, Lyte turned.
Their eyes met—hers burning with bloodlust and an unfamiliar hunger.
His expression grew tangled with complexity.
“Click, clack.”
The sharp tap of short heels echoed on the metal steps.
The white-haired witch approached the black-haired hero.
“Stop! NOI… WITCH!”
Lyte gritted his teeth, forcing the words out, but the witch merely smiled, unfazed by his defiance.
In her past life, the World-Ending Witch had walked through seas of blood and mountains of corpses with the same indifferent gaze, speaking the same chilling words.
“I want to devour you.”
The white-haired witch’s voice was soft, deliberate.
In that instant, Lyte’s instincts screamed.
He raised his holy sword, Disaster, toward Noi for the first time since his rebirth.
Then he saw it—a sapphire necklace nestled in the hollow of her chest.
His resolve wavered, and he lowered the blade.
He’d known this day would come, but not so soon, so abruptly.
Unlike her past life, where Noi’s power was an overwhelming despair, crushing even the mightiest hero like a child, this Noi was still growing.
Lyte’s Heroic Power could counter her.
With Xing Chen’s revival, a single strike to her heart could end her for good.
‘What do I do? What should I do?’
Lyte clutched his head, tormented.
He’d pondered why the goddess Afiya chose him.
His strength was unmatched, but he lacked the cunning to outwit the Sin Domain’s conquest of Tria without a fight.
Nor could he, in just a week, devise a way to quell Noi’s battle lust.
The answer was clear, brutal, and simple: kill her.
It was what he excelled at.
But… he couldn’t.
Destiny’s weight crushed him, a mere mortal made hero, chosen yet flawed.
Noi drew closer.
Lyte swallowed hard, his mind a tangled mess, unprepared to face the World-Ending Witch, Vellrich.
“Click.”
Her heels struck the warehouse floor, three meters away.
At the same moment, flames faded from the second-story window where Xing Chen revived.
“Whoosh!”
Xing Chen leapt down, aiming to subdue Noi, but his post-revival strength was slow to return, and he held back.
The white-haired witch sneered, dodging his lunge.
Her sword pierced his chest, pinning him to the ground.
‘Damn, foiled again.’
Xing Chen gave Lyte a bitter smile as flames consumed him once more.
With the nuisance gone, the witch’s gaze fixed on Lyte, her eyes gleaming like he was a delectable dessert.
“Noi, let’s talk—”
Lyte’s resolve to reason with her shattered as she charged.
Instinctively, he raised his sword, but her face froze him.
A moment’s hesitation, and her blood-forged blade sent his holy sword flying.
“Hmm… Lyte~”
Her petite frame belied her strength as she tackled the trained hero to the ground.
Her rounded hips pressed against his taut abdomen.
Divine pressure and echoes of a past life pinned him motionless.
“Lyte~”
Bloodstained hands caressed his face.
Noi leaned down, her chest against his, her lips brushing his throat, teasing the V-shaped cartilage with her tongue.
“So… perfect…”
Snow-white hair cascaded over him, her misty blood eyes locked on him alone.
A woven mat of blood mist formed beneath them, soft as a tatami.
Her lips curved in a chilling, eerie smile.
Lyte lay helpless, his coat torn open by her relentless hands.
She buried her face in his chest, inhaling his scent, murmuring his name like an addict.
‘So… devour wasn’t literal…’
Like a drugged youth, Lyte was powerless as Noi ravaged him.
Her hand slid lower, dangerously close, when a confused voice broke the spell.
“What… are you doing?”
Xing Chen, reborn in flames, stared at the provocative scene, dumbfounded.
In his eyes, Noi’s actions were a side effect of her frenzied state.
Unaware of her past life, he didn’t grasp the depth of her obsession.
With Xing Chen’s help, Lyte restrained Noi, binding her tightly.
“I want… more…”
Her eyes, hazy with desire, never left Lyte, her blood-red gaze shimmering with longing, unsettling him deeply.
In her past life, Noi was a fallen angel of slaughter, their battles devoid of this intimate aggression.
Now, something had shifted, subtly, because of him.
Xing Chen, fingering his tattered clothes, spoke.
“Lyte, any ideas? I don’t know why her frenzy’s lasting so long.”
“I’ll… try something.”
Lyte placed a hand glowing with Heroic Power on Noi’s head.
But the cunning witch turned, catching his fingers in her mouth, sucking them like candy, her cheeks flushed with a strange heat.
Lyte flinched, trying to pull away, but her lips held tight, like a child with a favorite treat.
As she drew on his Heroic Power, the blood mist receded.
Her eyelids fluttered, closing slowly, and she fell into a deep sleep, her expression softening, innocent, still suckling his fingers like a babe.
Holding the pacified Noi, Lyte’s heart churned with conflicting emotions.
He freed the children and the old woman, checking their condition and using his Heroic Power to dispel Nightmare’s influence on Andy.
The Demon Suppression Division arrived at last.
Arden explained that his deputy had been misled by false intel, brushing it off as a Sin Domain trick.
Nightmare and Shang’s whereabouts were exposed, triggering a town-wide manhunt.
In the warehouse basement, they found victims of the missing persons case—some dead, some wounded.
The survivors were sent to the hospital, their recovery promising new evidence.
Xing Chen borrowed a phone from the deputy, fumbling with it as he spoke to Lyte on the warehouse lawn.
“Balance is fragile. The longer this drags, the more trouble piles up.”
“What?”
Lyte sat on the grass, Noi asleep on his lap, her lips smacking softly, dreaming of unknown delights.
“I see fate’s threads,” Xing Chen said.
“You and Noi are bound, not like my fleeting connection to her. Your destinies are intertwined, and even if torn apart Goddess Afiya will force them back together.”
“…”
Lyte’s fingers brushed through Noi’s hair, her soft murmurs tingling his scalp.
He stayed silent.
“Sooner or later, you’ll face an impassable fate. Together you live, or together you die. I’m no sage, but you can’t keep hesitating.”
Xing Chen sent a text, glancing at the tangled threads of fate between hero and witch, and sighed.
“Take the first step—choose to be yourself, or choose to save her.”
His own indecision had cost him his identity, blending into a collective memory of immortal beings.
Noi was a curiosity, a friend, a tool—but as long as Lyte didn’t cross lines like impregnating a saintess, Xing Chen wouldn’t interfere.
“Beep beep.”
A text notification.
Xing Chen’s face paled as he read it.
[Four captain-class mutants attacked the capital. Heavy losses. White Tiger betrayed us. Azure Dragon’s corrupted by chaos energy, sealed in ice by Black Tortoise. I’m pursuing the mutants. Xing Chen, stay away from the capital. Be careful.]
***
“Hero! Our great hero! Kill the witch!”
“Damn you, witch! Give me back my son!”
The clamor roused Noi from her stupor.
Her eyes fluttered open, one missing, her vision halved.
‘Oh… I’m blind in one eye…’
Her heavy head drooped, her single eye tracing the bloodstains and tattered rags clinging to her body.
The crowd below seethed, hurling accusations beyond her comprehension.
‘No, I’m not that person.’
She tried to protest, but her lips were sewn shut, her voice reduced to muffled whimpers.
A familiar figure emerged from a throng of adoring women, their eyes brimming with unmasked love.
“Click, clack.”
The black-haired hero dragged a silver dragon-tooth holy sword, ascending the execution platform with deliberate steps toward Noi Vellrich.
A black holy sword hung at his waist, a radiant rainbow gem on his chest engraved with his legend:
[Lyte Montis, Savior, Chosen One, Witch Executioner, Supreme Hero.]
“Clunk.”
His iron war boots struck the wooden platform.
The hero, clad in resplendent armor, gazed at the filthy, broken witch.
His face was weary, etched with time’s scars, a sword wound marring his left eye, forcing it half-closed.
‘Lyte….’
Noi’s heart ached, reaching for his face, only to realize her arms and legs were gone, severed clean.
“Hurry, great hero! Kill her like last week!”
“I’m in a rush! Get on with it! Killing the witch is the highlight of my week!”
The crowd roared.
Lyte’s face was stone as he raised the silver greatsword.
‘Lyte… don’t… please…’
“Shlick!”
Her heart pierced, agony stole her senses.
One stab wasn’t enough.
Lyte’s suppressed emotions erupted, slashing at her in a frenzied rage.
‘It hurts… so much… please, let me go…’
Noi watched, heartbroken, as Lyte vented his fury on her broken body.
The pain in her heart dwarfed the wounds on her flesh.
“Bravo! Well done!”
The crowd cheered, some hurling rotten eggs and wilted cabbage past the guards.
Catching her pleading gaze, Lyte sneered, gripping her disfigured face, his voice trembling.
“Do you know why I don’t use my Heroic Power to end you?”
‘Why… don’t you just kill me…’
“Shlick.”
Another sword plunged into her restored heart.
Lyte’s smile turned sickly.
“For every life you’ve taken, I’ll hold a witch’s execution. I’ll torment you here, forever, until I die.”
‘Lyte…’
Noi’s soul quaked, words trapped by searing pain as the blade twisted in her heart.
Her consciousness faded to black.
The World-Ending Witch, Vellrich, slipped into darkness once more.
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