So that’s why I can attack that group of monsters without a shred of guilt.
Aoluola was thinking this to herself, then suddenly changed the subject, looking at Vyea with a pitiful, scrunched-up face and said bitterly,
“Look, I’ve been kneeling for so long already. If you’re feeling merciful and don’t plan to kill me, could you let me stand up first? My knees hurt…”
“So what? It’s not my knees that hurt. Keep kneeling.” Vyea smiled sweetly, her soft lips uttering chilling words.
She wasn’t the petty sort. This punishment wasn’t to take revenge for the earlier pain in her abdomen, but to make sure Aoluola remembered: as an assassin who failed her mission, this was the kind of defeat CG she’d unlock.
This damn wretch! Aoluola cursed inwardly, but kept a fawning smile on her face. “Then what do you want to do to let me go?”
“Let you go?”
Vyea looked at Aoluola as if she were an idiot, her emerald-green eyes full of amusement.
“Are you out of your mind? For a prisoner of war like you, the fact that I don’t turn you in for a bounty in a Human Alliance city is already a huge mercy, and you think kneeling a bit will make me set you free?
You love assassination, but you’re not willing to accept a loss. There are so many good things in the world, but you think you can have them all?
Or is it that you think I look harmless, so you assume I’m an easy pushover? Naive! With brains as slow as yours, I advise you to stop being an assassin. Go back to the countryside and herd sheep with your sister.”
Aoluola’s pale cheeks flushed instantly.
Her eyes practically screamed she wanted to take a bite out of Vyea, but with some effort she kept it in, her expression flickering between red and white, before she quickly dropped her head after a stealthy glance.
“I’m sorry…”
“Spare me the apology.”
Vyea snorted softly, bent over to sit on a block of ice, shivered from the cold, and immediately stood up again, displeased as she returned to the main topic.
“How many people did your group bring to ambush the Starlight Lily of the Valley this time? How strong are they? Any other backup plans?”
“…”
Aoluola was silent for a moment, then shyly touched her green ponytail hanging in front of her chest.
“Sorry, I didn’t really pay attention to those things… I didn’t keep track of the exact personnel assignments…”
“…”
Braised pig’s head!
Vyea let out a sigh. She’d already expected as much, so she changed her approach.
“Among them, how many are stronger than you, the ones you couldn’t kill?”
“Those I can’t kill…”
Aoluola thought hard, racking her brain. Then, suddenly enlightened, she raised her right index finger, her eyes shining.
“At the moment, none! After all, there really aren’t many like you who are so ridiculously hard to kill. My weapon was even coated in poison!”
As she spoke, Aoluola snuck another look at Vyea’s abdomen—the spot she’d targeted in her sneak attack.
Logically, there should’ve been a gaping, bloody wound there. But now, Vyea’s lower abdomen was perfectly intact, that enticing, milky-white skin even tinged with a healthy pink glow.
If not for the clothes with a hole still hanging on Vyea’s body, no one would believe she’d ever suffered a serious injury there.
“What are you staring at?” Vyea suddenly felt a chill down her spine, wanting to find something to cover her belly button.
“I’m just curious…”
Aoluola was full of disbelief, and the questions in her heart only multiplied.
“I remember my attack clearly hit both you and that Shell Monster, but how are you both still so lively? And… that Shell Monster seems to be alive too. How is that possible?”
“Your skills aren’t good enough.”
Vyea couldn’t be bothered to explain she was a slime, immune to both poison and wounds.
“Besides, the Mirage Demon’s main body may have shattered, but it’s still a seventh-tier monster. It can nurture a Pearl Sub-body in its belly. So, I protected its sub-body at the last moment. If you’d read more books, you’d know that too.”
“So Shell Monsters can nurture sub-bodies…”
Aoluola was stunned—how did she not know that? And… how did Vyea know so much?
She opened her mouth, but in the end didn’t ask “Who exactly are you?”—since Vyea probably wouldn’t answer anyway…
And so, in her heart, Aoluola grew curious about the true identity of the mysterious white-haired girl who’d captured her: When did my sister get to know someone like this?
So curious. Far too curious.
She really wanted to peel back that veil, to see the true identity hidden beneath. Was she a crisis from the abyss, or the harbinger of a new revolution?
Just to be safe, Vyea sorted through the information in her mind. Aoluola probably hadn’t lied—unless she’d spent the past three years in some evil cult, mastering deception until she could make lies seem real.
But that was obviously impossible.
Along the path covered in solid ice, Vyea turned her head to look at Aoluola, who was carrying her hand-painted mask at her waist.
If this petite assassin didn’t wear that fearsome mask, her appearance was actually rather charming, giving an impression of innocence and naivete at first sight.
Aoluola pointed to a waterfall at the end of the icy path and explained, “This used to be the place where a Boss from the Organization advanced from the eighth tier to the ninth. There’s even a Stele by the waterfall, recording the Boss’s life.”
It was very cold in the ice cave. The waterfall, though slim and weak, flowed slowly but mysteriously did not freeze. It joined a pond so clear that the bottom could be seen.
Beside the pond stood the Stele, its densely packed small characters made Vyea’s eyes spin.
But the gist was that a man named Lampard had once lived five hundred years ago, back before the Human Alliance had even been formed.
At that time, humans were divided among the Four Realms, each ruling their own land, forming a stalemate among four dynasties.
They fought endlessly, with powerful aristocrats oppressing the people. War and monster rampages left the land devastated.
The Four Dynasties not only had to fight monsters with their own forces, but also keep armies on hand to fend off the other three kingdoms. Thus began a tug-of-war that lasted for decades, leaving the common folk in constant suffering.
Back then, Lampard, a seventh-tier, had traveled widely for years and witnessed with his own eyes the miserable state of the people. One evening, burning with anger, he happened to meet a future companion giving an impassioned speech in a tavern at the docks.
Together, they formed the Resistance Army, broke the stalemate among the four kingdoms, and gave the people a brief respite.
“Seventh-tier is that impressive?” Vyea looked skeptical.
“The seventh-tiers I’ve met couldn’t even touch the word ‘amazing’.”
Aoluola’s mouth twitched, she hadn’t expected such coarse words from Vyea. But considering her current status as a prisoner, she held back her retort and patiently explained,
“You don’t get it. Here’s a secret: humanity’s level of development back then was nothing like it is now. There weren’t any Magical Runes, Magical Crystal Cannons, Magic Arks. Humans couldn’t even use the magic stored in those precious Magic Crystal Stones!”
“That’s hardly a secret.”
Vyea shrugged. Even she, summoned only decades ago as the Brave, knew all this. Secret? Hardly.
“Tsk! You’re so annoying!”
Aoluola squatted by the pool, washing her hands as she said, “What I mean is: the monsters back then were nowhere near as powerful as they are now—not even close!
The stronger humanity gets, the stronger the Demon Kings among monsters become. The stronger the Demon Kings, the more extreme and terrifying the monsters they command.”
“Monsters have Demon Kings, but humanity has Braves too.”
Vyea shook her head.
She’d fought most Demon Kings herself, and their strength was just so-so… But now that she thought about it, those Demon Kings she’d defeated always managed to escape with their lives—maybe that was connected to Flavail’s tricks.
“Sigh…”
Vyea sighed, distracted herself, and asked, “Is that Lampard and the tavern orator still alive?”
Aoluola shook her head. “It’s been nearly six hundred years. Humans aren’t monsters—they died long ago. But I’ve heard that every year, people from the Organization go to the founders’ graves to pay their respects.”