“Pfft.”
Heiyi Jisi spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with his hand. The eyes hidden beneath the hood were now so deep that they seemed to drip venom.
He was a respected Black-robed Priest of the Holy Faith, someone who could even retreat unscathed from the full-scale encirclement of the Papal State, yet today he had been played for a fool by a “Non-magical Person” with no mana at all!
“I’ll chew every inch of your bones to pieces!”
Heiyi Jisi let out a shrill roar. The surging violet-black poisonous mist behind him seemed to come alive, crazily collapsing and condensing toward the center. Accompanied by the bone-chilling sound of cracking joints, a huge demon wolf over three meters in length, surrounded by a putrid stench, leaped out from the mist!
“Tear him apart!”
The demon wolf’s hind legs kicked off with immense force, like a black bolt of lightning, charging madly in the direction Luo Lin had fled.
At that moment, Luo Lin was carrying the over-two-hundred-pound Niu Zi on his shoulder, running wildly through the thorny woodland. The surge of adrenaline made him temporarily forget the ache in his muscles; his lungs pulled like a broken bellows, each breath carrying a heavy smell of blood.
‘Almost there, almost there, almost there! As long as I can run out of these woods…’ Luo Lin gritted his teeth and mentally cheered himself on.
But the beast’s roar, like the scythe of death, instantly closed in on the back of his head!
A stench-laden wind hit him.
Before Luo Lin could even turn his head, he felt as if a battering ram had slammed into his back.
Bam! The tremendous force sent Luo Lin and Niu Zi on his shoulder flying through the air. Luo Lin tumbled uncontrollably in mid-air, then crashed heavily into a thick ancient tree trunk, before bouncing painfully to the ground.
Ugh! Luo Lin spat out a large mouthful of blood, feeling as if all the bones in his body had been shattered in an instant.
Before he could catch his breath, a huge shadow loomed over him.
The demon wolf’s steel-like claws pressed firmly on Luo Lin’s thigh, the sharp tips piercing through the fabric and deep into his flesh.
Ah!!! Luo Lin screamed. The demon wolf did not immediately bite his throat. Instead, it cruelly lowered its head, bit down on Luo Lin’s shoulder, and gave a violent shake!
Cloth tore, flesh and blood flew. Luo Lin was flung several meters away like a broken ragdoll, leaving a glaring trail of blood on the mud covered with dead leaves.
Heiyi Jisi stepped slowly from the poisonous mist, crushing broken branches underfoot. The sound of his leather boots on the ground became the pendulum of Luo Lin’s life countdown.
“Aren’t you clever?”
Heiyi Jisi walked up to Luo Lin, grabbed his bloody neck, and lifted him into the air.
“Run! Keep running! Where’s your backbone now?”
The intense suffocation turned Luo Lin’s face purple-red. He weakly slapped at the priest’s iron-like arm. Blood flowed down his forehead into his eyes, turning the world in front of him into a tragic scarlet.
‘Looks like… this time I really have to restart from the save point.’ Luo Lin’s brain began to oxygenate, and his consciousness gradually blurred.
‘I only reincarnated a few days ago and now I’m about to be killed. What terrible luck. But… at least I got to enjoy the treatment of a top noble for a few days. Not a loss…’ He laughed bitterly in his heart.
Watching Luo Lin’s pupils becoming more and more unfocused, Heiyi Jisi’s expression grew even more ferocious: “At first, I only wanted your life. But now, I’ve changed my mind. I’ll make your life worse than death!”
Saying that, he used his other hand to pinch the black secret pill that exuded a foul stench and forcibly shoved it toward Luo Lin’s mouth.
“I want you to swallow this pill like a dog, then go back and personally pour poison into the teacup of that lofty Princess!”
The moment those words sounded, Luo Lin’s originally dull pupils, which had been ready to wait for death, suddenly contracted into a pinpoint.
Really make Alice drink poison?
In Luo Lin’s gradually darkening vision, scenes suddenly flashed by like a movie reel of memories. It was a girl with cherry-pink long hair, who, every time Luo Lin caused a huge disaster and was reviled by everyone, would always stand in front of him like a protective little adult.
That girl who always had a cold expression and a proud, sharp tongue, but would turn around and show him a bright and warm smile like the peach blossoms of April.
That was his best childhood friend, whom even the foolish and incompetent Luo Lin had never thought to truly harm.
‘Me? Hurt her?’
“Fuck you!!! The person I hate the most is the ungrateful kind!”
A power that came from nowhere suddenly burst from Luo Lin’s dying body! He clenched his teeth tightly, shut his mouth firmly, and at the same time writhed wildly, using his last ounce of strength to spit a bloody gob of saliva onto Heiyi Jisi’s face!
“You’re asking for death!” Heiyi Jisi was completely enraged. His right hand suddenly exerted force, ready to directly crush Luo Lin’s cervical vertebrae.
But just as that hand was about to close, a drop of icy cold sensation landed on the back of Heiyi Jisi’s hand.
Then a second, a third.
The sudden change made Heiyi Jisi pause, instinctively raising his head.
“Why is it snowing?”
This forest, originally filled with violet-black poisonous mist, was now actually seeing heavy, goose-feather snow. White, pure snowflakes swirled down, landing on Heiyi Jisi’s black robe, on the demon wolf’s ferocious fangs, and also on Luo Lin’s blood-stained face.
*
At this moment, in the capital of the Papal State, dozens of miles away.
Alice, wearing a simple, moon-white nightgown, held a cup of steaming hot cocoa and stood quietly in front of the huge window of her bedchamber.
Outside the window, the Papal State, which should have been warm and spring-like all year round, was now actually seeing flurries of heavy snow.
She slightly furrowed her willow-leaf brows, a hint of confusion flashing in her clear, light cherry-colored eyes.
In the center of her desk lay a childhood photo of her and Luo Lin.
At the same time, on a branch of a towering ancient tree at the edge of the Mist Forest, a small, petite girl in a black cloak stood facing the wind. Her white-gold long hair whipped wildly in the sudden blizzard, and her beautiful phoenix eyes narrowed slightly as she stared at the direction of the magical disturbance deep in the forest.
“How can there be such an abnormal blizzard in the territory of the Papal State?”
Lucia keenly sensed the ice-element magic fluctuations coming from the sky. “Could it be the work of those Heiyi Jisi who escaped from my hands a few days ago? No, I need to go check it out immediately.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, a silver-blue ripple appeared in the space at her feet, and she vanished from the spot in an instant.
*
Back in the depths of the Mist Forest, the hand Heiyi Jisi used to choke Luo Lin began to tremble uncontrollably.
Too cold.
This cold wasn’t the ordinary winter chill, but an absolute zero that could freeze the soul itself and completely stagnate the flow of magic within the body!
The giant demon wolf let out a whimper, as if sensing something terrifying, cowering its tail and retreating.
“You… what kind of monster are you?!” Heiyi Jisi looked at the Luo Lin in his hand in terror.
No, there was no Luo Lin in his hand anymore.
Suddenly, in a terrifying blizzard that swept across a ten-meter radius, that bloodied, useless young master actually dissipated into a mass of ice-blue light mist right before his eyes!
The wind and snow violently contracted, collapsed, and then gathered again.
The next second, amid countless spinning ice crystals and snowflakes, a pair of translucent, ice-blue eyes, filled with the ultimate aloofness and detachment of an upper-class being, slowly opened at the storm’s center.
Beneath the swirling snow, a petite, elegant, beautiful figure like an ice spirit, stepping on frozen frost, quietly descended into the world.