Chapter 262 - 143-147

Chapter 143 Alice's Life

The dreamscape shifted.

I didn't feel my body anymore, only the drift of consciousness as my soul merged with Alice's. This wasn't like when I entered Gu Jie's soul, where lines blurred and I became her. No. This was different. I could still tell where I ended and she began. I was a passenger, not a replacement. A thread wound into her, not a needle driving the story forward.

Divine Possession wasn't just possession. It was empathy, distilled into a technique. If she laughed, I'd feel the tug at my lips. If she cried, I'd taste the salt on my tongue.

It was compassion turned into a system mechanic. Honestly, it was kind of beautiful.

And right now?

Alice was pissed.

The scene opened in a stone hallway, arched with ivy creeping in through stained glass windows. The light was golden, casting pools on the floor where the sun filtered through images of angels and saints. Candles flickered in wall sconces. The air smelled of old parchment, beeswax, and incense.

"I said no, Sister Magdalene!" a girl's voice snapped from around the corner.

I turned toward it instinctively, even though I didn't have feet anymore. Just presence.

Alice stormed into view. Brown hair, cut messily, framed her face. She looked like she hadn't brushed it all morning, which, judging by the fire in her expression, might've been true. Her cheeks were flushed with frustration. She wore a simple white and blue robe, clearly too big for her small frame, and her sleeves kept slipping down past her wrists.

She didn't look over twenty.

"You can't just keep me here like this! I have the right to leave!" she shouted.

Behind her, a plump, wrinkled nun followed, clearly long past tired with the conversation. "You are the chosen Holy Woman, Alice. The prophecy…"

"Screw the prophecy!" Alice flailed her arms, nearly hitting a candle. "I don't even believe half the things you people chant every morning!"

Sister Magdalene's eye twitched. "Watch your tongue, child."

"I'm not a child!" Alice barked back. "I'm an adult! I know what I want… and I don't want to waste my life stuck in a building praying to a golden statue for people who don't care if I'm happy!"

I watched from the side. I couldn't interact, not yet. I was just observing. But somehow, the emotion in the air seeped into me. My fists clenched. My chest tensed. She really didn't want to be here.

And yet, I could also feel the guilt in her bones. That ache when you know you're disappointing someone who raised you. The way she glanced away after yelling, not quite able to hold eye contact. She wasn't a bad person. She was just trapped.

I remembered her lore, of course. Alice of the Silver Dawn. Born to a peasant couple who died during the Plague of Thorns. Raised by a traveling priest. Eventually taken in by the Church. I'd read it all back in high school while grinding achievements. At the time, it was just flavor text, something I memorized because I thought she was hot.

But now?

Now I saw the moments between the lines.

I saw her kneeling in front of a cracked altar, muttering prayers while hungry.

I saw her staring longingly out the convent windows at kids running through the town square.

I saw her clumsily swinging a broom like it was a sword, pretending to be a knight.

I saw her weeping once when Sister Magdalene fell sick, and she stayed up for three nights straight nursing her, not even knowing the proper herbs to use.

She had been so naive. Kind of dumb. But a heart of gold.

The memory looped again.

"I want to leave," she muttered this time, voice quieter, more tired.

"You have nowhere to go," the nun said gently.

Alice didn't answer.

She just stared at the sun through the window like it was taunting her.

The memory ended there, fading softly like the last note of a lullaby.

And in that moment, I felt it… a warmth, somewhere deep in the chest. Not mine. Hers.

Loneliness. Hope. Anger. Confusion. All tangled together.

This was the real Alice. Before she ever tasted blood. Before she ever became a vampire. Before the world twisted her into a creature that others feared.

And even now, part of her was still that girl. Still staring out the window.

Wanting to be free.

That was the problem with the Divine Possession skill.

It didn't give a damn about boundaries or personal space. There was no line it wouldn't cross, no door it wouldn't open. When I cast it, I was allowed in completely: memories, emotions, dreams, and traumas. The whole messy spectrum of a life lived and still being lived.

And the worst part?

I liked it.

No, loved it.

It was addictive. That miracle of connection, of being able to understand someone else not just with words but with soul… it was intoxicating, like sex but many times better. Every time I used Divine Possession, I felt like another person and myself at the same time. I got to live lives that weren't mine. I got to experience what made someone them, see the world through their eyes, love the things they loved, and hate the things they hated.

It was like eternity, compressed into a single heartbeat. An infinite stretch of moments folded neatly into a flicker of time I could revisit, again and again.

That's why I turned away.

Not out of guilt. Not even really out of respect.

But because if I stayed too long, I knew I'd lose myself.

A flicker of green light shimmered in my vision… a butterfly, translucent and glowing, fluttering on wings woven from my Soulful Guiding Fire. It danced across the dreamscape like it knew the way, like it belonged there.

So I followed it.

Down the stone halls, past memories stitched into shadow and stained glass. Through silence and dreams and the rustle of pages that no longer existed. I followed it because I had to know. I had to see how Alice ended up like that.

And then I was there.

The dream shifted around me like a held breath exhaled too quickly. The convent was burning. Not with fire… but with blood.

The air reeked of iron and incense and something wrong. Something that made my skin crawl, even though I didn't technically have skin right now. The floors were slick with crimson, the walls clawed with scratches and symbols that hadn't existed in any religious text. Moonlight poured through shattered windows, washing over the bodies of the Sisters. Some were still alive, twitching. Most weren't.

Alice was running.

Her dream-body surged past me, barefoot, robes soaked and torn. Her eyes, those soft brown eyes, were different now. Glowing red, slit like a cat's. Her hands trembled, nails darkening, warping. She stumbled over Sister Magdalene's body and screamed. Not a battle cry. Not fury.

Just pure, unfiltered grief.

"No… no, no, no…" she sobbed, falling to her knees. "You were supposed to… You said the saints… You said the saints would protect us!"

A low laugh echoed behind her. A silhouette stood in the wreckage of the altar, tall and lean, half-shrouded in mist. I didn't need to see his face to know what he was. Vampire Progenitor.

One of the ancient ones. The kind who didn't just drink blood, but rewrote people with it.

His voice was like honey on a dagger. "Oh, little lamb… you should be thanking me. You're free now. No more cages. No more prayers to deaf gods."

Alice turned, mouth bloodied. "You made me a monster!"

He stepped closer. "No, dear. I gave you power. The Church would've let you die nameless. Now? You'll be remembered."

She hurled a chunk of debris at him with raw instinct. It missed. He laughed again and vanished.

The vision stilled. The dream slowed. I felt her rage bubble under my ribs, like magma. Her shame, her betrayal, and her terror. They swirled inside me like poison mixed with holy wine. And beneath it all… that aching, bitter thing:

Loss.

She hadn't wanted this. She'd just wanted to leave. To be free.

And now she could never go back.

I moved slowly through the scene, feet skimming the blood-slick floor as I traced her steps. My Soulful Guiding Fire butterfly flickered again and I followed it deeper, through a crumbled doorway into what remained of the chapel.

A mirror stood there, cracked down the middle, reflecting two versions of Alice.

One side showed her with holy light behind her: a robe mended, a staff of silver in her hand, and eyes full of hope.

The other side?

Crimson eyes. Fangs. A cloak of dusk and shadow. Power that made the air itself tremble.

Both were her.

Both were real.

I reached out, not with a hand, but with a presence, and touched the edge of the mirror. And in that instant, I felt her soul flinch.

She knew I was there now.

Her presence bloomed behind me like a gust of wind.

"…You're seeing all of it, aren't you?" she whispered.

I turned, or maybe just acknowledged her. Her dream-self was older now. The Alice I knew: fanged, beautiful, and dangerous. But also… tired. The kind of tired that sleep never fixes.

"I didn't mean to pry," I said, and meant it. "Divine Possession doesn't exactly come with a consent form."

She didn't smile. Didn't frown either. Just watched me for a moment. Then she said:

"You know… I used to pretend I was the hero in a story. Slaying evil. Saving people. Making them proud."

"You were a hero," I said gently. "You are."

"No." Her voice broke. "I was just… a scared girl who wanted out. And when I finally got what I wanted, it destroyed everything I loved."

I didn't have an answer for that.

Because she was right.

Sometimes freedom came with a cost so high, you couldn't tell if it was still worth it. Sometimes, the door out of the cage led straight into the abyss.

"I'm still here, though," she whispered after a long silence. "I'm still me. Even if I don't always feel like it."

I nodded, my voice soft. "And that's enough."

She looked at me then. Really looked at me. And for the first time, she didn't see a skill invading her soul. She saw me.

"…Thank you," she said.

The dream began to fade again, slipping into that golden quiet where memories rest.

But before I was pulled back, I heard her voice one last time.

"I don't want to be alone anymore."

Neither did I.

The memory shifted.

The golden hues of the convent dissolved like dust scattered by wind, and for a second, I floated in nothingness: no sound, no sensation, just the faint flicker of consciousness tethering me to something deeper.

Then came the pulse.

It was soft at first, like a heartbeat in the distance. But with it came a presence. Not memory. Not reenactment. Aware. Real.

Alice.

I felt her now, not just as some echo of her former self but present. She was here with me.

Her soul brushed against mine like the breeze before a storm, deliberate and warm. I turned, though I had no body to turn with, and there she stood. Not the girl from before. Not the fledgling vampire drenched in blood. This Alice was different. Something between then and now.

Her eyes met mine, and for the first time since I began using Divine Possession, the reenactment acknowledged me.

"I only wanted to know what happened in Sandthorn Village," I said softly. "There's no need to go this far…"

She nodded, lips twitching like she might smile, but didn't. "But I want you to see," she said. Her voice wavered like a candle's flame. "I don't want to be alone anymore."

That got me.

I could've told her she wasn't alone. That I was here now, watching. But she didn't need promises. She needed presence. So I gave her that.

"Okay," I said. "I'll stay."

And then it began.

A thousand scenes bloomed like flowers in fast-forward. Alice wandered the world: a drifter, a shadow, and a hunter wrapped in a pale girl's skin. She searched for answers. For cures. For redemption. I walked with her. Or floated, or simply existed beside her. Divine Possession blurred the lines between observer and companion. I felt her pain, her hope, her bitter hatred for the blood that cursed her.

She hunted them. Vampires. Not out of loyalty to the Church that once abandoned her, but out of fury. Vengeance. A need to erase her reflection by destroying what had made her.

"Monster," they called her.

"Heretic."

"Traitor to your own kind."

"Cannibal."

She didn't argue. She drank their blood not to thrive, but to spite them. With every progenitor she slew, her hair lightened, darkened, then shimmered with a strange rosiness… like crushed rose quartz in sunlight. It became her mark. Her myth.

And still, I stayed.

Decades turned into centuries. Centuries into millennia.

And I was there.

I watched her sleep in hidden crypts, tucked beneath church ruins. I watched her fight through snowy forests and desert wastelands, chased by those who feared her, revered her, or wanted her power.

But the moments that broke me weren't the battles.

They were the pauses.

A woman with kind eyes handed her a loaf of bread in a cold village where no one else would meet her gaze. A child with a scraped knee smiled when Alice healed him and whispered, "Are you an angel?" She didn't answer.

She never stayed long. A day. A week. Then gone. But I saw her smile. Once, in a cottage lit only by firelight, when a man with broken teeth offered her a place at his table and called her "Miss." Not "beast." Not "witch." Just Miss.

Those were the moments she lived for.

Not power. Not revenge.

Kindness.

Genuine, fleeting, human kindness.

And I understood, finally. Her love for humanity wasn't a trick of the mind or a leftover habit from before the blood. It was real. The kind of love born from distance and longing, nurtured by small acts of grace in a world that gave her none.

She never wanted to be feared.

She wanted to be human again.

Not in body. But in heart.

I turned to her as the dreamscape quieted. The sky was a muted lavender now, stars blinking softly above a field of poppies.

She stood beside me, hair glinting pink under the starlight.

"I don't hate them," she whispered. "Even when they ran from me. Even when they tried to kill me. I still loved them."

"I know," I said.

She looked up at me. Vulnerable. Small.

"I just didn't want to be alone anymore."

"You're not."

And this time, she smiled.

A real one.

Maybe that was the true miracle behind Divine Possession. Not the ability to see memories. Not the insights or stats or secrets.

But the simple power to sit beside someone, soul to soul… and stay.

Chapter 144 The Long Echo

The memory didn't end.

It shifted again, seamlessly, as if flipping to the next chapter in a story already written but now being read aloud with fresh eyes. The field of poppies faded. The lavender sky turned to grey. And when the light returned, I saw it.

Me.

Or at least, him.

David_69.

I stood on a ruined bridge beneath a shattered moon, decked in the full Paladin kit from my late-game loadout: Radiant Fang, Iron Mercy cloak, and that dumb over-leveled shield I used to call the Pancake of Justice.

And across from me stood Alice.

But not the Alice I knew now. This was her at her most untrusting. Her most dangerous. Rosy hair stained darker by blood. Fangs bared. Cloak of shadows billowing behind her like wings of ink. The two stared each other down like fated rivals.

"You hunt vampires?" she hissed. "You call yourself holy, yet you swing your blade blindly. Do you not know who I am? Do you know my story? Do you know my pain? How dare you look down on me?!"

David, me, didn't back down. He gritted his teeth and leveled his sword. "You kill people."

"I kill monsters."

"Then we're no different. But I still have to take you in."

And that's when the fighting started.

Honestly, that wasn't how I remembered what happened.

Instead, I remembered the meeting with more whining on her part and me cussing my heart out as I chugged on an energy drink, and my game avatar chugging on potions.

It wasn't just a clash of swords and spells. It was a fight for one's ideals. So yeah, it was a tough fight. Of course, David_69 had his own ideals. As for me, I was just there for a different reason. Flame met void. Steel clashed against shadow. Light and dark coiled, wrapped, tore each other apart, and reformed again.

I watched the battle from outside my body, detached and ghostlike, but I remembered every move. Every parry, every counterspell. I remembered how hard that fight had been, how long it lasted.

What I didn't remember back then was how hurt Alice looked when we first spoke.

"You don't understand," she had said mid-fight, bleeding from her side. "Every Champion comes at me swinging. I expect it. I brace for it."

David scowled, blade raised. "You're an enemy of the Realm!"

She laughed bitterly. "Of course I am. What kind of world lets people like me live?"

"But do I really have to fight you?" asked David with a pained expression. "Yes, I see your point... but..."

It was at that moment I started to realize, watching from the outside, just how real this was. Even now, LLO remained distant from me. Of course, I get the xianxia elements and have come to accept it, but the world of LLO?

Back then, in Lost Legends Online, I thought it was just amazing writing. Just some dynamic NPC with a branching dialogue tree and a rare drop table. Alice was famous among the community. Half the player base hated her. The other half was obsessed.

And I? I was one among the obsessed. The one who... she spoke to, not just fought. I tried hard to look for a dialogue option, so I raised my Speech Stat as much as possible before that fateful encounter.

"Why do we fight?" I asked. "Just surrender!"

"Kill me," she answered. "And I will find peace."

She even acknowledged it now, standing beside me in the echo of that battle. Her ghost-like form watched the reenactment unfold with me.

"That was… life-changing," she murmured.

"You mean the fight?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Meeting you."

I looked at her, and for a moment, I forgot we were walking through her soul.

She continued, "Most Champions… Immortal Souls, as your lot called them… only saw me as a monster. They'd draw their blades before I even opened my mouth. Didn't matter what I said. But you were different."

"Uuuh…" I nodded. "Yeah… makes sense."

Technically, I drew blades first before I started talking. The cut-scene demanded it after all. The memory flickered again, another scene stitched into this dreamlike tapestry of her soul. Same bridge. Same moon, but less shattered now, as if remembering softened even the sky's wounds.

The fight had dragged on for nearly twenty minutes, real-time. Most PvP duels didn't last a third of that. We weren't just throwing numbers at each other. We were talking. And not like two players bantering over headsets. No, this was deeper and layered. Alice wasn't just an NPC with a hot character model and OP vampire stats. She felt real. Her dialogue didn't follow standard scripting patterns. Her lines changed depending on how I moved, when I spoke, even how much damage I took.

It wasn't just programming. It was like she knew.

At one point, I tried to cheese her with a terrain exploit, some busted ledge jump combo I'd seen in a forum video, but she laughed.

"Oh no," she'd said, sidestepping the trick like she'd seen it a thousand times. "Not that again. Champions always try that rock-hop thing. Did someone on your 'chat board' suggest it?"

That line hit me like a glitch to the gut. Most players would complain how dialogues like that would ruin immersion. But LLO's players weren't 'most' players. I was the same.

Alice knew. Or at least, she knew enough. LLO's world wasn't supposed to break immersion like that. And yet, there she was… sounding like she half-understood what a player was, what a forum was, what a cheese strat was.

"What are you?" My character asked mid-fight, breath ragged, shield cracked, Radiant Fang glowing at half-durability.

Her eyes gleamed like blood-stained garnets. "I'm someone the gods forgot. I was a daughter of light once. A Holy Woman. Now I live in the dark and pretend not to miss the sun. Now, kill me, wandering adjudicator! Deliver me!"

That was the turning point. Not just in the fight, but in the questline.

We didn't end it with emptying each other's HP. It ended by choice.

"I don't want to kill you," I'd said finally, lowering my weapon.

"Then what do you want, Paladin?"

"I want to understand you. To help."

She'd gone quiet for a long time. The wind howled between us, carrying motes of ash from a world forever burning.

Then she said, "Find a cure. Free me from this curse. And in return… I'll teach you the one thing your light has never given you."

That was how the Exalted Renewal quest began.

Back then, I thought it was just a prestige-line hidden unlock. Maybe a faith-locked Paladin passive, or a bugged interaction between Warlock and Priest legacy paths. But now, standing beside Alice in this echo of memory, I understood something I didn't before.

It wasn't a bug. It wasn't a feature.

It was her choice.

The system hadn't assigned her to give me that skill. She had chosen to teach me.

Back then, I hadn't known how any of it worked. The NPCs of LLO… they weren't normal. They spoke like they lived in some fantasy realm, sure, but their word choices always had this offbeat quality to them. They didn't say "level up," but they'd talk about "refining their Path" or "advancing their Soul Brand." They didn't say "Class"—they said "Calling." EXP was "Karmic Light." Dungeons were "Wounds in the World." It wasn't just flavor text. It felt real. Too real.

Even now, watching the scene replay from the inside of Alice's soul, I could hear it in her voice.

"You think this world is simple," she spat as she bled across broken stone. "You think there's black and white. Good and evil. But everything here is dying slowly. Some of us just decided to die faster. I want to die! But you refuse!"

I remembered how I'd paused. How I had genuinely hesitated, sword half-lowered.

"You don't have to die," I said, low. "You're smart. You're strong. Just… surrender. We can find a way to fix this."

Her expression twisted like I'd slapped her. "Fix? Fix?!" And then, softer: "You think I haven't tried?"

That was when I made her the offer.

"I'll do it," I said unconsciously into the mic, feeling caught in the moment. "I'll find a way to cure your vampirism. I'll grind whatever questline it takes. I'll burn all my mats, spend all my tokens, reroll my damn build if I have to."

She blinked. For once, no biting retort came. No spell. No sudden strike.

Instead, she said, "If you mean that… I'll teach you something. Something lost to time. A skill once taught to me when I still wore white robes and carried a sun-marked scepter."

"Wait, you're talking about…"

"Exalted Renewal," she whispered. "I will teach it to you. Now. Let's do it now."

Even hearing the name gave me chills. Back then, I thought it was just another cool, overdramatic spell name. But it wasn't. It was an Ultimate Skill. One of the old legacy ones, from the early patches of LLO that people barely remembered.

But that wasn't the problem.

Alice was talking to me via the headset.

I remembered the interface… flickering, almost reluctant to let it happen. But it did happen.

Exalted Renewal

[Paladin Legacy / Ultimate Skill]

"Requires death to activate. Fully consumes the user's Divine Soul to resurrect with one final burst of divine energy. All conditions must be met. Cannot be triggered by external resurrection effects. One use per lifetime."

The confirmation window appeared like a divine decree, written in gold-edged script.

But the cost? It was steep.

To learn it, I had to sacrifice skills. Not just dump points like normal, but permanently recycle them. I let go of three Divine Word series abilities: Word of Radiance, Word of Binding, and Word of Mercy. Each one had gotten me through nightmare dungeons and solo runs. They were pretty useful in PvP too. They weren't just numbers. They were part of my identity as a Paladin, so it hurt when I gave them up.

Alice hadn't even blinked when I told her I was ready.

We stood together in the ruined sanctum, just past the bridge, her stronghold, if the game's HUD was to be believed. She raised her hand, and I felt the ritual start. Symbols carved themselves in blood through the air, looping in runes I didn't recognize but somehow understood.

"This is a Blood Pact," she said. "Not just a mere quest binding. If you break it, truly break it, you won't just die."

"I'll become your thrall."

She didn't deny it.

"You will lose your mind. Your will. You'll become the thing I fought so hard not to be. And then you will serve me… until you fulfill your end of the bargain."

I hesitated only a second, then said, "I'm in."

I remembered the sound of her voice when she whispered the final word to seal the pact. A kind of mournful acceptance. Not hopeful. Just tired. Like someone who had been disappointed too many times to believe anymore, but who still dared, just once more.

The memory shifted again.

And this time… it burned.

I found myself in the sky. No bridge. No Alice. Just a sun that flickered like a dying candle over a broken landscape. Glitched textures, missing assets, monsters frozen in T-poses, or twitching spasms. LLO was falling apart.

This was the end.

I remembered it, vividly now. The week the servers started hemorrhaging players. People logged off and never came back. Skill trees bugged out. Certain abilities wouldn't activate. Crafting failed unpredictably. Some quests locked permanently. Even movement started to break, avatars clipping through geometry or falling forever into the void.

The devs had gone silent. The subreddit turned into a graveyard of bug reports and conspiracy posts. Most players called it an unbalanced mess and bailed.

But the ones who stayed?

We weren't there for gameplay anymore.

We were there for the NPCs.

Because somehow, even as the rest of the world collapsed, they didn't break.

They mourned. They panicked. They held funerals for villages that despawned, which later was found out got wrecked by angels. They cried when their scripted gods stopped answering prayers. They remembered me, even across play sessions, even if I created new accounts.

They'd ask:

"Where have you been?"

"Have you come to help?"

"Please… don't leave us again."

That was why it had a cult following, why people were so obsessed. And why, when I died, truly died, in the game, not from a glitch or logout timeout, but perma-death at some virus bugged-out eldritch hands, something broke in more than just the system.

The memory pulled me forward. Faster now.

I saw Alice again. Not as a boss. Not even as a quest-giver. Joan was with her, looking the same as the day I met her in the game. Then Alice turned toward the broken dungeon where I fought an eldritch abomination, and began weaving a spell. One the game had never logged. One that didn't exist in any datamine.

A Soul-Seeking Rite.

I watched, stunned, as she and Joan gathered mana and tore a portal from where I had my last fight in the world of LLO.

The memory kept shifting.

I saw them after. Lost. Wandering.

The language was a nightmare for them. No interface. No auto-translations. They had no idea where I'd gone or what world they'd landed in. I watched Alice try to barter with a passing merchant by drawing runes in the dirt. Watched her cry when she realized the locals couldn't understand anything she was saying. Joan had tried to write out spell glyphs, but even those twisted midair, this world rejected their systems.

And yet, they kept going.

Day by day, town by town.

Looking for me.

Joan refused to feed for weeks. Alice pawned old gear to buy food and information. A floating skull: ancient, lecherous, and far too interested in Alice's "unusual soul structure", eventually began translating and teaching them the local tongue. Slowly. Painfully.

They suffered.

But they endured.

Now, here, in the remnants of Alice's soul, I stood beside her and watched it all again.

Watched as she walked through a world that didn't want her, again, just to find me.

She didn't say anything.

But she didn't need to.

I turned to her, voice quiet.

"I'm sorry you went through all of that."

"Don't mind me," She shrugged. "I was the one chasing a ghost."

"You weren't," I said. "You found me."

For a moment, she smiled. A real one. Not the bitter, crooked one she used to wear.

Then she reached out and placed her hand gently over my heart.

"You still have it," she said. "The spark. The one that makes you worth dying for."

"Hey now, I might get the wrong idea," I looked at her, stunned. "Moreover, I thought I was the one who was supposed to die for you."

The memory pressed on, bleeding from one moment to the next like ink across parchment. The world dissolved into ash and starlight, and the world shifted again. I found myself above it, distant and bodiless, watching like a silent god peering into a page already written.

Darkness. Trees. Mist that curled like smoke.

The Black Forest.

Even now, in dreamlike recall, I felt the heavy, pressing weight of the place… like the air was thick with secrets. I remembered fighting with them side by side.

We'd won, eventually. If you could call surviving winning. The thing dissipated into glitch-light, leaving the forest silent again. The three of them limped out, two in soul, one in body.

The memory shifted again.

The Great Desert.

Endless dunes stretched beneath a white-hot sky, but the sand didn't scorch… No, it pulsed with heat like a heartbeat. The three wandered, clothes ragged, and Lu Gao half-starved. They found the village by accident… Sandthorn, the oasis hidden in the lee of a ridge-like dune, with palm roofs and soft-spoken people who asked no questions.

Alice and Joan, or rather Aili Si and Cho An, as the locals called them now, managed to adapt to the village rather well. Lu Gao, of course, kept his own name… nobody ever tried to rename him.

They stayed. They settled. And I... watched.

It had felt like years since I'd seen them like this. Not just surviving, but living. Alice trained Lu Gao in actual martial drills, correcting his footwork, running him through movements using a sand-worn staff. At night, they sat by the communal fire and listened to the elders tell stories, using the few words they'd managed to pick up.

The villagers adored Joan. They whispered of her kindness, her strength. How she could sing and lull children to sleep. They brought her flowers. Dried dates. Laughter.

And then the sky broke.

It started with one angel. Then three. Then more.

They appeared in the dunes like statues, as if remembering they used to be gods. Wings too bright. Eyes too empty. Heaven's software wrapped in something too clean, like sterilized death.

I saw Alice's panic the moment she recognized them.

She didn't hesitate.

She forced a scroll into Lu Gao's hand, forcing him to teleport. He tried to resist, tried to stay, but the spell was already unraveling beneath his feet.

The teleportation tore him away.

She turned. The angels hovered over Sandthorn now.

I saw her choices.

I watched as she fought. Fire, shadow, light, illusions… all of it. She summoned spells I didn't recognize, cracked the sky, and collapsed two of them with a demonized version of the chant from her Holy Woman days. But they multiplied, absorbing the villagers they touched. With every life taken, they grew stronger, cleaner, and more mechanical.

And Alice…

She made the only choice she could.

She began killing the villagers herself.

Clean, merciful strikes. Magic that unmade them faster than the angels could claim them. Her face was stained with tears and blood. Her voice trembled with every invocation.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wanted to save you."

Her hands shook. Her soul splintered. But she didn't stop.

She killed them all.

Only ashes remained.

And the angels left her alone.

In the dream space, I turned to her. The ghost beside me. The echo of her. She didn't look at me. She stared at the scene like she could still smell the fire, still feel the heat on her skin.

"I didn't want to do it," she said finally. Her voice cracked.

"I know."

"No one else would've understood."

"I do."

She finally turned to me. Her eyes, so often sharp, looked tired. "Do you hate me for it?"

"No," I whispered. "I think… I think you saved them."

That was the truth of it.

Even now, this world was cruel. The rules were different. The stakes were higher. And Alice—Aili Si—had done what no Paladin, no Champion, no so-called hero could have done.

She sacrificed her own peace to protect their souls.

The memory shimmered, fading. 

She had waited for me.

Through black forests, cursed beasts, broken language, and holy monsters…

She had waited.

And I was finally here.

Chapter 145 Unexpected Kidnapping

The memory didn't end.

It couldn't.

I was still inside Alice's soul, watching through her eyes. Feeling through her heart. Hearing her breath tremble as she cut down the last of the villagers. She knew them, and it hurt her.

Not in the way an outsider passes through and trades a few words… Alice knew their names, their jokes, and the way old Jiu Ma always pretended to be blind just to dodge chores. The way the twins argued over which of them was faster. The way that little girl, Sanli, always brought Alice her best acorns like they were sacred offerings.

Alice cut them down anyway.

Her sword trembled in her hands, but she didn't stop. One clean stroke after another. No waste, no hesitation. Her heart was breaking in real time, and I felt it through the link… splintering like ice underfoot. And through her sobs, she whispered the one thing that cracked me more than any scream could have.

"You'll fix this… won't you, David?"

"You're the hero. You can bring them back. If not you, then… maybe Joan."

I clenched my fists, but they weren't my fists. I could only watch.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, blood staining the sand, light flaring behind her. "I'm so, so—"

A ripple of divine light split the sky.

Alice turned.

Joan appeared.

But not really.

Her body floated down like a feather on divine wind, but her eyes… they were empty. No spark. No curiosity. No mischief. None of the chaotic, brilliant soul I remembered from LLO.

Just utter silence.

She was wearing ceremonial white robes edged in holy gold, and a halo circled her head—not illusion, not aesthetic, but real. Constructed. Forced. "Joan?" Alice called.

No response.

She raised her weapon instead.

I frowned. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. The divine signature radiating from Joan didn't feel like hers… it felt like mine. Or rather, like my skill... Divine Possession. When I used it, I'd step into someone else's body, override the self, and take the reins. Possession, cloaked in sanctity.

That's what I was looking at.

Joan... wasn't Joan.

She was being piloted.

The clash was inevitable.

Alice didn't wait. She dashed forward, striking low, hoping to disarm, not kill. She still believed she could bring her friend back.

Yes, they were friends. I could sense in Alice's soul how she had come to cherish Joan. But Joan met her, blow for blow, without flinching. Her movements were mechanical. Precise. Calculated to win, not to survive.

"I don't want to fight you," Alice murmured, dodging a spear of light that melted the ground.

No answer.

Joan or the thing controlling her raised her hand. Glyphs spiraled in the air. I recognized the spell a half-second too late.

Heavenly Punishment.

A colossal hammer of divine force fell from the sky and crashed into Alice, cratering the village beneath her feet. The light was unbearable. My ears rang even though it was a memory. Her spells cracked. Her scream choked back.

She got up.

Gods, she got up.

Bleeding, breathing hard, and trembling... but she got up.

"Joan," she begged. "Wake up. Please."

The sky shimmered again.

The second Heavenly Punishment descended like a god's gavel, and this time it wasn't just Alice. The entire center of Sandthorn Village was erased. Houses. Corpses. Even the sand was turned to glass. If not, it turned black.

Alice hit the ground hard, sword shattered, clothes burned to ash.

She didn't move again.

And Joan… floated back to the sky.

The clouds parted, unnaturally neat, like opening a vault. Golden light streamed down in rays, and then she was taken. Her body rose slowly, arms limp at her sides, swallowed by the radiance of Heaven.

Then… nothing.

The memory ended.

The dreamscape darkened. I was back in the stillness between thoughts.

Joan had been kidnapped. Ripped from our world like an item looted from a corpse. I clenched my jaw, heart thundering.

Of course, it had to be her.

Of course, the universe couldn't leave well enough alone.

I breathed in, bitter and numb. "Why is it always me?"

I'd already fought angels, crossed continents, and nearly lost myself to this world more than once. Now Joan, my stubborn, loud, and reckless friend, was being used like a puppet by a faction that wanted to rewrite the damn universe to achieve there version of eternal peace.

I stared into the darkness of the fading soul memory.

So that was what happened.

Alice had made a choice no one should ever have to make. Joan had been taken. And me?

I was going to get her back.

Arguably, the player character 'Joan' was a stranger to me, but not to David_69.

The memory wasn't over. It should have been over. The soulscape had faded after the memory had played out... Joan had been taken. But suddenly, without warning, the world twitched.

Like a skipped heartbeat. Like the reel of a movie being rolled backward and snapped back into place.

The sands of Sandthorn Village reformed. The glassed craters mended. The smoldering air returned to silence. Time rewound itself, re-stitching reality into the moment just after Alice fell.

And there she was again… Joan. Or rather, the thing inside Joan. Standing above the fallen Alice, divine light still curled around her like tendrils of smoke. But then, she moved.

Not the kind of movement a memory makes. Not a puppet retracing its steps.

She turned and looked straight at me.

Me.

Not Alice.

Me!

Her eyes met mine, sharp and glinting with unnatural clarity.

"Hello, Anomaly," she said, voice soft, melodic, and terrifying. "My name is Aixin. It means Loving Heart."

I staggered back instinctively, though my body wasn't entirely mine in this place.

"What the hell is this?" I asked. "How are you doing this? This should be a memory... just a playback. You shouldn't be able to see me."

She tilted her head slightly, almost amused.

"It's within my authority," Aixin said. "Your little spell is impressive. But it tugs too hard on threads you don't understand. A shame, really. You're clever for a lower-order soul."

She walked through the ruined sand, each step leaving behind motes of gold.

"What do you think of cultivation?" she asked, as if we were sharing tea in a garden instead of standing in the shell of a destroyed village. "It's incredible, isn't it? A staircase for mortals to reach the divine."

A sudden flare of heat ignited beside me. My Holy Spirit, Dave, manifested in a flash of righteous fury, glowing with wrath.

"GIVE. ME. JOAN. BACK!!" he roared.

The force of his presence cracked the ground. A holy sword surged into his hand, light blazing. He lunged at her like a comet of righteous vengeance.

Alice's voice rang in my head, strained and urgent:

"Get him out of here!"

 Her Danger Sense shared via my Divine Possession was SCREAMING…

"She's dangerous!"

I didn't hesitate.

I snapped my fingers and channeled the spell through sheer will:

"Summon: Holy Spirit."

But not inside.

Outside.

The spell yanked Dave from the dreamscape and ejected him into the physical world like a hooked fish. The holy sword vanished mid-swing, and with a pop of compressed mana, he was gone.

Then I reached for the real world.

I poured mana into Voice Chat, channeling my will across the distance, across the barrier between the mental and physical. My voice echoed like thunder across spiritual cords:

"Everyone on the boat... GET OFF. NOW!"

Aixin watched me calmly, as if I hadn't just launched a divine entity out of her invaded space.

"Such a loud child," she murmured. "This is the price for defiance. For daring to spit in the face of the Supreme Beings."

She raised her hand, tracing something in the air. Runes formed. Golden light curled like calligraphy spun from the breath of angels.

And then, she smiled.

"Farewell, Da Wei."

She dissolved into motes of light.

And then came the flying sword.

It wasn't conjured.

It was declared.

A blade of judgment, massive, shining gold, perfect in form and power… like a second sun in sword form.

It tore through the memory, the soul!

"Flash Pa-"

It rushed straight for me!

I barely had time to curse.

It connected.

And my eyes snapped open to the real world, to a scream on the winds, to the Soaring Dragon ship vibrating beneath my feet… And then the sword burst from Alice's chest, golden and divine and merciless, a phantom made manifest.

I didn't even have time to react before it finished its arc and slammed through me.

There was a moment of surreal stillness.

Then the pain.

Explosive pain!

The Soaring Dragon ship erupted into splinters. I saw wood, flame, mana, sky… all of it spinning as my body was flung into the air, skewered by divine judgment.

I looked down and saw the hole in my chest.

Big. Circular. Glowing. About the size of a basketball.

"Ah… fuck my life," I groaned, as gravity claimed me. "Shit."

And I blacked out.

Of course.

Of course, there would always be a bigger fish.

I should've known. Hell, I did know.

I'd been in this world long enough to recognize the pattern: arrogance, followed by a slap from the universe. A divine backhand, to remind you where you truly stood. And for someone like me, a transmigrated player-turned-teacher-turned-sorta-cultivator, it hit every time.

That wasn't just an echo of power I had seen.

It was a message.

Aixin's words weren't a threat. They were a flex. A warning! A glimpse of what a true Outsider could do. And I wasn't ready. Not even close.

Even now, as my consciousness clawed its way back into reality, the aftershock of that golden blade lingered in my chest. I remembered its radiance, the way it carved through dream and body alike… as if I were no more than paper in front of divine fire.

And still... I lived.

Barely.

When my eyes fluttered open, the first thing I saw was crimson.

Alice.

She was looking down at me, her cold hands cupping my cheeks, her brows tight with worry and regret. I realized my head was resting on her lap, her robes soft and slightly scorched around the edges.

The Soaring Dragon was flying smoothly, high above the dunes.

"Master!" came a panicked voice.

I turned slowly and saw Lu Gao barreling toward me with tears threatening to spill from his eyes.

I winced and raised a hand.

"I'm fine," I rasped. "But... I want to stay like this for a while longer."

Lu Gao skidded to a stop, clearly worried, but nodded.

Alice said nothing. But she didn't move. Her fingers gently brushed my hair back, the pads of her fingers trembling. She looked away, pretending to watch the clouds, but her silence said more than words.

Man. Being pampered by a beauty like this should've lifted my spirits. It should've felt like a win.

But it didn't.

Because no matter how many wins I stacked, I was still, at the core, just human. If not in body, then in thinking. In doubt. I hadn't just lost to Aixin. I'd been dismissed.

It didn't matter that I could fly a ship or tear apart weak angels with divine spells, or survive near-fatal wounds.

The truth was… I didn't have what it took yet.

And that stung.

It burned in a place deeper than the wound in my chest.

"Young Master Lu Gao," Hei Yuan's voice broke in with surprising gentleness, "please let the Master rest."

Lu Gao froze mid-sob, standing at attention like he'd been whipped.

I gave Hei Yuan a grateful look. She didn't meet my eyes, but she gave the faintest nod.

Then came the sound of deliberate footsteps… Captain Xue.

She stopped beside me and gave an exaggerated cough, clearly trying to act unaffected by the sight of me half-dead and nestled on Alice's lap like some tragic male lead from a pulp novel.

"I made the executive decision to retreat," she said crisply. "We're heading back to Imperial territory for regrouping."

I nodded, letting my head sink slightly deeper into Alice's thighs.

"That's fine," I murmured.

We needed time. Space. A plan.

Because now I knew the truth.

The "Great Enemy" we'd fought in LLO? They couldn't even compare. That wasn't the final boss. That wasn't even the mid-game. It was just the tutorial. And I'd already failed the first quiz.

This world wasn't going to pull its punches. And if I didn't get stronger faster than I already am, then the next time a golden sword showed up, I wouldn't wake up afterward.

We had entered the Promised Dunes with three ships.

Now, we had one.

The others… I could only imagine them: burning, broken, lost beneath the sand or stranded somewhere behind enemy lines. Fucking angels. A chunk of my expedition, my people, had been left behind in the chaos. The realization hit me like a dull ache, just below the ribs. Not sharp enough to double me over, but heavy enough that it settled in my breath.

I shifted slightly on Alice's lap, breaking the quiet hum of the Soaring Dragon's flight.

"What about the others?" I asked hoarsely, my voice raw from pain and residual dream-burn. "The other ships?"

Captain Xue was standing near the helm, her hands behind her back, and turned when I spoke. Her expression was composed, soldierly, though I could tell from the faint pull in her jaw that she hadn't taken it lightly.

"General Bai remained behind," she said, "to lead the others. We split at the dunes' edge… once the danger became apparent to us. The rest are holding a defensive position, waiting for the rest of the fleet to retrieve them."

I sat up a little straighter. My chest throbbed like a drumbeat of agony, but I needed to hear this.

"Are they safe?"

Captain Xue hesitated. Then nodded.

"Safe as they can be. The… creatures… There were no more of them. I believe you've dealt with the last of them, Sir Da Wei."

She exhaled slowly and added:

"We've already crossed the Promised Dunes' border. We're headed back to the Empire's inner skies."

Alice's fingers brushed through my hair gently, almost absentmindedly. The contrast between her current tenderness and the Alice I knew from LLO, the witty, antihero Vampire Warlock who cursed like a dainty noble, and always picked the most self-damaging spells, was jarring.

"We should be back in the Empire soon," she murmured, her voice like distant bells, soft and delicate.

She gave me a bittersweet smile.

God, that smile.

It was the kind someone wore when they were trying very hard not to cry, but didn't want to show weakness. The type that said "I'm still here" but didn't believe it.

I stared at her for a moment, remembering her old voice lines from the game, the ones full of pride and sarcasm, like she was holding the world at knifepoint.

Now…?

She was brushing my hair.

I didn't know what to say. Didn't know how to react.

Then came the cough.

A deliberate one.

"Ahem," Lu Gao said, his voice laced with uncertainty. He was fidgeting by the bulkhead, eyes darting between me and Alice. "Master… is it true? What happened out there… what I heard…"

He swallowed.

"Gu Jie? Ren Xun? I… I heard the story from Elder Yuan."

My gut twisted.

It wasn't the kind of thing you wanted to confirm. Hell, it wasn't the kind of thing you ever wanted said aloud. Saying it made it real.

Before I could answer, Hei Yuan stepped in.

"Ahem," she mimicked pointedly, one brow arched. "Young Master Lu Gao, you should learn to read the atmosphere."

Lu Gao blinked.

"I… I was just…"

"Let David breathe just a bit more," Alice said, her tone firm but not unkind. "He just died. He's still bleeding mana, and half his soul just got stabbed with Heavenly Punishment. If it weren't for your Ring of Resurrection, you'd be dead by now, David."

Lu Gao flushed and stepped back, muttering apologies under his breath. "S-sorry, but… I… Never mind, Mistress." I could sense a bit of impatience in his tone. "Master, heal well..."

Chapter 146 The Talk

Alice was feeding me grapes.

Not just any grapes. These were qi-soaked, high-grade spirit grapes, the kind that grew in the mist-drenched hills of the Empire's interior. I could feel the energy dancing in my veins with every chew.

"Open," she said softly.

I did. A grape rolled past my lips, and I chewed slowly as I leaned against her lap, the slow rise and fall of her breath brushing against the back of my neck. It was therapeutic, sure. Luxurious, even.

But it was also killing me inside.

"I should go," I muttered between bites. "Egress can get me back to the Imperial Capital in under a minute. I can speak to the Emperor, get access to the Grand Ascension Library, research resurrection techniques…"

She popped another grape into my mouth before I could finish.

"Chew," she said flatly.

I tried. Really, I tried.

But I'd barely taken a breath when she suddenly gripped my throat, not with lethal intent, just firm enough to lock me in place. The grape got caught halfway down my windpipe, and I sputtered, eyes watering as I forced it down.

"C-careful!" I croaked.

"Then don't move," she replied, her voice calm and almost gentle. "Rest, David. Please."

I sank back down, defeated more by her eyes than her hand. From my peripheral vision, I noticed the Phoenix Guards nearby. Captain Xue's elite all-women unit had gathered near the helm, pretending to check instruments while clearly sneaking glances. One of them snorted. Another actually giggled.

I tried to look dignified. It didn't work.

Lu Gao sat cross-legged by the ship's bow, fully immersed in his Mana Road Cultivation. Mana particles gathered around him in swirls, and his brow was furrowed in intense concentration. He was growing. Fast.

I wished, I had the same kind of talent…

In the far corner, Hei Yuan was bickering with Jin Wen, something about the future of their clan, the morality of allegiance, and whether they should focus on consolidating influence within the Empire or stay neutral.

All that political nonsense faded into background noise.

Because right now, all I could see was her.

Alice.

Her eyes were brighter than usual, less blood-red and more amethyst-violet under the ship's golden lighting. I stared up at her, trying to piece together everything that had happened.

"You do know you're feeling like this because of a side-effect of Divine Possession, right?" I said quietly. "I figured… that has to be the reason."

She looked down, not denying it.

"I know."

Her fingers brushed against my jaw, tracing the line of my cheek. There was a softness to her touch: tentative and confused. Like she didn't know whether to hold me tighter or let go entirely.

"It felt good," she confessed.

She wasn't talking about the lap pillow or the grape-feeding.

"Being understood… the way you did, back there. In my soul. In my past. No one has ever seen me like that."

I listened. I didn't interrupt.

"Vampires," she continued, her voice almost clinical, "don't feel pleasure. Not the way humans do. Our bodies can simulate lust, affection, even ecstasy, but it's artificial. Skill-based. Blood-borne. A lie we weave to mimic what we've lost."

She exhaled, and I felt her breath skim across my skin.

"We're infertile. Emotionally truncated. We feel rage, loyalty, obsession... but joy? That's... not something we get to have."

My throat tightened.

"So," she whispered, "when I say it felt good… I mean too good. I think your skill broke something in me."

I didn't know what to say to that. Divine Possession wasn't supposed to cause this much of a shift. But maybe with Alice, someone already half on the border between sentience and sanctity, it had done more than just resonate.

It had connected.

She looked down at me, and for a moment, her expression was unreadable.

"Don't fix it," she said finally. "Not yet."

"Alright," I murmured. "I won't."

We stayed like that a little longer. No more grapes. No more words.

Just silence, and the steady hum of the Soaring Dragon flying us back to the world that didn't care how tired we were.

"I'm sorry," I murmured. "For still not finding a cure."

Her hand paused mid-stroke, just barely touching my hair. I didn't dare look up.

"I know I said I'd work on it," I continued, staring somewhere off into the cloud-washed sky above us. "But I haven't. Not really. It's been… easier to pretend it wasn't urgent. Like some optional side quest with no timer. Just something I could circle back to, eventually."

A long silence followed.

Then she spoke, voice so light I barely caught it over the thrum of the Soaring Dragon's engines.

"It's fine."

I frowned. "It's not."

"No," she said, brushing her thumb along my cheek again. "It really is. If you die, I'll just turn you into my thrall. That way, you can keep going on your grand little adventures... and eventually you'll complete your quest."

I laughed.

And then I stopped.

Because she wasn't laughing.

"You're… not serious."

Her expression didn't change. "You should have killed me when you had the chance."

I blinked. "That's not really my style."

"It should've been." Her tone was dry. "Would've saved you a lot of trouble."

I sat up slowly, twisting to face her. Her eyes met mine, still that eerie mix of ancient and uncertain. But I didn't respond with words. I just stared at her.

And then… Flash Step.

In a blink, I was gone from her lap and standing several paces away, arms crossed, the wind tousling my hair.

"You remember that bridge?" I asked.

Alice tilted her head.

"In that world," I clarified. "First time we met. You ambushed me. Church Champion gone rogue, fangs bared, ready to 'purify' the darkness."

She didn't answer.

"I could've killed you then. Easily. But I didn't."

I studied her routes and spawn areas. I got guild connections and lots of… friends. I have so much data about her, enough that I could realistically nail her. Even if I died, 'Players' had the respawn system. Even if I failed, most players in the game at that time were nearing completion in creating a strategy to take her down.

However, because of my meddling, she was transformed into an 'Essential' NPC, and players started to hound her in hopes of learning Exalted Renewal.

"You might not believe me, but I saved your ass back then… and probably would continue to save your ass now and the future, I must say, you have one precious ass."

Captain Xue coughed from the background, but I continued nonetheless.

"So why didn't I kill you?"

I let the memory hang in the air between us like a loaded crossbow.

"Because even back then," I said, "I saw something worth sparing."

She stared at me, lips slightly parted.

"I'll see you again in Riverfall."

I gave her a small, two-finger salute, then turned.

Captain Xue caught my eye as I walked past the helm. She tried to hide her smirk behind a stoic facade and failed miserably. I gave her a respectful nod. She gave me one back.

And then…

Egress.

The spell snapped reality around me like a taut string. Space folded.

One blink.

And I stood before the towering gates of the Imperial Capital.

Stone arches rose high into the sky, glistening with runic carvings and barrier glyphs, a reminder that this was the heart of the Empire. A place of impossible mystery and imperial control.

And standing there, just past the threshold, arms behind his back like some kind of theatrical butler…

Was Nongmin.

Of course.

I sighed.

"Let me guess," I said. "You foresaw I'd show up at this exact gate?"

He smiled faintly. "Of course not. That would be cheating."

He gestured politely. "Come, Da Wei. I've cleared your path through the Grand Ascension Library. And you'll be pleased to know I've had some progress compiled regarding resurrection techniques. Class Two restricted, but we can negotiate."

I shook my head, chuckling softly as I followed him past the gates.

"Anyway!" I said to the Emperor as I dusted myself off in front of the city gates, "fuck you. We are not negotiating. I'll kill you."

Nongmin blinked, as if I'd just told him his sandals were untied.

"Figures," he said calmly, like I'd confirmed a weather forecast.

I narrowed my eyes. "Why even ask, then? You already knew what I'd say."

He gave a little shrug. "I was… practicing."

"Practicing?"

"The art of conversation," he replied with a straight face. "Small talk. Casual banter. Human warmth. That sort of thing."

I stared at him. Hard. He didn't even flinch.

"You're practicing small talk," I repeated slowly, "using precognition?"

"It seemed logical at first," he said, folding his hands behind his back as we started walking. "But it turns out knowing all possible responses makes the exercise… sterile. Counterproductive, even."

I kept staring at him. This time, with deep, existential concern.

"Are you a robot?"

He paused mid-step. His expression turned contemplative, like he was trying to compute that question across five parallel timelines.

And just for a moment, in the haze of precognition flickering around him like invisible static, I saw it. No, it was more accurate to say I've imagined and intuited it… A future where Nongmin turned to me, utterly sincere, and asked: What is a robot?

"…A robot," he said at last, eyes narrowing in thought. "Ah. It's a quip, then."

"Oh my god."

I ran a hand down my face.

"Not a quip," I said, trying not to scream. "Closer to a metaphor. Forget it."

He didn't reply. I could practically hear the gears in his head churning as he logged the phrase 'closer to a metaphor' into his Imperial Lexicon of Mortal Vocabulary, probably next to 'emotional support dumplings' and 'don't be weird about it.'

We reached the Grand Ascension Library in an instant, because, well, we could. When you've got an overpowered movement technique and you're walking with a man who can kind of bend time, travel becomes less of a journey and more of an inconvenient blink.

The Library was quiet. Towering shelves arched across the dome like ribs from some ancient beast, each stuffed with scrolls, jade slips, textbooks, and some artifacts that probably shouldn't be that close together if you liked your face un-melted.

Laid out on one of the main tables, because of course he'd already prepped this, was a neat stack of scrolls.

"Compiled everything I could find," Nongmin said, gesturing lazily. "Soul anchor theory. Reverse karmic tracing. Three banned rituals I'm not officially allowed to show you. And a few notes from the Shenshou School on body reconstruction using temporal echoes."

I let out a low whistle and gave the scrolls a once-over.

It was a lot.

It was also better than nothing.

"Thanks," I muttered, and stuffed the lot into my Item Box with a flick of my wrist.

Nongmin watched with a faint smile. "You'll need time to study, I assume?"

"Yeah."

"And after?"

"I'll bring them back," I said simply. "All of them."

He didn't nod or offer any cryptic encouragement. He just stood there, arms crossed, like he knew the weight I was carrying and respected it in his own strange way. Then, as I turned to leave, I heard him murmur behind me, his voice almost childlike.

"…Metaphor."

I didn't look back.

I just laughed, quietly, and walked deeper into the stacks.

After five minutes of wandering through the Grand Ascension Library, past staircases that twisted into nothing, through aisles that smelled like ink and thunderclouds, I ended up at the throne room.

Nongmin was already there, sitting sideways on the armrest of his massive jade throne, one leg over the other like he was posing for a melancholic painting. His robes pooled around him like liquid obsidian.

"So," he said without turning. "We're finally having the talk, then."

I blinked. "Wow," I said, folding my arms. "You're getting better at small talk already."

He nodded appreciatively, as if I'd just graded his quiz.

"I've observed," he replied, "that phrasing a statement as a question, or breaking up complex ideas into brief fragments, creates the illusion of casual conversation."

"…You're dissecting it like a frog."

"I dissect everything like a frog," he replied seriously. "And no, I am not the frog in the equation."

Bruh… you didn't need to lower your intelligence to make small talk.

I sighed and leaned against one of the absurdly ornate pillars. "What made you want to learn small talk anyway?"

He looked up at the vaulted ceiling like he was staring into a memory… or one of his many futures.

"I have eight wives," he said flatly. "One passed from old age last spring. I have eight children. I am emotionally detached from all of them."

My lips parted, but nothing came out at first.

"…Not even Ren Jin?" I asked.

"Even him," he said without a hint of hesitation. "I have foreseen that one of my sons, possibly Ren Jin's second, will inherit my Formation Talents. Moreover, Ren Jin himself will serve as a guiding symbol for my ideal Empire."

I didn't know what I expected. But something about the way he said it made me shiver. It was all so… cold.

But also oddly human in its effort. Like someone trying to sculpt love out of marble.

"Alright then," I said, half-laughing. "What's that story I heard about you making out with a commoner woman in this throne room, in front of your officials? Sounded like tabloid crap, but…?"

"Tabloid?"

"Never mind," I said. "Go on, tell me… Did it really happen?"

Nongmin gave me a slow, unreadable look.

"It happened."

I blinked. "Wait, seriously? Like, full-on public deed doing?"

"It had to be done."

"Yeah, I get that Ren Jin had to be born," I said, waving a hand. "But come on. You mean to tell me you felt nothing? Not even a flutter?"

"There are poems about the deed," he said flatly. "Many describe me as being as hard as a stone."

I gaped at him. Open-mouthed.

He looked back at me. Stoic.

He was trying to make small talk again. Avoiding the point by tossing in some bizarre historical trivia wrapped in a sexual pun.

I had no words.

None.

"You know," I said at last, rubbing my temples, "you're really bad at this."

He smiled faintly. "I am learning."

"I don't know if that makes this better or worse."

He didn't answer.

We stood there in silence, the gravity of the throne room bearing down like a mountain. And still, somehow, this awkward conversation about wives and thrones and emotional ineptitude made him feel more real than any of his speeches.

Maybe that was the scary part.

The tyrant emperor trying to learn how to feel.

And failing… beautifully!

There was just no way I was letting this go.

I mean, seriously… this dude had basically thrown me into a pseudo-harem situation, complete with overzealous guards that I did appreciate, thank you very much, but still. There was also that little nugget of horror: the gender-bender curse he snuck in without telling me the activation conditions. Like… hello? Informed consent?

And okay, yeah, sure… I got Lu Gao out of trouble and even scored a pretty neat anti-virus for the eldritch entity hitchhiking in my skull. I wasn't ungrateful. But that didn't mean I was about to let him dodge this.

I leaned in. "So tell me," I said, leveling a finger at him, "about that grand feat of yours. You know the one. Bedding women from all seven Imperial Houses in one night, one bed, and then capping that night off by publicly procreating with a commoner woman. Like, what the actual hell?"

Nongmin didn't flinch. He never did. The guy could probably keep a straight face while getting stabbed in the spleen.

"I heard from Ren Xun's mouth," I continued, "that you were pissed about being hounded by your ministers, your court, for being a virgin. So you decided to just… break the world's mind, I guess? That's not normal. So don't try to tell me you don't feel anything. You had to have emotions, right?"

He blinked once.

"Yes," he said, without hesitation. "I bedded each woman from the Seven Imperial Houses in one night. In a single bed."

I squinted at him. "You're not even gonna sugarcoat it?"

"It had to be done that way," he continued, as if reading a grocery list. "A singular location and shared time slot established visual and narrative equality between the Houses. If I had visited them one by one, hierarchies would have formed."

My brain short-circuited trying to imagine what "visual and narrative equality" even meant in that context.

"To surmise," he added, "it was more efficient."

More? Efficient!?

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out except the faintest whisper of a mental scream.

"And as for the commoner woman," he continued with that same deadpan calm, "the act had to be done publicly so that the officials and Houses would be unable to later claim the child was not mine. Visibility was the proof."

"Publicly," I repeated, still struggling to wrap my head around it. "You mean like in front of everyone?"

"Yes. In the throne room."

He paused, then added, completely without shame, "I ensured she enjoyed the communion."

My eyes widened. "You… what…?"

"The communion," he repeated, not realizing, or maybe ignoring, how insane that sounded. "I interviewed her in multiple alternate timelines and performed rehearsals to understand her preferences. Through this, I constructed a scenario that guaranteed her safety, long-term happiness, and the opportunity for meaningful contribution to society. She went on to lead three major literacy movements and died at the age of ninety-five, surrounded by her grandchildren."

That was it. I had to sit down.

"You're… for real?" I said, slumping onto the nearest gilded chair like my soul had been drop-kicked. "You planned the perfect one-night stand across realities. For diplomacy."

"Diplomatic cohesion is important," he replied. "And legacy must be irrefutable."

"You sound like you scheduled an orgy in Excel."

He tilted his head. "What is Excel?"

"Forget it." I rubbed my face. "You know, I expected cold logic from you. Tyrant emperor and all. But I didn't think you'd break reality just to make sure your one-night partner caught feelings and a pension plan."

"I did not break reality," he said, slightly defensive. "I merely consulted several."

I stared at him.

And I realized, with a terrifying sort of awe, that he meant well. That was the scariest part. The terrifying, alien kindness of a man who loved through flowcharts and contingency plans.

"You're not heartless," I muttered. "You're just… alien."

"I am human," he replied.

"Sure," I said, "and I'm a toaster."

"Do you toast?"

"Shut up, Nongmin."

He actually looked smug for a second.

Maybe, just maybe, he was getting the hang of small talk.

God help us all.

Chapter 147 Dreamt Dreams

I stood up from the gilded chair, brushing a bit of imaginary dust off my sleeve, and looked Nongmin dead in the eye.

"If you really want to feel attached to them," I said, "then there's only one solution. Spend more time with the people you want to feel attached to. Doesn't matter if you know how to do small talk or not."

"I'm too busy," he replied flatly.

I rolled my eyes. "Too busy is a term people throw around when something isn't their priority. Let's be real, Nongmin, you just haven't put them at the top of your list."

"That is a fact," he replied, his voice a step above indifferent. "If I want to keep the people I love safe, then safeguarding the Empire is my highest calling. Everything else comes second."

I stared at him for a moment, letting the silence press between us.

It was weird. I used to think this guy was just another cold, calculating ruler. And sure, he still was, but this side of him, the one trying to wrap his head around emotional connection like it was an alchemical formula, made him oddly human. Endearingly clueless, in the way only an emotionally stunted immortal warlord could be.

I think I got it now, where this sudden interest in small talk came from.

He missed her.

Xin Yune. The Divine Physician. His mother.

It wasn't hard to figure out. The way he kept circling around the idea of connection without actually saying it. The awkward yearning in his tone. It made sense, especially knowing how their bond had been veiled by political necessity. He insisted that her identity remain a secret. Publicly, she was just a great healer. Privately, she was his mother. And now she was gone.

I respected his choice, even if I didn't like it.

Being proud of your parent while you still had them, that was a blessing. One not everyone got. I couldn't say whether what he gave up was truly worth it.

Nongmin sighed, gaze dropping to the floor. "If only it were that easy."

I crossed my arms. "But maybe it is," I said. "I think you're hesitating like this because you need that attachment to keep going. Not strategy. Not duty. Something that actually moves you."

He blinked, confused. "I don't understand."

"Exactly," I said. "Give up trying to understand things you can't. Sometimes, knowing is enough."

I shrugged. "I know the world is round. Do I understand orbital mechanics or tectonic plate drift? Hell no. Doesn't mean I can't live with it."

He stayed quiet, looking thoughtful in that dispassionate, vaguely terrifying Emperor way.

"So here's my advice," I continued, tone softening. "Ask yourself what you really want. Strip away the Empire, the duty, the foresight. What do you, Nongmin, want? Not the Emperor. You."

He didn't answer, but he didn't look away either.

I took a breath. "If what you want is to feel attached to people... then how about this?"

I walked forward, slowly, like I was about to hand him a forbidden scroll. Maybe I was.

"Think of it like a mental exercise," I said. "Once a week. Short intervals. Use your Heavenly Eye and precognition, like you already do. But this time, not for war, not for politics. Use it to walk among commoners. Your wives. Your sons. Your grandsons. Everyone."

He tilted his head. I kept going.

"In those alternate futures, eat with them. Drink with them. Tell them stories. Celebrate their birthdays. Listen to their dumb jokes and laugh even if they suck."

He didn't interrupt. That was progress.

"The people in those visions… they won't remember it. They won't get attached to you. But you will get attached to them. You'll feel it. You'll carry it."

Nongmin blinked, lips parting slightly. "Won't that just be a waste of energy?"

I scoffed. "Only if you think the only value in a dream is the result. But guess what? Even if it's a dream, it's still a dream. Still yours. And maybe that's enough."

He stared at me for a long moment, like he was reading three layers beneath what I said.

Finally, he spoke. "I never considered it like that."

"Well," I said, turning toward the corridor, "that's why you talk to people instead of reading their bloodline histories."

I didn't wait for a thank you from him. That would be uncool.

But I could feel something shift in his eyes, carrying a subtle ripple in the air. Maybe I managed to teach a thousand-year-old emperor how to be a slightly better person. That'd go on my resume if I ever made it back home.

"So, what is it gonna be?"

"I'll do as you say," Nongmin finally said.

His voice carried the weight of someone agreeing not just to a plan, but to the unfamiliar idea of longing. Not strategy. Not control. Just… longing. I nodded, not gloating, just letting the moment sit between us like cooling tea.

"Good," I said, then leaned against the edge of a bookshelf, arms crossed. "Now to the important matter."

He raised an eyebrow. I could already tell he knew what was coming.

"You said I'd be able to refine my current cultivation method. That I'd find a way to resurrect my disciples if I came with you to the World Summit." I kept my tone level. "Elaborate."

Nongmin didn't answer right away. Instead, he turned, walking toward the far side of the room where a black mirror sat inside a gilded frame. It wasn't magical. Just reflective. Still, it felt like he was looking at more than himself in the glass.

"Before we continue down this line of discussion," he said, "we should establish the context first."

I raised an eyebrow.

He looked back at me, expression unreadable. "How much do you know of the four biggest powers in the known world?"

"Enough," I replied. It wasn't bravado. Just a fact. "I've done my reading, you know?"

I ticked them off on my fingers. "There's the Empire. you. Your country, your rules. Formations, technology, the works. Most advanced infrastructure in the world, or so your books and scholars claimed."

He gave a slight nod.

"Then there's the Martial Alliance. The Alliance, for short. State-sponsored Sects or just any righteous sect under a unified cause. Brawny heroes, blade saints, loud mouths with pure hearts. They're more diverse than people give them credit for."

"Go on," he said, folding his arms.

"Heavenly Temple," I continued. "The mystics. Cults, sages, healer lineages, secret academies buried under a hundred layers of fog. The kind of people who say things like the Dao flows through all while staring into waterfalls."

Nongmin's mouth twitched, maybe a smile.

"And finally, the Union. The least predictable. Profit-driven organizations, mercenaries, warlords, and independent cultivators who sell loyalty by the hour. They've got their own code, but it's more business than belief."

"Each with their own form of government," he said. "No two alike."

"Exactly."

It was a rhetorical question. I knew that now.

Nongmin turned away from the mirror and faced me fully.

"While my Heavenly Eye is weaker outside the Empire's reach," he said, "I can still see far enough. And what I see is this: at the World Summit, you will have an encounter. That encounter will give you the opportunity to bring your disciples back."

I stayed silent.

He didn't blink. "I am confident."

The way he said it wasn't arrogance. It was a statement carved from bedrock.

"How?" I asked.

He paused, folding his hands behind his back like a professor about to lecture. "The Summit is more than a gathering of dignitaries. It is a convergence of opportunity. Each power is sending its strongest: cultivators, scholars, traders, and prophets. Not all will be on good terms. But all will be present."

"So you're saying I'll meet someone?" I asked. "A fated encounter?"

"I'm saying you'll meet several," he said. "But one in particular, an entity tied to the Heavenly Temple, will offer you a path. Their methods skirt the boundary between life and death, spirit and echo. It will not be a guaranteed resurrection… but a foundation for one."

"Spirit and echo," I repeated. "Sounds like necromancy with extra steps."

"Necromancy? Not quite," he said. "It is closer to… hm. Imagine a library. But instead of books, it houses the echoes of lives. Lives that once burned bright enough to leave an imprint on the Dao itself."

I squinted. "You're telling me my disciples left echoes?"

"I am telling you," he said slowly, "that you, through your cultivation and connection to them, might still carry pieces of those echoes within you. The right technique… the right person… may allow you to use that."

I let that sink in. My heart beat a little faster.

"If you're wrong…"

"Then I'll help you find another way," he said, interrupting me gently. "I gave you my word."

The tension between us ebbed, just a little.

"I'm not asking you to trust me blindly, Da Wei," he added. "Only to walk the path far enough to see for yourself."

I exhaled through my nose. "Fine. But if this whole thing turns out to be a massive political trap, I'm going to be very disappointed."

He smirked faintly. "You wouldn't be the first."

I cracked a smile. "I'd just be the last. Probably dramatically, with fireworks and some over-the-top revenge speech."

A flicker of amusement crossed his face. "You're getting the hang of Empire politics already."

"Unfortunately," I muttered. Then, more seriously: "When do we leave?"

"Soon," he said. "You'll need to prepare. The Summit is neutral ground… but only in name. Every step you take there will be watched. Judged. Manipulated."

I shrugged. "Story of my life."

He turned toward the mirror again, then stopped. "Da Wei."

"Yeah?"

"You said something earlier. That sometimes, knowing is enough." He looked at his own reflection. "I think I'd like to try that."

There it was again, that strange, flickering humanity buried under armor and titles.

"Good," I said, heading for the door. "Let's hope knowing how to be a person doesn't get you killed."

"Likewise," he murmured.

And with that, we stepped into the hallway together, the path ahead lit not by certainty… but by possibility.

Two days later, I stood at the foot of the holy mountain of the Isolation Path Sect. The air was sharp and clean, thin with altitude, but dense with spiritual qi. The mountain range behind the sect looked like it had been painted with a calligrapher's brush: jagged strokes, soft mist, and a faint divine pressure pressing down from the peak. Classic aesthetic. Beautiful in that very specific way that said "no mortals allowed."

I was here for Ren Jingyi.

Jiang Zhen greeted me at the gate, his expression splitting into a grin the moment he saw me.

"Well, look who's still intact," he said. "And mostly alive, too. That's already more than I expected."

The last time I saw Jiang Zhen, he was a sharp-eyed middle-aged man with a steel spine and steady fists. Now… he looked older. Not just in the wrinkles, but in the way his qi moved—heavier, more settled, less restless.

"What happened?" I asked, eyeing him with more concern than I let on. "You look like you skipped a few decades."

He chuckled, a bit hoarsely. "It's my cultivation method. A side effect, that's all. Appearance only. My lifespan's still quite long, so don't go planning my funeral yet."

"Sixth Realm, huh?" I said, inspecting his aura. "Congrats. That's no small feat."

He waved it off modestly. "Long overdue."

Beside him stood Fan Shi, the sharp-featured young woman who had once been a quiet shadow in the background. She offered me a clasped-hand salute with the discipline of a textbook sect disciple. "Senior."

I returned the gesture, amused. "Third Realm already? You're climbing fast."

She smiled faintly. "Still can't compare to Jingyi."

"Don't be modest," came the scoff from behind them. A familiar voice, small and sharp. "It's not that hard."

Ren Jingyi stepped into view, arms crossed, mouth slightly turned down in a pout. Her robes were neat, her presence contained, but the glint in her eyes said she was still pissed.

"You left again," she muttered, not looking at me directly. "And now you're leaving again."

I scratched my head, a little guilty. "Yeah… sorry about that."

She just huffed and looked away, but didn't walk off. Progress.

I turned back to Jiang Zhen. "How's business?"

He let out a long sigh that sounded way too satisfied. "Demon-hunting's going better than ever. Thanks for the letter to the Seven Grand Clans. They've stopped sticking their noses in our operations. And Master Tao Long has been a tremendous help. His spearmanship… frankly, they're on a different level. Devil worshippers don't stand a chance."

The way he said Master Tao Long caught my attention. There was respect there. Real, grounded, earned respect, not the usual superficial deference cultivators throw around.

"I see he made a good impression," I said.

"He deserves it," Jiang Zhen replied simply. "The man's not just strong… he listens. That alone puts him leagues above most."

I nodded slowly. "Thanks for looking after Jingyi."

He smiled. "She's a handful, but she's one of a kind. We're lucky to have her."

As thanks, I reached into my Item Box and tossed him a sack of Spirit Stones, big enough to make a sect jealous, and a weapon wrapped in cloth.

He unwrapped it, blinked, and held up a gleaming silver shovel. The kind of artifact you didn't laugh at unless you wanted to find yourself buried in a spirit-sealed graveyard. It wasn't LLO gear, but something I had Nongmin dig out from his collection. One of the nicer pieces.

Jiang Zhen gave it an appreciative once-over, testing its weight. "Now this," he said, "is how you bribe a cultivator. Got another one?"

I smirked. "Do you want a Heavenly Punishment? Just to warn you… I've improved." 

There was no way a Fifth or Sixth Realm would be able to dodge my Heavenly Punishment now just by digging underground.

He laughed, full and unrestrained. "You couldn't even catch a goldfish last time."

I flipped him the bird, and he doubled over, wheezing with mirth.

Ren Jingyi raised an eyebrow. "That's the goldfish stall owner?"

"Regrettably, yes," I said with a grin. "And unfortunately, I'm still stuck being the adult."

I turned to Jiang Zhen and Fan Shi. "Take care of yourselves."

"You too, Da Wei," Jiang Zhen said, more sincerely now. "The world's a mess. Don't get caught in it too deep."

"No promises," I replied.

Ren Jingyi walked up beside me. "Where are we going?"

"Not far," I said. "Just a little place called the World Summit. Bunch of world powers, ancient enemies, possible assassins. You know. The usual."

She sighed. "You're going to leave me again, aren't you?"

"Not if I can help it," I replied. "But yeah. Probably."

She didn't argue. Just took my hand for a second, squeezed it, then let go.

That was enough.

We turned toward the sky, where the Soaring Dragon boat floated like a quiet promise against the clouds. Its hull shimmered faintly with runes, sails unfurled in lazy defiance of gravity.

Hopefully, Alice wouldn't mind playing babysitter for me.

I had the sneaking suspicion Ren Jingyi was about to test every last bit of her patience.