A Villain's Way of Taming Heroines

Chapter 554 The Real Possibility of Deicide - III

"Bro, I have extensive experience taking hits. If there's a fight, you won't have to lift a finger..."

"I'm a senior officer of the Whistling Legion... friend, after this exploration, would you be interested in visiting Dispute Fortress as a guest?"

A swarm of sturdy men swimming in the lava surrounded the young man standing above it, clamoring as if inviting a peerless beauty. The scene was rather amusing, but it seemed that Ansel, who appeared lost in thought, had not taken in their words at all.

"Friend... friend? At least tell us your name, don't just stand there daydreaming!"

After calling for so long without a response, some people wisely left, while others continued patiently trying to communicate with Ansel.

"I'm here on the boss's orders to find a high-purity Source Flame crystal. You, as a sorcerer, must know how precious that is, right? If we search together, I'll give you forty percent of the reward. Uh, half is also negotiable..."

Some began to explain why they were on this expedition and how valuable the treasures they sought were, offering various promises to Ansel.

"You must be a fourth-stage sorcerer, right? So adept, almost a fifth-stage master? How about I introduce you to our boss? He's an old fifth-stage powerhouse, the famed Bryce Palmer Leo of the Whistling Legion! One of the grand duke's most capable lieutenants! A renowned warrior in the Western lands—"

Before he could finish, Ansel stepped forward and placed his hand on the hilt of his black blade.

"Move aside."

The black-haired youth tilted his chin slightly towards the adventurers before him, his expression haughty.

Without waiting for the adventurers to react, an invisible force pulled them away from the enigmatic sorcerer.

Ansel had already undone the clasp of Gleipnir, raising the blade that perfectly combined violence and elegance high, before letting it drop softly and lazily.

One adventurer, still muttering from the lack of response, said, "Just a sorcerer putting on airs, waving a sword around, swing the hell—"

Boom!!!

In that instant, every adventurer who had descended upon this world thought the volcano had erupted.

But it hadn't. Though the volcano still occasionally rumbled and spewed magma, it was insignificant compared to the current spectacle.

At the moment the black blade descended, hundreds… even thousands of meters of magma surged skyward, obscuring everything in the adventurers' sight.

The volcano's billowing black smoke and the scalding lava that shot into the sky were all eclipsed by the towering waves of magma that were cast to either side.

Before this formidable monster, the seemingly boundless sea of magma cleaved in two, revealing the cracked, magma-seeping crust beneath.

"Finding it amidst such concentrated fire essences… is indeed challenging."

Ansel sheathed his blade at his waist and with a flash, landed upon the crust now being re-flooded with magma.

There... there was a flame. A small, weak flame that, no matter what, could not be extinguished.

Enveloped in that flame was a completely charred... hand bone.

Even Ansel did not reach out to touch the flame. He merely stood before it, frowning slightly, watching it be gradually engulfed by the magma again, and muttered in confusion: Explore stories at empire

"If the flame persists, then Ephesande is not dead... How can she survive the incineration of the Source Flame?"

The current Ephesande and the Ephesande of that future were both cast into the Lost Sea, but their situations were entirely different.

The Ephesande in the original timeline was also nearing her end, but unlike this Ephesande, who had been driven to madness by Ansel's machinations and subjected to the Source Flame's burning.

"You want her to deal with me? But how did you manage to protect her under 'reasonable' circumstances?"

This abnormal fact led to another abnormal fact—Ephesande was not dead, which meant her flame was still burning Evora.

So why wasn't Evora dead?

However, compared to Ephesande surviving the Source Flame's burning, Evora's survival was less surprising.

But in any case, both situations were utterly unreasonable.

Ansel didn't believe fate would violate its principles in such a way. It had numerous opportunities to toy with him to death by breaking its own rules, but it had never done so.

So... how had fate maintained 'reasonableness' while preserving these two lives?

The sea of magma cleaved by Ansel rolled and fused back together. Ansel watched the charred hand bone, still burning as it was swallowed by the magma, for a long time, then remotely stored it in a separate spatial ring.

"One piece of bad news, one piece of good news."

He mused aloud, and under the adventurers' utterly stunned gazes, flew straight towards the doorway in the sky.

The bad news was, neither Ephesande nor Evora was likely dead.

The good news was, both Ephesande and Evora should be in an unprecedentedly weakened state now. Evora, of course, needed no elaboration, and Ephesande... her flame couldn't even kill Evora, not to mention burn her to ashes. Even the limbs Evora had severed couldn't be incinerated, allowing Evora to persist for so long, still struggling, trying to return to the prime plane.

In other words, if the efficiency was high enough—

The young Hydral's lips curled slightly, and a ferocious and wild glint of abyssal beast flickered in his sea-blue eyes.

Perhaps, he would achieve an unprecedented, truly significant... act of deicide.

*

Hey everyone, sorry for not replying to your comments lately, sigh.

Writing this novel is just sooooo damn exhausting. I hate myself sometimes so much for expanding the worldview LOL. Every day, I gleefully log in, check your comments, whispering "Amen, I love you, bro" in my heart, click "like", and then dive back into the chaos of plotting... Please don't hate me—I love your comments!

Also, a second "thank you" is needed. The book is doing particularly good this month compared to the last one xD (Last month was horrible), I'm so glad to have new readers discussing (or complaining ) with the veteran ones. Thank you, thank you!