God-Tier Villain

Chapter 35: Chapter 35

"Lysara, you are a Lower-Tier Human Emperor! You are of little use to Emperor Soren, and you cannot command the human cultivators of the Moonveil Human Domain."

"I am not only an Upper-Tier Human Emperor, I am the Domain Lord himself! The help I can render Emperor Soren dwarfs anything you could offer!"

Measured by strength and station, that was all true.

But Soren possessed what no one else did, the Strategy Encyclopedia, what kind of creature a person was, he could read at a glance.

Grant could never be trusted, Lysara, by contrast, held a loyalty to the human race that ran leagues deeper, and gripped her convictions with both hands.

If she ever followed him, it would be with dead-set, absolute loyalty.

The way to raise Lysara’s devotion was constant intimidation, shock upon shock, awe upon awe.

He had intimidated her plenty already, and her tier had never once lit Obedient and Submissive.

Soren judged the obstacle to be her Dao Heart, her convictions themselves, a psychological assist was the indispensable missing link.

The Strategy Encyclopedia confirmed his read, let Lysara despair of the human race first, let her faith crack, and the next act of intimidation would tip her over the edge.

While Grant marinated in his certainty that Soren would obviously choose him over Lysara, Soren said, simply, "Fine."

"And if you can’t do it? What then?"

"Then do with me as you please."

Grant went blank, why? He was an Upper-Tier Human Emperor, he’d surrendered his life’s savings, he’d offered to run the entire Moonveil Human Domain as Soren’s puppet, there was no reason on earth to choose Lysara over him.

Lysara did not hesitate, she stepped in and delivered one furious, fatal blow, her jade hand, punching clean through his throat.

Grant fell with his eyes wide open, never dreaming he would die at Lysara’s hands.

If his hands hadn’t been severed, if his strength had been whole, Lysara wouldn’t have been worth two of his fingers.

Lysara stood over him, eyes desolate, like a tree cut from its roots with all the life running out of it.

In that instant, her relationship tier with Soren slid into place, and the title lit.

Obedient and Submissive.

A satisfied smile spread across Soren’s face. "Tonight, I think I’ll find out what a human Empress tastes like."

A little life flowed back into Lysara, she pressed her red lips into a hard line, everything in her resisting. "I did say I would do whatever you say."

"But that, that, I still cannot do."

Soren smiled and stamped his foot, crushing pressure dropped over Lysara, squeezing the breath out of her.

"You can’t offset even one percent of my demonic energy, what exactly makes you think you’re in a position to refuse?"

Pinned under that suffocating force, Lysara couldn’t move, when it sank in that this was one percent, a single percent of his demonic energy, something inside her gave way, her already wavering convictions felt like they’d been slapped across the face.

Obedient and Submissive was a relative tier, not an absolute leash, that Lysara still harbored thoughts of her own was perfectly normal.

Soren flung her aside, she slammed into the wall, and his demonic energy raked hideous, bloody wounds across her body.

While she recovered, Soren turned to the Spirit siblings.

Grant had confessed his reason for buying them honestly, and it was exactly as Soren had guessed, Black Dragon Mountain.

A human cultivator had found traces of Spirit people near Black Dragon Mountain and quietly passed the intelligence to Grant.

If Spirits could survive inside Black Dragon Mountain, the special sonic wave didn’t touch them.

Which made them the key to cracking Black Dragon Mountain’s secrets.

Soren flicked a finger, and the cage burst apart, the young man immediately spread his arms, shielding the girl behind him, glaring at Soren with his whole body strung tight.

Am I really that frightening? Soren squeezed out what he believed was a thoroughly amiable smile.

Brother and sister both nearly died of fright on the spot.

Fine, forget it, he let his face fall back into cold indifference. "Why did you risk capture to steal from the Commerce Guild’s storage pavilion?"

"I won’t say! I won’t say even if you kill me!" the young man shouted, propping up his courage with volume.

"Good, very good, then we’ll just kill you."

"Bruce, give the girl a taste of the hammer first."

Soren was, of course, only trying to frighten him.

Bruce took it literally.

"Yes!" Out came the purple-gold giant hammer, and Bruce bore down on the young girl, covering five paces in three.

The great hammer swung up, wrapped in purple lightning, watching from the side, Althea’s trio felt their mouths spasm, all three swearing internally.

The target was an unarmed, pitiable young girl, and Bruce showed not one flicker of hesitation, to him, Soren’s orders stood above everything.

Soren abruptly remembered exactly which blockhead he was dealing with, he wouldn’t actually fail to read the tone and genuinely hammer the girl flat, would he?

He was actually swinging.

As the hammer arced down at the crown of the girl’s head, Soren fired a stream of demonic energy from his fingertip, the energy became an arrow and smacked the hammer clean out of Bruce’s hands.

The young girl burst into terrified tears.

Duke also burst into tears.

In his case, because the hammer had landed squarely on his foot.

"I was scaring him! Couldn’t you tell? You blockhead!"

"Oh!" Bruce scratched his head and grinned foolishly as he collected his hammer.

Duke had caught a disaster out of thin blue sky, his foot was a mangled, bloody mess, he was bitter to the marrow, and did not dare say one word, Althea sent him a look of genuine pity.

Since Bruce was clearly not the tool for this job, Soren would handle it himself, he reached out and lightly touched the young man, then the girl, a casual brush of contact, nothing to rouse suspicion.

Detailed information on the siblings surfaced across the strategy panel, the young man first.

[Name: Jared.]

[Spirit Race Species: Ice Heaven Alluring Fox.]

[Upper-Tier Spirit King.]

[Bloodline Tier: Upper-Tier.]

Soren skimmed it and switched at once to the girl’s panel.