Chapter 21: Lilith
Arc frowned and tried to pull away from the white-haired intruder, only to realize her fingers were interlocked against his like an iron clamp that wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard he pulled.
This made him pause to get a better look and assessment of her.
It was a lady—a white-haired lady whose porcelain face was almost too perfect, too beautiful, for a person. She definitely wasn’t human, with her sharp crimson eyes locked onto him and a perfect set of white teeth with slightly long canines on full display. Draped over her body was an otherworldly, fitted black gown that made her seem more mysterious than she already was.
[??? (???) | ******]
The prompt hung overhead in a blaring red box.
Arc’s eyes widened in shock as his pupils constricted.
He wasn’t just shocked by the question marks that made up her name, meaning she was at least one hundred levels above him, but by the number of asterisks in place of her level, which hinted at how many digits her level actually contained.
Arc didn’t know why, but his first primal instinct was to attack.
His aim wasn’t to harm this entity, which he didn’t think he was capable of at his level of strength, but to force her into loosening her grip on him so he could leap away to a safe distance.
He quickly threw out a powerful punch with his free hand, aiming for her face. Contrary to his expectations, the lady only raised a brow in surprise and stared at him in amusement.
She didn’t react or make an attempt to block the attack as his fist closed the distance and landed squarely on her cheekbone—or close enough. But the moment his fist met the microscopic hairs on her face, Arc was thrown into a whole new world of pain as his neck forcibly snapped at an unnatural angle from an invisible blow that struck him right in the same spot.
His neck snapped back into place in recoil, and the darkness in his eyes, along with the dark veins, immediately receded as if he had been knocked back to consciousness.
He stared at an empty spot in confusion, the memories of the past few minutes now foreign to him. Then, his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he dropped to the floor.
"Oh," the lady exclaimed as his fingers slipped away from hers.
She looked up at the empty spot where Arc had almost killed the Destroyer, only to see the latter had disappeared in the chaos.
"Where do you think you’re going?" As those words left her lips, the cavern’s temperature immediately dropped to negative digits and a deathly aura exploded from her chest.
At the same time, multiple miasmas began forming all over—in the air, on the ceiling, and on the floor. From within them, hands began shooting out to grab onto something, like ghouls pulling themselves out of pits.
The Destroyer’s stealth skill was forcibly canceled, and he became visible, his eyes wide in terror as his legs turned wobbly and his knees buckled under the pressure.
He had never come across—or even heard of—such an ability to raise the dead.
He wasn’t surprised that this mysterious enemy had easily taken care of his monstrous opponent; because from the aura alone, he knew this wasn’t just any demon.
This deathly aura carried the scent of an Authority Devil. Not just any Authority Devil, but one whose authority was far above his own.
He immediately pressed his forehead into the earth. "W—Who... W-Who are you?" His voice no longer carried that intimidating effect. He spoke as softly as possible, choosing his words wisely.
"What? Are you trying to say you don’t know who I am?" The white-haired lady scoffed coldly and tilted her head.
"I-I’m sorry, mi—milady. Would you be so kind as to forgive this wretched vermin and grace me with your name, so I may glorify it?" the Destroyer immediately said with a shudder.
The white-haired lady’s lips tugged up in a satisfied smirk. "Very well, then," she said as she spread her arms.
"I AM THE MOTHER OF DEMONS. THE SOVEREIGN OF JUDGMENT. THE STRONGEST OF THE THREE COSMIC AUTHORITIES. THE 22ND AUTHORITY DEVIL."
With every word that left her lips, the Destroyer’s eyes widened in terror until his eyeballs were almost popping from their sockets. At the last line, he shakily looked up at the looming figure, above whose head a colossal symbol had formed. Its invisible pressure crashed down on his mind.
It was a golden scale resting above an abyssal sword.
"WHO’S THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL?"
""Li—Lilith.""
’You can call me Lilith...’
’I’m the fairest of them all...’
’How may I be at your service...’
’Don’t worry~. Lilith will take care of it...’
’Go! I’ll hold off Zemira and my sister for as long as I can. And, Arc... try not to die.’
"You—You’re alive?" the Destroyer blurted, before his heart dropped at his own outrageous statement and he immediately slammed his forehead into the ground once more. "M-Mercy. Have mercy on this wretched vermin."
"I’ll do anything for you, milady."
"For me? I doubt you can be of any use to me. You’re useless."
"W-What?"
"But... there’s something you can do for my client here."
The Destroyer slowly raised his head to see Lilith pointing a thumb at his monstrous opponent, who was passed out on the floor.
He didn’t reply as he looked from the youth back to Lilith in confusion.
"You might not know it yet, but you’re already a slave to him. You can’t escape or harm him even if I let you. And the only reason I appeared here was to stop him from wasting such precious resources because he wasn’t listening to his system."
"What do you mean by that?" The Destroyer frowned.
But just as the words left his lips, the terrain around him suddenly changed into a vast domain of darkness covered in fog. Before he could fight it, multiple spectral hands extended from the beyond and latched their claws onto his exposed heart.
The Destroyer cried out in pain as he doubled over, clenching his chest as his pupils constricted to the size of a pinhole.
"You’ve been dominated, and now live for a new purpose."
"And, Arc. You can stop playing dead now, waiting for the right moment to sneak-attack me. After all, you’ve seen that’s impossible. And that is simply because I’m your Patron."
Nothing happened for a moment, before Arc’s brows furrowed and his eyes shot open. He sat up just as a vial of red liquid appeared between his lips. He tilted his head to let its contents flow down his throat, then spat out the empty vial.
He silently stared at Lilith with a frown as the strange, fragmented memories of her resurfaced in his mind.
"You’re not the one behind my regression, are you?"
"Regress— what’s that supposed to mean?" the white-haired lady asked with raised brows.
"I see."
He didn’t ask any more questions. Because though the new memories he’d just unlocked were fragmented, Arc not only knew now that she had nothing to do with it... but also that he’d lived longer than he could remember of his past life.
