Transmigrated as the Villain: I Will Destroy Fate

Chapter 162: Who are you? [1]

"You interrupted us!" Lilith shrieked, her voice a high, childish screech that cut through the forest. All pretence of friendliness vanished, replaced by the raw, petulant fury of a spoiled child. Her manic gaze fixed on Elara. "This was my time with Ronny! Mine!"

Violet beams, faster and more vicious than before, shot from her fingertips.

Elara grunted, her gauntlets glowing as she deflected one, then another, but the sheer volume forced her back. Each impact threw sparks and left scorched earth where she had stood moments before.

Ronan watched from a distance, his mind racing. He was looking for an opening, a stutter in her rhythm, but there was none. She was a barrage of pure, hateful energy. He launched a fireball, a simple probe. Lilith didn’t even turn her head. A flick of her finger sent a thin violet needle to intercept it, detonating the spell in a puff of harmless orange smoke.

"You’re making me really angry, Ronny!" she yelled at him over her shoulder, her tone aggrieved. "I’m very upset at you!"

He ignored her. His soul throbbed with a dull ache, a reminder of the five-ingredient ritual and the impossibly delicate structure he now possessed. Using a skill above his rank had consequences. For a Flame Path user, it was self-immolation, the magic consuming their body from within. For a Water Path user, it was their own blood being siphoned as fuel. For the three-ingredient Soul Path, it was a shave off one’s own lifespan. But his path, the five-ingredient version, was different. It was optimized, but it did not erase the cost. It simply damaged the soul.

Using Mind Bender again would be foolish.

But he had one shot. He could feel it. Mind Bender was ready, but he could only use it for a second or two. That was it.

He waited, his eyes tracking Lilith’s obsessive assault on Elara. The demon was so focused on punishing the interruption that her awareness of her surroundings grew sloppy.

Now.

Ronan activated Stealth. The world seemed to mute as he slipped from sight, his presence vanishing not just from view but from the ambient mana Lilith was likely using to track him. He circled wide, moving through her blind spot as she hammered another beam into Elara’s hastily erected barrier.

He appeared directly behind her.

Elara saw the opening and immediately disengaged, a tactical retreat that gave him the space he needed. Ronan’s hand shot out and clamped around Lilith’s neck. Simultaneously, he drove a concentrated fireball into the same spot. Her skin boiled, flesh sizzling away in a horrifying instant.

She let out a raw, guttural scream of pain, her body twisting in his grip. With a surge of strength, she kicked, her heel connecting with his chest and sending him stumbling back.

"You’re mean! You’re mean!" she shrieked, clutching her burnt neck. "Ahhh, this hurts!"

Ronan tuned her out.

He glanced at Elara. She was panting, her face streaked with blood, her arms trembling.

She was far more damaged than the demon. They had to end this. Now.

He closed the distance to Elara, his voice a low command.

"Her big spell is coming back. Hide. Now. Behind the trees." He pointed. "On my signal, you come out."

Elara’s eyes were wide with confusion, but she saw the unwavering certainty in his.

Lilith was already turning on her again, her face a mask of rage. "You’re dead! Dead, dead, dead!"

Ronan slammed a fireball into the dirt between them.

A thick cloud of dust and debris erupted, Lilith’s vision.

Elara used the momentary chaos and bolted, disappearing behind a thick trunk.

As the dust began to settle, Ronan focused.

He felt the familiar strain of activating a skill above his rank.

Mind Bender.

He poured his will into the spell, projecting a single, simple illusion.

He made Lilith see him as Elara.

When the dust cleared, Lilith saw her target standing alone.

"There you are!" she screamed, her fury reaching its peak. Violet light, brighter and more violent than anything before, gathered between her palms. It compressed into a blinding sphere that pulsed with destructive energy. She aimed it not at the forest, not at the sky, but directly at the figure she thought was Elara.

She attacked.

A blinding beam of pure violet lanced across the clearing, far more focused and compressed than the first attack.

Ronan braced himself, pouring every last drop of mana into a barrier.

The light slammed into him.

It did not explode like the first attack; instead, it was a concentrated drill of an attack.

His mana shield shattered in a microsecond.

The energy tore into his forearms as he crossed them to block, burning flesh away instantly.

The pain was excruciating, but the agony from cultivating Steel Bone Armament had been a far more intimate teacher than he gave it credit for.

He gritted his teeth, the smell of his own cooked flesh filling his nostrils.

The light devoured his muscles, his tendons, his skin, until it screeched against the unnatural density of his bones and finally dissipated.

The blinding glare faded. Ronan stood, swaying, his arms skeletal from the wrist down, blackened bone steaming in the sudden silence.

Lilith stared, her rage replaced by utter shock. "Ronny?" she stammered, her voice small. "I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to–"

Her apology was cut short.

Elara exploded from behind the trees. Her gauntlet, humming with the last of her mana, connected with Lilith’s skull with a sound like a boulder splitting.

The demon crumpled to the ground, stunned.

Ronan, still standing, sent a silent, jagged pulse of energy forward.

Soul Attack.

Lilith’s eyes went vacant as the invisible blow struck her consciousness.

Elara didn’t hesitate.

She straddled the fallen demon’s chest, her fists rising and falling in a brutal, relentless rhythm. The first punch broke her nose. The second shattered her jaw. Lilith tried to speak, to attack, but her movements were sluggish, uncoordinated from the soul attack. Elara just kept punching, her face a mask of grim determination, pouring all her fear, all her rage, into every blow. \

Over and over and over again.

Until finally, Lilith’s struggles weakened. Sputtered. And finally stopped.

Elara pushed herself up, her breathing a ragged saw. "She’s... she’s not dead. Still alive."

Ronan nodded, walking over with an unsteady gait. He knelt beside the pulped, unmoving form. "Let me check."

He leaned down, placing his hand against Lilith’s throat as if searching for a pulse, a gesture to soothe Elara’s frayed nerves.

His fingers brushed against the raw, unprotected flesh of her neck.

A small, almost silent flicker of orange light bloomed under his palm.

Fireball.

Lilith’s neck exploded, and her head rolled away into the dirt.