“Crack.” With a soft shattering sound, Li Yue chewed and swallowed the blood crystal in her mouth, then bit down on another piece.
The hunger that had lingered in her belly for days vanished instantly. Conflicting emotions surged through her spirit, pushing her sanity to the edge of collapse. She pressed her fingers against her temples, looking like nothing more than a slightly dizzy young girl to any passersby.
She paused for a moment, feeling the blood throughout her body begin to flow at a rapid pace. Her vision became sharper, but at the same time, she felt a slight sense of wrongness—as if her values were being subtly altered by some unseen force.
She shook her head, trying to cast off the strange emotions. As she watched the crowds passing by, she felt a sense of alienation—not from any specific person, but from the very concept of humanity itself.
Is my self-perception being affected? Is this the price of power?
She looked at the remaining blood crystals in her pocket. She didn't know what she would become in the future, but for the time being, she wouldn't consume any more.
Li Yue walked along the street, quietly waiting for nightfall. As the sun slowly dipped below the horizon, this prosperous city once again welcomed its darkness, and all things hid within the absolute blackness.
Li Yue closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they had transformed into blood-red vertical pupils. She let out a slow breath, her tongue hovering near the roof of her mouth, producing a faint exhaling sound somewhere between a sigh and a hiss.
With a light leap, Li Yue cleared the high fence surrounding Marquis William’s estate. Watching the moving lights of the stars in the dark, a poem she had once heard surfaced in her mind.
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage, even as the fire of life is about to go out.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight, blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be joyful.
Turning the last wave, shouting brilliance, the virtuous.
She drew her unsheathed short sword and stepped into the darkness, merging seamlessly with the shadows.
The patrolling guards didn't seem to expect that someone would stroll in through the back garden so casually. Because they felt no trace of magic, they didn't believe anyone could scale a several-meter-high barbed fence without magical assistance.
“When magic users rely too much on magic, they become fools.” Roland had said this while instructing Li Yue. At the time, she hadn't fully understood the weight of those words.
Even now, she only half-understood, but she kept the sentiment close to her heart.
She had once feared change. A favorite food would naturally lose its appeal after eating it for too long; a beautiful song would eventually become irritating after repeated listens... She had feared change, but when those changes actually arrived, she found she didn't resist them all that much.
She feared becoming a monster, but if that day truly came, would she calmly accept that identity and slaughter living beings at her whim?
She didn't know.
“Click.” Li Yue opened the locked door. Compared to doors that could be sealed with magic, people still seemed to prefer physical locks. It didn't matter much to Li Yue; the magic scroll had a record of an unlocking spell.
The interior was still brightly lit. Li Yue closed the door behind her, sensing the presence of the living inside. They were moving about, seemingly finishing the day's cleaning.
Li Yue stood behind a massive potted plant for a moment before slowly making her way to the second floor.
Suddenly, a wave of magic rapidly approached. Li Yue opened her magic scroll, and several musical notes emerged, causing the air around her to vibrate rapidly. The angle of light refraction shifted, granting Li Yue physical invisibility for a short duration.
She stowed the magic scroll, inwardly marveling that Roland had developed such an effect from artistic magic. If Roland were to delve deeper into the principles behind it, he might actually discover the secrets of light itself.
She quickly distanced herself from the approaching group. These uninvited guests gave her a small shock. Just as Caesar had said, these people weren't members of the Mages' Association; they wore uniform crests and appeared to be magic users from some mercenary group.
Their perception seemed keen. As they passed by, they sensed a faint, flickering evil aura. Li Yue ignored them, making a silent leap from beneath the stairs up to the second floor.
The servants on the second floor hurried down to the first to investigate, passing right by Li Yue without noticing the faint gust of wind.
Roland had mentioned that curses required an altar, which meant there was a secret room on the second floor of this house. However, during her wait before sunset, she had observed the layout from various angles on the street and hadn't noticed anything unusual.
However, she had a simple, crude, and highly efficient idea.
She stepped into an empty study, drew her short sword, and slashed her wrist without hesitation. A sharp pain made her brow furrow slightly, and then a massive amount of blood began to spread to every corner of the room, seeping into every tiny crevice.
Nothing.
The blood condensed into a large sphere as she moved to the next room. She used the same method again, then moved to the bathroom, and finally the living room.
By the time the commotion downstairs had settled and the servants returned to the second floor, Li Yue had already reached Marquis William’s massive bedroom. A deep red quilt covered a bed large enough for four or five people. Li Yue could imagine what kind of atrocities had occurred here, but she had zero interest in Marquis William’s private life.
The blood spread across the floor and gradually began to sink, seemingly finding a hidden chamber.
“There really is one... My guess was too accurate. Either I’m just lucky, or humans really are as wicked as I thought...”
She walked to the corner and retrieved her blood from the cracks, but she couldn't find a mechanism to enter.
Perhaps it required a specific magical trigger, but the wall before her didn't seem to have any defensive magic protecting it.
Is this the limit of a commoner's defenses?
Li Yue opened the magic scroll. A melodious tune played, and her figure slowly became ethereal. She stepped forward, easily passing through the wall.
Sensing a presence, the kerosene lamps in the secret room ignited one by one, illuminating a massive altar.
“The evidence is conclusive. Time to finish up and leave.”
She used a magic recording spell to document the scene before her.
“Is this a bit too smooth?” She frowned. There was a scent she didn't like. She slowly stepped forward and began to examine the altar's structure. It seemed to be offering sacrifices to some serpentine deity. There were several ancient scrolls and some magically preserved flesh that hadn't rotted.
Various inscriptions were carved into the walls, and a hexagram had been drawn on the floor in dried blood. It looked like a standard ritual.
Can a normal person affect a Great Mage through mere ritual? Or were these sacrifices actually precious materials?
She stepped closer to inspect the offerings, then suddenly recoiled. A sense of dread washed over her, and cold sweat broke out on her back.
This was a ritual, or rather, a sacrifice. That much was true. Everything seemed normal, but the fact that the offerings were still on the altar meant the sacrifice hadn't been successful. The actual perpetrator was someone else.
But this didn't mean William’s motives weren't transparent. He might not have understood magic, but that didn't mean he wouldn't stir up secular turmoil.
Li Yue frowned as an evil aura made her feel nauseous. The surrounding blood transformed into blades and shot toward the shadows.
The flames in the room suddenly brightened, making her shadow clearly visible on the ground. A shadow shaped like a leopard lunged out and bit down on Li Yue’s shadow.
A stinging pain from the bite hit her. Li Yue frowned, drawing her short sword and slashing at the ground. The leopard shadow vanished under the strike.
“Shadow magic?” Li Yue looked to the side as a masked figure slowly emerged. A faint crack remained at the bottom of his mask, as if the damage caused by Roland hadn't fully recovered.
“A good guess.” He raised his gloved hands and gave a mocking round of applause.
Li Yue looked up, her blood-red eyes fixed on the mask, and her lips curled into a grin.
A torrent of blood splattered, extinguishing all the light sources in the room. Darkness descended once more.
“Did you forget that I can hide in the darkness?” Laughing Mask’s voice carried even more mockery. Hiding within the Shadow World, he watched the vertical pupils of Li Yue’s eyes in the dark, feeling an inexplicable pang of heart palpitations.
He moved through the darkness like a flying fish in water, lunging upward with a sword strike. Li Yue sidestepped the attack; the pitch-black environment didn't seem to affect her vision at all.
The sound of clashing blades began to ring out in the dark.
“I should try magic. I can't waste any more time.”
Li Yue feigned an opening, and a sharp black blade sliced across her abdomen, becoming stained with her blood.
The splattered blood floated in the air. Laughing Mask ducked back into the shadows, deciding to stall for time. After all, in this world, she couldn't see where he was.
He was secretly gloating when suddenly, bright red blood flew toward him, shooting straight into the Shadow World and piercing his shoulder. Immediately after, more droplets of blood shot toward him at high speed, trailing red lines through the air like a downpour of blood rain.
“How is she tracking me?!” Laughing Mask dodged the laser-like blood droplets in a panic. He looked at the tip of his dark red sword; the bright red blood on it was slowly writhing.
He violently threw away the black sword, but the previous wound had already left a small amount of blood inside him. The torrential blood rain showed no signs of stopping. His magic was still restricted in the pure black environment, so he released his shadow to temporarily block the “storm.”
“Let’s end the game here, Miss Monster!” He leaped out of the darkness and threw a magic scroll. Shadows enveloped his body, carrying him away as he made a rapid escape.
Li Yue healed her wound and let out a breath.
“Boom!” A violent explosion erupted beside Li Yue. The remaining blood formed a barrier that protected her, absorbing most of the impact and damage, but the secret room was inevitably blown open.
Looking at the massive hole before her, she sensed several magical presences racing toward her. Li Yue sighed, took a mask from her ring, put it on, and drew another sword.
“Exposing my location, ruining the infiltration plan, stirring up trouble, and escalating the conflict... Even though I wounded that guy, he still achieved what he wanted.”
“It really makes me... a bit annoyed.”
The blood spheres from the bedroom returned to her side, slowly transforming into various weapons that orbited her body.
In a dim parlor, a series of chuckles rang out.
“Already? You couldn't even beat her? How amusing and shocking.” Caesar looked mockingly at the mask in the shadows.
“We can only leave it to you, Mr. K.” Laughing Mask waved his hand. “Since we can't do it the fast way, we’ll just have to follow the plan step by step.”
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