The leviathan grinned, her voice growing affectionate. "But you can call me aunt. Now, ask away, child. Why did you seek me—what do you need?"
As the words echoed over the rumbling typhoons connecting the sea and the heavens, the cleaver roared inside Adam’s soul.
"Don’t answer her. Flee! Flee, you fool!" The river of liquid fire crackled into a hulking demon.
Flames swirled in green as he smashed his fist, cracking the ground and vaporising demonic plants and trees that just ruptured through the scorched earth.
"If she can extract a magus curse from your soul, she can also scan it and your body. She knows about my presence, your mythical physique, and things even you have no idea about."
Adam didn’t answer. He didn’t hear the warnings. Instead, he locked eyes with the leviathan. It was the first time he had seen a living being with the same sky-blue pupils as him. The progenitor of magic... She surely also shared his affinity for mana in all its forms and elements.
But she was transcendently stronger. And it only ignited his frozen heart. Fear melted, giving way to proud visions of what he could become. A powerhouse terrifying enough to carve a territory in a foreign realm, much more powerful than its original one.
But questions quickly buried the visions. Allistair’s grimoire recorded a shameful flight from their homeworld. Who or what could have made the leviathan retreat? If she had understood he came from the magical world, why didn’t she ask him how he ended up in the cultivator realm fifteen thousand years after her departure?
A frown creased his brows. "Don’t you have questions to ask before?"
Leviathan’s ancient eyes glimmered with wisdom as she shook her head. "I’m familiar with the essentials, at least. The rest isn’t too hard to guess. You found the cleaver we buried with its petrified owner underground. He attempted to corrupt you, but I can see the glittering chains of Paimon’s contract coiled around your soul. What matters is that you’ve somehow resisted, assimilated wild beasts and mythical beings until you’ve developed an immunity."
Her voice grew the playful kind that chilled his blood. "We wouldn’t have this conversation if not... and I’m sure you get the essentials, too." Then, she sighed. "Perhaps your ownership is fortune, perhaps not. What I know, however, is that you can’t be demonified, and therefore aren’t a threat."
Adam rubbed his brow, sliding his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. "It sounds, right... and more terrifying than necessary." He sighed. "Anyway, knowing about the cleaver makes things smoother. Can you unbind this parasite from my soul like you removed the curse?"
She nodded, hope igniting in his chest before he snarled as she continued.
"But you’ll die the moment Paimon’s contract loses its target. And that, my dear Adam, I can’t undo. He’s too powerful. A true demon—one who predates even me."
As he lowered his face, she added, rekindling a distant sliver of hope. "I believe you can find a solution yourself. Demons’ worst enemies are not mages, nor cultivators, but themselves. They’re self-serving, untrustworthy, and will do anything to cheat. You might have a chance since you’re immune to their corrupting magic. Study it. Find how to break your shackles on your own."
Adam nodded, then moved back to her first question. "I’ve read in Alistair’s grimoire about a smuggling deal. I planned to pass as his descendant to claim that chance, but I guess it’s useless now." He sighed. "For what’s worth, I indeed found her descendant, a lovely girl, whose affinity awakened."
Leviathan tilted her head to the side, memories alight in her eyes. "I can do that for you, for her, and even for the man who plays dead. Not for the others."
Adam gazed through the palace’s rubble at Misha’s city. She had to come with him. "Can’t you replace whoever that man playing dead is with my companion? We... don’t want to be apart."
"No." Leviathan’s answer came almost faster than he had asked, firm, definitive. "She’s no mage I’ve raised. Her bloodline reeks more of beast than human, like the werebeasts that had threatened my children in their time of weakness." She shook her head. "She is something... more. A far greater threat than you... at least for now."
Adam scratched the back of his head, knowing she was holding back truths. At least she wasn’t hostile despite her refusal, and he could work with that.
"Can you keep my fortress and its inhabitants safe, then?" He begrudgingly pointed at the sea’s depths. "Like your son protected Kumari Kandam."
Leviathan’s eyes narrowed. For a moment, salt stung the air as lightning pulsed through the water before she sighed. "I’ll kick them out if they disturb my sleep. Until then, I guess it costs me nothing to keep it on the seabed."
He clenched his fists in victory behind his back. But his joy was short-lived.
"Though our discussion entertained me, I’m afraid it ends now." Leviathan snapped her head up, her slitted pupils glaring to the horizon. "The Celestial Frozen Hater, and The Crimson Knife."
She clicked her massive tongue, her body coiling around the fortress. Her mana erupted, and the shattered barriers recondensed instantly as she sank the palace, plain, and forests. With a glare at Adam, Qing, and Yann, she teleported them mid-air and tore a drop of blood with a tentacle.
"You’re the last survivors of House Laurentius Lux Aeterna. Your ancestors were minor acolytes from the countryside. An experiment went wrong, the house caught fire, everyone died, but you. That’s the new identity I’ve registered you under."
Adam wanted to laugh at the two dao integration realm overlord’s twisted titles and his weird family name, but couldn’t. Instead, his eyes locked on Misha’s sinking city, his chest tightening painfully.
"I couldn’t tell her goodbye."
"She’ll understand. You, however, are running out of time." Leviathan then glared at Yann’s frozen body. "For how long will you continue your masquerade, descendant of our dear rector? Or do you think I wouldn’t recognise your blood’s ability to cheat death once?"
The ice statue cracked—just slightly—as if Yann had flinched, but he remained silent even as Adam’s eyes widened.
All he had wanted was to save the man’s corpse from the humiliation promised by The Celestial Frost Matriarch, yet the man had been fine all along, and acting mute, deaf, and blind to escape danger.
"The blood of the rector? You vicious snake," he whispered—just as their bodies flickered.
The salty breeze faded into scents of lush apple trees, grape fields, and the damp earthiness of root cellars. A dirt road flanked by barns, from which sheep, cows, donkeys, or horses for the wealthier grazed on straw from roughly carved feeding troughs.
A tug on his sleeves brought his eyes to Qing, whose lips quivered. She raised her trembling arms, and he cradled her against his chest, knowing Leviathan had terrified her.
"We’re fine... I hope." He tried to reassure her. But honestly? He didn’t know much about the archipelago. His eyes darted to Yann’s statue. Someone else did, though.
Meanwhile, Leviathan peered through the illusions shrouding the archipelago and its barrier, her lips curling into a broad grin. "Fifteen thousand years waiting—an eternity that feels worth it. The realm of the four monarchs has never produced a Fool of such potential. He... can surpass me. His mate, too. But it won’t be easy."
Her eyes narrowed on Xueyin and Yuehua Ji’s figure. "Not when you two are hunting them down."
"Give us the demonic sword wielder, Leviathan!" Yuehua Ji swept her hand, her ice spewing frozen flames. "This isn’t about origins anymore, but the realm’s safety."
"Your worries do not concern me, lad." Leviathan raised a brow, smirking. "Same as last time: defeat me if you want passage. But we both know you’ll only manage another humiliation." Her eyes snapped to Xueyin. "You, too, Crimson Knife."
"It’s crimson blade!" Xueyin shuddered, then grinned. "Violence it is. Don’t expect to leave unscathed this time."
"I have long ceased to expect anything from the three of you." Her mana erupted into cataclysmic lightning storms, molten lava, and wind sharper than blades. The sea crackled with energy, each drop of water turning into a weapon at her command.
The battle raged for hours—sky-rending cultivation techniques clashing against primordial tides, frost drowning in the abyss, crimson blades dulled against Leviathan’s immortal scales.
When the storm finally cleared, only the sea remained, its waves lapping gently as if nothing had ever disturbed its depths. The overlords were gone, not dead but undone, their power scattered like foam upon the waves. Leviathan sighed, already turning away.
AN: Yay, the archipelago arc starts after this long bonus Chapter. Hope you’ll like it. I’m feeling sick by the way, so I might not release tomorrow...