Daemon stood motionless, watching the world around him get swallowed in crimson arcs. Kirin’s Lightning swept across the land like a flood, and its strange red hue made it feel as if he were trapped at the bottom of a sea of blood. The horizon, once clear, now drowned beneath that light—villagers scread, cultivators retreated, and yet here he remained, separated from destruction by the thinnest mbrane of Space.
It was a surreal sensation. Through the translucent barrier of his prison, the boy could almost believe he could stretch out his hand and touch those arcs of Lightning, feel them crawl across his skin. Yet in truth, he was worlds apart—caught in a cage woven by Han Ruyue’s void-born Technique.
This is my chance, he thought, eyes hardening. Without hesitation, he invoked Asura’s Second-Form.
Power surged, ripping through his body like rivers breaking free of their dams. Muscles coiled and swelled, stacking atop one another like knots of steel, his fra beginning to stretch taller. Blood thundered through his veins, filling every extremity with the fire of monstrous strength. Hope flared in his chest, the belief that raw might alone could tear open the prison.
But then—grey tendrils revealed themselves.
Fine lines of Space, nearly invisible until his resistance forced them to gather, slithered into view like threads of a spider’s web. The more he struggled, the more they fused together, forming countless intersecting lines that bound his limbs and torso in a seamless, unyielding Formation.
His growth stuttered. Muscles strained. The transformation was halted midway, his body stopping just short of two ters. The expected towering figure of a three-ter Asura never ca. What he gained was half a ter at best—barely the size of an ordinary teenager.
Despair stabbed into his gut. His strength was nothing but fuel for the trap.
The lines glowed faintly as they folded the fabric of reality itself, expanding and contracting to balance the crushing pressure of Kirin’s Lightning outside and his raging resistance within. Each fold, each distortion, was precise, efficient—an ingenious design that used opposing forces to sustain itself without wasting energy.
Damn, she’s good.
The grudging thought passed through him as he deactivated the Second-Form, then the First-Form, finally letting the Buff dissipate altogether. Saving what ti he had left with the Skill would serve him better than wasting it on a losing battle.
He shrank back to his original size, hoping the contraction might grant him so freedom to slip free of the grey lines. But they clung to him rcilessly, etched against his skin like permanent tattoos.
That was when a mocking voice rang in his head.
"Don’t worry, boss. I’m still here," Ippo jeered, his tone dripping with glee. "Go ahead, let them capture you, or just give in peacefully. I’ll take good care of your System. And even better care of your maid, your people, and your mount."
Daemon’s jaw clenched, fury rushing through him hotter than the Lightning storm outside. He wanted to spit venom, to curse Ippo’s arrogance, to remind the clone that if he fell, it would fall with him. Yet the boy forced it down. Empty threats would only waste what little strength remained.
In the end, Ippo was still him—another piece of his fragnted self. He had allowed it freedom, and to revoke that choice now would be nothing more than doubting himself.
His breathing steadied. mories flashed—not of battles, but of life before all this. His wasted years on Earth, his diocrity, his lack of grand ambition. And yet, for all that, he had always lived with a clear conscience, unshackled by obsession or envy. That, above all, had been his pride.
Others had chased power, wealth, and prestige like headless chickens. He had taken what life gave him and still found contentnt. Even now, staring at despair, he chose not to collapse.
Yeah. Take good care of them for , will ya, Daemon transmitted back, his words echoing across the ntal link.
And then—
The soft chi of the Hourly-Roll rang in his mind.
The void shifted, and Daemon’s awareness slipped into the familiar depths of the System. Once more he found himself beneath the ocean’s surface, walking the subrged path paved with blue and black tiles. The abyss yawned at the far end, its jaws waiting. But unlike before, there was no fear in him now.
He was calm. If the Ten-Thousand Beast Mountain Sect truly intended to sever his head, then perhaps that abyss would never be his burden again.
For the fourth ti that day, he faced the Dice. Red and white glead in his hand, and as he prepared to cast, his lips curved in a shadow of a smile.
“Roll.”
Daemon gave the verbal command, and the red-and-white Dice dissolved from his palm in a shimr of light. A heartbeat later, the familiar chi of the System echoed through the oceanic void.
6 – White.
The boy’s vision blurred as his body shifted forward, carried six tiles past the endless stretch of black, into the faintly glowing blue path beyond. The Dice materialized in his hand once more, cool and solid against his palm.
“Heh,” Daemon muttered under his breath, lips quirking in a grin. “I must be in luck. A second chance to roll already? Let’s hope this one pushes forward instead of slapping back like before.”
His thumb brushed along the smooth surface of the Dice, rubbing it as though coaxing favor from a whimsical god. Then, with that sa ritualistic steadiness, he whispered the single word again.
“Roll.”
The Dice vanished. His body lurched with the familiar sensation of being pulled along the path—and when his feet touched down, the glow of progress told him all he needed to know.
The boy’s childish face broke into a wide smile. For the second ti in a row, he had advanced.
And once again, the Dice appeared in his hand.
His eyes widened. He had rolled the exact sa result twice in succession—sothing that had never once happened before.
“This must be my lucky day!” Daemon laughed, his voice echoing across the subrged path. “At this point, I don’t think I’d even complain if I got a red result next. I’ve already made satisfying progress this round.”
Relief, fleeting and sweet, washed through him. For a mont, the suffocating despair of the material world—the shackles of Space, the overwhelming weight of Cultivators plotting his downfall—was swept aside. Here, in the depths of the System, his heart felt light again.
Then ca the third roll.
“Oh my God!” Daemon’s shout rang like a child’s glee as his body was propelled forward once more. The sa result. Three tis in a row. His small fra bounced with excitent, fists pumping, as if the subrged tiles beneath him had turned into a festival ground.
But his joy froze the instant the Dice returned.
It was no longer the familiar red and white.
Now it glead in green and white.
“What… happened to it?” Daemon whispered, his excitent faltering into stunned disbelief.
His gaze slid down the path ahead, and the answer revealed itself in eerie light. The odd-numbered tiles—once his bane, always dragging him backward with a red mark—now glowed with a soft green radiance. The even-numbered tiles—his steps forward—shone white instead of blue.
A shift in the rules. The board itself had changed.
“I guess I’ll find out when I roll,” he said, voice steadier than he felt.
The green-and-white Dice slipped from his grasp, vanishing only to reappear tumbling across the tiles before him. Each bounce scattered radiant sparks, trails of glitter spilling outward like the birth of stars. The subrged path transford into a cosmic mural, as if nebulae themselves were being painted underfoot.
The sight was enchanting—magical in a way that stole breath. For a fleeting mont, Daemon forgot the blood-sea storm above, forgot his shackles, forgot the Sect and its Immortals. All he saw was the path ahead, bathed in fairy dust, like so unseen sprite fluttered her wings and scattered starlight just for him.
And then, the Dice began to slow.
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