Mark took a deep breath and looked at the white-haired woman intently. One minute ago, he was looking at her frozen form from the outside world, and now, he was in the River of Destiny—in a bamboo forest, with her seemingly alive in front of him.
This did not make sense. When she opened her eyes, he had ended up here.
There was a profound instinct Mark had gained regarding so things. There were things in this world that people couldn't replicate or copy.
He had tried turning normal things into the threads inside the River of Destiny with his Alchemy Shapeshifting and it had never worked. That probably went the sa for illusions and similar.
There was no way soone could replicate the River of Destiny to this level of perfection. And if anyone truly could do that, there was no way soone of that level would go to the trouble of ssing with a Lower Demon.
Mark pushed back his gray hair and cald down. His mind was full of questions.
Who was this woman? Why did the Violet Screen react to her? What were her motives? If she was connected to him sohow, why was she so coincidentally in the Hunter World? What was her connection to his Reincarnation?
And.
Why did she seem so incredulously strong?
"First of all, can you tell where we really are?"
She made teacups appear magically on a table beside them and took a sip from her cup.
"We are in the River of Destiny, as you can see."
Mark was flummoxed. "How—Why have you brought here?"
The woman smirked. "For one, It is to gift you my ability, Clown's Circus—You will need it. For another, it is to show you my relationship with you. As you saw, the Karma Thread between us runs deep. Even deeper than I myself am aware."
Mark. "..."
"Let introduce myself first, Mark. My na is Reol'ran ngroth." She bowed her head elegantly, white hair falling gently to the side. "I am a proud mber of the Heaven Soul Race. I have visited many worlds and eaten feasts at too many tables in search of you, and have finally found you in this backwater world."
"You have been searching… for ?" He asked, "Why?"
She smiled. "I can see the caution dripping from your lips. But don't be so stiff. Let first help you with sothing."
The woman took Mark's hand and he felt incapable of any resistance. So, he just stared at what she did.
Her fair and cool hand felt small against his red palm.
With a gebtle touch of her fingers, a small mote of light moved out of Mark's body.
"This is the Seal of Destiny, use it on and steal my ability first. I brought you into the depths of the River of Destiny with all the remaining power within my body—and this will not last long, in so minutes, you will wake up back in the real world."
Mark looked at her with a frown. He didn't want to take anything from her—she might as well be feeding him poison. She sighed at his cautious face and gave a flick to the mote of light. The Seal of Destiny moved around inside her and ca out as a bigger mote of light.
"Do not misunderstand," she said, "I do not need your acceptance to give you that power. I was just being nice."
"Wh—"
The mote of light whizzed into Mark and he felt a familiar, dizzying sensation.
He was gaining a new Demonic Trick!
Puke-
He must have been the first Lower Demon to have ever puked inside the River of Destiny.
Mark wheezed for air and looked at the woman with confusion.
A violet screen buzzed into life in front of him.
[Demonic Tricks]
[Soul Devourer, Heart Input, Dream Gambler's Mortal Puppet, Alchemy Shapeshifting, Clown's Circus. Parasite (Pinnacle), Dream Shock (Pinnacle).]
He briefly scanned the Demonic Trick's use and Mark's expression warped into one filled with shock.
The woman sat back elegantly on her seat and took another sip from her tea.
"You may have a drink," she said. "Are you also afraid that I'll poison you?"
Mark looked at the woman and tried to stifle his shock. He still didn't take the drink.
"Why?" he asked.
She shrugged.
"I knew with how cautious you are, you wouldn't accept any of my goodwill. Since you will never steal the ability on your own, I just forced you to take it."
"Why would anybody give such an ability to anyone? Why are you doing this?"
And now, he could see the intangible Karma Threads between them. The threads were now many tis thicker—they seed to connect Mark's and Reol'ran's destinies into practically one.
She smiled. "It seems you are satisfied with your new demonic trick. Well, do I have a bit more of your trust now?"
Mark was only warier.
She seed like a scamr who would throw nice stuff into his face first before taking sothing more valuable from him.
She sighed and scratched her cheeks.
"You are too cautious, how do I even begin to make you see it." She sulked. "Now, let tell you my part of the story."
With her sigh, the bamboo forest around them vanished and the infinite appearance of the River of Destiny returned.
Mark had his heartbeat quicken as the white-haired, regal woman in empiric clothing gently pulled on one specific Karma Thread in her body.
The cause of that Karma Thread appeared before Mark in the form of a vision.
…
Deep in a colosseum-like place, thousands upon thousands of people were screaming in excitent. Bursts of color exploded from the audience seat and incredible drumbeats echoed across the arena.
In the middle was a dueling ring, and amid the battlefield stood thirteen mighty won.
Even among them, Mark noticed one woman in particular. She was clad in silver armor, her white hair billowing behind her back, and she was bathed in the crimson blood of her enemies—slain monsters.
She felt more like a beast imprisoned within the armor unlike the other won who found protection in it.
Calmly, the woman rested her hand on a large warblade and stood straight.
Reol'ran ngroth.
She looked much younger than how Mark rembered her from minutes ago. Her face had a slight immaturity that the current Reol'rab lacked whatsoever.
Mark watched with intebse eyes.
All around the coliseum, the excitent was palpable.
Reol'ran looked around with anger evident on her icey but beautiful face. Her athyst eyes were bursting with hatred. Blood dripped gently from the blade in her hands.
Even the other won seed wary of her even though they were killing so kind of monster each rather than each other.
Reol'ran smirked.
From atop an elevated platform, a pudgy man clapped his hand.
Heaven and earth fell silent.
"We, of the Heaven Soul Race are proud beings!" The man said.
That was when Mark noticed that the people around were not humans. They looked very similar to humans—two legs, humanoid bodies, and normal human skin color variants, but there was a difference.
In so of them, dark horns were jutting out of their heads, so had pointy ears, and in so others, sothing was writhing within their eyes.
Mark's gaze shifted to Reol'ran.
She didn't have any horns but she did have sothing writhing within her athyst eyes now that he looked deeply. It felt like violet mist trapped within her pupils.
They squird.
She looked ethereal.
Like a drawn blade.
These people were not humans even if they looked strangely similar, but instead, they were a part of the… Heaven Soul Race. It was a wholly different species from Angels, Humans, Demons, and any other Mark had so inklings of.
And these creatures had a specialty—they were born in the River of Destiny.
They could swim through the waters of the River and watch the destinies of people weaker than them unfold like movies. So of them could even predict the future of weaker people.
Even this colosseum was a place buried deep in the infinite River of Destiny.
The skies were not blue but just an amalgamation of floating Karma Threads.
As he watched the people, he could also see a part of the audience betting on the destinies of the won on the colosseum and interacting with Karma Threads.
This was indeed another species.
In so other, unknown and distant world.
Mark felt shaken.
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