Melvas had absolutely no idea what was happening.
The moment he turned around, he caught sight of a black, indescribable thing constantly shifting its form. Unlike a liquid slime that could mold itself into any shape at will, this entity seemed like a hybrid of liquid and gas. In his daze, he glimpsed a pair of pupils in the endless depths—pupils identical to the Dragon King’s—sending shivers down his spine. Yet in that instant, Melvas was utterly convinced it was nothing more than a PTSD-like hallucination.
“Who are you? Who’s your mother? Where is this place?”
Melvas strove to appear calm and collected, but his heart hammered away at a hundred beats per minute, pumping scorching blood relentlessly to his brain. Not long before, he had felt the agony of his neck being crushed, leaving his throat still faintly chilled.
“Did you hurt my mommy?”
The voice questioned him once more.
This time, the indescribable chaos vanished from the vast ruins before him, only to materialize behind him before echoing in front again. It felt as if this little girl—at least judging by her voice—did not exist at all. Or perhaps she existed everywhere.
Melvas froze for a few seconds. Then, in a bizarre twist, he spread his arms wide, his gaze hardening with resolve.
“As far as I know, the Evil Dragon has no children. Are you perhaps an entity born from some elf’s grudge? My goodness, you’re incredibly powerful. Your barrier domain fills me with dread. I am Melvas, elder of the Elf Kingdom. Surely you’ve heard of me.”
“Oh my god, what a potent miasma. Who granted you such overwhelming resentment? They deserve a thousand deaths. I will help you punish them, child. But first, you must let me go so I can save more elves, right?”
The massive crimson full moon gazed down at him like a gigantic eye, leaving him profoundly uneasy.
Even his blatant lies dissolved into silence under the girl’s quiet, reduced to a single bead of cold sweat trickling down from Melvas’s forehead.
“Are you an elf?” the girl suddenly asked. This time, her voice came from directly above his head. Melvas looked up in disbelief, and for a split second, he imagined her breath stirring his hair.
“Of course I am.”
Melvas felt a surge of relief that communication was possible. No matter how he sliced it, this being lay far beyond his comprehension—likely a soul on the verge of transforming into a mighty evil spirit. It was said that after a soul became Dark Filth and reincarnated into the mortal world, it had to linger in the Soul Stream for over a century. Perhaps after a hundred years, an existence rivaling the Evil Dragon would emerge on the Camiran Continent.
Reincarnated members of the Demon Race—or Demonseeds, as they were sometimes called—did not always retain their sanity to live lives akin to their previous ones. Centuries ago, a Demonseed at the peak of Soul Tier Layer 6 had manifested as a Calamity, sweeping across the central plains of the Camiran Continent like a heavenly disaster and ravaging all the way to the northern Elf Kingdom…
In the past, he would have been the first to report such a world-shaking event to his superiors, alerting the elves and their allied nations to prepare defenses and strategies.
But now, survival consumed his every thought. He had no desire to keep conversing with this unfathomable entity.
“Ahem. I, Melvas, am dedicated to saving the elves from the suffering that countless families endure. Without my grand healing magic, they will become tragic lost souls, their souls shattered beyond any hope of reincarnation. Child, can you allow such a thing? You must know the torment of losing both body and mind…”
Melvas’s right hand grew steadily hotter as fierce red flames shifted into a mournful blue.
He had employed this hypnotic technique more than once—or “enlightenment,” as he preferred to call it—on countless obstacles, even bending them to his will.
A legendary figure who had lived a thousand years possessed innumerable ways to cheat death.
One miscalculation? What of it?
Melvas smiled.
He might well be the first to escape the Evil Dragon’s grasp.
At the very least, Melvas believed he could slip away from the Evil Dragon.
But in the next moment, he realized he had blundered into two more elementary mistakes in succession.
“What? Why save them?”
The little girl murmured softly, her simple words brimming with innocence and puzzlement. Melvas went rigid atop the cracking stone slabs, even as jagged shards of rock sank beneath his feet and crumbled to dust.
“And you know, living creatures… elves are really delicious.”
“Excuse me, is your soul tasty?”
“May I have a little taste? Your soul looks just like pop rocks—so crispy and mouthwatering! Really, I only want a taste. I just need one bite… hehehe~”
“…”
“If you don’t answer me, then I’ll assume you want to be eaten by me, okay?”
The girl’s voice was as fresh and delightful as a ripe tangerine. In Melvas’s mind’s eye appeared the image of a lively little girl bouncing about, happily demanding candy from him—the sort of girl who excelled at pranks on Halloween night.
Melvas’s fear stemmed not from ignorance, but from knowing far too much.
Those vital records, preserved only in the forbidden libraries of the mightiest nations—libraries that had perhaps been utterly obliterated amid the smoke and ruins of war, in ancient texts now long extinct.
From the primordial era before the planes had even come into being, countless entities could destroy souls. But only one could absorb them and convert them for her own use.
And she was undoubtedly the core and supreme existence of Dark Filth, confined to the Camiran Continent, who had unleashed the so-called “Tide of Dark Filth.” Tens of millions, perhaps even hundreds of millions of living beings had their souls scattered to the winds in that tide. The world lay in devastation, all things silenced. No one knew how the Camiran Continent had later regained traces of life, nor what the true outcome of that cataclysmic battle had been.
The ancient texts conveyed a profound despair that spanned the ages, implanted in the minds of a precious few—and Melvas was naturally among them.
Perhaps that catastrophe had been merely the blazing fire, casting its mottled shadows on the stone walls before the eyes of a frog at the bottom of a well. Yet even those shadows had been enough to plunge the Camiran Continent into an unprecedented mass extinction, rendering the term “Tide of Dark Filth” woefully inadequate.
“Hehehehe, is it coming at last? Is this era finally about to meet its end?”
Melvas shifted from despair to ecstasy, his mad expression like that of a lunatic who had broken free from an ancient dragon. His eyes were threaded with blood vessels pulsing with delirious joy, even as a demon lurked behind him, coveting his robust soul.
“I thought my life had reached its end. But it turns out this entire world’s life is coming to an end!! Hahaha!”
That was the last sound Melvas uttered.
Then that coquettish voice echoed once more amid the ruins beneath the Blood Moon.
“Thank you, little creature.”
“Finally… about… to… eat… my… fill~”
