CHAPTER 93: A BORING WORLD

The air was boring. She would much rather be with her husband.

That was Seduction’s first and only thought as she sat on the back of the Glimmerwing Wyrm. The creature beneath her was a magnificent beast, a Tyrant-grade monster feared even on the Mainland of this mortal world.

Its scales shimmered with a thousand colours, and its wings beat with a silent power that parted the clouds. It was a living storm, a creature of immense power.

And it was boring.

Everything in this mortal world was boring. The sky was a simple, flat blue. The clouds were plain white puffs of water.

The air lacked the rich, chaotic energy of her home. It was all so simple, so predictable. Only her husband was special here, and she was sure he would be special everywhere he went.

She had followed her husband, Rhys, out of his little dimension, a place that was at least interesting in its perfect, sterile order.

But this world... this was just a backwater province at the edge of a forgotten continent.

The Glimmerwing Wyrm let out a low hum, a sound that could shatter mountains. It had just crossed the vast, dark expanse of the Whisperwood.

The forest had been a little better. It was full of life, full of things to kill and eat. But now, they were past it. Below them was a great, calm ocean.

The water was a deep, placid blue, stretching to the horizon without a single wave to disturb its surface.

It was lonely. Seduction hated it.

She much preferred the company of her husband. He was not boring. He was a puzzle, a contradiction.

He had the soul of a mortal but the potential of a god. He was ruthless and calculating, yet he showed a strange, soft affection for the little slime-child, Sera, the by-product of the bond with her sister.

He was a storm contained in a human body, and she found him endlessly fascinating.

But he had insisted on going his own way for now.

He had some grand plan to build an empire, to become a king in this land of ants. She found it cute. It was like watching a child build a castle of sand.

She would let him play his little game.

For now.

Her pink, heart-shaped pupils scanned the empty horizon. There was nothing. Just the endless water and the boring blue sky.

She sighed.

’The stupid mortals and their paranoid selves,’ she thought. ’How embarrassing when Mainlanders use stealth to scout their Wastelands.’

A ripple sounded in the air. It was a faint disturbance. A ripple in the fabric of the world that no mortal could ever sense.

It was far away, but to her, it was as clear as a shout in a silent room.

Her eyes glowed with a soft, pink light. The world in front of her changed. Distances folded. The horizon rushed towards her.

And then she saw it.

A ship.

It was a large vessel, its wood a dark, unfamiliar colour. Its sails were a deep crimson, and they were emblazoned with a sigil she recognised: the twin-headed eagle of the Azure Sky Palace, one of the great sects in the three worlds.

It moved through the calm water with a speed that was not natural, propelled by the hum of powerful formations.

The frown on her perfect face deepened. She looked back, her gaze piercing through the hundreds of miles of forest, through the mountains and valleys of the Azure Province.

She could see the faint, growing energy signature of her husband’s new city. It was a small, flickering candle in the vast darkness. It was growing, yes, but it was still fragile.

Still weak.

"It’s not the time for Mainlanders to come, especially those connected to the three worlds," she whispered to herself. Her voice was soft, but it held a cold, hard edge.

These people, these arrogant cultivators from the Azure Sky Palace, they were not here for a friendly visit.

They were vultures.

They had sensed the energy of the Labyrinth, the faint echo of her own power, and they had come to investigate. They would find this weak, unprotected province.

They would find her husband’s little sandcastle. And they would crush it without a second thought.

Sure, her husband was strong, but not strong enough to meet them. Not now.

A simple sect from the Mainland was enough to crush her husband. Even if they couldn’t kill him, his plans would surely scatter into dust.

She could not allow that. The game was hers to play. Her husband was hers to play with. No one else was allowed to touch her toys.

She reached down and patted the warm, shimmering scales of the Glimmerwing Wyrm. The creature let out a soft purr, its massive head turning to look at her with its large, intelligent eyes.

"I don’t want them here," she muttered, her voice a soft command.

A wave of her power flowed from her hand into the Wyrm. The creature’s eyes, which had been a clear, golden colour, began to glow with the same pink, heart-shaped light as her own.

Seduction jumped onto the cold ground of a random island and watched as the Glimmerwing Wyrm turned its massive body.

It faced the distant ship. Its wings beat once, a single, powerful stroke that tore the air apart. It became a streak of shimmering light, a living, rainbow-coloured missile shooting across the ocean.

Seduction watched it go, her expression calm and detached. She watched as the streak of light crossed the miles in an instant.

She watched as the Tyrant-grade monster, a being that could level a city, simply lowered its head.

She watched its head butt into the side of the Mainland ship.

There was no sound at first. Just a silent, brilliant flash of light. Then, the sound came.

BOOM.

A huge explosion rang out across the ocean. It was a sound so loud it shook the very coastline she was on.

A massive fireball, a miniature sun of red and orange, rose into the sky where the ship had been.

The calm, blue water of the ocean began to churn and boil.

A massive wave, a tsunami born from the force of the impact, began to spread out from the centre of the explosion.

When the light and the smoke cleared, there was nothing left. The ship, the arrogant cultivators, the powerful formations—all of it was gone.

Erased.

Seduction felt a small flicker of satisfaction. The problem was solved. The annoying insects had been swatted. Her husband’s little game could continue, uninterrupted.

She stood on the coastline, the wind from the explosion whipping her long, pink hair around her face.

She waited for the Glimmerwing Wyrm to return. She waited for her ride.

She waited for a long time. The Wyrm did not come back.

She frowned again, a genuine confusion appearing on her face.

She reached out with her senses, searching for the powerful life force of the Tyrant. She found nothing.

The creature was gone.

It had poured all of its life energy, all of its very existence, into that single, final attack. It had followed her command perfectly, and it had destroyed itself in the process.

A look of mild annoyance crossed her face.

"How could you die?"

Then, the mild annoyance became a huge annoyance.

"Now... how can I return?" she asked the empty air. Her voice held a note of genuine worry.

She was alone.

She was on a strange coastline, on the edge of a massive, dark forest.

Her husband was hundreds of miles away, on the other side of that forest. And she had just destroyed her only mode of transportation.

It was in that moment of inconvenient realisation that the forest behind her began to move.

It started as a low rustling sound.

The sound of a million leaves moving at once. Then came a deep, heavy thudding.

The ground beneath her feet began to tremble. It was the sound of something massive, something impossibly heavy, walking through the trees.

A chorus of roars and shrieks erupted from the depths of the woods. These were not the sounds of simple spiritual beasts.

These were the sounds of apex predators, of ancient and powerful beings awakened by the massive explosion of energy.

A multitude of monsters came rushing out from the trees. They poured onto the coastline like a living tide of claws and fangs.

A giant wolf with fur made of rough, grey stone, its eyes burning like hot coals.

A massive serpent with wings of pure, black shadow that seemed to drink the light.

A hulking bear, its body made of ancient, petrified wood, with branches for claws.

They were all huge. They were all powerful.

And if Rhys had been there, he would have recognised the immense, oppressive auras they gave off.

He would have seen that many of them were Tyrants, creatures with power that was the same as, or even more than, the Ashen Behemoth he had fought in the Labyrinth.

They stopped at the edge of the forest. Hundreds of pairs of hungry, intelligent eyes fixed on the single, small figure standing on the cliff.

They saw the strange, pink-haired woman. They smelled her immense, otherworldly power. And they were hungry.

Seduction looked at the army of monsters. She looked at the dozens of Tyrant-grade beasts that now stood between her and her husband.

The look of worry on her face disappeared. It was replaced by a slow, lazy smile. A smile that was both beautiful and terrifyingly predatory.

Suddenly this world was not so boring after all.