CHAPTER 276: CHAPTER 276: YOU’RE NOT ME AND I WILL NEVER BECOME YOU

Qingran’s flames surged with her fury, blue fire wreathing her arms in crackling defiance. But before the heat could even blister the altered ground beneath her feet, Boran raised one hand and a shimmer of dark dust bled into the space between them.

"Then let me judge you.." he said.

The card in his hand glowed, their intricate patterns of ink rearranging midair.

[TAROT SYSTEM: MAJOR ARCANA – "THE DEVIL" UNLOCKED.]

A pulse slammed through the air like thunder.

Suddenly, the broken ground around them fractured further, gravity barely holding it all together.

They stood atop shattered landmasses, chunks of terrain suspended midair like broken continents orbiting an invisible core. Each floating platform twisted slowly, some with structures still standing, others crumbling into the endless void below.

Above them, an enormous eye had opened in the sky, black iris, slit pupil watching them with cold, unblinking judgment.

Lingquan hissed in Qingran’s mind.

[That’s not just a decoration. That’s Tartarus’ Eye. It sees everything inside this realmmm]

Qingran raised her gaze briefly, but didn’t waver. "You think this circus will shake me?"

Boran didn’t answer right away.

He stepped forward instead, holding the Devil card between two fingers like a blade of fate.

"In my domain, I do not fight blindly.." he said. "For I am divine."

The card in his hand sparked again, and three more manifested before him in a slow, eerie shuffle.

Each one spun in the air like a dealer’s hand, before landing in a triangle pattern before Qingran, glowing with a golden edge of system power.

"This is your spread.." Boran said, voice calm. "Let’s see what the future holds."

Qingran narrowed her eyes. "I’m not interested in your party tricks."

He ignored her.

"The Present..." He flipped the first card.

[THE STAR – UPRIGHT.]

It represented hope,strength and resilience.

A faint twitch at the corner of his mouth. "Hmph. Still clinging to the idea you can make things right hun."

He flipped the second.

"The Hidden Influence..."

[THE EMPRESS – UPRIGHT.]

This card represented abundance, power. A woman who creates.

His gaze lingered a second longer. "Not even the system underestimates you. Must be nice..."

Then the third.

"The Outcome..."

[THE SUN – UPRIGHT.]

It represented victory,truth and light.

The cards glowed brightly between them.

Boran’s jaw clenched.

"So even the system believes you’ll win," he said softly. "How...unfortunate."

He snapped his fingers.

The cards disintegrated into ash.

"But I never play fair."

He raised his left hand where the Devil card still shimmered dark and full of corruption.

"I curse you.." he said, his voice low and controlled. "With my unlock."

[TAROT SYSTEM: ABILITY—DEVIL’S CONTRACT—ACTIVATED.]

An arcane circle expanded beneath Qingran’s feet.

Dark threads shot upward, spectral chains made of regret and past sins, trying to wrap around her ankles and wrists like memory leashes.

[Qingran!] Lingquan barked in warning. [He’s trying to bind your soul with past guilt, you have to break it!]

"I’m not yours to bind.." Qingran snapped, slamming her foot down.

A burst of azure fire erupted from her heel, incinerating the spectral chains before they could close.

The blast was so strong it rippled the floating terrain, sending debris into the sky.

Qingran’s fire cleared the cursed chains in a single, explosive burst but the moment they broke, something else changed.

Across from her, Boran lifted the Devil card to his chest.

It sank into him like a brand pressed against flesh.

And then he changed.

The transformation was instant and unmistakable.

His black coat shredded into long, jagged silks that twisted unnaturally around his body, defying gravity like smoke frozen midair.

His skin darkened slightly not in hue, but in tone like he’d been dipped in shadows.

His horns were obsidian and twisted like a ram’s, curled up from his hairline, and his once-muted gaze blazed with sulfur-gold fire.

His hair, normally short and neat, spilled long past his shoulders in waves of dark crimson, the ends glowing faintly like embers.

Even his voice, when he spoke next, felt like it came from underneath the world.

"You survived the chains," he said, low and amused, "but you can’t burn guilt away, Qingran."

Every word echoed with a layered chorus, his voice and something deeper, crawling behind it like Tartarus himself was speaking through his mouth.

"I am now the Devil, you’re worst nightmare.." he whispered.

His smile was cruel.

"Try not to beg like last time."

A ripple of black energy burst out from beneath his boots, and the platform under him shattered, floating debris spiraled outward like pieces of a fractured throne.

Qingran’s azure flames answered, wreathing her body in roaring light. The flames didn’t flicker or shrink.

They grew, shaped by her fury, her resolve, and her will not to be consumed by his games again.

[Don’t underestimate him,] Lingquan warned sharply. [That form draws power directly from a dark source, he’s overriding this domain’s logic. He was IS the rules here.]

"Then I’ll bend the rules.." she growled.

"Will you?" Boran lifted his hand, and a series of smaller cards fanned out between his fingers, minor arcana, system-bonded, weaponized. "Tell me what you’ll do when the past is clawing at your feet."

He flung a card straight into the air.

It spun, shone so bright it was almost blinding.

[MINOR ARCANA – NINE OF SWORDS – UPRIGHT.]

An instant later, the air split open behind Qingran.

Voices whispered, her voice. Dozens of them. Echoes from another lifetime, crying, screaming, begging.

"Why didn’t they listen?"

"I saved them! I SAVED them!"

"I should’ve left them to die!"

"It’s my fault..it’s all my fault.."

Qingran stumbled back half a step.

And Boran didn’t miss it.

"You wore that grief like a crown.." he said. "It looked good on you."

"I buried that grief.." she hissed. "And now I’ll bury you."

Her azure flames surged outward in a wave, slicing through the illusions but one shadow lingered too long.

A twisted version of herself, burned and broken, crawling forward.

"Stop it..." Qingran snarled. Her voice cracked. "You’re not me and I will never become you."