Chapter 1556: Point of No Return II

Zhao Li Xin’s eyes flickered with admiration, faint but unmistakable. This scheming side of her, this was why he found her so cute, almost adorable.

He had always known Lory’s methods were different from his. Where he used threats and violence to pressure his enemies, Lory’s persuasion was gentler, softer, and misleadingly harmless. Though the result remained exactly the same.

Lory leaned back against the counter. "Lucia Viora," she murmured, tasting the words as if they amused her. She paused, then her gaze slid lazily toward Derek and Myra. A kind, almost benevolent smile bloomed on her face.

"You can leave," Lory said, with the quiet authority of someone bestowing mercy.

Derek and Myra froze for half a heartbeat—then their faces lit up. Without another word, they moved quickly, almost eagerly, striding across the room as if afraid the offer might vanish if they hesitated. As he passed, Derek spared Calista a brief glance, his expression stiff.

"Sorry," he said, with halfhearted apology, "We all need to survive, right?"

Ceila’s eyes burned with fury. "Coward," she spat.

Derek let out a rough snort but didn’t look back. He followed Myra toward the exit, already halfway gone when Calista’s voice cut through the room.

"You won’t get out of here alive."

Myra glanced over her shoulder, lips curling into a sneer. "We’ll see."

They walked through the shattered glass door, footsteps crunching over broken shards. A cold draft slipped in after them, and then the silence settled, thick and heavy.

Lory straightened and let out a small sigh. "Oh no, I do hope it wasn’t because of me," she said with mock concern.

Calista stared at Lory with unmasked fury. Resentment burned openly in her eyes, sharp and raw. Ceila, on the other hand, was quieter. Her anger was tempered by caution; unlike Calista, she understood that their chances of leaving this place unscathed were... minimal. ⅇℓ.

"Anyway," Lory said, clapping her hands once, brisk and cheerful. "I’ll act a little more magnanimous today. Since you’re still young, I’ll give you another chance to leave this place."

Calista and ceila expression tigtened, disbelief written plainly across their face.

Lory caught the reaction and chuckled, clearly amused. "Oh, don’t look at me like that," she continued smoothly. "Why don’t you tell me how Lucia Viora helped you increase your power?"

At first, Lory thought they had given Calista the Seed of Life, but she didn’t feel the same sense of power she had felt from the Paladins, so she scratched that possibility. Then something else came to her mind, about another possibility.

S.A.I.N.T. and Luxemborough had never confined themselves to a single plan. They never did. ’Never put all your eggs in one basket.’ The idiom suited them perfectly. And unfortunately, it suited their enemies just as well.

There was also MADD and the Aethrion spear. They had conducting experiment about mana manipulation, suppression, calibration beneath the Blackridge Tower.

That’s why she came with Jay and Clift to destroy the facility to put an end to those gruesome plan. She had believed that the plan had been buried under the rubble, when the research was blown up that night.

Perhaps they were wrong? Her gaze sharpened, though her smile remained unchanged. Well... she thought coolly. Igor is still alive, and so is Elena.

Perhaps MADD had never truly stopped, judging alexander and Theodore temperament, there’s no way that two snakes give up easily.

"No way!" Calista’s voice tore through the room, sharp with desperation. Her teeth ground together, her composure cracking as panic and fury surged to the surface. "You know I won’t survive if I do that," she hissed, her eyes blazing.

Lory raised a brow. "Oh? Do you think you can walk out of here alive?"

Calista’s jaw tightened, her eyes brimming with grim resolve. "I won’t know if I don’t try."

She flung her hands upward, and soon after, the air inside the room changed. Then, from the shattered floor and cracked walls, grotesque vines erupted with violent force, splitting through marble and wood alike.

They crawled outward in frenzied spirals, writhing like living serpents. Thorned tendrils lashed across the room, dragging splinters and dust into the air as bulbous buds swelled along their lengths.

Then, one by one, the flowers bloomed.

Poisonous flowers unfurled in rapid succession, their outer petals a sickly green while their inner veins pulsed with jagged streaks of blood-red, like fresh wounds splitting open.

The blossoms throbbed faintly, releasing waves of shimmering toxic mist that bled into the air, turning the atmosphere thick and suffocating. The temperature seemed to drop as the mist spread, coiling low across the floor before rising in ghostly curls.

Beside her, Ceila moved in eerie synchrony.

Without hesitation, she drew a small knife from her sleeve. At first glance, the blade looked ordinary, but then it changed.

The metal shuddered violently, as though alive. The blade elongated with a grotesque scraping sound, stretching far beyond its original length.

Its edge warped and curved into a wicked crescent, barbs sprouting along the spine like frozen fangs. Frost crawled across its surface, crystallizing outward as a biting chill spilled from the weapon.

The air around Ceila warped into pale vapor. Each breath she exhaled drifted into white fog, and frost spread across the already fractured tiles beneath her boots. The room grew colder with every passing second, the contrast between venomous heat and killing frost twisting the space into something unnatural.

"The ice gift... how interesting." A cool, amused smile curved across Lory’s calm face, her eyes gleaming with quiet intrigue rather than alarm.

It was not uncommon for gifted individuals to possess similar abilities, but that did not mean they shared the same strength. In the end, each manifestation almost always diverged, some have it stronger, some are weaker, eventually, it was all determined by the size of the mana pool in each person and of course no one has bigger mana pool than the Lucient family.

[Wife, you rest here. Let me handle this.] Zhao Li Xin’s voice was low but firm, already moving before she could protest.

No matter how strong Lory appeared in the eyes of others, to Zhao Li Xin, she was always delicate, easily bruised, easily broken. Even after witnessing her power, he could not help but treat her like a fragile vase.

With gentle insistence, he guided her toward one of the few stools that had survived the destruction and helped her sit.

Lory released a helpless sigh, [I’m fine, Li Xin,] she said, her tone edged with mild exasperation. [Look at me, I could fight a Behemoth right now if I wanted to.]

[I know—I know,] he answered softly, his gaze softening as he looked at her with pleading eyes. [But... just indulge me, all right? Let me handle this, okay.] He tilted his head slightly, his expression shifting into puppy-like eyes, a trick he knew she could never win against.

Lory let out a long groan before she exhaled in defeat. [Fine...] she pouted. [But don’t kill them. I need to examine their bodies. I want to know how her power was enhanced.]

[As you wish.] Zhao Li Xin’s voice carried quiet satisfaction. He reached out and patted her head, his touch gentle, lingering just long enough to convey reassurance.

A moment later, he turned around, and in a second, the warmth vanished from him like a candle snuffed by the wind. When Zhao Li Xin faced Calista and Ceila, the air itself seemed to tighten. His expression emptied, the softness replaced by something cold and immeasurably distant. The faint embers of his earlier rage smoldered beneath the surface, restrained but unmistakably lethal.

Behind him, poisonous flowers writhed across shattered stone while frost continued creeping outward from Ceila’s blade, the two deadly forces filling the ruined villa with suffocating tension.

Zhao Li Xin stepped forward slowly. 𝚏𝗋ℯⅇ

His black robe brushed across the shattered glass beneath his feet, yet not a single shard dared cling to him. The embroidered fire along his sleeves shimmered faintly, as though sensing the awakening of something ancient within him.

The air in the room becomes heavy. Zhao Li Xin suddenly stomped his feet to the floor At thaThe sound was not loud, yet it reverberated through the villa like a drum struck inside the earth itself.

The shattered glass scattered across the floor leapt upward as if summoned by an unseen force. Hundreds of jagged fragments hovered midair, trembling in silent obedience around him.

Calista’s breath caught.

Before either she or Ceila could react, Zhao Li Xin flicked his sleeve. The shards launched forward at rapid speed. They did not fly, but shot through the air like a storm of silver bullets, slicing through space with shrill, lethal whistles. The speed was terrifying, far beyond anything the naked eye could properly follow.

"Barrier—!" Ceila shouted.

Both women raised protective shields in desperate reflex. Translucent energy flared around them just as the glass storm struck.

Crack—!

The impact rang like a volley of gunfire. Shards exploded against their defenses in blinding flashes of light. The barrier buckled instantly, spiderweb fractures spreading across its surface under the relentless assault.

Several fragments slipped through.

Thin crimson lines blossomed across Calista’s cheek and shoulder. Ceila hissed sharply as glass grazed her arm, slicing through fabric and skin alike before embedding into the wall behind her.

The attack ended as abruptly as it began. Shards clattered harmlessly onto the ruined floor, yet the message had already been delivered.

Zhao Li Xin had not even drawn breath.

Across from him, Calista’s eyes sharpened with panic. She thrust her palm forward without hesitation. The blood-veined lilies responded instantly.

Vines burst from the fractured floor like serpents freed from chains, twisting violently through the air. Their green petals split open, releasing dense clouds of toxic mist that swallowed the room in a suffocating haze.

"DIE!" Calista screams.

The poisonous mist crashed toward Zhao Li Xin like a tidal wave, thick and suffocating, devouring the air in a surge of virulent green.

For the briefest instant, Zhao Li Xin gathered his qi inward, sealing it around his heart like an impenetrable fortress, preventing the toxin from invading his meridians.

Soon, the immortal flame answered his will. In a second, the flame erupted around him in a silent, violent bloom. Dark violet flame unfurled like a celestial storm breaking free from its cage.

The heat surged outward in a sweeping inferno, devouring the toxic haze in seconds. The mist shriveled upon contact, curling into blackened threads before vanishing into nothingness.

Along the walls, the poisonous flowers convulsed as the flame reached them. Their green petals charred, veins glowing crimson for one final heartbeat before the entire infestation ignited.

Vines shrieked in brittle cracks as they burned away, collapsing into drifting ash that scattered across the ruined villa.

Ceila seized the moment.

With a sharp cry, she lunged forward, her curved frost blade trailing a violent wake of freezing air. Ice spiraled along her path, forming jagged crystalline patterns across the floor as she struck with ruthless precision, aiming straight for Zhao Li Xin’s throat.

But she never reached him.

Before the blade could graze even a strand of his hair, the immortal flame twisted sharply, coiling through the air like a living dragon summoned by his command. The fire surged outward in a spiraling vortex and swallowed her whole.

"AAAAAH—!"

Ceila’s scream tore through the shattered villa. Frost shattered instantly upon contact with the divine fire, her ice gift collapsing into vapor as the flames wrapped around her body like merciless chains. The fire did not spread wildly; it clung to her, searing through her defenses with terrifying precision.

She crashed onto the floor, writhing in agony, her weapon slipping from her grasp as the immortal flame continued to devour every trace of her power.

Calista froze, then panic flooded her veins as she watched Ceila collapse beneath the burning storm. Her breathing grew erratic, her hands trembling as realization dawned upon her with suffocating clarity.

This was not a fight they could win.

"You... monster!" Calista’s voice was cracking under the weight of terror.