Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 1: Failed Unsealing

The human was about to die. The one who had sealed It here at the cost of himself had finally reached the end of his life.

This was the moment It had waited for more than three hundred years.

Eroded by Its power, the man’s limbs had twisted and deformed, his whole body was covered with pitch black sores. Age had gnawed his flesh away until only bone and thin skin were left.

Now even holding himself upright left him gasping for air as if he was on the verge of death. Yet those dark blue eyes were locked on It, his gaze steady, just as when they first met.

On the brink of death and still that hateful.

It turned Its gaze to the seal. As the caster neared death, the seal was collapsing. Three more heartbeats, and It would be free.

Three.

It counted down with delight.

Two.

The man’s body stirred, as if he had felt the chill of death.

One.

The instant stretched so long that It had time to let Its mind wander. At the thought that It would never again hear that person’s cries, It actually felt a trace of regret… only a tiny bit, yes.

Hm?

A crushing pressure suddenly washed over him. Something forced its way into Its body and went nosing around inside Its thoughts.

Instinctively It tried to grind it down with power, only to strike emptiness. The strange magic had no clear source and was tangled with Its own, leaving nowhere to strike.

Everything burst like foam. Excruciating pain and emptiness surged together and engulfed It in an instant.

It felt… cold.

It quickly realized It had been stuffed into a weak tube of flesh—in other words a human body.

A moment earlier It had been on the verge of freedom. In the blink of an eye Its power was gone, exchanged for an even more frightening prison. Its joy vanished, leaving only anger and grievance.

Why?

It forced Its eyes open, then discovered things could be worse. Someone was sitting on Its hips and squeezing Its throat hard.

It was that same human. It recognized him by his breath. That killing intent was as vigorous and familiar as ever. The man felt glued to It, impossible to pry off.

The strangling darkened Its vision. It tried to fight back with these human hands but left only shallow scratches.

Just as It was about to lose consciousness, the man’s body shuddered, and his strength inexplicably drained away.

In a fury, It flipped the man and clamped down on him with Its teeth. Kill him, It thought in a frenzy. As long as It killed this accursed human, this nightmare would surely end…

Yet the moment It bit into his throat, Its own body went limp and wouldn’t obey, no matter how It tried to exert strength.

The two bodies tangled together, and the fight became indescribable.

Once upon a time Its tentacles had met with this man’s longsword, and magic had crashed against magic. Wherever they went, dust and stones flew, and the shock waves blasted out terrible craters.

Now they were raking at each other with nails and teeth and fists that couldn’t keep a hold, rolling across the grimy floor and knocking the scattered junk into a clattering racket.

Two hours passed. To their distraught, they found that for some unknown reason they simply couldn’t kill each other.

Panting, they stopped. As their strength ebbed away, their fight had looked more and more like two puppies gnawing at each other, and neither of them had the heart to go on.

Once It calmed down, It was sure It had won by a hair. It was using that hateful human as a cushion, after all, instead of lying on the cold stone tiles.

Now It finally had the energy to sort out the situation.

From the memories of Its new shell, this body had once belonged to a slave.

The slave had been astonishingly dull, with only basic common sense and language in his head. He lived for nineteen years and yet never even had a name.

The first, and last, gift he ever received was a ritual dagger that pierced his heart—on the day after he was sold to a certain noble, he died upon an altar.

The fatal wound still lay open in Its chest, deep enough to show bone, showing no sign of healing.

It raised Its head and looked around the place where “It” had died.

It was an unusually cramped secret chamber lit by only a few pitiful candles. The flames flickered. In the shadows, the outlines of bones appeared from time to time, along with a magic array painted with fresh blood.

It sniffed the musty air and sneezed onto the man beneath It.

The human serving as a cushion squirmed twice and grumbled in protest.

Speaking of which, this guy was quite famous in the human world. Even captive slaves had heard of him.

People called him “Saint Salaar”, a great hero known in every household, whose greatest deed was sacrificing himself in mutual destruction to defeat the Chaos Archdemon.

Never mind that the name “Chaos Archdemon” was stupid. Mutual destruction? What a joke.

During the three hundred years of Its seal, Salaar had come every day to challenge It. He always stopped short and slipped away as soon as things turned dire. His shamelessness was unparallelled. Clearly, for Salaar, maintaining the seal was what mattered most.

The problem was that besides bodily challenges, Salaar was just as fond of mental torment. He would often come right up to It spouting nonsense, abrupt remarks, or little provocative songs he made up himself.

It was convinced that Salaar was far from the definition of a “hero” and much closer to the definition of “scourge”, at least closer than It was.

It could not help lowering Its head to study said “scourge”.

Salaar had changed skins too. He had become the young nobleman who had sacrificed the slave; apparently his name was “Karns”.

The young noble was thin like a dried corpse, with black hair so filthy it had clumped into cords. The skin under his eyes was blackish-blue, his jaw bristled with stubble, and his breath reeked of medicine.

The Salaar in Its memory had shining golden hair and a strong body—quite muscular before he aged—that bore no resemblance to this pile of sticks.

No, that wasn’t right. They had the same deep blue eyes.

Now It knew how to describe that blue; it was the color of lapis lazuli. Sadly, It still couldn’t read the emotions in them. Obsession, fervor, or hatred, these emotions were too similar.

He only knew that in the shadows those eyes seemed to burn.

…Fine, let them burn. Now It had hands. It shifted an arm and clapped a palm over the human’s eyes. Out of sight, out of mind.

“Sa-laar.”

It worked Its tongue with difficulty and squeezed out the first word It ever spoken.

Salaar’s body went rigid all at once.

……

“Salaar, Salaar again.”

Old Aiken let out a tremendous boozy belch.

A few steps away, a bard sang with gusto, nothing but stale lines about “Saint Salaar”.

Since the birth of the world, the Night Scourge had followed like a shadow.

According to legends, the Night Scourge was a curse from the Chaos Archdemon. At intervals, the world would plunge into darkness. In those long nights with no moonlight, the human realm knew only bitter cold and desolation.

More than three hundred years ago, Saint Salaar perished together with the Archdemon, and the Night Scourge ended.

Compassionate and pure Saint Salaar, the very embodiment of human virtue, that sort of nonsense had callused his ears since childhood. Only children like such frivolous tales.

The Night Scourge was three centuries in the past. Whether the Chaos Archdemon even existed was doubtful. Those ballads sounded like lullabies for little kids.

Old Aiken belched again. The lady beside him glanced over and edged farther away.

The old man did not care. He wasn’t there to be liked.

Weekend gatherings were a Ring Town tradition. The only reason he showed up was to prove that his master, Lord Karns, hadn’t run off.

It was their fourth year since moving to Ring Town, and they had become the least liked people in town. This wasn’t some kind of xenophobia; it was simply because Lord Karns was a lunatic.

Lord Karns had inherited the lapis blue eyes that symbolized the family. As a child he was rather likable. Sadly, he suffered from an extremely rare disability. He had been born unable to use magic.

The Karns family had rank and power, so supporting him for life wouldn’t have been a problem. But the young lord lost his senses and insisted on playing with magic, trying every kind of bizarre method.

In the end, the young lord resorted to human sacrifice.

Unable to tolerate this, the Karns family banished him into this godforsaken Ring Town, to live his life in obscurity and hardship. Poor Old Aiken was bundled along as the butler. He had to count coins to get by and could only drink the cheapest wine.

Old Aiken patted his money pouch and let his gaze drift to an elderly couple. Their picnic basket held a full bottle of table wine, fennel sausages, and fresh baked white bread.

Ever since the Karns cut the household allowance, their meals were much worse than that.

Yet the young lord didn’t stop. He ordered Old Aiken to purchase slaves on a regular schedule, to use in his research on human sacrifice.

Live offerings had to be young and beautiful virgins, and they were expensive whether male or female. To save money, they cut all social expenses. The townsfolk never saw the young lord. They only knew that slaves kept streaming into the manor and never came out again.

Rumors spread like the wind. Some said the outsider was a lecherous fiend who spared neither men nor women and had sadistic taste. Some said he was a monster wearing human skin who bathed in the blood of the young.

Whenever he heard those tales, Old Aiken felt a vicious satisfaction.

The Karns claimed to be descendants of Saint Salaar and took pride in their lapis blue eyes. These bumpkins always praised Salaar, never knowing how brutal Salaar’s descendants were.

Dusk was falling. Old Aiken had had his fill of free wine and had also filched jam tarts and several sausages. The young lord should be finished by now, he thought lazily.

Come to that, the newly bought slave was truly beautiful. Even back in the royal capital he had never seen such a beauty…

The slave had long hair the color of ash, and eyes redder than garnet. His features blended delicacy and softness with great skill. The outer corners of his eyes slanted slightly down, making him look tame and innocent, like a lamb upon the altar.

“Pity the child is slow witted and lame in one leg.”

After taking the money, the slave trader had said this with regret. “If not for so many flaws, I could have sold him into the palace.”

Calling the slave “slow witted” was putting it mildly; Old Aiken preferred to use the term “stupid”.

The slave’s manner was timid, his reactions frighteningly slow, and the deformity of his right leg was quite alarming. Furthermore, he was already nineteen years old. His frame and his voice were no longer delicate, and noble lords didn’t like features that were too obviously male.

As a noble’s plaything, those faults were fatal. As a live sacrifice, they were trivial. That face alone was worth a sack of gold.

…By the time he counted it out, the slave’s blood was probably cold already.

What a waste.

Old Aiken staggered home to the manor, dumped the cooled sausages and tarts onto a silver platter, and carried it along. The platter was greasy and still sticky with lunch scraps, but the young lord never cared about details.

“Supper, Lord Karns.”

Old Aiken rapped hard on the young lord’s bedroom door, making sure the sound would carry even into the secret chamber.

Then he set the tray at the threshold and prepared to leave. He had quietly kept the best sausages back and was eager to cook himself a pot of creamy stew.

Before he could turn away, the door creaked open.

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The author has something to say:

A brand-new Western fantasy story begins

Some long-winded notes for use:

★ The two leads have returned to a “noob village”. They do not begin at the power ceiling and there will be some level up elements.

★ Please help with catching typos. During serialization, as long as I see them, I will send a red envelope to the bug catcher.

★ This share the same universe with my previous two Western fantasy books, but the world is completely different. Not having read them will not matter at all.

★ Important, please do not post remarks about breaking up or reversing the CP. I have lock the key and welded it into my stomach.

Happy reading~

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Kinky Thoughts:

I have been waiting for this novel to start serialization since it was announced. When it comes to western fantasy, Nian Zhong can do no wrong. What’s even better, it’s an enemies-to-lover trope which I have been obsessed over.

According to the author’s note, this novel shares the same universe as Stray and Full Server First Kill. Both have been fully translated by me. I highly recommend you read them if you haven’t already, with Stray being first as it’s the first book (and the first novel Nian Zhong had written), and also, in my opinion, is her best novel to date.

You can also check out Nian Zhong’s other works that I have worked on as well: Happy Doomsday, Access Denied, Sendoff, Evil As Humans, Help.

Just a note, Nian Zhong tends to put spoiler information in her author notes. To prevent such things, I elect to omit some of them since I believe it will make the reading experience much better. You can view the full author’s note by going to the raws.

Happy reading.

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