I! Vivian! Witch!

Luo Er's heart-rending screams were especially harsh in the forest.

Don't misunderstand. "Heart-rending" wasn't an exaggerated description here. This Fire God Cult mage had literally been "torn apart heart and lungs."

At a glance, Luo Er looked completely different from the cultists under him who had previously been devoured by black flames. There wasn't even the slightest sign of burning, and he still looked like a perfectly normal, unharmed person.

But why, then, was Luo Er screaming like a slaughtered pig, rolling back and forth across the ground in unbearable pain?

The reason was that Liao Zixuan's black flames had begun burning from the inside.

The Dark Flame Wolf could burn through everything—not just matter, but magic as well. A mage's very life depended on their source of magic power, yet Liao Zixuan had ignited Luo Er's from within and burned it completely away.

In other words, Luo Er's path as a mage had come to an absolute end. Liao Zixuan had crippled him.

What drove Luo Er to even greater despair was that the gem in his arms had burned away too.

The Magic Stone used to communicate with Bishop through projections.

This meant he no longer had even the slightest chance of informing Eugenia and calling for rescue.

"Who is it?! Who?!"

"Come out!!" Luo Er had gone mad—completely mad. His eyes were bloodshot as he screamed hoarsely.

He lay on the ground like a maggot. His internal organs had all turned to charcoal and would crumble at the slightest touch. The only part of his body that could still move was the mouth Liao Zixuan had deliberately left intact.

Simply put, Luo Er was already a dead man—just one who could still speak.

And that was precisely what Liao Zixuan wanted.

A Little Black Wolf emerged elegantly from the darkness.

Amid Luo Er's wide-eyed, incoherent curses, it opened its mouth, bit down on his collar, and carried him away like prey.

Yes, Luo Er had to die in Liao Zixuan's eyes.

But before Luo Er died, Liao Zixuan wasn't willing to waste such a useful tool.

After all,

anyone who fell into utter despair would unleash immense malice, especially when facing the person who had killed their enemy.

Liao Zixuan believed that, with Luo Er's abilities, he could certainly spew enough vicious and filthy words.

Vicious enough that even Vivian couldn't accept them.

Filthy enough that even a little girl would find them unbearable.

Enough to make a young girl who had probably never even killed a pig in her life develop, for the first time,

the thought of killing someone!

Despite the forest's vastness, it was deathly silent at that moment. Not even the sounds of insects, birds, or beasts could be heard.

Only a Little Black Wolf quietly moved forward, carrying Luo Er like a dead dog.

The afternoon sun scattered its light through the treetops, falling onto the Little Black Wolf's body.

It had the body of a cub, yet beneath the sunlight and between the shadows, the reflection of its silhouette was inexplicably enormous and eerily dark, as though it had dimmed the entire forest.

Today...

I hope this will be a day worth recording... right?

"Little Black...?" After venting her anger and driving back the Grey-robed Ones, the girl had not even caught her breath before she realized that her Wolf Cub had disappeared at some point.

Vivian looked around, but couldn't find Little Wolf anywhere.

The girl wasn't particularly anxious, though, because Vivian knew how strong Little Black was. If that group of Grey-robed Ones couldn't even defeat her, they certainly couldn't defeat Little Black.

Besides, through Telepathy, Vivian could vaguely guess what Little Black had gone off to do.

Thus, the girl waited where she was with the two players. Before long, rustling came from the bushes in the direction where the Grey-robed Ones had fled.

"Little Black!"

"Little—why did you bring him back?" Vivian cried out in surprise, but soon frowned as she looked at Luo Er hanging from Liao Zixuan's mouth.

Liao Zixuan didn't say much. After dropping Luo Er in front of Vivian, he lazily sprawled down beside the girl's feet, as if to say, The rest is up to you. This has nothing to do with me.

Vivian glared at Little Black, then first lifted Luo Er, who had been lying face-down with his cheek against the ground.

But who could have expected that the moment the girl helped Luo Er up, he would immediately start cursing.

"I knew it was you!"

"Why won't you let us go? You vicious, despicable wretch! Don't think you're so great just because you know a little magic. If Eugenia were here, you'd be nothing at all!!"

Vivian had intended to calm down and talk things through, but after Luo Er hurled accusations at her right away, the girl grew angry too.

"I'm asking you— we have no grudge against each other, and we don't even know one another. Why did you attack us?" Vivian finally voiced the question she had kept buried in her heart.

To this day, Vivian still didn't know why the Grey-robed Ones wanted to kill her.

"Hmph. Why did we attack you? Because you're ignorant and insatiably greedy, trying to enter the depths of the forest and interfere with Bishop's plans. You deserve to die!"

"We never intended to interfere with you. We only wanted to go to the Monster Nest in the depths and gather medicinal herbs that could cure my brother."

Vivian still tried to reason with Luo Er.

But the Fire God Cult mage looked at her with the disdain of a superior toward an inferior, then sneered arrogantly:

"Cure him? You lowly people from some backwater village think you're worthy of using Purple Crystal Grass? Those herbs are reserved for the prominent figures and nobles in the city. What right do livestock like you have to waste them?"

"So I should just watch my brother die?" Vivian's upbringing had instilled in her—and in many of the villagers—a deep-rooted sense of social hierarchy.

They instinctively believed that, as people from the countryside and from a village, they were inferior to the lords of the great cities.

Vivian clenched her hands. Her body trembled as chains called "class," "birth," and "inferiority" quietly loosened amid her anger.

"Yes. Let him die. Originally, only your brother needed to die for your village to be spared. But now—hahahaha—I'm telling you, it's already too late. Because you dared to fight back against us, your entire village will be dragged into this because of you! The Fire God Cult will soon trample your village flat. When that happens, forget your brother—the entire village will be buried with you!"

As an old hand, Luo Er could tell at a glance that although the girl before him possessed strange and terrifying strength, her mind was still that of a child. Her mentality was just like that of the countless lowly commoners he had encountered.

The more forcefully you acted toward such people and the more serious you made the consequences sound, the more frightened they became. Eventually, they would break down in terror, crying, shouting, and kneeling as they begged for mercy.

In any case, he was already doomed to die. His body had been burned hollow from within, so Luo Er vented his vengeance freely, constantly rubbing salt into the girl's wounds and taking pleasure in watching Vivian suffer and regret her actions.

"Your parents will be tied to a pyre and burned alive in front of the entire village! And then your brother—hahaha, don't you love your brother? When the time comes, we'll chop off all four of his limbs and haul him into the city so everyone in Huodian City can see him. The brother of a demon! The brother of a Witch!"

"What's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that? Come on! Kill me! Let your parents know you're a murderer! Let everyone in the village know that your hands are stained with the blood of the Fire God Cult! Let your brother know that his sister has killed someone!"

Vivian fell silent.

The girl seemed unable to lift her head after hearing his words. She lowered it, while strands of hair faintly covered her face, making her expression impossible to see.

"Hahaha, you're scared. You don't dare kill me. You only understand the consequences of killing me now, but I'm telling you, it's already too late! If you kill me, you'll be a Witch! You'll be hunted throughout the Flame Domain for the rest of your life. But if you don't kill me, I'll kill everyone in your village! So choose: will you become a heinous Witch, or will you let your parents and your brother be buried with me?"

"Why aren't you saying anything? Weren't you quite—"

Just as Liao Zixuan sighed inwardly, secretly lamenting that perhaps he had rushed things, Luo Er's voice abruptly cut off across from him, as though someone had seized him by the throat.

Oh, not "as though." His throat had actually been seized.

At some point, Vivian had raised her head. The hesitation was gone from the girl's face. So was the distress, and the remorse she had always felt when hurting others.

She had used her magic power to form an invisible hand and seize Luo Erde by the throat.

The girl's pitch-black eyes held not a trace of emotion, as if she had become someone entirely different from the Vivian of old.

Then.

"You're annoying." The girl raised her left hand and made a squeezing motion inward.

Splurt!

Like a water-filled bag or an overinflated balloon being crushed, blood-red liquid sprayed in every direction, staining the girl's previously fair face a vivid crimson.

"If this is the only way to allow people like us, the lower classes, to survive..."

"I, Vivian, would rather become a Witch!"