Chapter Sixty-Two: One Killed, One Captured

Adonsa smiled and reached out, lifting the demon girl’s chin. “Every cell in your body bears my mark. Even if your soul hails from Hell, do you think you have any chance of defying me?”

She fought with all her might against the terrifying tremor wracking her flesh—a primal, irresistible command embedded deep within her genes. Only by utterly severing all ties could she hope to suppress it, and she wasn’t ready to do that.

But suddenly, she smiled—an innocent, guileless smile—and threw herself onto Adonsa’s lap, nuzzling against him like a kitten. “Daddy, please save Mommy.”

“Daddy?” Adonsa tilted his head. “Technically, I qualify as your father, but from what I observe, you’re only trying to win my affection and sympathy. Humans call this… ‘acting cute to get by’…”

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy—” She rubbed her head against him, her every move the picture of childish coyness.

Adonsa picked her up, gazing into her pitch-black eyes, within which intricate purple patterns swirled, threatening to draw one’s soul into their depths.

Yet she was desperately holding back her innate power of seduction. She knew it would never work on this true monster before her—worse, it might provoke her doom.

She could only show her submission in this foolish yet direct way. Perhaps it wouldn’t move Adonsa’s icy heart, but it might at least spark a moment’s hesitation.

Then, Adonsa’s hand slid into her chest.

Merging seamlessly with her cells’ lipid membranes, his hand passed through her tender flesh as if there were no barrier, caressing muscle, nerves, stomach, heart, lungs, and finally, her mysterious brain.

Though her body was Adonsa’s design, her innate demonic power had wrought a subtle change in her brain, allowing it to contain a will and force from another world.

“Wait, wait, you can’t—” she screamed—not from what Adonsa was doing, but because the darkness within her soul was stirring.

Her merging cells took on a latex-like texture, and she trembled under the bizarre sensation of her insides being invaded.

At last, Adonsa’s fingers touched a perfectly round, black crystal—the true dwelling of her soul.

With Adonsa’s reckless touch, the fragile crystal cracked in fury, and hellish power burst forth uncontrollably. Jagged black fissures radiated from her soul, spreading decay and blasphemy, polluting all matter in their path.

In a daze, she seemed to see a filthy doll gazing up with hollow eyes from the darkness’s depths, staring at Adonsa’s fingers.

“Waaah—”

Adonsa’s hand began to twist and contort from the fingertips, as if countless irreparable errors had suddenly amassed in its orderly structure. His body was pushed inexorably toward “evil,” the accumulating waste turning each cell into something foul.

This was the power of Hell—the origin of “evil,” the antithesis of all that is beautiful and hopeful.

Unlike the force of mutation, this power was distinctly directional—devoid of all vitality or hope.

“Stop, River Styx Doll…”

Panicked, she tried to rein in the power, but she was still too young, too inexperienced, utterly unable to control it.

Hell’s power could destroy not only Adonsa, but herself as well—and worst of all, Livida would be utterly corrupted.

Adonsa watched the spreading black sludge, stiffly twisting his neck. Not only did he not withdraw his hand, he pushed it further in.

In the next instant, polluted cells erupted with a primal will from the depths of their chromosomes. The sludge, like rats thrown onto a furnace, shrieked and scattered in terror.

It was the will of natural selection, the survival of the fittest—a greedy and indifferent force, the drive for life’s perpetuation intrinsic to all living things.

Eagles soar the skies, fish leap in the depths, myriad creatures vie for freedom beneath the frost-laden heavens!

This was life’s most primordial and powerful force—the will of the genes, proof that Adonsa was advancing toward a third evolutionary stage.

Adonsa’s will was the will of millions of split selves. When that will ceased to originate from neural impulses and hid instead within the quantum probability clouds of chromosomes, it became an indestructible genetic will.

Adonsa’s genetic will was like burning ice, frozen fire—a wild symphony of life held in check by merciless reason. Like a high-pressure water jet, it sliced through hell’s assault, and like a swarm of ravenous army ants, devoured hell’s power hungrily and ferociously.

Hell’s power was, at its core, negative, evil, and grotesquely amalgamated. But Adonsa’s genetic will embodied perfect control and suppression—even the wildest gene mutations had to bow before the Dominion of the Codex of All Bloodlines.

The force of biological evolution and mutation was an awe-inspiring terror; from the earliest urea molecules to today’s brilliant ecosystems, life’s journey across billions of years seemed endless—yet, compared to the age of the cosmos, it had unfolded in the blink of an eye, powered by unimaginable energy.

Still, anything with a tangible form, anything subject to laws of action and reaction, could be exploited.

Adonsa had mastered these laws, thus grasping the ultimate secret of life—the Principle of Central Law.

By the same token, Hell’s power was no exception; as long as Adonsa had enough samples and time, even this ancient, mysterious force of the multiverse could be analyzed and mastered.

Were it the true origin of Hell, it might ignore the prying of one as arrogant as Adonsa. But as a source-less stream, the black crystal instinctively feared Adonsa’s ravenous desire for dominion.

Each bloated, necrotic cell revived as the genetic will awakened. Biochemical processes and cell structures thrown into chaos by hell’s power were set right under the guidance of that will; with a conceptual “order” and “devouring,” the manifested sludge of hell’s power was relentlessly corroded and expelled.

The sludge bubbled and burst with shrill, piercing screams before finally retreating, powerless, into the original black crystal.

With the sludge’s withdrawal, the black crystal returned to its former state—now duller, more inconspicuous, as if symbolizing Hell’s power in hiding and submission.

“Hell’s power… truly terrifying,” Adonsa said, withdrawing his hand and ceasing his torment of the pitiful girl.

Though seemingly unharmed, she collapsed to the ground like a broken rag, her eyes filled with incredulous terror. At Adonsa’s words, she forced a bitter smile. “The will of genes—a force only mid-tier or higher Zerg tribes might possess. Which tribe are you from? Depravity, Dread, Screamer, or Quickening? Not those? That’s not surprising. The Zerg, as a cosmic disaster, has countless branches.”

“Zerg?” Adonsa rolled the word on his tongue. “You truly do know much of outer realms. What should I call you?”

She opened her mouth. “…The name I once had no longer fits who I am. Call me Helena. It’s the name my mother chose for me long ago.”

Helena gazed with deep sorrow at the spine and skull nearby, twisted like some kind of insect.

Adonsa crouched, flicked her nose, and said, “Share your knowledge and strength, and I’ll grant you these trifling requests.”

The tears on her cheeks gave way, the next moment, to genuine delight.

“So, I’ll give you an early reward.”

From the ground, massive tendrils emerged, wrapping Livida’s remains layer by layer. They rapidly split and fused into myriad structures, grinding and combining, until at last a small, delicate form began to take shape.