NOVEL NEXT Chapter 423: Heretical God Path
The bottom half was unmistakably serpentine, the scales shimmering in emerald green, while the upper half revealed the perfect form of an ethereal beauty.
Her enchanting face was framed by a cascade of living snakes, writhing gently atop her head, eyes glowing ominously.
Orion, still holding the ancient book, immediately sensed the unnatural power radiating from this terrifying entity.
Turning sharply, his eyes landed briefly upon her form, instantly sending alarm bells shrieking within his mind. His gaze shot downward, heart pounding frantically.
'MEDUSA! Holy Fuck! How the hell is she here?!' Orion screamed internally, panic rising within him.
He tried desperately to lower his head further, but found his head slowly lifting against his will, compelled by some powerful force.
Around him, the others were already ensnared. Elias, Kale, and even Rokar, Kazran, and other human experts stared blankly, their eyes overtaken by unbridled lust.
Arya, Sylvia, Nyss, Rina, and Fiora were similarly afflicted; their eyes misted with an unnatural yearning, their minds robbed of their rationality.
Slowly, a petrifying curse began climbing their bodies from their feet upward, turning their flesh gradually into cold, unfeeling stone.
Even Orion felt the creeping sensation of petrification moving up his legs. His mind churned frantically; his draconic bloodlines surged in rebellion, golden and fiery glows enveloping him, fiercely resisting the deadly curse.
Yet even with his powerful lineage, Orion barely held on, beads of cold sweat trailing down his temples.
Yet, just as panic began gripping his heart, the demoness paused curiously, her intense gaze suddenly locking onto another figure.
At the center of the cavern stood Magi, alone among the crowd, unaffected. His expression was panicked, certainly, but astonishingly devoid of lustful desire.
He simply stood there, trembling slightly from the sheer pressure, eyes wide with anger as he seemed to have returned to a day of the past.
There was no hunger, no yearning in his gaze; it was as if the concept of lust itself was entirely foreign to him. Yet it also opened the wound that he had deeply buried in his heart, the day when he was completely helpless in front of that being.
The demoness's mesmerizing emerald eyes narrowed slightly in confusion and curiosity. Her lips curled slowly upward, revealing an alluring yet melancholic smile.
With languid elegance, she slithered forward, her serpent's lower half gliding gracefully across the cracked stone. Her delicate hands extended slowly, gently lifting Magi's chin upward.
"Interesssssting," she whispered melodiously, her voice echoing softly with a seductive power. "How issss it you alone can resssissst my curssssse, little mortal?"
Magi gritted his teeth while staring at the demoness in front of him; his eyes remained devoid of lust or fear as they were filled with an unimaginable amount of hatred, yet it was not directed at the demoness but himself, at his own powerlessness that cost him his everything.
He continued staring at her without replying.
The demoness tilted her head in genuine intrigue, her snake-like hair moving hypnotically. "A cursssse? Or perhapssss... a blesssssing?" she mused softly, her gaze deepening with thoughtful curiosity. She never thought it might be due to Magi's own sheer will, as that was a completely foreign concept to her.
She really thought that only divine intervention could escape from her control, just like the other human was contesting against her.
While Magi stood in front of the terrifying demoness, Orion struggled fiercely against his own petrification.
His human, draconic, and World Tree bloodlines flared brighter, fiercely repelling the creeping stone curse.
His muscles strained, tendons standing out prominently as he fought desperately to regain control of his body. His teeth gritted together tightly, frustration boiling within him.
'Hold on! I can't end like this!' Orion roared inwardly, the golden fire around him intensifying, gradually melting away the petrification, inch by excruciating inch.
The demoness, ignoring Orion's struggle, continued observing Magi with growing fascination. Her expression shifted slowly from amusement to a deep melancholy.
"Centuriessss passsss… yet mortalsss remain the sssame," she murmured softly, eyes filling with sorrowful nostalgia. "Lusssstful, greedy, desssstructive. Yet, you... you're differennt."
Just as the demoness finished her melancholic words, an overpowering, destructive sword intent abruptly descended upon the cavern.
The cavern ceiling fractured instantly, enormous chunks of stone exploding outward, pulverized into mere dust by the overwhelming sword energy.
This unstoppable force continued downward, unstoppable and relentless, obliterating everything in its path.
Wherever this sword passed, reality itself seemed to fracture and disintegrate; space ruptured violently, mana particles evaporated into nothingness, and even the air ceased to exist, replaced by absolute annihilation.
It was as if this terrifying destructive intent rejected the very existence of anything that dared to obstruct its passage.
The demoness's previously serene expression twisted into panic, emerald eyes widening in genuine fear.
Hastily, she retreated several meters, her serpentine body moving with rapid agility to evade the sword's direct trajectory.
Yet even then, terrifying spatial fissures, previously suppressed by her Supreme Paragon Grade cultivation, erupted chaotically around her.
The ground split all around her, exposing endless darkness beneath the ruptured stone, the stability of the entire hidden world collapsing completely under the pressure of the incomprehensible sword attack.
Orion's group, now freed from the petrifying curse due to the demoness's diverted focus, regained their senses instantly, their survival instincts flaring into overdrive.
Each person hurriedly averted their gaze, gasping for air as they felt the oppressive stone curse retreat from their bodies.
Yet, their relief was short-lived as the crumbling space around them quickly turned into a terrifying hellscape filled with wildly spreading spatial fissures and vortexes.
Orion himself sensed the space directly behind him distorting dangerously. A powerful suction force erupted without warning, causing him to instinctively lurch forward.
Behind him, the piles of treasures previously stacked near his feet vanished abruptly, consumed by the relentless spatial distortions. Orion's eyes flickered briefly with pity, but survival superseded greed at this critical juncture.
Without hesitation, he rapidly dodged a chaotic spatial vortex erupting dangerously close, his gaze darting anxiously around.
His heart tightened with anxiousness, witnessing his companions disappearing one after another into the multiplying spatial fissures.
Rina, Fiora, Arya, Nyss, and Elias each vanished helplessly as the ruptured reality swallowed them without mercy.
Even the remaining Beastkin and human warriors, regardless of anything, plunged unwillingly into these erratic dimensional tears.
Orion gritted his teeth fiercely, his mind rapidly assessing his limited options. Staying here, amidst such a catastrophic confrontation, guaranteed certain death.
Even the shockwaves alone from the terrifying sword intent now flooding the cavern would obliterate him effortlessly.
His survival lay entirely within these unpredictable spatial fissures. With steely resolve, Orion decisively lunged toward a nearby spatial distortion, letting its unstable energies consume him entirely.
Meanwhile, amidst this chaos, the demoness snapped her gaze upward with venomous rage. Descending calmly from the now-obliterated ceiling, a middle-aged man with dark, indifferent eyes calmly stepped downward through mid-air, his expression devoid of any discernible emotion.
In his right hand, he held a katana-type sword, its blade shimmering ominously with a blackened edge, while his left hand flashed with a mysterious light as he stabilized the spatial fissures where Orion and the rest had dropped.
The demoness hissed furiously, her voice carrying hatred mixed with a trace of panic. "Hereticccc…Why? Why has this inheritance got revived during this era?!"