novelraw Chapter 517: Changes
Chapter 517: Changes
His hair was meticulously swept back, his black tailcoat impeccable. If one could ignore his eyes—blacker than Lu Li's, utterly devoid of whites—he looked for all the world like an elegant, elderly aristocrat.
The closer he drew to Lu Li, the stronger the resistance seemed to grow. Layer upon layer of illusory hands clawed at his form, shattering only to reappear an instant later.
But this merely slowed the devil's advance. He continued to stride confidently toward Lu Li.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Ten meters away, the devil tilted his head, his lips curling back to reveal a row of rotten, black teeth.
"To where I need to be," Lu Li replied, repeating inwardly that it was time to awaken.
His soul suddenly felt as light as a speck of dust. His feet lifted from the ground, and he began to ascend.
The devil, now closer, instantly shed his malicious smirk. He quickened his pace, lunging for Lu Li and trying to grab him, but his hand only managed to tear away a piece of his coat.
"You... dared... to mock me..."
The scrap of cloth turned to ash in his withered hand. The devil's pale cheeks trembled with rage as an indescribable, searing aura of terror exploded from him.The illusory hands shattered in an instant. The force threw even Richard back dozens of meters; he crashed to the ground and tumbled awkwardly several times.
"Cough, cough, cough, cough..."
Gasping and coughing, Richard struggled to his feet. He squinted up at the sky where the devil had shot upward like a cannonball, instantly catching up to the ascending Lu Li and drawing level with him.
A withered hand shot out from his sleeve, reaching for Lu Li's throat. But an unseen force barred the devil's path, preventing his hand from making contact.
Lu Li kept his eyes closed, repeating the words "wake up" and "return" over and over in his mind, completely oblivious to the drama unfolding around him.
Whoosh!
The devil's sleeve abruptly burst into flames, turning to ash in an instant.
His hand trembled and the malevolent aura flared once more, but his fingers halted just inches from Lu Li's soul, powerless to advance.
Not even the Devil, the supreme being of Hell, could hold the soul of someone who was not truly dead.
"Oh... so weak... can't even hold on to a single soul."
Just then, a derisive whistle drifted up from below.
The Devil's gaze snapped downward, locking onto Richard, who was watching the scene with a thumb raised in the air.
The beastly grimace returned, and the Devil thrust his arm out toward Richard below.
An irresistible force seized Richard, yanking him screaming into the air until his neck was clamped in the Devil's palm.
As Richard was drawn closer to the Devil, he felt as if he'd been plunged into frigid, piercing water, the intense cold making it hard to breathe. Soon, however, the Devil relaxed his aura, and the illusory hands that restrained him materialized once more.
He was giving Richard a chance to speak.
After all, to the Devil, he was merely a soul—an ant with a foul aura that would be difficult to stomach.
"Ugh, you reek... When was the last time you brushed your teeth? They're completely rotten..." Richard pinched his nose, his face a mask of disgust. Then, a sudden realization made him freeze. "Wait a minute. You're going to kill me?"
"You want to? Dream on! No one can kill me! No one! I'm the only one who gets to kill me!"
Spraying spittle, Richard screamed, reared his head back, and then slammed it violently into the Devil before him.
Just as the Devil couldn't touch Lu Li, who didn't belong here, Richard couldn't touch the mightiest being in Hell. For him, the result was far worse.
Without so much as a scream, Richard was instantly obliterated.
The Devil's hand remained in the air, still shaped as if it were strangling someone. Gradually, the flesh on his cheeks began to tremble with rage, the tremors growing more and more violent.
He slowly raised his head, his gaze fixed on Lu Li's soul in the sky.
He could clearly see those black eyes flutter open and gaze down at him, their expression indifferent and serene.
Perhaps it was the angle, or perhaps it was real, but Lu Li's downward gaze stirred a long-dormant feeling in the Devil, one that drove him to the brink of madness: mockery.
"Do you think... you can escape my domain?"
The Devil stared intently at the black speck that was Lu Li, bowed his head, and whispered softly.
The crimson clouds churned like a hurricane, shot through with flashes of lightning. The ground trembled, and long-dormant volcanoes suddenly erupted, spewing rivers of molten lava.
The horrifying scene was like something out of a book of revelations.
"Stay..."
The very fabric of this realm trembled as a deafening, low whisper reverberated through the sky.
The molten clouds coalesced into a face hundreds of meters wide, a perfect replica of the Devil's. Lightning flickered within its features. Its impossibly dense black eyes stared down at Lu Li as it opened its maw and swallowed the tiny, insignificant speck.
"Stay!!!"
The Devil on the ground roared with fury, his body growing so translucent it seemed he might vanish at any moment.
This was, after all, only one of his many forms.
The colossal head also roared as it swallowed the black dot in the sky and clamped its jaw shut.
It all seemed to be over. The devil's head in the sky slowly dissipated, only for the black dot to reappear, completely unharmed, continuing its upward journey.
Lu Li did not belong to this Hell, and so he could not be held by its power.
The nearly transparent Devil seemed to have calmed down, watching as Lu Li departed from Hell.
He had exhausted the power of this manifestation. Even if he did nothing, it would have dissipated completely within tens of seconds.
The Devil had failed to keep the soul that had trespassed into his domain.
His soul ascended ever faster, piercing through the clouds. Lu Li could even begin to feel a phantom pain in his neck, a faint sense of suffocation that grew steadily more distinct.
Suddenly, everything changed.
As he ascended, Lu Li felt as if he had trespassed into some dark, silent place filled with strange whispers. As a disembodied soul, he was utterly exposed, and the peripheral consciousnesses there assailed him instantly. Powerless to resist, his head drooped, and he lost consciousness.
"It's happening soon... Time to hide."
The Devil calmly watched the scene unfold, whispering softly. A moment later, his gaze fell upon Lu Li, who was now plummeting back down.
"It seems you're fated to remain here after all... My children will follow my trail. They will find you, and they will bring you to me..."
Just as the Devil finished his whisper, a mismatched appendage suddenly appeared among the hands surrounding him—a mouth.
The mouth opened and let out Richard's final, mocking laugh, which echoed across the meteor crater.
"Oh, give me a break. You couldn't even hold on to that bastard, and now you expect your useless sons to do the job?"
Sssss—
The mouth and the surrounding limbs were vaporized by the aura, and the Devil's form vanished from the mountain range.
All that remained was Lu Li, who, having emerged from the crimson clouds only to fall unconscious, was now plummeting back down into the meteor crater.