Glenda felt a slight breeze flutter through her hair, sending a chill skittering across her skin. She groaned, stirring from unconsciousness, and slowly opened her eyes.

Two massive, bulbous, multi-faceted eyes stared directly into hers.

“Aaah!” she screamed, scrambling backward on her hands and butt until, “Ouch!” her head knocked against the rough bark of a tree.

“You look like you’re doing well,” came a voice from above, cold and devoid of warmth.

Glenda’s gaze snapped upward. Perched atop a massive, armored dragonfly was a striking woman with long, platinum-silver hair that gleamed like moonlight. Her expression was severe, eyes sharp and emotionless, bearing down on Glenda like a judgment.

Despite her initial shock, Glenda forced herself to steady. She brushed her tousled hair away from her face and gave a bitter laugh. “Hah! I guess this is it for me, then,” she said, trying to sound braver than she felt. “If you’re going to kill me, go ahead. The fate of a captured spy is pretty predictable.”

But then, as her eyes adjusted, Glenda noticed something… strange. The woman wasn’t human. Two thin, delicate antennae extended from her forehead, twitching ever so slightly.

“Believe me,” the woman said, her voice dropping an octave into something darker, “if it were up to me, you wouldn’t have lived long enough to regain consciousness. You’ve intruded on something i’d consider important.”

The air around them shifted. Shadows flickered unnaturally, pulsing in response to the woman’s restrained anger.

“If I’m inconveniencing my captors,” Glenda replied with a tense grin, “then I must be doing something right.”

“Inconvenience… yes, that’s one way to put it.” A smirk tugged at the woman’s lips, but it held no humor, only cold intent. “I was spending rare time with my wife. A luxury I’m seldom afforded. Mother is off playing games with Demon Lord Milim, so it falls to me to decide what happens to you.”

The woman slid gracefully down from the back of the armored dragonfly. Her boots crunched softly against the forest floor as she stepped forward, her cold gaze never leaving Glenda.

“Haven’t you wondered,” she began, her tone calm yet unsettling, “why you’re not bound? Not imprisoned? Not even tied up?”

Glenda frowned but said nothing.

“Usually,” the woman continued, stopping just a few feet away, “the ones who shout ‘kill me’ are the ones most afraid to die. People like that… cling to life the hardest.”

Glenda narrowed her eyes, anger bristling behind them.

“I’m not Rimuru Tempest,” the woman said, her voice hardening. “And this is not the nation of Tempest. If you need to die, you will. I will show you no mercy. Give you no quarter. But first…”

She smiled, thin and unreadable, and took a slow step forward.

“I need to interrogate you. Unfortunately, the Leaf are preoccupied at the moment. So I had a wonderful idea.”

Without warning, she placed a hand on Glenda’s shoulder.

‘When did she..?’ Glenda flinched, eyes wide. When did she move? She hadn’t sensed anything, not even a whisper of motion. The woman had crossed the distance between them like a ghost.

“You came here to subdue the monsters in the forest, didn’t you?” the woman asked softly, almost mockingly.

Glenda remained frozen, uncertain of whether to lie or stay silent.

“Well then,” the woman said with a grin, her eyes gleaming as the shadows around them writhed unnaturally. “Why don’t I take you to our leader?”

Before Glenda could react, the shadows surged forward, coiling and climbing like living mist. They swallowed the world in darkness as the woman’s presence loomed ever closer, and then, everything vanished into black.

——________——

The sun blazed overhead, casting its light over a vast endless purple expanse that shifted and bubbled ominously. Every so often, pockets of noxious gas erupted from its surface, releasing thick, violet smoke into the air.

With a burst of black, shadowy energy, two figures appeared above the toxic sea.

Glenda stumbled slightly as she found herself standing on a platform composed entirely of writhing shadows. Behind her, the silver-haired woman chuckled darkly.

“Wow. Mother really didn’t hold back,” she said, her voice tinged with amusement. “If Demon Lord Millim can push her this far… she’s earned my respect.”

Glenda turned sharply toward the woman. “What are you talking about? Where are we?”

The woman tilted her head, as if genuinely confused by the question. “Aren’t you an otherworlder? Surely, you’ve seen the ocean before.”

Glenda’s brows furrowed. She slowly turned her gaze back toward the bubbling, corrupted mass. Her body trembled.

“The… ocean?” she whispered.

The woman stepped closer, her breath brushing Glenda’s ear as she spoke in a low, chilling tone. “Tell me, how powerful are your benefactors?”

As if in response to her words, the viscous purple ocean began to swirl violently, frothing and bubbling like a great beast stirred from its slumber.

“Can they really, truly protect you?”

A flash of light surged from beneath the surface, as though something had detonated deep within the toxic sea.

“Think long and hard,” the woman pressed. “Just how powerful are your so-called masters?”

Suddenly, the sludge erupted, sending a massive column of liquid spiraling into the sky. Something launched from it at supersonic speed, cutting through the air like a missile.

“Hahahaha!” A childlike laugh rang out, sharp and joyous. The sky above ignited with pink flames, the sun itself taking on a surreal, rose-tinted glow.

Glenda looked up, shielding her eyes against the blinding light. Her gaze locked onto a small, airborne figure, petite and vibrant, standing with hands on her hips and a wild grin on her face.

The Demon Lord Millim.

The woman behind her spoke again, voice lilting with sinister delight.

“What can they do… in the face of absolute power?”

A crushing pressure slammed down upon the world like a tidal wave. Glenda gasped, her knees buckling as the overwhelming force of Millim’s aura pressed her against the shadowy platform. Her vision dimmed, her chest heaving under the weight of pure dominance.

But the woman merely placed a hand on her shoulder, and kept her upright with ease.

Rooooaaaar!!

A thunderous, primal roar shattered the skies, and Glenda felt a deep, instinctual terror take root in her soul. Every fiber of her being screamed not to look, begged her to avert her eyes from the abomination above, to deny it form, lest its attention turn toward her.

But she resisted. With trembling resolve, Glenda forced herself to look up…

…and instantly regretted it.

Wings spread across the sky like a stormfront, each flap unleashing tempests of unimaginable force. Tornadoes spun into existence, tidal waves surged from the corrupted sea, and wildfires raged in the upper atmosphere. The world itself seemed to convulse under the power of what she saw.

A colossal dragon loomed above the ocean, its body so vast and all-encompassing it seemed to blot out existence itself.

But it wasn’t real. Not entirely.

The dragon was translucent, a vibrant shade of glowing pink, like a phantom forged from divine wrath. And at its core, encased in the beast’s chest like a heart, floated the grinning figure of Millim Nava, her blue eyes alight with untamed excitement.

The spectral dragon reared back, and dove.

The very air shrieked as the creature descended. Glenda swore she could hear the world itself screaming, as if reality tried and failed to escape what was coming.

“Watch closely.”

The woman’s voice slipped back into Glenda’s ear, distant and cold. She’d forgotten she wasn’t alone.

“Is this… the one you wish to call your enemy?”

As if in response to the descending terror, the entire ocean convulsed, and then exploded outward.

Glenda staggered as something immense surged from the depths. A monstrous, ethereal form tore through the surface, sending waves and mist spiraling in every direction.

A dragon’s head, massive and wreathed in violet mist, emerged with a deafening crack, its very presence making the air shimmer.

Then came another.

And another.

Glenda’s breath hitched as a third and fourth head burst free from the churning sea, each arrival crashing like a natural disaster.

Then three more heads followed, each one towering, each one primal and impossibly vast.

Only then did Glenda understand.

A hydra.

A seven-headed hydra, each head rippling with toxic purple light, its serpentine bodies so immense that the ocean itself seemed unable to contain their wrath.

Rooooaaaar!!

All seven heads let out a synchronized, thunderous roar that shook the skies. The very magicules in the air danced, whether in fear or elation, Glenda could not tell.

She stood frozen, as though her body had become stone, bearing witness to a clash of gods.

Her right eye reflected a violet gleam, the image of the hydra rising high into the sky, defying nature, larger than life.

Her left eye shimmered pink, the image of a titanic, spectral western dragon, wings unfurled, descending with unstoppable force, as if dragging the very sky down with it.

And then, the moment came.

The colossal pink dragon collided with the seven-headed hydra in an explosion of power that lit the world aflame.

Reality lost all meaning.

Glenda screamed.

Ari smiled.

And the entire planet shook.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep