Chapter 2: Your Strength is Mine!
The empire is divided into fifty-one administrative regions, each of which operates independently and autonomously. Under normal circumstances, the "Imperial Gate," which governs the entire empire, does not interfere with the internal affairs of these regions.
In District 51, where Xia Feng resides, the most powerful noble family is the Lister family, whose emblem is the hydrangea. Prince Lister commands a trusted faction known as the Six-Tails Society, of which Xia Feng is a member.
The marriage certificate Cha Naxue gave him had been approved by Lord Lister. Therefore, if Xia Feng wanted to cancel the engagement, it would depend on whether Lord Lister would allow it. However, canceling the engagement was the last thing on his mind now.
[Activity remaining: 50 minutes]
As Xia Feng gazed out the car window at the rapidly passing traffic, his heart tightened. "Driver, can you go any faster?"
According to the information he had gathered earlier, Mu Qingtong was supposed to attend an aristocratic ball held at the Prince's Manor. After escaping from the hospital, Xia Feng had rushed to the manor as quickly as possible, but the distance was considerable.
Time was slipping away with every second.
"Hurry, hurry, brother, hurry up and reincarnate!"
Seeing the driver growing impatient, Xia Feng looked out the window and pursed his lips in silence for a moment. He suddenly felt a pang of depression and sighed sadly, as if talking to himself, "My wife is about to give birth. The doctor said she might have a difficult delivery and asked me to be mentally prepared. I... Alas."
The driver was slightly stunned when he saw the anxious expression of the black-haired young man in the rearview mirror, filled with sadness and regret. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and suddenly felt the urge to slap himself.
Damn it!
The driver took a deep breath, his eyes firming with resolve. "Okay, hold on tight, little brother! Today, I'll show you what the God of Cars in Akina Mountain is!"
The car accelerated suddenly, and the driver seemed to be cloaked in a golden aura, like a hero ready to face death head-on!
"Driver, you are my savior!"
After transferring a large sum of money to the driver, Xia Feng arrived outside the Hydrangea Manor.
[Activity remaining: 30 minutes]
He simply showed the identity mark of the Six-Tails Society and entered the manor without any hindrance.
He ran down the corridor, quickly passing through the massive double doors with gold frames, and entered the dazzling gilded hall.
Classical and soothing court music echoed through the hall.
Gentlemen and ladies in gorgeous gowns moved gracefully through the ballroom, dancing together or chatting quietly in the luxurious salon. Occasionally, the ladies would laugh softly at the witty and humorous remarks of the young nobles.
Xia Feng scanned the room. The crowd was bustling, and he couldn't spot Mu Qingtong anywhere.
Fortunately, there were still about twenty minutes left, so there was still plenty of time. He had to admit, the driver's skills were incredible!
Xia Feng took a deep breath and quickly made his way upstairs.
There were fewer people on the second floor. After a quick search, he still couldn't find any trace of Mu Qingtong. He leaned on the railing and looked down at the hall from above. He could clearly see the prince's son, dressed in an elegant tuxedo, sitting on the central platform and playing a moonlight piano piece.
"If there's no other option, I might have to contract with this guy."
After quickly deciding on a backup plan, Xia Feng continued to search the massive ballroom with full concentration.
[Activity remaining: 20 minutes]
Unfortunately, there was no sign of Mu Qingtong in the entire hall.
Perhaps the World-Destroying Witch wasn't in the hall but was wandering in the back garden or admiring the moon in some secluded courtyard.
There was still plenty of time, so Xia Feng decided to look outside. He glanced at the courtyard through the window:
"Mu Qingtong, Mu Qingtong, where are you?"
"Hmm?"
A cold and faint female voice suddenly sounded from behind, "Are you looking for me?"
"!゜ロ゜" Xia Feng was so startled that his shoulders shook, and he turned around stiffly.
Sitting on a sofa in a dark corner was a woman wearing an elegant and restrained black lace dress. A thick book lay open on her crossed legs.
She seemed about to turn the page but paused and looked up. Her mature face, framed by long silver hair, was adorned with a pair of elegant, intellectual half-frame gold-rimmed glasses. Her light golden eyes stared at him quietly from behind the lenses.
Xia Feng's black eyes widened slightly, almost imperceptibly.
The image of the woman before him instantly overlapped with the image of the World-Destroying Witch in his mind.
He subconsciously wanted to step back but held himself in check. This was a matter of life and death. When had this woman sat here? She was like a ghost.
But this was perfect!
World-Destroying Witch, your strength is mine! Xia Feng thought.
The demon's heart in his left chest beat rapidly, a mysterious aura flowing through it. An invisible wave instantly spread from his heart to the surroundings.
A dark chain flashed between him and the woman in the black dress.
[Target: Mu Qingtong ※Contract successful——]
[Activity extension successful——]
[Activity remaining: 19 minutes → 3 days]
[Strengths beginning to synchronize——]
[Your spiritual pressure has been greatly improved!]
[Your cultivation level has been promoted from an apprentice spiritualist to a first-level spiritualist!]
[Your understanding of martial arts has improved.]
[Your physical fitness has improved in all aspects (smell, hearing, vision, nerve reaction, combat foresight.)]
[Your understanding of spirit clothes has improved, and you have successfully mastered six N-level spirit clothes (illumination clothes, fireball flash, ice soul blade, messenger spirit, detection eye, bronze mask).]
[Your understanding of spirit clothing has improved, and you have successfully mastered a D-level spirit clothing (hidden spirit clothing).]
[You are right.]
I'm throwing it away, I'm throwing it away, I'm throwing it away!! Xia Feng forgot to breathe, so shocked that he almost hugged the Witch of Destruction's thigh and called her daddy.
Spirit Clothes, whose full name is Psychic Cloak, are akin to martial arts skills in fairy tales or magic circuits in fantasy dramas.
Originally, he was just a small apprentice spiritualist, and the only spirit clothing he had mastered was a broken illumination robe. When he was learning the illumination robe, the complicated structure of the spiritual particles had dazzled him, making it difficult to grasp.
But he hadn't expected that in just a moment, he not only mastered the complete version of the illumination robe but also learned five N-level spirit robes and one D-level spirit robe.
His spiritual pressure level had even broken through to the first-level spiritualist level.
You must understand, he was only in his second semester of academy, and a first-level spiritualist was already at the level of graduating from Boundless Academy!
The elegant woman looked at the student wearing Boundless's standard school uniform with her pale golden eyes, feeling that he looked familiar.
Suddenly, a photo of her fiancé that the patriarch had shown her flashed through her mind. "You are Xia Feng?"
She smiled, closed the book in her hand, and said softly, "Sit down."
Xia Feng suppressed his emotions, and the inexplicable fear he had felt upon first seeing Mu Qingtong, as if he had encountered his natural enemy, disappeared.
I was timid in a crushing situation, but I would strike hard in a 50-50 situation! She's just a World-Destroying Witch, why worry?
Of course, he still politely performed a gentleman's salute and sat down on the dark sofa opposite her.
"I wonder what Mr. Xia wants to talk to me about?"
The woman in the black dress crossed her legs elegantly, stirring her coffee leisurely with a small spoon in her slender fingers. The milky white latte art swirled in the coffee-colored vortex. Xia Feng was slightly distracted, staring at the spinning coffee vortex. He was about to say that he was here to synchronize his strength when—
"!!" He suddenly woke up, his pupils shrinking slightly as he blinked rapidly.
He looked up and chuckled, "Miss Mu, since you know me, I'll get straight to the point."
Old Silver Fox, you want to hypnotize me as soon as we meet? You really are the villain who will destroy the world in the future! Xia Feng complained in his heart while maintaining a faint smile:
"As far as I know, the Taicang Mu family has been in decline over the years. The head of the Mu family has been trying to establish a relationship with Lord Lister through marriage to regain a foothold in District 51."
"But unfortunately, Miss Mu's fiancé, the adopted son of the prince, died unexpectedly a few days ago, so a new fiancé had to be chosen."
Xia Feng glanced at the elegant book cover folded on the black-dressed woman's knees—The Eagle in the Cage. He paused and continued:
"I guess Miss Mu doesn't like this kind of arranged marriage. Coincidentally, I don't like it either."
"Oh?"
Mu Qingtong stopped stirring her coffee with the silver spoon. Her beautiful eyes curved slightly behind the elegant gold half-frame glasses as she spoke softly, "So, what does Mr. Xia mean?"
"What I mean is simple. We don't have to act like husband and wife after we get married. You live your life, I live mine, and we each go our separate ways. How about that?" Xia Feng remembered very clearly. The ex-husband, that is, Mu Qingtong's first fiancé, was mentioned in the prologue of the anime. This man had been secretly assassinated by Mu Qingtong!
The kind where his head was completely severed.
But what Mu Qingtong hadn't expected was that after assassinating one fiancé, the elders in her family could simply arrange a new one for her.
Xia Feng had reason to believe that if he showed any intention of pursuing this World-Destroying Witch, he would be sent to reunite with her ex-husband tonight.
He didn't want to die yet, after all, he still hadn't seen his unborn wife~ Although it was a strange dream that puzzled him.
The woman in the black dress sat upright on the sofa, staring at Xia Feng with her golden eyes for a long time. Her eyes gently curved, and she nodded, saying, "Okay."
After that, the two looked at each other for a moment and fell silent.
"I'm going to continue reading the novel. Is there anything else, Mr. Xia?" Mu Qingtong asked, puzzled.
Reading novels? Xia Feng looked at the book on her lap and felt deeply distressed.
World-Destroying Witch! How can you concentrate on reading novels at your age without training hard? Can you sleep at night?
Although Xia Feng wanted to persuade Mu Qingtong to study hard, train every day, and become a strong individual who stands above the sky and is invincible in the world as soon as possible, he also knew that you can't rush things. After all, they weren't familiar with each other yet.
"Then I won't disturb Miss Mu anymore. Goodbye." Xia Feng stood up neatly.
As he watched Xia Feng's departing back, the woman in the black dress picked up her coffee cup and took a leisurely sip.
"Do we need to get rid of him?"
A little girl in a maid outfit emerged from the shadows. Her cute face, adorned with rose-red short hair, looked indifferent as she gazed down at the young man who was gradually walking out of the door downstairs.
"No need," the woman in the black dress shook her head.
"But Master, I have a feeling that he has discovered that you killed the prince's adopted son."
"There is no such thing as a perfect crime. It's normal to be discovered."
Mu Qingtong gently placed the cup on the coffee table and said softly, "But this Mr. Xia can't be a seer. He is afraid and wary of me probably just because he found out that I was hypnotizing him. From this point of view, he still has some skills."
"But that's all. It's nothing to worry about."
As she spoke, the woman in the black dress uncrossed her legs and stood up quickly. "Okay, Fei, I hate this kind of dance that is full of the atmosphere of courtship. I will refuse all such invitations in the future."
"Yes!"
Xia Feng looked back at the brightly lit manor, deep in thought.
[Activity remaining: 3 days]
Although he had synchronized his strength with that terrifying woman, the danger of death was still not resolved.
He sensed his physical condition and found that his spiritual pressure had indeed become much more stable and solid, reaching the level of a first-level spiritualist.
But with only three days left to live, he dared not slack off easily.
Therefore, his next goal was to find a way to devour the evil force to increase the heart's active time. It would be best to increase it by ten or twenty years in one go.
When talking about devouring evil force, we have to mention another race that exists in this world.
The Evil Race, also known as the Nightmare Beasts.
The so-called evil force is the source of power for these evil beasts. It appears as black mist. When humans inhale it, they may become sick at best or die at worst.
But according to the information from the demon's heart, it seemed that because of this heart, his physique had become different from that of ordinary people. He was no longer afraid of the erosion of evil force. Instead, he could absorb the evil force for his own use and prolong the activity of his heart.
Therefore, if he wanted to extend the time, he had to kill the nightmare beasts. However, the problem was that the meager evil force of low-level nightmare beasts was simply a drop in the bucket for him.
Although the security in Area 51 wasn't very good, there weren't enough low-level evil beasts to kill at will.
"We have to find a way to get a huge and continuous supply of evil force."
Xia Feng stroked his chin, looking thoughtfully at the moonlit night sky in the north.
A flash of inspiration!
To the north of Area 51, there was an uninhabited area called the Evil Dragon Forest. It was said that an extremely evil dragon was sealed inside, and its body was filled with terrifying evil force. Anyone who approached would be swallowed by the evil force and die instantly!
According to the scene he had seen in the prologue of the anime in his previous life, this evil dragon was actually a god-level being but was sealed in the form of a girl in the center of the flower sea of the World Tree, sleeping for ten thousand years.
In the picture, the girl was indeed surrounded by thick black mist, which was probably the evil force.
If he could find this evil dragon, he would have a constant supply of evil force!
But this method was indeed a bit risky.
After all, this sealed evil dragon was a being that could be compared to gods. From a certain perspective, it was even more terrifying than the World-Destroying Witch in her heyday!
It was indeed a bit crazy to try to exploit this evil dragon. What if she woke up while he was exploiting her?
According to legend, hundreds of years ago, every few years, an adventure group would enter the depths of the Evil Dragon Forest in an attempt to explore the so-called evil dragon treasure. But without exception, the depths of the Evil Dragon Forest made these adventure groups never return, and no one survived!
For this reason, the depths of the forest had gradually become known as a forbidden area, and in recent years, no adventure group had dared to explore deeper into the forest.
To prevent the evil force of the Evil Dragon Forest from spilling out, the entrance to the forest was only opened once a year, and only military personnel and adventure group members were allowed to enter.
Xia Feng happened to be the adopted son of the vice president of the adventure group, the Six-Tails Society, and was qualified to enter the forest.
"The day after tomorrow is this year's forest open day." Xia Feng looked up at the lonely moon in the night sky. "It seems I have to go back to the agency and ask about the details."
(End of this chapter)