The Yellow-Haired Villain in Soaring Phoenix's Novels Also Desires Happiness

The smell of blood was still thick.

Blood sprayed everywhere, spreading and seeping across the ground, forming a bizarre picture like something from the hand of an abstract master.

The faint mist was stirred by the breeze, revealing the filthy street beneath. Everywhere he looked, grotesque, twisted corpses lay piled together, scattered limbs like the leftovers from a hellish cafeteria, with the occasional eerie white bone segment dotting the scene.

Even the breeze blowing along the alley seemed to have taken on a hint of the underworld.

Muen stood in the middle of the street, calmly watching the hellscape he had personally created.

On the surface, there was nothing unusual about him at this moment. Not a speck of blood or dust stained his black formalwear. He looked like an ordinary gentleman taking an after-dinner stroll by the river.

Only his slightly heavy, rapid breathing, and the pure-white twin blades in his hands still shining with cold light, testified that a deadly battle had just taken place.

”I really am... not very suited to fighting opponents who rely on numbers.”

Muen let out a soft sigh, popped a magic stone into his mouth, and swiftly replenished his spent mana.

The battle had begun quickly and ended just as fast.

In normal time, not even a minute might have passed.

But the more than one hundred beastified ones that had just surrounded this place had now been mostly cleared away, becoming part of this hellish painting.

The small remainder, at last sensing the horror of the “food” before them on pure instinct, shrank back into the corners, trembling with fear.

The previously desperate situation, where he had been completely surrounded, seemed to have flipped in an instant.

But as an absolute powerhouse whose specialty was overwhelming speed, focused on forcing his enemies to admit defeat in a very short time by attacking at ultra-high frequency, Muen was not very satisfied. Just like the previous several times, when it came to one-against-many, he was still somewhat lacking.

Mainly, his stamina and mana just couldn’t support him in launching that kind of brutal offensive for too long.

”Looks like raising my realm has once again become an urgent issue.”

After his habitual self-critique, Muen felt rather helpless. With all sorts of powerful forces being crammed into his body, he currently felt like a man-powered tricycle plated in gold. No matter how luxurious the interior, how high-end the logo, how impressive the look of the frame—at the end of the day, the engine of this tricycle was still just those two scrawny legs that even walking on their own was embarrassing.

Still, that kind of problem couldn’t be rushed.

If he pedaled those weak legs a bit more now, then maybe once he finally traded the musket for artillery later, he’d get to experience what it felt like to fly.

It was like how some people liked to wear sandbags and train under load. When ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) the crucial moment came to show off, a small chassis driving a big car was also a kind of weighted training, wasn’t it?

”Too bad this isn’t the time for me to train.”

Temporarily reining in his slightly wandering thoughts, Muen moved on.

The beastified ones crouched in the shadows, low growls in their throats. On those faces that were almost human, there finally seemed to be a trace of human fear. As Muen approached step by step, they seemed to beg for mercy, trembling, tears leaking from their eyes.

”Please... save me...” came the faint, broken words from their split, bestial mouths.

But the flash of the blade was still just as indifferent.

The ferocious head parted from the neck. Fresh red blood added another stroke to the abstract painting. The savagery and terror finally faded from that face.

”Sorry. I can’t save you.”

Muen murmured,

”I can only... let you rest in peace.”

As a man who had once borne the weight of a million sins, Muen naturally wouldn’t stop his steps for this. Whether it was blood or corpses, he stepped over them with ease.

Without pausing.

At last, he stopped in front of the little girl.

”Still not going to make a move?”

Muen stared at the small figure before him.

She looked about seven or eight years old, her skin pale and bloodless, wearing a loose white garment like a hospital gown.

From the sleeves that hung down, Muen could see densely packed stitching marks on her wrists.

Like a rag doll that had been torn apart again and again and sewn back together again and again.

And this rag-doll-like little girl was still squatting there, like a child who had lost her family or couldn’t find the way home, quietly sobbing to herself.

She had been crying like this from the beginning. She had never taken any other action, not even when Muen had taken the initiative to deal with the beastified ones first.

But... from the very beginning, Muen’s senses had never left this little girl for an instant. Even while he was fighting the beastified ones, he had maintained the highest level of alert toward her.

Because both his intuition and the instincts he had honed over years of fighting all sorts of strange things were telling him... this little girl was the truly dangerous presence.

”Those beastified ones were drawn here by your crying, right? They’re all dead now. You’re still not going to act?”

Muen asked again.

He still gripped his twin blades, every muscle in his body tensed, wary of a sudden outburst from the little girl...

”Ooo...”

But she just kept crying.

Like a truly homeless child, squatting alone on the silent, dark street, crying in helpless sorrow.

”Since you won’t answer... sorry, but I don’t have time to play lost-kid-looking-for-mommy games with you.”

After confirming for the third time that this strange little girl had no intention of attacking, Muen, though he felt a bit reluctant to lay hands on a child, still swung his blades.

Thud.

Cold steel sliced through flesh with ease.

The pitiful little girl was cut into three pieces, just like that.

Her head hit the ground. The crying stopped abruptly.

Everything went quiet.

So quiet that Muen could hear nothing but his own breathing and heartbeat.

He stayed on guard for a long time, tense and ready, but still... nothing happened.

”Could it be my instincts really were wrong? Was this little girl just a decoy to draw attention?” Muen frowned.

That possibility wasn’t nonexistent. Precisely because of the existence of this strange little girl, he really had been successfully lured away from Albert’s side.

Feeling the faint, persistent unease in his heart, Muen stared at the girl’s corpse for a long time. His fingers tightened then loosened, over and over. In the end, he just couldn’t bring himself to further mutilate her with more “finishing blows.”

He shook his head, finally choosing to turn and leave, to chase after the First Prince who had gone on ahead.

No matter what plans the enemy had, as long as the First Prince’s safety was guaranteed, everything would...

Muen’s step suddenly halted.

Several motes of starlight had been floating around his body the entire time, for illumination.

As his gaze shifted slightly, he saw that under the glow of those stars, a huge shadow slowly rose up behind him, gradually swallowing his own shadow up completely.

Muen tightened his grip on his twin blades and kept his expression unchanged.

...Clang—

Blade and claw collided, once again sending sparks and a resonant hum scattering into the night.

”There’s still a beastified one that dares to ambush me?”

Muen frowned as he casually raised his hand to block the sneak attack. ”A fish that slipped through the net?”

Ding.

He flicked the claws aside, turned, and prepared to give this poor soul release.

But the moment his gaze fell on the beastified attacker, he froze in place.

He could no longer grant him release.

Because... this beastified one had already been granted release once.

”Wha... t?”

Blood was still flowing from its neck, but above that neck there was now only empty air. The claw it had used to attack had only half a hand left. And this beastified one, which Muen had clearly already taken care of once, was now staggering, its movements strange and jerky, launching another attack at Muen.

”Not dead?”

The thought flashed through Muen’s mind, but he rejected it immediately.

Because this was not his first time dealing with these beastified ones, Muen knew well that so-called beastification was completely different from those almost-unkillable cultists he had run into before. They had only been injected with beast blood to grant them tougher vitality. Compared to the true cockroach state of those touched by Evil God power, they were far inferior. Cutting off the head was already a fatal wound for beastified ones.

And the way this headless beastified one moved right now was nothing like a living thing. It was more like... a puppet.

Muen’s eyes narrowed. His gaze swept quickly around, and he soon spotted the clue.

Threads.

Blood-red threads.

Muen saw countless extremely fine, almost invisible blood-red threads running through the headless beastified one’s body, controlling it, making it carry out these bizarre movements.

And when Muen focused on those blood-red threads, he realized they seemed to have no end. They ran along flesh, along skin, along exposed wounds, all the way down... to the ground.

Muen’s pupils tightened, and he instinctively took several steps back in a row.

Only now did he realize with a chill that countless blood-red threads, as if they possessed life, were weaving through the blood pools, the severed limbs, the bones. They even passed under his own feet, silently spreading, dense as can be, until they had woven this place into a huge, blood-red... net.

He was already deeply ensnared in the net.

And the source of these blood-red threads was...

Muen stiffly lifted his head.

Creak, creak...

The sound of joints twisting rang out on this mime-like stage like a gust of ghostly wind, appearing so abruptly.

The little girl who had been cut into three pieces wobbled as she pushed up her upper body. At her smooth, sliced waist, blood-red threads tugged and pulled, dragging her lower body back into place.

At her neck, blood-red threads yanked suddenly, hauling her head back.

But it seemed this rough reattachment made her a little uncomfortable. She popped her head off again, twisted it a bit, then set it back on.

The worn rag doll had thus returned to its original state.

This time, she lifted her head and finally showed Muen the face hidden beneath her long hair and the shadows.

On that face, he could still see the innocence and childishness appropriate for her age—but the mass of stitching scars crisscrossing it completely destroyed that beauty.

And when Muen met her gaze, he found no focus in her eyes... because in those big, supposedly adorable eyes, there were no pupils at all.

Only a dead, ghastly white.