Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1235: Birth of the Terror

The group was silent. The only sound was the crackling kiln and the hiss of steam from the rocks, as though the world itself dared not interrupt.

”But something... inexplicable happened. I did not die.”

Her eyes closed fully, visibly living through the memory, taken back to that time. ”I was awake and not. My body floated in darkness. I could breathe, even though I was inside its stomach. I felt everything: the acid eating my skin, the pain, the burning. It didn’t stop. It never stopped.”

Her words dripped like poison into the air.

”I lay there, paralyzed, for days. I don’t know how many. Time didn’t exist. My body screamed, but I couldn’t even cry anymore. I wanted to die. But I couldn’t.”

Quinlan felt Vex and Ayame grip onto his hand, while Blossom outright hugged his head from behind.

”Eventually... I began to move again. My skin was half gone. My hands were raw. I found what was left of the tiger, melting beside me. Its flesh was soft enough to tear. So I ate it.”

Blossom whimpered while Ayame and Vex gulped, together with Quinlan.

”Weeks passed by. I ate and ate until I felt strength return to my arms. The acid still burned me, but slower now. My body had somehow adapted. And then... something struck through me. I froze again, but only for a moment this time. When I moved again, my skin was no longer mine.”

The violet marks along her body pulsed a stronger, more brilliant light, answering her words.

”It turned purple, every inch of me. Then the color bled out, forming the serpentine tattoos you see now. The serpent’s venom and the acid’s pain rewrote me. My flesh hardened. My senses sharpened.”

”I felt powerful. More alive than I had ever been.”

Her tone shifted, dark and proud, as if she was feeling triumphant about what happened back then. ”I grabbed a tooth from one of its newer prey and tried to cut my way out. It broke. I tried again, and again, with bones, claws, anything. Nothing worked.”

”And when I could bear the suffocating confines of its belly no longer...” she whispered, voice trembling with the memory of agony, ”I did the only thing left to me.”

Her eyes shone with a fevered, lucid will to live that bordered on madness.

Then, beneath the shroud of steam, she parted her lips.

The light caught her teeth; snow-white, immaculate, almost radiant against the heat-hazed air.

”I bit into it myself.”

The image seared itself into their minds: Black Fang, a small, vulnerable, abandoned child, tearing through the flesh of a monster from the inside.

”It writhed,” she said softly, fondly even, ”and screamed without sound. But I didn’t stop. I ate my way out.”

No one breathed.

”When I emerged into the cold air, my body was steaming. My nails were black. My eyes burned. And in that moment, a line appeared in my mind.”

Her lips curved into the faintest smile, neither proud nor cruel, merely acknowledging what she had become.

”[You’ve awakened the Venomborne Terror class.]”

A new ladle of water had been poured, yet the sauna had gone silent. The only sound left was the hiss of steam and the loud thud of hearts straining to keep up with what they were hearing.

Black Fang’s gaze stayed fixed on the stones as the fog coiled around her.

”After that day, I was never the same child again.”

”The forest became my cradle, my battlefield. Every time I failed, I had to sleep on an empty stomach. Starvation was the best teacher I could’ve asked for.”

”I learned to move without sound, to strike before the beasts could smell my presence. At first, I used my hands, my teeth, the shards of bone left behind by creatures I’d devoured. Then, as the years bled together, I began shaping weapons of my own. Spears from fangs. Knives from claws. Armor from hides.”

Her tone hardened. ”I killed anything that looked like it might make me stronger.”

The others could almost see it, an impossible little girl in a monstrous world, drenched in mud and blood, growing sharper each time she survived another devastating encounter.

”Fifteen or so years passed before I realized something strange,” she went on. ”No beast came for me anymore. No monster dared cross my path. When they sensed my approach, they all rushed in the opposing direction, abandoning their territories just to avoid facing me. I had become the forest’s terror. So I got bored and left.”

Her eyes lifted.

”When I stepped out of those woods, I was already level forty.”

For a moment, no one breathed.

Then...

”Level forty?!” Ayame shot to her feet. Her disbelief was overwhelming. She was twenty years old, and she hadn’t reached level forty yet, despite Quinlan’s triple experience blessing!

Her outburst echoed in the wooden chamber, but Black Fang didn’t flinch. She merely tilted her head, letting her damp hair slide over her shoulder like a spill of ink.

”Those days were the best,” she said softly. ”Before the Heavenly Restriction became so suffocating.”

Quinlan blinked. ”Heavenly Restriction?” he started, but Ayame cut in before he could ask.

”As a child that young...” Ayame whispered, her voice trembling between awe and sorrow, ”You couldn’t possibly have done anything worthy of exile... So...” she hesitated, ”... was it your parents who committed a crime?”

The question hung in the air.

Black Fang did not answer at once.

Her violet eyes found Ayame’s. Those dangerous eyes were ancient and knowing. Then, slowly, she shifted.

Her by-now mesmerizingly glistening thighs crossed again, showing off smooth skin adorned by the serpentine tattoos that shimmered beneath the heat.

She leaned back against the bench, regal even in the suffocating warmth, and finally spoke.

”Yes. My mother committed a crime.”

Ayame’s throat tightened. ”A crime?”

”She was not of noble blood. Not even of the clan. She was a hired outsider there for a short-term job in the estate. But she made a mistake that could not be forgiven.”

Her next words fell like hammer blows.

”She fell in love with a high-ranking lord of the clan.”

Ayame froze with a grimace twisting her expression. ”A high-ranking lord...” she repeated, more so to herself. ”That... that would indeed be a crime. For an outsider to seduce a Fujimori noble, it’s forbidden by ancient decree.”

Her voice faltered. ”Can... can I know the name of the lord?”

Black Fang’s gaze lingered on her for a long, unbearable moment. The steam shifted between them like ghostly breath, soft and slow, until the woman finally parted her lips.

Her voice was calm, too calm.

”The man my mother fell for, the man who impregnated her and ruined her life...”

Her eyes gleamed like molten amethyst.

”... was Raijin Fujimori, Clan Leader of the Fujimori and Duke of Silverwind.”

The words struck Ayame like a blade to the heart.

She went still. Her breath caught. Her lips parted, but no sound left her throat.

Black Fang looked straight into Ayame’s eyes. Her swirling, manic eyes that have seen far too much travesty bore into Ayame’s graceful, crystal blue eyes.

A sly smile emerged on her face.

Then, Black Fang parted her lips.

”I suppose I should greet you, Sister.”

...

Author: The month of October is over. This is the last upload this month. In 24 hours, the new month will start (WN time). This was an amazing period for the novel. I am truly grateful for all the support.

With the end of this Chapter, we’ve reached the end of the volume as well.

Volume 10: Hunted, is over.

Next up...

Volume 11: The Hunt Begins