Eternal Saṃsāra: The Wanderer of Worlds

[225] Will You Kill Me?

Chapter 225: Will You Kill Me?

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The wind howled around them, carrying with it the scent of blood and despair from the battle below. Yet, at this moment, the chaos of the world seemed distant, almost irrelevant. His focus was entirely on her, the woman who had once been his wife, the one who had killed him in cold blood.

The Venerable One stood motionless in the sky, his dark eyes fixed on her. Lilithra, the demoness, the one who had started it all—the catalyst for his many lives of torment. 

So it has come to this, his thoughts murmured, as he considered the cruel irony of fate. The mistress behind the domino. The one who, with a single act of betrayal, set him on a path of madness and destruction. If not for her…

He allowed the memories to wash over him, one by one, each life linked to the last by the chain of events she had set in motion. His second life, as the Hero of the Empire, had been one of hope and purpose. He had fought for justice, for the betterment of the world, and for the love he had believed was true. But her dagger had shattered that illusion, plunging him into a darkness he had never known.

If not for her betrayal, he wouldn't have gone mad as Genghis Khan in his third life. The rage and bitterness that had festered within him after his death as a hero had manifested in a reign of terror. He had embraced his fury, leading armies across the world, leaving devastation in his wake, sacrificing millions with demonic arts.

If not for that madness, he mused, I wouldn't have sought redemption in my fourth life, as the Wandering Beggar. I wouldn't have embraced the false righteousness that led me to live that embarrassing hermit life.

The memory of Sangha's tear-streaked face, her expression twisted in pain and betrayal, flashed through his mind. He had tried to save her, to redeem himself through her. But his righteous path had only brought more suffering, more pain.

His fifth life, as the vampire, had been one of self-loathing. He had sought to erase his past mistakes by rejecting his very nature, denying the darkness that lingered within him. And that led to betrayal—this time, he betrayed someone else; his own mother. 

His sixth life had been different.

A time of peace, where the echoes of his past had finally begun to fade. It was in that life that he started to break free from the cycle, to find a measure of peace. It was because of the dying words of Emmanuel Draconia Celestine in his last life, at the very last loop, as she held his chin and told him to move on. That was the last loop, the last time he saw her. That’s why his sixth life had gone well.

His seventh life, too, had gone well. For a time, he had believed that the curse of the domino effect had finally lifted.

But then his Empress died. His eighth life began in rage and repression, that life had brought it all crashing down again. Drowning in melancholy, he recalled the peaceful times of his lives. He recalled his demon wife.

Depressed and filled with despair, he had burned a world to ash, seeking solace in the destruction. The dancing red fire showed him the image of his red-skinned lover. In his dreams, he had relieved his best memories, clinging to them as a drowning man clings to a piece of driftwood.

And then, his ninth life had begun. This time, there had been no pretense of redemption. He had embraced his darkness, becoming the Heavenly Demon, and then the Venerable One. He had committed atrocities not out of despair, but just for the fun of it. He did not have the excuse of his eight life’s depression here. He had no excuses this time, no justifications. 

However, he didn’t stop. He was what the world feared—a force of chaos, a being who thrived on destruction. A cosmic devil.

And now, here we are, he thought, his gaze hardening as he looked at Lilithra. The woman who started it all. What a day.

The world hummed, but the Venerable One’s focus remained solely on the woman before him. Her presence stirred something deep within him, a mix of rage and longing.

“Husband, you’re staring a lot,” she said, breaking his silence as he chuckled softly. But as he opened his mouth to speak, a movement below caught his attention. 

Duchess Elara had seen enough. Her face contorted in fury, her emotions boiling over with such intensity that the very air around her seemed to tremble. As she kicked off the ground and shot towards the sky, her rage manifested into a tangible force.

A shimmering hexagon symbol formed overhead.

The [Blade Icon] manifested, its sharp edges gleaming with deadly intent. The spear in her hand pulsed with the energy of her wrath, its tip aimed directly at Lilithra.

Her eyes, blazing with uncontrolled hatred, locked onto the demoness. A growl rose in her throat, deep and primal, as she prepared to strike with all the force of her fury.

“You demon whore, you dare show yourself in front of me?!” Elara’s voice rang out, filled with venom as she swung her spear with all the force she could muster. It was a move that could cut down mountains and beyond; an ultimate technique.

Lilithra, however, did not flinch. She cast a glance at the Venerable One, a smile playing on her lips as if amused by the display of power. With a casual snap of her fingers, a dome of energy blossomed around them. It was a barrier so impenetrable that even the might of Elara’s [Blade Icon] failed to leave a scratch. Instead, the impact force sent Elara reeling back, leaving her outside the barrier.

The light within the dome dimmed, and everything went dark, leaving only the echoes of Elara's shout hanging in the air. The music still played though.

The Venerable One didn’t blink even as the world around him shifted. The battlefield, the sky, and even the tension melted away. He felt soil under his feet. When the light returned, he found himself standing on the warm sands of a tropical island. The ocean waves lapped gently at the shore, and the sun hung low in the sky, casting a golden hue over the landscape.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” A voice called, and he turned behind. Lilithra stood before a hut, adorning a white sundress, her golden eyes gleaming as she met his gaze. The world had changed, but the tension between them returned.

The Venerable One stared at her with a small, unmoving smile. "What game are you playing, Lilithra?" he asked, as she put a hand on her hip. The scene before him shimmered with a sense of unreality, the weight of a thousand lifetimes pressing down on him.

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The tropical island was eerily quiet, the only sound the gentle lapping of waves against the shore. The Venerable One stood with his back to the sea, his dark eyes fixed on the demoness before him. Lilithra. The woman who had once been his wife, now a haunting echo of his past. The air between them crackled with tension, a volatile mix of unspoken words and unresolved emotions.

As the moments stretched on, a soft chuckle escaped his lips, growing in intensity until it erupted into full, malevolent laughter. He covered his face with one hand, his shoulders shaking with the force of it. The sound was chilling, resonating with a darkness that seemed to seep into the very air around them. It was a laughter devoid of warmth, echoing with the cruelty of a man who had seen too much and lost even more.

Finally, he lowered his hand, his eyes gleaming with a dangerous light as he looked at her. “What makes you think that I wouldn’t kill you, my dear?” he asked, his voice a smooth blend of menace and mockery. 

His words hung in the air, a challenge wrapped in a question. The Venerable One hadn’t hesitated to cut off his disciple’s arm, despite how much the base form loved her. In comparison, the Demon Wife was a criminal in his heart.

Lilithra met his gaze with an eerie calm, though her heart pounded in her chest. She wasn’t weak, but she knew she could die here. 

The man before her was not the same as the one she had known all those lifetimes ago. He had been twisted, corrupted by the passage of time and the weight of countless sins. Yet, beneath it all, she could still see the flicker of the man he once was, the hero she had betrayed.

She took a slow breath, choosing her words carefully. “In your usual state, I’m confident you wouldn’t kill me,” she began, her voice steady despite the tension crackling in the air. “After all, it was you who let me go three hundred years ago, wasn’t it? Even when the dagger stuck on your chest, you advised me to flee… You wouldn’t want me dead. But I’m well aware of your darker side. This side of you right now might indeed wish me dead. Reminds me of my father, the evil in your eyes.”

“Smart girl,” The Venerable One’s smile widened, a predatory gleam in his eyes as he watched her with keen interest. His amusement was sickening as if he were enjoying some private joke at her expense.

Undeterred, Lilithra continued, “But I’m sure you’re curious. Curious about where I’ve been so far, curious about why I’ve acted up these three hundred years, sacrificing people, and even throwing our children to the fire. Well, I've done all of that for this...”

As she spoke, a subtle shimmer began to ripple across her form.  A transformation. It was almost imperceptible at first, a mere flicker at the edges of her being. But then it intensified, her demonic features shifting and blurring as her form began to change. Her skin tone and hair color changed.

The Venerable One’s eyes narrowed, his amusement vanishing to suspicion as he watched the transformation. His hand instinctively moved toward the hilt of his blade, a dark energy crackling at his fingertips.

When the transformation was complete, the demoness stood before him anew, her new eyes gleaming with a mix of familiarity and playfulness. Her lips curled into a soft, teasing smile, the same smile that had once graced her face in their shared past. The sight of her was both unsettling and intriguing.

The Venerable One’s frown deepened, his eyes boring into her with confusion. “Hmm, I see you took over someone else’s body. No wonder I was sensing an odd sense of unfamiliarity yet familiarity in you,” he said, suspicion turning into boredom. “Surprising, though.”

She giggled softly, a light, melodic sound that seemed to dance in the air between them. It was a sound that should have been innocent, but in the current context, it was anything but. Her eyes sparkled with a mischievous light as she met his gaze, her expression filled with an almost childlike amusement.

“Perhaps I have,” she said, her voice laced with a teasing edge, refusing to give him a direct answer. “Or perhaps it’s more complicated than that. You’ve always loved a good mystery, haven’t you, my dear? Why not figure it out yourself.”

The Venerable One laughed back in response. He chuckled… and then appeared before her, hand clutching around her neck and raising her to the air. “Don’t play with me, demon.”

The Venerable One’s grip tightened around her throat, his fingers digging into her soft skin. His dark eyes were intense, burning with a mixture of fury and amusement as he glared at her. The weight of countless lifetimes bore down on him, all centered on this one moment, this one woman.

"I’ll ask again, demon. What makes you think I wouldn’t kill you?" he hissed, his voice low and dangerous.

Lilithra didn’t resist, her lips curling into a gentle smile despite the pressure on her throat. Despite the smile however, immense pain clouded her eyes as she heard him curse her. A demon. The way he said that word made her heart spasm in pain.

Her golden eyes, once filled with malice, cunning, and bratty mischievousness, now shimmered with a strange mixture of love and sorrow. She looked up at him, her expression soft, almost tender.

“You might,” she replied softly, her voice calm despite the situation. “In your current state, you might indeed.”

The Venerable One’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t interrupt, sensing she had more to say. She saw the flicker of curiosity behind the rage, and she seized it.

“About twenty years ago,” Lilithra began, her tone steady as she spoke, “I performed a ritual. A powerful one. I sacrificed an entire empire, all in my desperate attempt to find you, my love. It was supposed to lead the others to you too, in the face of serious danger. I assume the Goddess found you like that. For me, it wasn't that simple. Instead of simply finding you, I... reincarnated in another world.”

Her words hung in the air, and for a moment, even the howling wind seemed to pause. 

The Venerable One’s grip slackened just slightly, his eyes searching hers for any sign of deceit. But all he found was sincerity. She wasn't lying. And he didn't have any reason to doubt her. He had met two other wives that met the same date.

“I didn’t understand it at first,” Lilithra continued, her voice almost wistful. “But soon, I figured you were in this world, that's why I was reborn there. At least I hoped. I never got to confirm it, because shortly after my birth… I was sealed for nearly two decades. I met strange creatures. Human-looking, and yet smelling like demons. Devils.”

His eyes flickered with recognition, but he remained silent, allowing her to continue. His grip, though still firm, was no longer suffocating.

“One of them, a devil with green hair and a mind sharper than any blade, saw through me,” Lilithra said, her eyes distant as if recalling a long-forgotten memory. “He realized that I wasn’t just a newborn. He knew I carried wisdom far beyond my years. They realized who I was, or rather, what I was. Because my energy was similar to a monster they had sealed before.”

She paused, looking down at him with a faint smile from where he held her in the air. “You would know better than me that many worlds are similar to one another. The Goddess Galaxara, for example, is akin to the biblical God, with her angels and divine powers. Likewise, Pangeal’s 12 Demon Kings that Jasmine once defeated, the Malebranche, they—”

“—they exist in this new world as well,” the Venerable One finished for her, his voice a low murmur. He knew where this was going, and it was not a place he liked.

Lilithra nodded. “Yes. As you know, in this world, Malebranche’s leader, Malacoda, was my grandfather. My father became a Demon King because he carried that bloodline. These Devils... they found traces of Malacoda within me. So they theorized that the demon Malacoda had possessed the body of this young girl that was me. After that, they took me to a secret chamber.”

The Venerable One’s grip tightened slightly again, not out of anger, but out of the growing tension he felt as she spoke. “In that chamber, 12 statues existed. They were all members of Malebranche,” Lilithra whispered, her voice barely audible now, “there, they sealed a large portion of my soul into the statue of Malacoda, thinking I had escaped from it to begin with. I was left there, my soul fighting the real Malacoda inside, battling to not get consumed by that creature. In the meantime, the little girl I was reborn as, still carried a small piece of my soul. Otherwise her body wouldn't function. Of course, she had no memories…”

“But…”

She smiled, “But when you, my love, offered me a KitKat those fifteen years ago, how could I not fall in love with you all over again?”

“....”

The Venerable One frowned, his gaze darkening as he recalled the moment. Her red hair slapped in the wind, brushing against his face. “Rias…” he whispered low, almost to himself. “Then how did you regain your memories?”

Lilithra, in Rias Gremory’s appearance, smiled up at him, blue eyes twinkling with a mix of mischief and fondness. “Recently, after I fell ‘sick’ and they said nobody could meet me. Do you remember? I went to where the Malebranche was kept. However, it was not coincidental. This vessel body walked into the room, being led by my voice from the statue. By then I had overpowered the real Malacoda in the statue, and absorbed his soul. Now I wanted my body back. And I managed to succeed. Although then, the green haired devil, Ajuka Beezlebub, tried to seal me again.”

The Venerable One remembered when Akeno called him to let him know about Rias’ sickness. He had visited her after the warning period ended, and found nothing amiss. But now...

“I did meet you later,” he said, his voice laced with suspicion. “I didn’t sense anything odd. If you were indeed you from the get go, then why didn't I sense anything? Like signs of possession.”

“That’s because they had indeed resealed me,” Lilithra explained, her tone gentle, almost soothing. “But this time, they sealed me within her body, not the statue. I already destroyed the statue, my love. They had no other choice. They tried to keep me trapped, but what they didn't know was that, it wasn’t someone else’s body I was taking over, it was my own body that I had reincarnated into and separated. I was born in this body. They couldn't seal me in my own hody. Instead, I only pretended it did, putting my ego to sleep until the time was right to not alert them.”

“Aha,” his mind raced as he realized the situation. He met her when her ego was asleep. In that case, it also made sense how she came here.

“I woke up when you left that day,” Lilithra continued, her voice steady as she looked into his eyes. “Then, the day you left for Pangeal, I followed you.”

The red figure that Rossweisse and Brigid had seen in the sky was her. Later, when Aqua activated the teleportation spell and a red energy washed over the room, he saw a red figure. He mistook it for a trick of the light, but it had all been her.

She had been watching him all along, waiting for the right moment to reveal herself.

The Venerable One’s eyes rested on hers. 

Lilithra met his gaze, her expression softening as she reached up to place a hand on his cheek. “And now I’m here, my dear,” she whispered, her voice filled with emotion. “Would you really kill your ‘devil princess’?”

He opened his mouth, his voice a low, menacing whisper that cut through the air like a blade. “Is that really your answer to my question?” A smile, cold and devoid of warmth, spread across his face as his Qi flared, igniting the atmosphere with a surge of raw, destructive energy.

The sea behind him hissed violently as it began to evaporate, steam rising in thick, curling tendrils that obscured the horizon. The once vibrant trees in front of him withered and disintegrated into ash, their life force stolen by the malevolent power radiating from his being. The very fabric of reality twisted and bent, the world itself warping under the weight of his anger as if recoiling from the darkness that had taken hold of him.

The lush, tropical paradise they had been standing in just moments ago now crumbled to dust, the life that once thrived here dissolving into grains of sand. 

It was a haunting echo of the devastation that would have befallen Pangeal, had he not intervened. Those world pearls—tools of unimaginable destruction—would pale in comparison to his own ruthless methods from a time long past, after all.

His eyes began to glow with a fiery crimson light, casting a sinister red hue across the horizon as the land around them turned barren and lifeless. His grip on Lilith’s throat tightened, his fingers digging into her flesh with a vice-like hold that promised no mercy.

“You really thought telling me this sob story would work?” he snarled, his voice laced with venom. The ground beneath them cracked and split open, the force of his rage manifesting in the very earth itself. “You’ll wish I had killed you by the time I’m done with you.”

The world around them seemed to darken as if the sun itself had been blotted out by the intensity of his fury. His Qi, now a swirling maelstrom of red and black, consumed everything in its path, leaving only desolation in its wake.

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