Blood Warlock: Succubus Partner in the Apocalypse

Through his clear eyes, memories of his life flashed by as he looked at the young man in front of him calmly.

Seventy years ago, the world was not as kind as it is today. He was not as lucky as Naomi or Matthew and the others.

Only Israfel himself knew the mental, physical, and spiritual tortures he lived through for more than 30 years.

There was only one thing, one entity that kept him sane and encouraged him to get up to live the new day.

No one believed him when he said that God appeared in his dreams, not even the highest members of the Holy Church. But he was not lying.

It was not easy to change the thoughts of someone who had already lived 80-90% of his life. Even if from an evolutionary point of view Israfel could be considered a young man just starting out, from his mental point of view he was an old man who with luck could have lived another 10 years before passing into history.

The clash between Bai Zemin and Israfel lasted only a brief moment.

It was all so, so fast that none of the powerful figures on the ground could see what happened with clarity.

Both Bai Zemin and Israfel launched forward with the intention of ending each other's lives as they sensed numerous powerful auras approaching from all directions.

Bai Zemin thought he heard the voice of Saint of the Absolute Felix, but he focused entirely on his spear and his enemy's spear.

'One attack. One chance.'

He could not afford to fail because failure this time would result in his death.

Bai Zemin could smell it; the mortal danger that the Godslayer Spear in Israfel's hands represented to his life at this moment.

If it were before, Bai Zemin would have preferred to engage in a longer battle to deal with the Supreme Pontiff. After all, Israfel was capable of unleashing a much higher amount of killing power thanks to his weapon that was two Ranks higher even than the great sword that Bai Zemin had built together with Kali.

But now he had what it took to suppress it all.

* * *

Several days ago.

After stealing the main records of the Mana Eater Tree, thus ending the creature's life.

After the one-hit clash against Saint of the Absolute Felix that ended in Bai Zemin's practically absolute victory thanks to his opponent relying mainly on Agility.

This was an event that occurred as Wu Yijun linked with the fragment of the World Tree Heart and her consciousness became completely disconnected from the world around her.

Shangguan Bing Xue looked at Bai Zemin who kept staring at the small tablet in his hands. Her blue eyes sparkled with a strange light as she said in a joking tone, "Could it be that that's the legendary Earth Core or something?"

"No... No." Bai Zemin shook his head before sighing, "This is... This is the Legend grade treasure I stole from the Mana Eater Tree."

"Oh, I see." Shangguan Bing Xue nodded calmly. After a moment of consideration, she said with a faint smile, "Well, just like the 9-Headed Immortal Dragon, that giant tree used to be one of the most powerful Kings on Earth, a level 400 giant colossus at the peak of the Fourth Order and just one step short of breaking the limits between Lower Existences and Higher Existences."

For the Mana Eater Tree to have at least a Legend-grade treasure, Shangguan Bing Xue did not find it strange at all.

However, Bai Zemin found a problem with all this.

"Bing Xue, don't you think it's weird?"

"Em? What do you mean?" Shangguan Bing Xue asked, finally noticing the conflicted look of the man a few years younger than her.

"I mean, think about it carefully..." Bai Zemin frowned and slowly said, "Why did the 9-Headed Immortal Dragon and the Mana Eater Tree have only one treasure with them? Treasures formed from Soul Power can't be destroyed by the passage of time, can they? But, the strangest thing of all is that the two treasures seem to have been put there by someone so that I would receive them after killing those two in battle."

Shangguan Bing Xue wanted to chuckle and ask him if he didn't think that was a bit too much, but when she saw the serious expression on his face Shangguan Bing Xue couldn't help but frown.

After a moment of silence, Shangguan Bing Xue asked hesitantly, "You... You mean that this might be related to your... With the possibility of you being the reincarnation of the man who brought down the Forgotten King and fragmented the Atlantis Empire?"

Shangguan Bing Xue did not know where the golden shape-shifting weapon called Annihilation of the Falling Sky came from. She also did not know about the legendary Heavenly Wolf, and thus did not know that the man painted on the walls of the East Sea Royal Palace was such a figure.

"Bing Xue, if it were you, would you plan your reincarnation from the very moment you started to get stronger?"

"That doesn't make sense." Shangguan Bing Xue shook her head. "Even if such a thing as reincarnation is possible, why would a soul evolver at the peak of power do such a thing?"

Bai Zemin nodded, "That's what I can't understand either."

Before today, he thought that in case he was the reincarnation of Sirius, the death of his past life probably came unexpectedly at the hands of some powerful enemy and his past self used some kind of skill or artifact to push his soul into reincarnation.

However, the Legend Grade treasure he obtained from the 9-Headed Immortal Dragon and the Legend Grade treasure he held in his hands after taking down the Mana Eater Tree made Bai Zemin realize that everything was countless times more complicated than he initially believed.

"The Wise Emperor's Necklace was in the heart of the 9-Headed Immortal Dragon. Its power allows me to learn, understand, analyze, and master everything in the universe two to three times faster. From universal laws to combat styles and weapon mastery, everything is speeded up. Isn't it strange? It's as if someone from the past knew that I was going to fight the 9-Headed Immortal Dragon, and that someone wanted to speed up my growth to reach an unknown stage of power quickly."

The more he spoke, the more Bai Zemin became convinced that there was a great veil covering his existence.

The more she listened, the more Shangguan Bing Xue realized that the young man she had inadvertently fallen in love with, this person who came from an ordinary middle-class family, might actually have the most mysterious and powerful background of all.

"And if..." She hesitated and looked at him cautiously before saying softly, "What if it's not that someone knew about your battle with the 9-Headed Immortal Dragon but that you are walking down the path that someone left for you?"

Bai Zemin's expression did not change when he heard Shangguan Bing Xue's words, and after a long time, he sighed as he nodded, "I thought about it too but refused to believe... The feeling of being a puppet doesn't feel good, even if the one pulling the strings is the self from my previous life."

All his decisions, all his lived experiences... It was all based on the plan that someone else who was not entirely himself constructed? Bai Zemin did not want and was not willing to accept such a thing.

Wouldn't this mean that his life was nothing but a total charade?

Wouldn't this mean that his 21 years of life, almost 22, were controlled by someone else's plans?

However, Bai Zemin had no choice but to hesitate as he looked at the treasure in his hands.

After many minutes, he passed the Legend grade treasure to Shangguan Bing Xue.

"You take a look through the records of that thing." He sighed again.

Shangguan Bing Xue received the treasure carefully and examined it first.

This was a kind of gold-colored square plate with thin silver lines that strangely joined together to shape an extremely mysterious magic circle. In the center of the magic circle were two small holes so black that even the surrounding light was being eaten away.

Even without looking into the treasure records, Shangguan Bing Xue could feel her heart pounding. Her pink lips barely moved as she whispered to herself, "What a mysterious aura..."

[Mysterious Fusion Roulette (Legend Grade Treasure): Minor version of the true Fusion Roulette that got lost countless years ago. Its power is so immense that it could easily be compared to that of a Demigod-grade treasure were it not for its lack of spirit and consciousness].

[Effect: By activating the Mysterious Fusion Roulette you can choose two different skills to merge into one, but the resulting product has a 30% chance of being inferior to either of the two skills used during the merge].

[Restriction: The skills chosen must be of the same nature and feature but cannot be exactly the same. Can only be used once, after that the Mysterious Fusion Roulette will lose all its power, self-destructing].

Shangguan Bing Xue stared at the square tablet in her hands for a long time.

Her usually cold and indifferent face changed several times as hundreds of thoughts ran through her head before she looked at Bai Zemin with worried eyes.

The treasure was very, very powerful... But what Shangguan Bing Xue cared more about was its meaning, one that to Bai Zemin meant a lot.

* * * * * * *