Chapter 12

The Fire Demon hesitated at the sight of the distant sea.

When it wanted to abandon the chase, Yang Yi struck it hard across the face, reigniting its hatred.

When it tried to scream, Yang Yi sealed its mouth with telekinesis, letting the missiles explode across its body, leaving it riddled with wounds.

The Fire Demon grew angrier by the moment; it realized that the tiny ant flying above was the source of all its humiliation—rendering its strength useless, filling it with unbearable frustration.

It feared the sea, but rage drowned its reason; its step hesitated only an instant before it resumed chasing the hateful little insect in the sky.

Yang Yi wasn’t as focused as she appeared; as she lured it toward the trap, she drifted into aimless imaginings: Where did it come from? What race was it? Did its kind have cultural traditions? What was its world like…

She even felt a fleeting illusion that it, too, was unfortunate.

Think of it: it had simply followed a bizarre portal into a strange land, encountering a swarm of ant-like creatures. To a giant race like itself, endowed with great power, such small beings were beneath notice—just as humans never pay attention to ant nests beneath their feet.

Then it was attacked by this swarm of ants.

Perhaps it still wondered: Damn it, why do these ants possess such strength? Why are they attacking me?

At this thought, Yang Yi found it strange: Why am I empathizing with a monster?

She almost laughed. The strange fear in her heart eased slightly.

As the Fire Demon stepped onto the shore, the seawater surged alive, flowing over its body, climbing up, and freezing solid—this was the joint masterpiece of Xia Country and Akka Country’s awakened. Akka Country had deployed three B-rank and seven C-rank water-controlling awakened, even under urgent conditions.

Director Zhou was stunned by their awakening rate—technically, awakenings were random, and the larger the population, the more awakened individuals existed.

Though Akka Country was vast in resources and militarily powerful, its population had never been its strength. To mobilize so many water-controlling awakened at once under emergency conditions—did this mean they had surpassed most nations in awakened research? At least in how to trigger awakening in ordinary people?

Recalling the human experimentation footage played by Vid Davies at the United Nations Assembly—nearly all orchestrated from behind the scenes by Akka Country—Director Zhou felt a heavy weight in his chest.

————

Yang Yi’s heart was heavy now.

After luring the Fire Demon to the shore, she stopped. The rest was left to Akka Country—it was their domain.

She stood by, ready to assist at any moment.

Though the Fire Demon possessed some intelligence, its native environment was clearly high-temperature; it likely feared water and cold. If the spatial rift that brought it to Earth opened onto the deep ocean or the North or South Pole, perhaps it would have weakened and died on its own without human intervention.

“Cold… painful…”

Yang Yi seemed to hear a low, guttural cry—a voice with strange cadence and rhythm, carrying the scent of ancient wilderness.

She thought she’d misheard, yet the wailing echo persisted in her ears.

She shouldn’t have understood this language—but she understood it.

Her hand, hanging at her side, paused. She looked down: the Fire Demon struggled in the ice sea created by the awakened.

Its waist and below were frozen solid, trembling violently; its fiery, violent strength seemed frozen too, like a tree stump trapped in winter’s lake ice.

“By the great Asathred, I curse these damned insects!”

She understood a full sentence. Asathred? Why did that name sound familiar?

That familiarity brought back the fear she’d barely dispelled; her heartbeat surged. Where had she heard that name before? In a book? A hallucination? In some sudden midnight awakening?

No! No! No! She had never heard it!

Then why did it feel so familiar?

She asked herself again and again, denying it each time.

She loosened her shirt collar; her chest felt suffocating.

I’m just an ordinary person! she told herself: My life path has always been traceable—I was born in a small town in central Xia Country; I love eating Buddha-hand snails, I love seafood; I love the humid air and leisurely atmosphere of Haibei City; my old job was a low-paid accountant earning 4,000 yuan a month; my rented apartment was a one-bedroom with private bathroom and kitchen, rent 1,500 yuan a month; I have a secret hideout on the seaside cliffs of Haibei City; my dream is to be a rich, idle fish; I’m obsessed with an Akka male star—I love his eyes, blue as the sea; I’m now a proud civil servant living off the state’s salary…

This is me. My true self. Asathred? I’ve never heard of it!

She kept convincing herself, memories of her past unfolding—one by one: childhood, teenage years—yet it was the most painful memories that grounded her in reality, and this reality slowly calmed her from the inexplicable dread.

Her gaze narrowed slightly as she tilted her head toward the Fire Demon below.

For the first time, the Fire Demon felt fear toward these creatures no bigger than its fingers; it realized that if things continued this way, it might truly be killed.

It roared, raised its black greatsword, and ignited roaring flames—temperature rising from orange-red to yellow-white, then shifting to blue-purple—as it slashed downward at the ice imprisoning it.

The solid ice didn’t even last a second—it melted instantly, turning into billowing steam that engulfed the Fire Demon’s entire body.

The surrounding air temperature spiked violently; the two closest Akka B-rank awakened were instantly consumed by flames, screaming as they turned to charred corpses. Others retreated hastily, daring not to advance another step.

Seeing the power of that flame, Yang Yi felt danger for the first time and stepped back involuntarily.

The steam cleared, revealing the Fire Demon’s form—it had used some secret technique to unleash its potential. Its spirit was drained, its body covered in deep, bone-exposing wounds; its armor was pitted from missile strikes, one horn missing, its appearance horrific.

Yet no one dared underestimate it now. If it had once possessed the wit of a sentient being, now it resembled a mad beast.

Its eyes burned crimson, its expression savage, swinging its twin blades wildly in all directions.

Before the blade even reached, the flames came—blue-purple flames, the color only extreme heat could produce.

The flames carved a trench twenty to thirty meters deep into the beach; anyone touched by the fire turned instantly to ash and charcoal.

The awakened, who had seemed on the verge of victory, now lay dead or wounded in great numbers.

Vast amounts of seawater evaporated; miles around were shrouded in steam; the shallow shore was instantly fused into glass.

After a long while, distant seawater slowly crept back, covering the glassy ground.

The Fire Demon roared in rage, its voice shaking the waves, making coconuts fall from trees, countless leaves rustle down, everyone’s ears ring, their minds filled with a constant buzzing.

Driven by instinct, the Fire Demon charged toward the densest crowd, swinging its flaming greatsword—wherever it passed, the land turned to blackened soil and ash.

It had gone mad.

Yang Yi realized.

Its cries were now meaningless barks, devoid of that strange cadence. If it continued like this, the people of Jinshan City would suffer again.

“Request backup! Request backup! It’s heading toward Jinshan City!”

From a distant armed aircraft, someone shouted at her in halting Chinese.

Yang Yi knew they were speaking to her—they knew her earpiece had been damaged by the Fire Demon’s screams.

Remembering Director Zhou’s warnings before she left—“Know your limits,” “Don’t sacrifice yourself”—she could only smile bitterly: No matter when or where, ordinary people were always innocent…

Slowly, she opened her arms. An unspoken aura spread from her body, invisible power radiating outward from her as the center.

Wherever her power reached, the seawater ceased flowing;

Wherever her gaze fell, the wind ceased blowing;

Wherever her will extended, everything froze in stillness;

Within a radius of two to three kilometers centered on her, all seemed paused—the armed aircraft hung motionless in midair, people stared wide-eyed, expressions frozen.

The Fire Demon, still charging toward Jinshan City with its greatsword raised, sensed something—just as it turned its head, its body locked in place, and a soft voice reached its ears.

It didn’t understand the language, but it felt the sigh in the tone.

“Telekinesis coverage—Domain!”

The Fire Demon struggled, trying to break free from the invisible restraints—but with all its might, it could only twitch slightly, then a thicker, stickier force enveloped it completely.

The Fire Demon regained a sliver of sanity; its crimson eyes flowed like molten lava. It remembered the toxic swamps of its world—where, it was said, those who fell in struggled harder and sank faster, while those who didn’t struggle merely watched themselves slowly swallowed by mud, waiting in despair for death.

The Fire Demon was like an insect trapped in resin, thrashing desperately—but the outcome seemed already sealed.

It summoned all its strength to look up at the tiny ant above that held it captive, its greatsword flickering with unstable flame, preparing its final strike.

Yang Yi stood quietly, arms outstretched—maintaining the Domain drained immense mental energy; her face was pale.

She couldn’t fully control this power. Normally, her telekinesis moved as effortlessly as her own limbs. But using “Domain” felt forced—as if borrowing someone else’s strength.

Every time she used this power, she felt her consciousness peeled away, replaced by an alien will that turned her body into a machine driven by foreign intent.

She hated this feeling.

Watching the Fire Demon’s flaming greatsword slowly swing toward her, she pressed her lips tightly.

Then, within the Domain, the sticky telekinesis suddenly split into countless threads; molten blood splattered; countless pieces of the Fire Demon’s body scattered across the ground.

“Asathred heard my curse… you shall all face the end…” In a flash, Yang Yi heard its final words.