Chapter 391: Flora's Nightmare (Subscribe Please)

"Herbert..."

Flora murmured softly, and the image of that youth surfaced before her eyes.

That handsome youth with white hair and grey eyes.

That Warden who held the authority of the Tribunal.

That... "Master" who had made her a promise.

The relationship between Flora and Herbert was a very unique one.

Beyond the Warden and the heretical prisoner, the two of them also nominally shared a layer of master-and-servant relationship.

Master and servant.

Flora was to regard him as her master, obey his arrangements, and serve him reverently.

And Herbert was to grant her the salvation he had promised in the future — eternal peace, completely free from the erosion of chaos.

But as for her master's ability, she actually did not have much trust in it.

Herbert had never truly displayed the capital to fulfil his promises; those promises were actually more like exaggerated rhetoric meant to make her believe.

But what Flora herself found very strange was — faced with such talk, she nevertheless chose to believe.

For some unknown reason, she had a confidence in that youth whose reasons she herself could not articulate.

He, perhaps, would not deceive me?

He, perhaps, could truly fulfil his promise?

No, it wasn't entirely without reason either.

One part of the reason was the way Herbert looked at her.

There was none of the greed in the eyes of others, nor the desire after being enchanted by charm, nor the anger and disgust of a holy cleric.

At their very first meeting, those beautiful eyes held only a faint sense of awe and appreciation.

Beyond that, what remained in those clear eyes was only calm.

Herbert never felt she was a strange being who would make him lose his head, nor did he feel she was a heretical stain that needed to be purged.

Merely, a woman he had just met.

In a certain sense, this was a contempt for Flora's charm, a wordless provocation.

But Flora felt not the slightest displeasure at this; in her heart she was even somewhat delighted.

She had finally met such a person — a man who could completely ignore her enchanting charm and treat her with an ordinary mindset.

Flora had once told Lilith that she firmly believed such a person must exist in this world, yet she had never managed to meet one.

Hundreds of years had passed, and just as Flora herself was beginning to doubt, she had finally encountered such a being.

How could such a special being not cause Flora's attitude toward Herbert to be different?

"..."

Flora was also clear at this moment that the reason she had suddenly thought of Herbert was not because of the impression he had left on her at first.

Rather, it was because in the subsequent contact, he had left an even deeper impression on her.

That witty and humorous noble youth.

That Holy Knight who grew stronger with every meeting.

That Master who became increasingly charming to her.

The succubus, always adept at bewitching others, for some unknown reason, was gradually being bewitched by another.

"..."

Flora was silent for a long time, and in her heart asked no one in particular: "You... will you also appear in my nightmare?"

She knew she had once again lost to her suppressed instinct, and had fallen into endless chaos.

Flora knew this better than anyone.

The earlier conversation with Lilith was both a distant memory and a nightmare she was living through.

She once again experienced the full feelings of that parting with Lilith.

This was the nightmare that trapped her.

Succubi were demons that walked in dreams, masters at toying with others' dreams.

Dreams were their home turf, where they could hide at will; no one could easily catch them within the world of dreams.

But in this world, there was one rather surprising fact — succubi could not change their own dreams.

Succubi could act wantonly in others' dreams, but they were unable to interfere with their own dreams in any way.

The physician cannot heal himself; it is hard to ferry others while unable to ferry oneself.

Succubi had resistance to nightmares and rarely fell into them.

But once they began to dream, they would perform even worse than ordinary people, becoming completely immersed in the dream, only regaining themselves upon waking.

Just like the previous dream, Flora had clearly experienced it countless times, yet she simply could not wake, remaining immersed in the memories of the past.

No, it wasn't entirely memory either; this dream had some additional changes.

The past Flora, although she believed she would meet such a person, was far from as steadfast as she appeared in the dream.

Future experiences had in turn influenced past memories, creating a new distorted dream.

"Why am I thinking of him? Has his impression on me really been this deep?"

Flora fell silent, feeling that this nightmare might be different from all she had experienced in the past.

Countless times more dangerous than before!

There was a real possibility of becoming completely lost within the chaotic nightmare.

"Will I sink even deeper?"

"Or will it... mm."

As she thought, Flora felt sleepiness welling up, and her consciousness gradually faded.

She sank once more into a deeper dream.

……

……

For a demon to leave the Abyss and enter the mortal world was, in truth, not easy.

Demons were dangerous elements closely watched by the Orthodox Church, who would not lightly allow them to descend upon the human realm.

In any kingdom, the crime of "summoning a demon" was a grave sacrilege—one that would see the offender sent to the Ecclesiastical Tribunal to be burned as kindling.

After bidding farewell to Lilith, Flora endured countless hardships, finally casting off her shackles and stepping onto the road to the mortal world.

She had been chased by demons, and targeted by angels patrolling the edges of the Abyss, falling into desperate straits several times.

And after one difficult escape from the pursuing angels, Flora finally seized a rare chance, slipped past the sentries' gaze, and narrowly left the Abyss.

She had succeeded.

Flora had finally, as she wished, arrived at the mortal world she had long yearned for.

The mortal world she had imagined countless times in the Abyss, pieced together from the descriptions in old tomes.

No sickening miasma of the Abyss, no enemies lurking to threaten her life at every moment, no endless strife.

Only, the real mortal world was slightly different from what she had imagined.

Her first place of descent was a land filled with blood and fire.

Wherever her gaze reached, there was nothing but the tragic scenes of raging war.

Rolling thick smoke, like a black dragon, coiled and surged into the sky, veiling the azure heavens.

Scorched earth lay strewn with bloodstained weapons; broken blades in corpses' hands glinted with an unsettling sheen beneath the setting sun.

The crops in the fields had been trampled into utter ruin; the green that should have been bursting with life was now only withered, yellow, and decayed.

The roads were filled with fleeing crowds, ragged in clothes, filthy in body, their eyes brimming with terror and despair.

And behind them came laughing marauders, who playfully beheaded the slowest old folk, forcing the others to keep fleeing.

Farther still, tongues of fire licked at everything.

The slaughtered village was devoured by raging flames; wooden houses crackled and popped, then collapsed with a roar amid the wailing.

And amid the ruins of the shattered village, another group of eerie figures in black robes was conducting some cruel ritual.

Chanting from their lips, they set fire to the piled-up corpses.

Those corpses rapidly shriveled under the fire's roasting, emitting an unsettling green glow and exuding a terrifying aura of evil and depravity.

Flora smelled something familiar in the flames—a sacrificial ritual to summon Abyssal creatures.

The people's weeping, their pleas for help, the marauders' laughter, the Miss Xie Shen cultists' chanting—all wove together.

Heart-rending, eerie and terrifying, leaving one speechless to hear it.

Blood and fire.

Slaughter and death.

This was Flora's first impression of the mortal world.

It felt, somehow, just like being back in the Abyss.

The mortal world before her lacked the Abyss's harsh, vile natural environment, lacked the dangerous demons seen at every turn.

But the war fires seen everywhere and the endless strife made it no different from the Abyss.

Flora hesitated; her first reaction was to feel she was perhaps still in the Abyss, and had not truly come to the mortal world.

But in her heart she knew clearly… this was the mortal world.

"……"

Flora stood disappointed amid the smoke above the scorched earth; the setting sun stretched her shadow long, overlapping with the corpses strewn haphazardly on the ground.

She gazed at the village still burning in the distance, where the rising smoke seemed to transform into the rolling black mist of the Abyss—one of her fellow countrymen was about to be summoned down.

Flora knew it was time for her to leave.

If she stayed here any longer, she was bound to run straight into that fellow.

She had only just managed to slip into the mortal world; she had no wish to be associated with such a madman who would answer a blood sacrifice.

In the end, Flora sighed, drawing back the gaze of pity that had fallen upon the innocent people about to die horribly.

Her figure melted into the deeper fog, vanishing quietly like a wisp of thin mist scattered by the wind.

Flora left.

She did not know what had happened here, nor what grievances existed between them.

She was no envoy of justice, but a demon from the Abyss.

Though Flora was by nature disinclined toward slaughter, she did not possess such a strong sense of justice either.

The most pressing matter now was to ensure her own safety.

As for the lives and deaths of mortals, they were none of her concern.

Only, Flora did not yet understand that, much of the time, things would not unfold according to her will.

The river of fate is the freest of all.

No one can know in the end which direction it will flow.

Although Flora chose to actively avoid such things, fate did not intend to let her off so easily.

Half a month after Flora's departure, just as she had finished observing the mortal world and was about to prepare a complete makeover to blend into it… a group of people found her.

It was a well-equipped, perfectly coordinated squad of holy warriors.

They wore silver-white armor, wielded weapons gleaming with holy radiance, and pounced on her like a pack of wolves on the hunt.

"Fallen Abyssal demon! You shall pay the price for the tragedy you have wrought! In the name of the Sun God, we shall purify you!"

They spoke thus, solemnly pronouncing judgment upon crimes she had never committed.

No further explanation was needed—Flora understood at once why they had come: they had identified her as the demon summoned by those cultists' ritual.

As for whether the true demon had been killed after the summoning, or whether the summoning had never succeeded in the first place, Flora had no way of knowing.

She only knew that she had become that fellow's scapegoat, bearing a heavy burden of sin.

Flora's heart was full of grievance and anger, but she had not yet lost her reason.

Not wanting to come into conflict with these people, she had no choice but to flee—and then, as expected, was hunted down again.

And in order not to draw stronger pursuers, Flora kept her own strength suppressed at the high-tier level.

This led to her being surrounded again and again, escaping again and again, and then being chased once more.

Back and forth, over and over.

In the end, after being trapped for the fourth time, Flora could stand it no longer and struck back, revealing her true strength.

Those holy clerics, whose strength was at most high-tier, were no match for her, a legendary succubus, and were easily destroyed.

This was the worst possible outcome—she had not wanted to come into conflict with the Church of the Gods, nor to attract the attention of the gods from the very start.

What surprised Flora was that, after destroying these enemies, she—who had resolved to fight to the death—never once saw stronger pursuers arrive.

It was as if no one had noticed the death of those foolish fellows at all.

She did not know whether the gods did not care about their deaths, or whether the gods had simply never noticed.

Flora waited a full half month and no pursuers came; though baffled, she finally set her mind at ease.

After burying those foolish, annoying, but still somewhat respectable holy clerics, Flora departed.

Following this terrible opening, Flora finally officially began her wanderings in the mortal world.

She changed her appearance, donned a heavy cloak, and concealed her aura.

Over the next hundred years, Flora continued to travel in this mysterious guise.

She walked through bustling towns, and also through desolate villages.

She had seen the extravagance of nobles, and also the hardships of the poor.

During this wandering journey, she came into contact with all manner of mortals.

People hated one another, fought one another, plundered one another's lives.

The mortal world and the Abyss were no different.

But at the same time, there were still some differences between the mortal world and the Abyss.

Love.

She had seen parents humbling themselves to beg others for a single mouthful of food for their children, seen the shy and sincere affection between young men and women, and seen friends supporting one another.

And these things were simply unimaginable in the Abyss.

Although Flora had always claimed she wanted to obtain love, wanted to fall in love with someone, when she truly witnessed others' "love," she fell silent.

Flora did not understand love.

Faced with the goodwill extended toward her, she was even a little afraid, and chose to flee.

But while constantly fleeing, she was also developing a greater longing for this unfamiliar emotion.

"Perhaps, I could give it a try?"

Although she had such thoughts, she never put them into practice; every time it came to the crucial moment, she backed out.

Until one day, a variable appeared.

That day, Flora encountered a youth by a lake.

That handsome white-haired youth, bathing in the lake's waters, showed her astonishing goodwill.

"Hey hey hey! Beautiful lady, nice to meet you—would you like to be friends with me?"

"Who am I?"

"Oh! This big sister, you're this bold? Asking for a name right off the bat?"

"Hehe, you may call me—the Fairy Man of the Lake!"

"Of course, if you don't like that title, you can also call me…"

The youth meaningfully curled up the corner of his mouth, winked at her, and spoke his name.

"Herbert."

"Don't worry, it's fine if you can't remember it the first time—you'll definitely remember my name in the future."

(End of chapter)