Chapter 497: Male Leader and Control

Luo De stroked the small back of the half-deer girl.

Her spine traced a clear line, her skin smooth as perfect silk, trembling faintly at the slightest pressure.

She really is like a timid little deer.

And indeed, she is.

"It's too late. I—I need to go. Bond must be hungry."

Xiao Ke glanced at the sun outside the window and felt a quiet pang of anxiety.

She always felt someone might burst into the forest guard cabin and see the scene on the bed.

"It's fine. Stay a little longer. I want to hold you."

Luo De pressed his hand against her spine, stopping her from leaving.

Her chest, thickened by winter fat, pressed against him—no touch could be more exquisite.

It's rather interesting.

It's normal for beastkin to gain weight in winter; food grows scarce, and that's an ancient survival instinct encoded in their blood—no flaw there.

But Xiao Ke's waist and arms had only slightly thickened, gaining just a thin layer of soft flesh, while her chest had grown a full dimension thicker, nearly matching Vivian's.

She had defected straight from the Small Thunder Temple.

"Then… then just a little longer. I can't resist you."

The half-deer girl immediately lay back against the man's chest, burying her face so he couldn't see her sweet smile.

Luo De turned his gaze back to the screen in 【Despair Mycelium】: 【70】 As expected. 【71】 The Pamelaia in the screen suddenly froze.

Pamelaia Nightfall's suicide attempt had just been blocked by a towering male dark elf suspected to be a 【Hero Candidate】.

She turned her head and burst into terrified sobs.

"General Aurelio… I can't… I'm sorry."

"What's going on, Pamelaia?"

"It's the voice—the voice in my head, General Aurelio… I can't move. Everyone is insulting me, tormenting me—my parents, my lovers—they only know how to verbally attack me. Everything before was just a fake performance. The moment I'm not perfect, they abandon me."

She screamed loudly.

Her bloodshot eyes stared desperately at the imposing General Aurelio before her.

Aurelio's face remained stern, and he gave no reply to Pamelaia's words.

He turned his head toward the half-deer behind him.

"Lucas."

"Reporting, General Aurelio. Investigation confirms Pamelaia's claims are false. Her parents and lovers have shown no signs of exclusion or aggression—all parties have verified this."

"But her words weren't lies. The lie-detection spell confirmed it."

"Yes, because Pamelaia sincerely believes she has endured this. After days of observation and psychic probing, we've determined her memories are severely distorted."

"For example, every past success is reconstructed as mere luck; important relationships are twisted into fake performances. Even in her diary, new annotations appear—self-contradictory notes designed to fabricate a 'true memory' of relentless oppression."

The half-deer named Lucas spoke with keen interest.

He brushed his half-gray beard, his fascination unmistakable.

"So what is this?"

Aurelio's face was cold, his gaze on Pamelaia's pupils filled with pity and nostalgia.

Clearly, this was a sentimental dark elf general.

Even though he wasn't among her lovers, he had still come to visit, harboring hidden feelings.

It wasn't hard to imagine.

In a society where dark elf males are universally suppressed, how many tears and sneers had he endured?

And this once-beautiful, passionate girl might have long ago held the place of a moonlit ideal—or an unattainable love.

"It's a form of spiritual corruption: turning all external positive emotions into poisoned thorns of self-denial, dragging the mind into endless despair. This corruption carries traces of spiritual energy, but I can't tell if it's deliberately inflicted… or a side effect of your 【Blood Pool】."

The half-deer Lucas said.

Aurelio fell silent for a moment, then said: "It cannot be the 【Blood Pool】."

"Heh… then I'll consider a human cause. Please provide me with all of Pamelaia's missions prior to her change."

"Someone will give them to you."

Saying this,

General Aurelio knelt down and gently stroked Pamelaia's hair.

Whether speaking to her or to himself:

"Don't worry. I'll save you—even if I pay everything."

Yet.

Under the effect of 【Despair Mind】, Pamelaia twisted all positive words into something sinister. It was hard to imagine how she'd interpret this.

She shrieked in terror, roughly swatting away Aurelio's hand, curling back into the corner.

Her sunken eyes stared at the man with pure dread.

Aurelio was deeply wounded.

He rose with a pained expression, swept his robe, and left with the half-deer, exiting the frame.

The scene refocused on Pamelaia Nightfall, curled up, drowning in despair and terror.

Luo De watched, expressionless.

After all, she was an enemy. He felt little pity for her.

But.

The fact that she was precisely the object of this male dark elf leader's affection—the 【Hero Candidate】—was unexpected.

"Perhaps I can make her reveal more… but how do I control her?"

Luo De studied several other skills in 【Despair Mycelium】.

Soon,

he found the method within 【Summon Demigod】.

The skill originally allowed the target to passively sacrifice something to summon Luo De.

But after minor adjustments and combining it with 【Chain of Far Speech】 permissions, he discovered a way to privately link a conversation line.

Then came the tentative call.

【Pamelaia Nightfall. Pamelaia Nightfall. Pamelaia Nightfall.】

As expected.

The Pamelaia in the scene suddenly froze.

Then she frantically scanned around, as if searching for the source of the voice.

"Who! Who is it?! Who's talking inside my head?!"

【Who I am doesn't matter. What matters is I can give you a moment's breath from despair.】

"What?"

The girl, still panicked, asked again as if she hadn't heard clearly.

Of course.

Luo De would never answer her.

A mysterious master—his defining traits were ignoring speech and speaking without reason.

【From now on, you will have ten minutes of respite.】

Saying this,

Luo De temporarily disabled the 【Despair Mind】 effect.

Of course, not fully.

He reduced it to about 30% of its original strength.

But he knew she had sensed it.

Pamelaia stiffened in place, her cloudy eyes slowly clearing.

First came euphoria.

The feeling of escaping an extreme mental torment—surviving the abyss.

Instantly, even the air felt smoother, cleaner.

But then came deep terror.

Perhaps an unknown entity could plunge her into madness at any moment.

Pamelaia instinctively wanted to resist.

Yet when she recalled her state over the past month, she found no will to fight.

That despair. That pain. That twisted consciousness.

She never wanted to taste it again.

So.

She began to cry and beg.

Kneeling on the ground, she bowed her head toward every possible direction the voice might come from.

Too bad.

Luo De was the type who never showed mercy to enemies.

Ten minutes passed.

He left behind a message: 【One day from now, at this time, wear your most expensive clothes—I will return again.】

【Despairing Soul】 was activated once more, mercilessly.

Pamelaia Nightveil sank again into boundless spiritual torment.

Luo De was deliberately creating a "relief window."

When he was on the verge of collapse from self-doubt, he would intervene again to ease the pressure, making the other clearly understand that he had the power—and only he could stop it all.

He would also leave behind a very simple task, one that involved no one else, with the reward being a longer "relief window."

The tasks must progress from easy to hard; when pain and redemption alternated, spiritual control became easy to achieve.

In the days that followed, Luo De would gradually allow Pamelaia Nightveil to learn the secrets of the Hell Passage and the 【Blood Birth Pool】.

Sigh.

It's a bit evil.

Luo De sighed.

Life is hard.

I, a model young man, a respectable person, have now started doing such flashy, evil things.

"What's wrong?"

Xiao Ke, curled in his arms, heard the sigh, lifted her gaze, and asked with clear concern.

"Nothing. I just never thought I'd become a villain one day."

In the past, or when outside, Xiao Ke would have agreed and teased him with insults like "evil pervert dog."

But she had just finished an intense bout of intimacy; her heart swelled with maternal tenderness, overflowing to her core.

Seeing Luo De like this, she felt nothing but unbearable pity.

Her round, adorable eyes filled with mist; she shifted closer and gently pulled his head deep into her embrace.

"You're not evil at all, Luo De—you're the bravest child I've ever seen. I've seen it all: you train hard every day, patrol the forest without fail even when busy, and every time danger strikes, you're always the first to rush to the front."

As she spoke,

she began to cry, tears streaming down onto Luo De's face.

"Ah."

Luo De was momentarily stunned by her sudden emotion; he tried to pull away, but this time she held him with unusual force.

"Don't move. Let Mom hold you a little longer."

"."

This slightly taboo scene did not last long.

A distant, approaching shout and footsteps gradually reached the forest guard hut.

It was the voice of Little Horsemaid Bond.

Amidst her clattering footsteps, she was calling out Xiao Ke's name loudly.

Judging by the complexity of those footsteps, she must have been playing again with that bunch of gray squirrels.

"Bond?!"

Xiao Ke snapped abruptly out of her maternal state.

Her face flushed crimson; she shoved Luo De's head away and frantically searched the messy floor for her clothes.

Without even wiping away the lingering traces of intimacy dripping from her deer tail, she hastily pulled on her garments and leapt out the opposite window.

Before leaving, she shot Luo De one last furious glare.

(End of Chapter)