17 Horrifying Nightmare

Darkscale was enjoying himself, finally showing who was the boss to one of those ugly naked monkeys. He did not feel any remorse or sadness for what he was doing: those were humans! The cruelest creatures that he had ever encountered in his life, even their young generations were capable of untold horrors!

Winter Leaf was in tatters: her hair disheveled, her face contorted in a mask of pain, grasping at the burning flame that she felt consuming her from the inside of her chest.

"Master, you should really stop now… we still need her alive after all" interjected the clam and gentle voice of Carelia.

"Why? I think killing her to replenish the pond would be a better choice." resounded the cold sharp voice of the serpent, boosted by under him. He tapped on the black symbols with his tail, fine-tuning the volume of the array.

The Huntress shivered: he was talking about killing her? However, why did it seem like he was toying with her? Her mouth opened, and for a second she even considered begging for her life. What was honor in face of the opportunity even if infinitesimal to continue living?

Yet, the next world of the snake-shaped devil made her completely change her mind.

"Humans deserve only death and suffering. This King doesn't see any use for them" he continued with a more grandiose tone, emulating the colloquialisms of the Dream's King.

A flash of understanding passed throughout her dark and tired eyes. He wasn't simply torturing her for no reason at all. He wanted to know what she could do for him.

This wasn't her first time dealing with people who held an incredible power over her, she was born in the Leaf Family after all. As a daughter of the second line, she had been always under the control of those of the main family branch.

If she hasn't demonstrated her valor and acquired the status of hunter trainee, she most surely would have been already sold out as a concubine or even servant to one of the men of the main branch.

This devil was doing the same thing that the main branch of her Leaf family did when they wanted to force her hand. He was using violence and threats to break her will.

She didn't want to let him win, but this wasn't her tribe. She couldn't use her status of quasi-hunter to protect herself. Now she had to capitulate and try to survive another day.

"I ca..lp" murmured the woman, forcing roughly her voice out of her mouth with untold effort.

However, she was in a very bad shape. Her voice came out broken, barely understandable. No common person would be able to understand her worlds

Thankfully for her, both Carelia and Darkscale weren't persons.

"Uh? Calp? What's a calp? Is that something useful, Carelia?" wondered internally Darkscale, asking clarification to the artificial intelligence.

"Master, I think she just said that she can help" corrected the MAID.

"Oh"

"Mmm"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, that's exactly what she said.."

"If she can't even talk like normal humans how she's supposed to help me…"

"Master, you might have exaggerated with the pain induction…"

"Are you saying that I broke the human?"

"No, probably it will be fine after some day of rest"

"Oh.."

The huntress couldn't hear their internal conversation, and thusly believed that they didn't hear her. Terrified by the idea that the devil could start thinking that she was useless and decide to kill her, she summoned again her energy.

"I can help you!" suddenly lamented the shivering Winter Leaf. This time her words were quite understandable, even if transmitting them consumed all her remaining forces. Immediately after screaming, she blacked out, her body and mind too tired to stay awake.

"Let's wait until she recovers and see what use she can have…" considered the serpent, giving a look at the ragged human without hiding the disgust he felt looking at the damnable biped.

"Quite the resistance for a common mortal" Considered Carelia.

Darkscale snorted, abandoning the Secret Word Rune and moving towards a huge pile of books randomly scattered around a corner of his Blue Cave.

"Master although your rune skill is enough to form a first-grade cultivation base, I suggest you train at least the basic of Will Manipulation, as described in the Cultivation Way."

"Nah, I'm good" immediately answered the snake, tapping gently with his tail on the rune that was drawn under the books.

It was a simple energy probe rune. The use? Reading! Darkscale was pleasantly surprised by Carelia when she finally reappeared: she explained to him that energy probe was one of the most basic and important ways to use energy at all stages of cultivation.

They could be used not only to read encrypted information, like those of the two techniques that were sitting in the virtual library, but also any other kind of book! Plus, it was incredibly more easy to scan information with an energy probe instead of manually reading it.

"Master, please reconsider!" insisted Carelia, while, after a silver flash from the energy probe rune, one of the books started to vibrated lightly. It was a huge volume titled "The True Meaning of Legends and Myths in Mountainous Civilizations", and after a few seconds passed vibrating, its pages started moving continuously as if they were browsed by an invisible hand.

"Nope" distractedly responded the snake.

Seeing that simply begging wasn't getting her anywhere near what she wanted, the artificial intelligence changed completely plan of attack: "Master, just imagine how cool would it be to activate your runes without touching them!"

"Uh…" a flash of interest appeared in the serpent violet eyes. Indeed, this was something that he already thought about.

Seeing that she hit the right spot, the MAID continued the offensive: "Yes, I'm not saying that you will need to learn Will Manipulation in its entirety… just the basic energy probe"

"It's boring as hell…" lamented Darkscale, remembering how much annoying was trying to feel things without having any concrete feeling of advancement.

He could spend hours playing around with runes and reading, but only because they gave him concrete results, he could feel that he was doing something.

Contemplation and enlightenment were completely the opposite, even the Cultivation Way Pamphlet admitted that cultivation was sometimes only a question of persistence and luck.

"Master, it will be incredibly easier this time… you will just have to simulate the feeling that you have when using a probe rune!" suggest the artificial intelligence.

"Uh? Well… yeah, if you put it that way it seems easy… I'll try… not now, but I'll try…come on Carelia, the King's song."

After a moment of silence, the MAID started performing the same ballade that Darkscale usually had her sing to him when he was reading.

The serpent coiled himself into a pleasurable position, then continued reading without caring about the body of the human still slumped over next to the portal.

He wasn't that concerned for the simple fact that he felt the seal on her body thanks to the probe rune. It was like if he had a knife pointed at her heart at any given moment, making the human completely harmless.

Hours passed, and the snake finally finished scanning the last page of the large book. The violet eyes of the reptile were vacant, because his mind was still engrossed in the hundreds of stories that he had just read about.

"So made up stories can also be pieces of clues…" murmured the snake, deep in thought.

He wanted to take some moment to consolidate the information received, but in that same moment, the human started moving again.

The woman's eyes snapped open, her confused mind trying to remember where she was. She tried to move her body only to yell out in pain. Then, the memories of the last thing that happened to her started to reemerge, making her pale considerably.

Her black eyes darted around the cave, hovering for a second on the white pool and then pointing themselves on a small corner full of scattered books.

There, she saw him again. The snake-shaped devil.

Her eyes fixed themselves on those two eerie violet flames that burned on the creature's head. She felt the killing intent and the hate seething inside them.

Suddenly, the devil sneakered in a very human-like fashion, and the huntress felt a poignant pain propagating all over her body from her lower chest.

It was the same feeling that almost killed her before. It was almost as if an invisible burning torrent that was hidden inside of her suddenly decided to burst all over her flesh, bringing agony to each section of her body it traversed.

The sensation lasted only for a few seconds, but it left the woman completely shaken.

She realized that she had to up her game if she wanted to survive. Without thinking about twice, she suddenly the woman knelt.

"Great Devil, excuse me of my rudeness. I really didn't mean any disrespect." Said the human with a cold but pleasurable voice.

"Uh, great devil? Is the human talking with me?" wondered Darkscale.

"I'm willing to serve you, Great Devil! I can give you access to the tribe! I'm a member of the leading family, the Leaf Family!"

Winter Leaf continued calmly on the surface, even if inside she was panicking: what use could have an extreme wilderness tribe of hunters like hers to a Devil that could contend with Immortal Cultivators?

"Wait… I know…" there was a thing that cultivators and devils had in common.

"Great Devil, my tribe is renowned for her countless beauties! The Satao Clan always send people to select their servants from our Forest Will Village… I can… I can help you obtain them! " she suddenly announced with a vibrant tone.

"You can be surrounded by countless young maiden while… cultivating" She added, slightly blushing.

"Master Darkscale is pleased by your proposal" immediately answered Carelia with a voice full of righteous vigor.

"What? No, I'm not!" lamented Darkscale, shivering with disgust at the sole thought of countless humans surrounding him.