Within the illusion of the snow cabin, the young girl was still tidying up the room.
Carefully picking up the shards of a shattered teacup from the floor, she muttered under her breath, "Those guests are so rude. Breaking a cup and running off, leaving me such an awful mess."
The fire in the hearth remained warm.
Yet this was merely the illusion's beautified facade. The scene in reality was horrifying beyond measure: a writhing abomination reached out with grotesque limbs, gathering the splinters of broken bone and setting them in a corner of the wall.
Valena sat on a wooden chair, thumbing through a yellowed book out of sheer boredom.
Resting her chin on her hand, the young girl could not help but whisper, "When will I finally get to go outside? Father promised me."
She no longer knew how long she had stayed here—so long that she could not even remember.
In her lingering memories, she had been brought to this wooden cabin after being rescued from a secret chamber, living a dull life that repeated day after day, year after year.
The books said that after living for many years, a person would gradually grow old.
Yet she discovered that her appearance seemed forever frozen at eighteen, without undergoing the slightest change.
Valena also sensed that pieces of her memory were missing. She had always harbored doubts about it, yet never dared to look too closely.
It was as if an invisible shackle bound her thoughts, keeping her from dwelling on those things.
Some things...
If she could not make sense of them, it was better not to think about them at all.
She would just continue hosting passing guests here in the snow cabin, listening to their stories each day. In a way, that was like visiting the outside world indirectly.
Valena always told herself this.
Suddenly, a raspy, intimately familiar male voice broke her reverie.
"Valena, my lovely little girl, look who's back?"
Hearing that familiar voice, Valena's hands froze. She turned around in disbelief.
"Ah, Father!"
"You really came back!"
The girl leaped up from the wooden chair and threw herself into the man's arms, tears shimmering in her wide, watery eyes.
Vagnerd gently stroked her head and lowered his face to speak softly. "Yes. The moment Father finished handling things outside, I came straight back to see you."
As if afraid he might slip away, Valena clung to him tightly.
Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes, and her tone turned dejected. "Father, you're a liar. You haven't come back in so long. You told me to treat the guests well, but they all bully me, hate me, even curse at me and refuse to play with me."
She looked up and asked with a choke in her voice, "They all say I'm... a monster."
"Father, am I really a monster?"
A gentle smile still hung on Vagnerd's face. He shook his head and said, "No, you are no monster. You are the most precious treasure cradled in my hands, nobler than any of them."
"But, but..."
He reached out and wiped the tears from the corners of Valena's eyes.
"Valena, remember, you will always be my daughter."
"Don't dwell on such sad things. Do you know why I came back this time?"
Valena shook her head, confused.
Vagnerd took her slender hand, bent down, and whispered close to her ear:
"I am here to fulfill my promise and take you to see the outside world. Father is never an evil man who breaks his word."
Valena was instantly overcome with joy.
She had never imagined that this man, who had always seemed utterly cold in her memories—the father who had cruelly abandoned her here for who knew how many years—would ever say such words.
A contented smile blossomed on her face. Wiping away the remaining traces of tears, she nodded vigorously.
"Mm."
Taking the young girl's hand, the man led her forward and pushed open the door of the illusion—
In Valena's lingering consciousness, she felt only a blinding flash of light, forcing her eyes shut.
"It's so bright... Is this the outside world?"
"It seems... a little different from what I imagined."
There was no new world. There was only the dim, abyssal Demon Tower and the cold metal cage.
The twisted abomination stitched from mismatched limbs thrashed violently, the lumps of flesh across its body squirming. The skin covered in sparse scales bulged grotesquely, as though something were about to tear its way out.
At last, a human torso resembling Vagnerd forced its way out from the stitched monstrosity. His skin was delicate and pale as a newborn's, yet faint traces of scales could be discerned.
His waist remained fused by flesh and blood to the stitched body, replacing the faceless maiden of before to become part of this horrifying creature.
He had become the ultimate master of the beast's chaotic consciousness.
Yet from deep within that gruesome mass of flesh came a faint, despairing, sobbing female voice.
"Father, you lied to me..."
"You lied to me again..."
The voice grew fainter and fainter until it vanished entirely, drowned out by the wet, viscous grinding of flesh.
"Valena..."
A tear actually slipped from Vagnerd's eye.
Yet his face was suffused with ecstasy. The corners of his mouth stretched almost to his ears, fully lost to madness as the torso attached to the stitched monster trembled ceaselessly.
"I... I told you before, I will never fail again... Father did all of this for your own good."
"I will take you—and together, we will complete this evolution! We will become beings greater than the dragon gods!"
"Hahahahahahaha!"
***
At the other end of the tower, the red dragon's frilled ears twitched slightly.
Thanks to a dragon's keen senses, Vagnerd's frenzied laughter reached his ears.
"Heh. As expected, it was that snow cabin. It's already too late."
"He seized Valena's body."
Valena's snow cabin had no fixed physical location; it was connected through an extradimensional gate. Even Cassius had been unable to pinpoint where it lay, left with no choice but to wait for Vagnerd to expose himself.
Sensing the increasingly eerie aura within the tower, Langpu said in a solemn voice, "Master, should we pursue him?"
"No. If I'm not mistaken, he's likely heading for the top of the tower."
The Cataclysmic Dragon Eye had already vanished after discharging its breath weapon.
Cassius closed his eyes, drawing upon the surging power of Sorcery Surge to recreate a seventh-circle spell slot.
When he opened his eyes again, breathtaking magical radiance gleamed within his golden pupils, and an invisible dragon eye manifested, hovering beside him.
Cataclysmic Dragon Eye.
He invoked its ability: future vision.
The profound dragon eye pierced the bonds of time, looking directly into the future.
At the highest peak of the tower, the twisted stitched monstrosity was writhing forward, closing in on the imprisoned white dragon.
As if beholding something horrifying beyond measure, the white dragon let out an agitated, terrified growl, shivering all over. Its massive body thrashed with all its might, but bound by the unyielding magical chains, every struggle was in vain; it could not budge an inch.
Cassius's expression darkened.
"Vagnerd intends to devour that white dragon. We must stop him."
Chapter 213