The villain's way to tame the protagonist

"Forget it. It doesn't matter what happened. As long as we know that it was you who did it, that's enough."

As the murderous whispers spread, Hitana's already tall figure rose again. With the crisp sound of her spine rising, her dark red eyes gradually twisted into beast pupils. The shadow of the demon wolf entangled with Hydra's projection and the breath of murder turned into armor. The beast king, who had already locked onto his prey, did not hesitate at all and pushed his strength to the limit at the moment in an instant!

However, at the moment when Hitana raised her claws, her whole body froze in place without any warning. It was as if she was pulled out of time and space for a moment, and suddenly froze in a stiff posture, just like Raylan Iron Blade who had just fallen from the sky... Exactly the same!

"Please chill--!?"

Ji seemed to have fully anticipated Xitana's situation, but just as he opened his mouth to persuade the furious Beast King to calm down, he forcibly stopped speaking, and his figure flashed behind Xitana with the fluctuations of ether.

boom--!

Behind him, an exaggerated conical vacuum stretched out for hundreds of meters. Everything in this vacuum seemed to have been dug out from the world by something in a higher dimension.

“Xin…Xin!!!”

With one hand on her forehead, Sitana, who was swaying slightly, roared:

"Get out of here!"

This deafening roar had almost no trace of human voice to others, it was simply the roar of a wild beast.

At that moment, Xitana was unable to control her body, and even her consciousness of running the ether and swinging her fists was forcibly interrupted. Although she had never experienced this feeling before, Xitana was sure that it was definitely... an impact on the soul level!

There is only one person in the world who can do this.

But even though Shitana's roar had been heard thousands of miles away, the figure never appeared.

"It's really... an incredible power."

Ji, who was facing Xitana alone, was amazed: "No blind spots, pure strength. Lord Lance, your power... is amazing."

"But I still hope that you can calm down a little. At least now is not the time to squander this power. The situation has evolved to this point, and His Royal Highness the Regent has not taken any action. This is enough to explain the problem, isn't it?"

"..."

The humanoid monster wrapped in red and black armor let out a low gasp, and the mere inhalation and exhalation of its breath formed a vortex visible to the naked eye. No matter how one looked at it, there was no way to associate this monster in front of them with the word "human".

To a certain extent, anyone who dares to stand here and continue to try to reason with Hitana definitely has courage rarely seen in the world.

"Maybe it's because... Anser knows that I can... kill you all."

The wolf beast's deep voice with overlapping tones echoed in the air: "Perhaps, he is waiting for me to do this."

"Well, if you think that's what His Royal Highness the Regent wants..."

Ji put down his staff, stood calmly in front of Xitana, and waited for her to be killed.

"If you think this is the end of it, if you think... killing and violence can solve all problems, then please take my life."

Is that all?

A conspiracy that spanned an entire continent, lasted for hundreds of years, and involved millions of people, ended with the death of this old bastard?

"……Answer."

The whispering sound, still like the roar of a monster, sounded again, but the voice was much calmer.

"I want answers, and then...your body."

Ji opened his eyes and bowed his head respectfully: "As you wish, Lord Lance."

He turned his head and faced north, the far north of the north, where no life grew.

"The answer you want is right there."

"north……"

Will there be answers? What answers can there be? There is nothing there—

Xitana suddenly realized what the answer was from Ji's mouth.

That piece of land that is always shrouded in the most brutal extreme cold is not empty. On the contrary, there exists a creation that can be called a miracle.

A tower that was supposed to last... forever.

*

Only by experiencing it yourself can you understand how terrifying the ether vortex from the Far North is.

Standing in the vast snow and wind, Hitana squinted her eyes. The whole world was completely shrouded in gray. Even with a physique as terrifying as hers, she couldn't completely resist it with her flesh and blood. She had to support the flow of ether to ensure that she would not be frozen into an ice sculpture.

The tower was right before her, but she could see nothing.

It was not until the sound of some heavy object moving slowly was heard and the violent air convection almost pulled her into an illusory space in front of her that Shitana realized that the door of the tower was opened.

The moment she stepped into the tower, Shitana felt an extremely strong sense of disharmony.

She didn't even bother to observe the situation in the tower. Instead, she clenched her fists, then stared at Ji in front of her, and spoke word by word:

"Aether...silence."

There is absolutely no flow of ether in this tower. It is no exaggeration to say that if the ether silence zone constructed by Polynia is like a mortal losing air to a transcendent being, then the inside of this tower... is simply equivalent to another new world where the concept of ether does not exist at all!

"It seems that Polynya has left a deep impression on you, Lord Lance."

Ji turned around and faced Xitana and smiled: "This saves a lot of time in explaining, very good."

Hitana stared at the old man for a while, then shifted her gaze away from his face and looked around the space inside the tower.

The feeling she got from the scene before her could only be described in one word - big.

Pure, boundless, extremely vast space.

Although there was nothing, this huge space that was far beyond actual logic made Xitana quickly think of the hunting ground in Ivora that was stuffed into the palace, and the experimental site where Dormer bred the "Sky Frost People".

"The emperor who built the Tower of Eternal Raging Flame more than four hundred years ago was a rare emperor who was very upright when he was upright."

Ji raised his head and looked up at the sky which seemed to have no end in sight. It was almost the same as looking up at the sky.

"He has made very careful considerations when it comes to transforming the North. You have just experienced the horror of the Far North Vortex, so you should understand that the Emperor's stay here to weaken the raging flames of the endless cold current is definitely not just a small fireball."

He was filled with emotion, as if he had actually witnessed the flames of the feast that had blocked the cold current for more than 400 years, and sighed softly:

"That's the real...sun."

"It can be said that if no additional measures are taken and it is left burning like that, even in the southernmost part of the empire, people can see the sun at night, not to mention people living in the north. It's not even a matter of never seeing darkness from birth to death. They will even be burned to death by the sun before being frozen to death by the cold current. That's why this tower was built."

Ji turned back to Xitana and explained in great detail: "It is extremely difficult to contain this level of power, but the alchemist who designed this tower still succeeded in building such an amazing... masterpiece."

"All the energy and ether in the tower will eventually be converted into heat that radiates outwards, ensuring that the cold current will not be affected by the people in the north."

"And the reason why the space is so vast is to provide a buffer for the materials. The distance is distorted through space magic to prevent the entire tower from being burned through by the sun in less than a hundred years."

It is hard to imagine what kind of mentality the group of extraordinary people had when they built this tower four hundred years ago. They put so much effort just to accommodate the power of the emperor. Hitana did not understand the principles of creation, but she could smell the breath of divine power lingering in this space.

Even though it has existed for more than four hundred years, and even though it has almost disappeared, Hitana can still feel a vague threat.

"So, this isn't Teacher Nia's realm? If you have any questions, you'd better explain it to me quickly."

Xitana frowned slightly. Her patience was limited. Wanting to get an answer from Ji didn't mean she would tolerate this old man's procrastination and mysteriousness.

"Yes and no... We have made some minor modifications to the tower, and the reason is exactly what I am going to explain to you next, and it is also the answer you want to get."

Ji reached out and took out an Ouroboros pendant from inside his black robe, with a hint of nostalgia in his eyes.

"Lord Lance, how much do you know about us and the church?"

"No, now I just think you deserve to die. After you finish saying all this bullshit, I will catch you all and kill you all." Hitana replied expressionlessly.

"If we all really died at your hands... ah, sorry, I got off topic."

He spread out his hands, and a ball of gray-white light flickered in them, and then quickly turned into a sacred and dazzling pure white.

"Eight hundred and thirty-six years ago, the church used this power to end the strife and chaos on the other side of the continent. On that continent, its power is almost equivalent to the crushing of the gods over other extraordinary beings. It is an absolute and irresistible force. Not only does it have the potential to be even more powerful, but it can also avoid the greatest poison of the extraordinary beings - the erosion of the abyss."

"To this day, the extraordinary people in the Empire have unanimously agreed that divine arts is a more powerful system of power than the Path to Heaven, and is superior to the Path to Heaven in almost all aspects. So the question is... Why did the land that was originally in chaos and darkness, ignorance and strife give birth to such a complete and rigorous system that is more powerful than the Path to Heaven that was born from the Empire?"

"..."

Hitana, who had never thought about this, was stunned. Only after being reminded of this did she realize that if the other side of the continent had really been in a backward struggle and only achieved unification after the establishment of the church, then the foundation of the church itself... was obviously abrupt and abnormal.

……and many more.

The time when the Road to Heaven was born seems to be about the same as the time when the church was born.

Xitana vaguely remembered some extraordinary knowledge she learned in the Red Frost Territory. If she remembered correctly, the Road to Heaven seemed to have been born more than 800 years ago, and then the founder of the Road to Heaven disappeared... disappeared... ?

"pioneer……"

A look of enlightenment gradually emerged in Xitana's eyes:

"That missing pioneer...was he the one who ran to the other side of the continent and established a church?"

If the founder of the church is the genius who opened up the road to heaven, then it is entirely possible that he will continue to walk a path full of more possibilities based on the road to heaven.

But Xitana reacted again. If it was really that simple, shouldn't this theory have been spread long ago? After all, the time and power levels matched, but why had she never heard of it... Well, it was normal that she hadn't heard of it, but Ming Fuluo hadn't heard of it either, which was obviously abnormal!

"Is that guy really the founder of the church?" Hitana asked again with a frown.

Ji seemed to want to say something, but he must have been affected by something, and suddenly fell silent and threw the pendant directly into Xitana's hands.

Xitana's unhappy expression did not diminish at all: "What?"

"I would have liked to continue explaining it to you... but I was told that this was not an option, that you trust what you see and feel more than words."

Ji looked at the pendant in Xitana's hand, and seemed reluctant to give it to her, but he still raised his hand with complicated eyes and injected a ray of white light into the pendant.

"Then please witness the beginning of all this with your own eyes, and get the answer you want..."

As the white light sank into the pendant, Shitana could feel a group of memories trying to enter her consciousness. Although she did not stop it, she still observed her consciousness and soul very carefully.

As memories flooded in, an extremely real scene appeared before my eyes.

——The city and its people were engulfed in flames, struggling and wailing, and the collapsed towers and palaces buried everything.

"It's even worse than the Empire." The main perspective sighed tiredly, "There will be a day when I think that such a distorted order might be desirable."

He tapped the ground with his staff, and the broken tiles and stones returned to their original state as if time had been reversed. The blazing sea of ​​fire seemed to turn into flames, which were completely extinguished by the breeze. Everything that had collapsed and ruined was restored to its original state as per his will. With just one movement, he looked like a god walking on earth.

"Teacher." A childish, curious voice came from behind him, "What is the empire like?"

"Horrible hell."

The man answered like this, looking at the stunned people, and the gradually rising looks in their eyes as if they were worshiping the gods, with almost no emotion fluctuating.

"So the teacher came to our side? Is it because our side is better?"

"Not now, but it will be in the future."

"Not now..." The child behind him seemed a little discouraged, "Is the world we live in really so bad?"

In his impression, his teacher had never said a good word about that empire. If his hometown was worse than that empire, how bad was it?

"No, it is not, son. This land has something the Empire has long lost and can never have again."

The man touched the child's head.

"You... still have hope."

That tired but determined voice echoed in Hitana's mind, as if spanning eight hundred years of time and space.

——The hope that everyone can live equally and happily.

Chapter 1.1: God, Man, Part (W)

"Although there are remains of the Zhengtian Dynasty, for some reason... His Majesty Caesar did not include this continent as part of the Empire's territory."

"From the time the eldest prince ascended the throne to the time he was eroded by the abyss, I only had about five to eighty years. As the erosion became more serious, he might not be able to control his madness and ambition."

The man stared at the huge map hanging on the wall and muttered to himself:

"In five to eighty years, unify this continent and realize... the innovation of the road to heaven."

Is this possible? He didn't know. If it was just a simple unification, it would not be difficult for him, but it was too difficult to break through the path that had exhausted all his efforts and talents.

But he knew that no matter how difficult it was, he had to grasp that only hope.

The road to heaven was a failure, and it had no chance of changing the world. This land, which had not been touched by the eternal supreme spirits and had not formed order, was his last chance.

"Teacher! Bam and his friends won!"

A young man rushed into the man's workshop, his expression excited, with a pure and dazzling light flashing in his eyes.

"Are you free? This is a big win! You're probably the one they want to see the most right now!"

The man withdrew his gaze from the map and smiled at the young man who rushed in: "I know, Zerui, I will be there soon."