Chapter 544: Chapter 544
Luna emerged from the cocoon to a scenery of jaded crystals spreading like toppled columns across an endless wasteland. The cloudless sky rained pale light that was hard to look at on her supple skin, making her squint against the unnatural radiance.
She lowered her gaze to her arms, then caught her reflection in a nearby crystal. She hadn’t changed—failed to evolve despite Mimir’s potent potion. Instead, she found herself in this mysterious place that felt so wrong. Was it part of the evolutionary process? No, it was something else. She could feel it in her bones—the mounting wave of dread that made her shudder breathlessly.
But fear wouldn’t help her. She had to understand where she was first, then find a way back to Adam’s side.
A steely glint entered her eyes as she began walking across the crystalline floor, each step raising musty dust that must have accumulated over eons. The silence pressed down like an illusory mountain on her shoulders, while the air hung stagnant like cooled gas that was barely breathable.
Everything changed when a shadow appeared.
Eyes wide, Luna lifted her face to see a woman standing before her. Red hair cascaded through two thin horns like the most luscious silk she had ever seen—almost sacred in its perfection. Her face didn’t seem like flesh, but rather the sculpture of a mortal gone mad in his pursuit of beauty until he finally succeeded in creating something that shouldn’t exist.
She was beautiful beyond reason—lips the color of blooming roses, skin fairer than milk, eyes reflecting ancient wisdom. But there was something else in that gaze, something that made Luna’s blood run cold.
Luna took a step back, hand raised defensively in front of her chest as she recognised the emotion directed at her—lust, boundless and predatory, making her feel like prey before a hunter who would corrupt her in a world of sinful pleasures.
As she moved backwards, trembling, the woman matched her pace and stepped forward. Leather strips fluttered around slender legs, while her broad breasts bounced against a low-cut garment that barely concealed anything.
"We finally meet, child." Her smile held no warmth when she spoke with a voice that could enthral mortals and gods alike. "But somehow, I can’t mask my disappointment."
Luna’s back hit a crystal wall as the woman drew closer. "Step back!" she managed, her voice cracking more than it sounded menacing. "Who are you?"
"Hahaha!" The woman’s laughter was like poisoned honey as she leaned forward, lifting strands of Luna’s green hair and letting them slide through her delicate fingers. "To the world or to you? I’ll answer both."
The woman’s form began to shift and expand, reality bending around her as her true nature asserted itself. The crystalline wasteland itself seemed to bow before her presence.
"I am Lilith!" Her voice boomed across the desolate realm, carrying power that made the very air tremble. "Mother of all succubi, queen of the night and mistress of forbidden desires! I am the shadow that walks beside every marriage bed, the whisper that turns love into obsession, the darkness that dwells in every heart!"
Her eyes blazed with ancient fury as she continued. "While lesser demons scheme for scraps of power, I rule over the deepest lusts and darkest fantasies of every thinking being!" New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡•𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚•𝙣𝙚𝙩
The introduction hung in the air like a curse, and then her voice dropped to something more personal, more cruel.
"And I am the mother of the pitiful thing you are."
The words hit Luna like physical blows. Her mother. The being who had ordered Zepar to kill her, who had orchestrated years of suffering and betrayal.
"Zepar tortured your only friend, then made you watch him kill her," Lilith continued with casual cruelty. "Then, he killed you, slowly, painfully. And yet, here we are—a demon still pursuing childlike dreams of peace and happiness."
Luna’s emotions crashed together like storm waves—grief for the friend she’d lost, rage at the orchestrator of that loss, and a deep, aching sadness that her own mother had been the architect of her suffering. Tears gathered in her eyes, but behind them burned a fury that threatened to consume everything.
Lilith’s voice hardened, and her eyes narrowed as she studied Luna’s reaction. "There won’t be any peace, any good ending. But I admit it—you’ve become strong through that pathetic love of yours. Good for you, isn’t it?"
"You..." Luna whispered, her voice shaking with barely contained emotion. The sadness threatened to overwhelm her—all those years wondering why her mother had abandoned her, only to learn she’d been actively hunting her. But the anger was stronger, burning away the grief like acid. "You killed her. Belle was innocent, and you killed her just to hurt me."
Luna’s eyes widened as flames burst from her hands, serpentine fire that had grown strong through countless battles. But as Lilith grabbed her face with deceptively delicate fingers, the flames couldn’t burn her mother, couldn’t even loosen her grip.
"Touching," Lilith said with mock sympathy. "But useless."
Instead of releasing her, Lilith continued speaking as if Luna’s struggles were merely amusing. "The demon kings, the gods, even your little lover—they were all wrong about this place. We can leave whenever we want. The key?"
Her smile broadened into something predatory, teeth shifting into sharp fangs as she licked her lips with obvious hunger.
"It has been you all along. You’re finally strong enough to become my puppet in the outside world."
Before Luna could react, Lilith’s grip tightened, and something cold and alien began flowing from her mother’s fingers. Not physical contact, but something far more invasive—a fragment of consciousness that burrowed into Luna’s mind like a parasite seeking a host.
Luna screamed as foreign thoughts began weaving themselves through her own, her mother’s will taking root in the deepest parts of her psyche. The invasion felt like drowning in someone else’s desires, her own personality being slowly strangled by Lilith’s overwhelming presence.
"Don’t fight it, child," Lilith whispered as Luna’s struggles grew weaker. "You’ll still be there, watching through your own eyes, feeling through your own skin. But your body belongs to me now. You’ll be a passenger in your own flesh, helpless to stop whatever I choose to do with it."
Luna’s consciousness began to sink beneath the surface of her own mind, like drowning in reverse—awareness retreating deeper while something else took control of the vessel that had once been hers alone.
The crystalline wasteland began to fade as Lilith’s power prepared to send her back to the converged realm, back to Adam and his unsuspecting allies. But the being returning would wear Luna’s face while serving another’s will entirely—a perfect disguise concealing catastrophic motives.
AN: It’s my birthday today :D