Chapter 19: Don’t Move
Ice Lily’s sudden action startled Xu Bai, but her stern gaze silenced her.
“Don’t move.”
Xu Bai wanted to speak, but a cold current flowed from the Demonic Runes on her cheeks, spreading throughout her body.
“Close your eyes,” Ice Lily’s cold voice commanded. “Try again.”
“I…”
This power…
Xu Bai’s pupils constricted. Her limbs grew cold, a chill seeping into her very core.
It was demonic power. To be precise, the power of the Ice Demon clan.
She had just fought Ice Lily, who wielded this very power. There was no mistaking it.
“Why can this power flow through me… am I really a demon?” Doubt gnawed at Xu Bai.
To wield demonic power so effortlessly… even the half-demon Demon Hunters couldn’t do that. They paid a price for using demonic power, a price that ultimately led to their transformation into mindless monsters.
But Xu Bai felt no such cost. The power flowed smoothly, as if it were a natural part of her.
Seeing Xu Bai’s continued inaction, Ice Lily frowned deeply.
“Don’t tell me you don’t even know how to use your own Demonic Runes? No inherited memories? Which bloodline do you belong to…?”
“I… I don’t know,” Xu Bai stammered, her voice filled with confusion.
She didn’t know what to make of herself anymore.
The reality before her was difficult to accept, but she couldn’t find any other explanation besides being a demon. While she’d never heard of a demon wielding psychic circuits, the idea of a human perfectly controlling Demonic Runes was even more inconceivable.
“Alright, calm yourself and focus on the presence of your Demonic Runes… Yes, like that.”
Before Ice Lily could finish, the scarlet mark on Xu Bai’s collarbone glowed faintly. Ice Lily nodded approvingly. “You learn quickly.”
Xu Bai channeled the power from the mark to activate the rune on her collarbone, the process eerily familiar, almost frighteningly so.
At the same time, her grayish-white hair shortened, turning black, and dark pupils reappeared in her frosty eyes.
But her expression was now somber.
Seeing Xu Bai’s complete transformation back into a human girl, Ice Lily suppressed her own Demonic Runes, returning to the appearance Xu Bai had first seen. Although she still possessed an ethereal, otherworldly beauty, it was less conspicuous.
“Ice Bai, why did you come to Vikarn? Did someone send you?” Ice Lily asked seriously, still using the same name for Xu Bai. Xu Bai no longer cared.
Perhaps “Ice Bai” truly was her name, not “Xu Bai.”
Ice Lily wasn’t as cold and aloof as she had been during their first encounter. Now, she seemed almost chatty.
“Vikarn? Vikarn Port…?” Xu Bai considered her answer. “I grew up here. I’ve just come back.”
“Grew up here!” Ice Lily’s eyes widened slightly, her breath catching. “Wait, were you adopted? By a human woman, around my current age?”
“Did you know me before?” Xu Bai looked at Ice Lily, disbelief coloring her tone. “But I didn’t look like this before…”
“No, I’ve never met you before,” Ice Lily said, regaining her composure. “But I know the human woman who adopted you… No wonder…”
Xu Bai paused. “Did she know you, too?”
Sister Neily knowing an Ice Demon, and Xu Bai potentially being an Ice Demon descendant… the coincidence was unsettling.
Had she been a demon disguised as a human all along?
But then, who was the quiet young man in her memories…?
Sister Neily’s image was growing hazy in Xu Bai’s mind. Her most vivid, and final, memory was of Neily smiling gently, arms outstretched in a final embrace, as she faded away.
Although she couldn’t recall Neily’s exact words, Xu Bai knew that even in her last moments, the emotion in Sister Neily’s eyes had been real.
“Yes,” Ice Lily’s expression returned to its usual indifference. “But it was a long time ago. I’m not sure if she remembers me.”
After a moment of hesitation, she added, “I said I was looking for someone in Vikarn. I was looking for her.”
Xu Bai didn’t speak, her gaze falling to the ground.
Despite her impassive expression, a flicker of hope shone in Ice Lily’s eyes.
It seemed Sister Neily and Ice Lily had been close…
Xu Bai sighed, still unable to reveal the truth.
“She… she’ll be back soon. Just wait a little longer.”
“Alright, I understand.” Ice Lily’s tone was lighter. Then, as if thinking of something, she asked, “What are your plans now? After I finish my business here, I could take you back to our clan lands and pass on the Ice Demon heritage to you.”
Xu Bai didn’t reply, only nodding slightly.
She wasn’t sure if any of this was real; she could only accept it for now.
But if it meant fighting against the Empire as part of the demon legions, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t bring herself to fight against her former comrades.
As if sensing Xu Bai’s reservations, Ice Lily added, “The Ice Demon clan did not participate in the Abyssal Demon Realm’s war against humanity. Even within the Abyss, there were strong disagreements about the war. The Ice Demons remained neutral.”
“I see…”
Ice Lily’s words brought to mind some of the unusual things Xu Bai had witnessed in past battles.
If the demons weren’t as unified as she had believed, those anomalies made sense.
And Ice Lily, close friends with a human like Sister Neily, couldn’t possibly harbor deep prejudice or malice towards humanity.
“But, about my true identity… perhaps the only one who knows is Sister Neily…”
Xu Bai remembered why she had returned to Vikarn Port: to find any clues Sister Neily might have left behind.
So much had happened since then. She was now inexplicably wanted, and she had discovered that she might have been a demon all along.
Everything circled back to her original question.
“It’s time to go home…”
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