Deviant: No Longer Human-Chapter 713: Karmic Condensation!

"Where’ve you been, little cloud? Did your legs forget the way home?

... Or were they busy... wrapped around something useful for once?"

"..."

Ning Xue inhaled slowly, contemplating the sweet release of combustion.

Of all the days for Velkhara to go full witch-aunt-on-wine, it had to be today.

And unfortunately... this time the jab landed a little too personal.

Velkhara’s head tilted.

"Oh?" she said, eyes narrowing with glee. "Is that blush guilt? Or just the leftover heat from whatever demon you tangled with?"

It was a demon, in fact.

Velkhara stepped closer, folding her arms as the crow rustled its wings like parchment catching fire.

"Are you ignoring me now?" she added. "I’ve killed people for less aggression."

"I—I was flying," Ning Xue muttered, stiff-backed, tone overly formal.

Velkhara blinked, once.

"Flying?" she echoed, lips curling with disdain. "That’s what you’re going with?Flying?"

She exhaled the way one might after stepping barefoot in disappointment.

"What a dull lie. If you’re going to insult my ears, at least make it memorable. Tell me you were possessed by a lust-spirit.

"Say you ascended through the pelvic gates of heaven"

"Anything but ’flying.’"

She waved the air as if shooing off the stupidity itself. "Not my concern."

Ning Xue brushed past her, every step louder than her dignity.

"Is Athene inside?" she asked, already nearing the temple.

Velkhara’s voice drifted after her like dry smoke.

"You’re two days too late."

Ning Xue stopped.

Velkhara didn’t turn around.

"She came, screamed at the sky, cursed several ancestors, none of them mine, sadly, and vanished like a bad omen."

A wind passed through the grove, stirring blood-red blossoms and lifting the edge of Velkhara’s cloth.

She stared back up at the treetops, bored again.

Five million years without companionship. And now, two volatile freeloaders. One dropped on her like a flaming god, the other crowned Empress by sheer accident.

Velkhara massaged her temple with the despair of someone forced to read fanmail.

"What a pain," she muttered.

The crow cawed, as if to say: You have no idea.

Despite the apathy in her voice, she followed after Ning Xue, silently, her steps like falling shadows.

She said nothing, but her eyes moved.

Downward, watching, studying the girl’s gait, the quiet rhythm of her hips and legs as they ascended into the pagoda.

’Something’s different,’ Velkhara thought, frowning.

The movements were subtle. Too subtle for an untrained eye. But Velkhara had studied battle forms, spirit flow, and body tempo for longer than most civilizations had existed.

And this girl’s posture—it had shifted, her steps were smoother. Her core lighter. The rhythm of her breath held a different frequency.

’Did she... actually sleep with someone?’

For the first time in years, a ripple of actual emotion stirred in Velkhara’s chest, something between mild panic and irritated curiosity, she smothered it beneath a sigh.

Inside, the ancient space lit itself automatically, lanterns blooming to life along the curved wooden walls. Sacred seals faintly glowed along the ceiling beams, casting red-gold shadows over their skin.

At the center hung a massive red orb, suspended in air like a still-beating heart. Its glow pulsed with the weight of nations.

Ning Xue paused beneath it, staring upward.

The red light touched her skin like ancestral judgment.

Velkhara stepped beside her.

"The Dynasty’s merit," she said flatly. "You want to use it?"

Her tone was casual, but her eyes were hawk-sharp.

The orb was Karmic Condensation—a technique Velkhara herself had created. Through it, she collected the earned karmic merit of every being within the borders of the Xuan Dynasty, distilling it into a singular, central node.

It wasn’t fate.

Fate was indifferent, slippery, often cruel.

Merit had to be earned.

Every sacrifice, triumph, innovation, or honorable act within the Dynasty fed this orb. Like rain filling a divine reservoir, the karmic tide could be drawn upon, for power, protection, or divine intervention.

Dynasties of old had used such constructs to outlive disasters, starve their enemies of luck, and summon destiny itself.

But there was always a cost.

Velkhara’s eyes didn’t leave the orb. She saw what Ning Xue couldn’t.

A crack.

Tiny. Invisible to most. But it pulsed wrong, like a hidden sickness in the veins of a god.

’Self-destructive merit,’ she thought bitterly. ’The human specialty.’

That was the reason Velkhara had remained isolated for five million years. Human merit was volatile. They lied, betrayed, killed for pride, then built temples to apologize. Their chaos left scars on karmic law. And now, thanks to Ning Xue’s accidental rise, humans had begun pouring into her sanctuary like ants onto sacred fruit.

She could feel their petty ambitions like mold under her nails. Factions were forming. Jealousies. Doctrines. And all of it threatened to make the orb crack from within.

"Conquering other dynasties brings merit," she murmured. "But if those within turn on each other..."

She didn’t finish the thought.

Merit reversed becomes poison.

Wars of ego between disciples, civil strife among clans, all of it fed into the orb, darkening it.

And now... she felt it.

Negative karma. Strong.... Recent.

Her eyes slid sideways toward Ning Xue.

’Only two people in this Dynasty are capable of influencing merit at this level. Me... and her.’

Which meant either she’d been manipulated by someone beyond the Dynasty’s scope, or she’d willingly aligned with an outsider. One strong enough to tilt the karmic scale.

"Did she surrender herself?"

The Dynasty’s karmic net marked every soul the moment they first contributed merit. It was like a sacred veil drawn over the land. It couldn’t be faked.

And thanks to it, the Xuan Dynasty had flourished while others crumbled. The Sun Dynasty had fallen. Other nations teetered. But so long as karmic merit rose, no external force, no army, no immortal, could destroy Xuan from the outside.

Fate itself would twist to protect it.

Assassins would slip.

Enemies would misfire.

Accidents would save them.

It was divine insurance... up to a point.

But there were limits.

Unknown to Velkhara, the law of karma did not apply to beings who walked beyond immortality. The ’Transcendent’, those who had stepped past the edges of reach, neither "conventional" fate nor "conventional" merit could influence them.

And if one of them had entered her web?

The crack in the orb was just the beginning.

_______

Meanwhile, in Shanghai... Late Afternoon!

Green Oasis Garden, Villa District

After returning to their villa in the Green Oasis Garden, Wang Xiao discovered that some unexpected guests had arrived.

"Xiao Wang, you’re becoming more and more handsome these days..."

The voice was sugar-sweet, but it made Wang Xiao’s scalp itch.

In front of him stood Xin Meifang, her eyes sparkling like a lovesick fan at a boyband concert. Which would’ve been cute, if she weren’t nearly fifty and also technically his aunt.

Wang Xiao gave her a polite, professional-grade fake smile. This was not unexpected. In fact, it was exactly the sort of intrusion he should have anticipated.

Xin Meifang, mother of Qian Ruixin, walking embodiment of unfiltered desperation, and now, apparently, a semi-permanent guest in their home.

No daughter to follow around anymore.

Her son was working full-time in city.

Her husband? Long gone, an alcoholic gambler who took their savings and vanished years ago. She never got the chance to divorce him.

Now, with Chinese New Year around the corner, she’d slid into the only refuge she had left: her elder sister’s house, Xin Yue Zhilan. Also known as Wang Xiao’s mother.

And now?

Xin Meifang wasn’t just some aunt from a soap opera.

She was also a carrier of something... otherworldly.

A faint soul fragment of the Greek goddess Nemesis.

Because apparently, Wang Xiao’s life just didn’t have enough mess.

He wasn’t interested in conversation.

"I should go pick up Zhenxi," Wang Xiao said with a perfectly timed, harmless smile.

An excuse... A noble one.

One that Zhilan, his mother, instantly supported, because she was dying to show off her granddaughter to her estranged sister anyway.

Xin Meifang nodded enthusiastically, completely unaware she’d been seen through like cheap lace.

"Yes, yes, go quickly! That little girl must be waiting."

Wang Xiao left the villa alone, which, frankly, was rare.

Normally, his daughters Wenxi or Yue would be glued to him like decorative accessories with trust issues. But not today.

Today, those two had their hands full. Quite literally.

In his bedroom: two women.

Duct-taped, tied, and guarded.

Who else?

Seraphina and her daughter Josephine.

The two had landed in Shanghai with the righteous fury of royalty, tracking him with the intent of "finding answers."

They found his address.

They walked into his house.

They didn’t walk back out.

Now they were tied up and under the glare of two very protective, very territorial young women.

Wang Xiao didn’t panic.

Because the last thing he needed was Seraphina’s face popping up in local news. Her family name was recognizable in too many places. And if someone saw her here?

His cover, his identity, would collapse like a house of cards on a humid day.

And so, instead of heading toward Fu Yuxin’s residence to pick up little Zhenxi, Wang Xiao made a quiet U-turn.

Destination: the house of an old acquaintance.