Immortal Paladin-145Unexpected Kidnapping

145 Unexpected Kidnapping

The memory didn’t end.

It couldn’t.

I was still inside Alice’s soul, watching through her eyes. Feeling through her heart. Hearing her breath tremble as she cut down the last of the villagers. She knew them, and it hurt her.

Not in the way an outsider passes through and trades a few words… Alice knew their names, their jokes, and the way old Jiu Ma always pretended to be blind just to dodge chores. The way the twins argued over which of them was faster. The way that little girl, Sanli, always brought Alice her best acorns like they were sacred offerings.

Alice cut them down anyway.

Her sword trembled in her hands, but she didn't stop. One clean stroke after another. No waste, no hesitation. Her heart was breaking in real time, and I felt it through the link… splintering like ice underfoot. And through her sobs, she whispered the one thing that cracked me more than any scream could have.

“You’ll fix this… won’t you, David?”

“You’re the hero. You can bring them back. If not you, then… maybe Joan.”

I clenched my fists, but I could only watch.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, blood staining the sand, light flaring behind her. “I’m so, so—”

A ripple of divine light split the sky.

Alice turned.

Joan appeared.

But not really.

Her body floated down like a feather on divine wind, but her eyes… they were empty. No spark. No curiosity. No mischief. None of the chaotic, brilliant soul I remembered from LLO.

Just utter silence.

She was wearing ceremonial white robes edged in holy gold, and a halo circled her head—not illusion, not aesthetic, but real. Constructed. Forced. “Joan?” Alice called.

No response.

She raised her weapon instead.

I frowned. Something was terribly wrong. The divine signature radiating from Joan didn’t feel like hers… it felt like mine. Or rather, like my skill... Divine Possession. When I used it, I’d step into someone else’s body, override the self, and take the reins. Possession, cloaked in sanctity.

That’s what I was looking at.

Joan... wasn’t Joan.

She was being piloted.

The clash was inevitable.

Alice didn’t wait. She dashed forward, striking low, hoping to disarm, not kill. She still believed she could bring her friend back.

Yes, they were friends. I could sense in Alice’s soul how she had come to cherish Joan. But Joan met her, blow for blow, without flinching. Her movements were mechanical. Precise. Calculated to win, not to survive.

“I don’t want to fight you,” Alice murmured, dodging a spear of light that melted the ground.

No answer.

Joan or the thing controlling her raised her hand. Glyphs spiraled in the air. I recognized the spell a half-second too late.

Heavenly Punishment.

A colossal hammer of divine force fell from the sky and crashed into Alice, cratering the village beneath her feet. The light was unbearable. My ears rang even though it was a memory. Her spells cracked. Her scream choked back.

She got up.

Gods, she got up.

Bleeding, breathing hard, and trembling... but she got up.

“Joan,” she begged. “Wake up. Please.”

The sky shimmered again.

The second Heavenly Punishment descended like a god's gavel, and this time it wasn't just Alice. The entire center of Sandthorn Village was erased. Houses. Corpses. Even the sand was turned to glass. If not, it turned black.

Alice hit the ground hard, sword shattered, clothes burned to ash.

She didn’t move again.

And Joan… floated back to the sky.

The clouds parted, unnaturally neat, like opening a vault. Golden light streamed down in rays, and then she was taken. Her body rose slowly, arms limp at her sides, swallowed by the radiance of Heaven.

Then… nothing.

The memory ended.

The dreamscape darkened. I was back in the stillness between thoughts.

Joan had been kidnapped. Ripped from our world like an item looted from a corpse. I clenched my jaw, heart thundering.

Of course, it had to be her.

Of course, the universe couldn’t leave well enough alone.

I breathed in, bitter and numb. “Why is it always me?”

I’d already fought angels, crossed continents, and nearly lost myself to this world more than once. Now Joan, my stubborn, loud, and reckless friend, was being used like a puppet by a faction that wanted to rewrite the damn universe to achieve there version of eternal peace.

I stared into the darkness of the fading soul memory.

So that was what happened.

Alice had made a choice no one should ever have to make. Joan had been taken. And me?

I was going to get her back.

Arguably, the player character ‘Joan D'Arc’ was a stranger to me, but not to David_69.

The memory wasn’t over. It should have been over. The soulscape had faded after the memory had played out... Joan had been taken. But suddenly, without warning, the world twitched. Like a skipped heartbeat. Like the reel of a movie being rolled backward and snapped back into place. The sands of Sandthorn Village reformed. The glassed craters mended. The smoldering air returned to silence. Time rewound itself, re-stitching reality into the moment just after Alice fell.

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And there she was again… Joan. Or rather, the thing inside Joan. Standing above the fallen Alice, divine light still curled around her like tendrils of smoke. But then, she moved.

Not the kind of movement a memory makes. Not a puppet retracing its steps.

She turned and looked straight at me.

Me.

Not Alice.

Me!

Her eyes met mine, sharp and glinting with unnatural clarity.

“Hello, Anomaly,” she said, voice soft, melodic, and terrifying. “My name is Aixin. It means Loving Heart.”

I staggered back instinctively, though my body wasn’t entirely mine in this place.

“What the hell is this?” I asked. “How are you doing this? This should be a memory... just a playback. You shouldn’t be able to see me.”

She tilted her head slightly, almost amused.

“It’s within my authority,” Aixin said. “Your little spell is impressive. But it tugs too hard on threads you don’t understand. A shame, really. You’re clever for a lower-order soul.”

She walked through the ruined sand, each step leaving behind motes of gold.

“What do you think of cultivation?” she asked, as if we were sharing tea in a garden instead of standing in the shell of a destroyed village. “It’s incredible, isn’t it? A staircase for mortals to reach the divine.”

A sudden flare of heat ignited beside me. My Holy Spirit, Dave, manifested in a flash of righteous fury, glowing with wrath.

“GIVE. ME. JOAN. BACK!!” he roared.

The force of his presence cracked the ground. A holy sword surged into his hand, light blazing. He lunged at her like a comet of righteous vengeance.

Alice’s voice rang in my head, strained and urgent:

“Get him out of here!”

Her Danger Sense shared via my Divine Possession was SCREAMING…

“She’s dangerous!”

I didn’t hesitate.

I snapped my fingers and channeled the spell through sheer will:

“Summon: Holy Spirit.”

But not inside.

Outside.

The spell yanked Dave from the dreamscape and ejected him into the physical world like a hooked fish. The holy sword vanished mid-swing, and with a pop of compressed mana, he was gone.

Then I reached for the real world.

I poured mana into Voice Chat, channeling my will across the distance, across the barrier between the mental and physical. My voice echoed like thunder across spiritual cords:

“Everyone on the boat... GET OFF. NOW!”

Aixin watched me calmly, as if I hadn’t just launched a divine entity out of her invaded space.

“Such a loud child,” she murmured. “This is the price for defiance. For daring to spit in the face of the Supreme Beings.”

She raised her hand, tracing something in the air. Runes formed. Golden light curled like calligraphy spun from the breath of angels.

And then, she smiled.

“Farewell, Da Wei.”

She dissolved into motes of light.

And then came the flying sword.

It wasn't conjured.

It was declared.

A blade of judgment, massive, shining gold, perfect in form and power… like a second sun in sword form.

It tore through the memory, the soul!

"Flash Pa-"

It rushed straight for me!

I barely had time to curse.

It connected.

And my eyes snapped open to the real world, to a scream on the winds, to the Soaring Dragon ship vibrating beneath my feet… And then the sword burst from Alice’s chest, golden and divine and merciless, a phantom made manifest.

I didn’t even have time to react before it finished its arc and slammed through me.

There was a moment of surreal stillness.

Then the pain.

Explosive pain!

The Soaring Dragon ship erupted into splinters. I saw wood, flame, mana, sky… all of it spinning as my body was flung into the air, skewered by divine judgment.

I looked down and saw the hole in my chest.

Big. Circular. Glowing. About the size of a basketball.

“Ah… fuck my life,” I groaned, as gravity claimed me. "Shit."

And I blacked out.

Of course.

Of course, there would always be a bigger fish.

I should’ve known. Hell, I did know.

I’d been in this world long enough to recognize the pattern: arrogance, followed by a slap from the universe. A divine backhand, to remind you where you truly stood. And for someone like me, a transmigrated player-turned-teacher-turned-sorta-cultivator, it hit every time.

That wasn’t just an echo of power I had seen.

It was a message.

Aixin’s words weren’t a threat. They were a flex. A warning! A glimpse of what a true Outsider could do. And I wasn’t ready. Not even close.

Even now, as my consciousness clawed its way back into reality, the aftershock of that golden blade lingered in my chest. I remembered its radiance, the way it carved through dream and body alike… as if I were no more than paper in front of divine fire.

And still... I lived.

Barely.

When my eyes fluttered open, the first thing I saw was crimson.

Alice.

She was looking down at me, her cold hands cupping my cheeks, her brows tight with worry and regret. I realized my head was resting on her lap, her robes soft and slightly scorched around the edges.

The Soaring Dragon was flying smoothly, high above the dunes.

"Master!" came a panicked voice.

I turned slowly and saw Lu Gao barreling toward me with tears threatening to spill from his eyes.

I winced and raised a hand.

“I’m fine,” I rasped. “But... I want to stay like this for a while longer.”

Lu Gao skidded to a stop, clearly worried, but nodded.

Alice said nothing. But she didn’t move. Her fingers gently brushed my hair back, the pads of her fingers trembling. She looked away, pretending to watch the clouds, but her silence said more than words.

Man. Being pampered by a beauty like this should’ve lifted my spirits. It should’ve felt like a win.

But it didn’t.

Because no matter how many wins I stacked, I was still, at the core, just human. If not in body, then in thinking. In doubt. I hadn’t just lost to Aixin. I’d been dismissed.

It didn’t matter that I could fly a ship or tear apart weak angels with divine spells, or survive near-fatal wounds.

The truth was… I didn’t have what it took yet.

And that stung.

It burned in a place deeper than the wound in my chest.

“Young Master Lu Gao,” Hei Yuan’s voice broke in with surprising gentleness, “please let the Master rest.”

Lu Gao froze mid-sob, standing at attention like he’d been whipped.

I gave Hei Yuan a grateful look. She didn’t meet my eyes, but she gave the faintest nod.

Then came the sound of deliberate footsteps… Captain Xue.

She stopped beside me and gave an exaggerated cough, clearly trying to act unaffected by the sight of me half-dead and nestled on Alice’s lap like some tragic male lead from a pulp novel.

“I made the executive decision to retreat,” she said crisply. “We’re heading back to Imperial territory for regrouping.”

I nodded, letting my head sink slightly deeper into Alice’s thighs.

“That’s fine,” I murmured.

We needed time. Space. A plan.

Because now I knew the truth.

The “Great Enemy” we’d fought in LLO? They couldn’t even compare. That wasn’t the final boss. That wasn’t even the mid-game. It was just the tutorial. And I’d already failed the first quiz.

This world wasn’t going to pull its punches. And if I didn’t get stronger faster than I already am, then the next time a golden sword showed up, I wouldn’t wake up afterward.

We had entered the Promised Dunes with three ships.

Now, we had one.

The others… I could only imagine them: burning, broken, lost beneath the sand or stranded somewhere behind enemy lines. Fucking angels. A chunk of my expedition, my people, had been left behind in the chaos. The realization hit me like a dull ache, just below the ribs. Not sharp enough to double me over, but heavy enough that it settled in my breath.

I shifted slightly on Alice’s lap, breaking the quiet hum of the Soaring Dragon’s flight.

“What about the others?” I asked hoarsely, my voice raw from pain and residual dream-burn. “The other ships?”

Captain Xue was standing near the helm, her hands behind her back, and turned when I spoke. Her expression was composed, soldierly, though I could tell from the faint pull in her jaw that she hadn’t taken it lightly.

“General Bai remained behind,” she said, “to lead the others. We split at the dunes’ edge… once the danger became apparent to us. The rest are holding a defensive position, waiting for the rest of the fleet to retrieve them.”

I sat up a little straighter. My chest throbbed like a drumbeat of agony, but I needed to hear this.

“Are they safe?”

Captain Xue hesitated. Then nodded.

“Safe as they can be. The… creatures… There were no more of them. I believe you’ve dealt with the last of them, Sir Da Wei.”

She exhaled slowly and added:

“We’ve already crossed the Promised Dunes’ border. We’re headed back to the Empire’s inner skies.”

Alice’s fingers brushed through my hair gently, almost absentmindedly. The contrast between her current tenderness and the Alice I knew from LLO, the witty, antihero Vampire Warlock who cursed like a dainty noble, and always picked the most self-damaging spells, was jarring.

“We should be back in the Empire soon,” she murmured, her voice like distant bells, soft and delicate.

She gave me a bittersweet smile.

God, that smile.

It was the kind someone wore when they were trying very hard not to cry, but didn’t want to show weakness. The type that said “I’m still here” but didn’t believe it.

I stared at her for a moment, remembering her old voice lines from the game, the ones full of pride and sarcasm, like she was holding the world at knifepoint.

Now…?

She was brushing my hair.

I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know how to react.

Then came the cough.

A deliberate one.

“Ahem,” Lu Gao said, his voice laced with uncertainty. He was fidgeting by the bulkhead, eyes darting between me and Alice. “Master… is it true? What happened out there… what I heard…”

He swallowed.

“Gu Jie? Ren Xun? I… I heard the story from Elder Yuan.”

My gut twisted.

It wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to confirm. Hell, it wasn’t the kind of thing you ever wanted said aloud. Saying it made it real.

Before I could answer, Hei Yuan stepped in.

“Ahem,” she mimicked pointedly, one brow arched. “Young Master Lu Gao, you should learn to read the atmosphere.”

Lu Gao blinked.

“I… I was just…”

“Let David breathe just a bit more,” Alice said, her tone firm but not unkind. “He just died. He’s still bleeding mana, and half his soul just got stabbed with Heavenly Punishment. If it weren’t for your Ring of Resurrection, you’d be dead by now, David.”

Lu Gao flushed and stepped back, muttering apologies under his breath. “S-sorry, but… I… Never mind, Mistress.” I could sense a bit of impatience in his tone. "Master, heal well..."