The Lone King’s voice filled the room as he spoke.

"It is an honor that the inheritance would open right at the moment when two people with legendary eyes were born."

His voice started to change. It shook lightly and drifted toward a softer, womanish tone. His small boyish body began to shift.

First it grew taller and broader into an adult male shape. Then the body slimmed.

A curved waist appeared. Her chest rose and fell as it took shape. Her cheeks softened.

Her face grew long, gentle, and extremely beautiful.

But the most striking change showed on her forehead and ears.

Her forehead was a little wider than a human’s. Her ears rose into sharp points.

She was a Zlycon.

"Haa..." she sighed. "It has been so long since I breathed such fresh air."

Her eyes turned to Julius. Blood still poured from the wound in his neck.

He could not understand what was happening.

His eyes stayed wide open with pure disbelief. His body trembled as life slowly slipped away.

Rosalina dropped to her knees. No words came out of her mouth.

Her face showed a horror and pain that cut deeper than any blade. The loud crashes against the door had stopped, but the heavy door remained closed.

"W-why..." she stammered. Tears rolled down her cheeks without stopping.

She watched Julius’s life fade little by little. "Why did you do that...?"

Her voice broke into quiet sobs as the room fell into heavy silence.

The woman let out a soft chuckle as she watched Rosalina’s broken face.

She twisted the sword slowly in Julius’s throat. Fresh blood gushed out in a warm rush.

"It is all according to my plan, dear," she said.

With one smooth motion, she swept her long auburn hair behind her back. "What you are seeing right now is not something I came up with just now."

She paused, then kicked Julius hard in the back. At the same time, she pulled the sword free.

"Thud."

Julius’s body dropped to the floor like a broken doll. Dark blood spread across the cold stone in a growing pool.

Rosalina’s eyes stayed locked on him. Despair filled her mind like thick fog, heavy and cold.

The woman took one calm step toward Rosalina.

"Fifteen hundred years ago, I was born," she continued. Her voice stayed smooth and steady.

"My father was the progenitor of the Zlycon race. He was the father of all Zlycons. You are still young, so you would not know about him. After all, he died twelve hundred years ago."

She thought for a moment, trying to remember his exact age, but the number slipped away. She simply shrugged and kept speaking.

"When I was born, my father loved me more than any of my siblings, those who were still alive and those who had died long before I came into the world."

She moved closer. Her eyes widened slightly. The blue color slowly faded and turned deep red, like soft rose petals.

"I was born with the rose petal eyes. The legendary eyes my father had been searching for. He loved me dearly and told me stories he had never shared with anyone else. Stories about how his mother was a goddess... and his father was a human."

The woman’s voice grew softer, almost dreamy.

"His mother... my grandma... had rose petal eyes too. That is why my father loved me so deeply. He showed me the remains of his father’s invincible path."

Her face lit up with wild excitement. "When I first saw it, my mind went mad. That power was terrifying. It could destroy anything and grant eternal life!"

She stopped right in front of Rosalina. "Can you believe it?"

Rosalina stood completely stiff, like a statue with no life left inside her.

Her lifeless eyes stayed fixed on Julius’s dead body on the floor.

Greed burned in the woman’s red rose-petal eyes. She reached out and gently grabbed Rosalina by the chin, lifting her face.

"It must be born inside a human body... with no godly blood at all."

She stared straight into Rosalina’s dark eyes, her own shining with raw hunger.

Everything she had planned for centuries had led to this exact moment.

"Fourteen hundred years ago," she continued, "I finally found a way to steal some remnants of the invincible path. I ran away, afraid my father would kill me. I fled to the three floating continents and hid for two hundred years. I cultivated until I reached the early stage of transcendence of soul ascension."

Her grip on Rosalina’s chin stayed firm but calm.

"Then I heard the news, my father had died. The first thought in my head was to return to the four stationary continents and take the rest of the inheritance."

"But at that time, my seventieth sibling ruled the clan. He stood at the peak of transcendence of soul ascension. I did not dare face him."

She let out a quiet breath.

"Even if I wanted to try, I could not. I had already passed the five heavenly trials at the void core stage, so I could no longer switch to the invincible path. My lifespan was running out too. I needed a new plan."

A cold smile touched her lips.

"I decided to cultivate again... but this time inside a new body that could walk the invincible path. I tried to possess many bodies."

"Again and again. But every attempt failed. No body could hold my soul, because it carried the rose petal eyes." Her life was running out, but she refused to die.

So she came up with one last plan. She put herself into a deep sleep and sacrificed most of her cultivation to preserve her body.

She waited patiently for a vessel that carried the rose petal eyes.

Just a few days ago, after a thousand long years, she finally sensed one.

She used her time path and invincible path inheritance as bait, and Rosalina had walked straight into the trap.

"But I did not expect my cultivation to recover this well," she thought.

She checked inside herself. Her core sat at the spirit core stage of bodily ascension and the peak of soul ascension conversion.

And it was still climbing. A small, satisfied smile curved her lips. Absorbing all those souls that had entered the tower had been worth it.

She turned her gaze back to Rosalina’s hollow face.

"You are quite talented," she said, smirking. At only sixteen years old, this girl had already reached the spirit core stage.

That was a rare feat.

Still, another face flickered in her mind, the boy she had given the key to.

Despite his weak talent, something unnatural clung to him.

She had even blocked all outside interference inside the tower after noticing. In the end, everything had gone smoothly.

’It is a good thing I blocked off that power inside the tower.,’she thought.

Her eyes drifted to Julius’s lifeless form on the floor, then back to Rosalina.

These two had tried everything to kill him, yet they still failed. It was something unimaginable even she was surprised when she saw both Julius and Rosalina fail so miserably.

A new greedy light flashed in her red rose-petal eyes. "Once I recover my full strength, I will find out exactly what he is hiding."

She looked toward the rectangular treasure-refining platform.

There, floating quietly, was the sword Julius had finished, the Soul Severing Sword.

She had gathered every rare material for it long ago, but she ran out of time before she could refine it herself.

That was why she let Julius do the work. He would suffer all the painful backlash from the failures, and she could kill him cleanly afterward.

Before they arrived, her cultivation had been messy and weak, stuck at the arcane core stage. She had no confidence to fight both of them at once.

"Now, let us begin," she said slowly.

She grabbed Rosalina’s hand and dragged her toward the platform.

Rosalina’s feet scraped weakly across the stone floor, her body limp and unresisting.

This Soul Severing Sword was the key to her plan.

It would cut Rosalina’s soul away from her body, letting the woman take over smoothly, without any resistance.

The woman lifted Rosalina’s stiff, unconscious body with ease. Grief had pulled the girl under completely.

She took the Soul Severing Sword and stared at it for a moment.

This hybrid celestial treasure had been made from many different paths. One touch could cut a soul away.

It was terrifying. Right now it was only half-refined, so it could not sever the soul of someone truly strong. But for this, it was enough. She could always refine it again later.

"Now, let me take over your body," she whispered.

She raised the sword and placed its edge gently against Rosalina’s forehead.

Chink!

A thin line opened on the skin. Blood trickled down. Then a slow, white fog began to drift out from Rosalina’s nose.

The woman reached out, grabbed the fog, and pulled it toward herself. As the smoke left, it meant the soul connection was breaking.

She held the fog in her palm and waited. It condensed slowly. The white mist took shape, forming a small body.

It changed color to match Rosalina’s skin. Her dress appeared. Hands and fingers took form. Legs followed.

"Hurry up..." the woman thought, her face tight with excitement.

Once she devoured this soul, the body would be hers. She pictured the future, standing above every living being, unstoppable. A cold smile spread across her lips.

The head formed next. Long hair flowed down. Eyes, nose, chin, everything appeared. Finally, the mouth began to take shape. The soft curves of the lips finished.

The woman leaned in, eyes shining with greed. "This is my new beginning," she said, lips moving closer to swallow the soul.

Rosalina’s blank face stared into empty space. The woman’s mouth was almost there.

Then Rosalina’s lips curved.

The woman frowned. ’What is this?’

Rosalina’s mouth formed a small, cold smile. She slowly raised her hand and stuck her tiny middle finger straight up.

"Fuck you!"

"Thwack!"

At that exact moment, a sword shot forward and pierced clean through the woman’s throat.

"Go to hell, bitch!"