Chapter 361: Primal Queen of Fire

Chapter 361: Chapter 361: Primal Queen of Fire

Chapter 361 – Primal Queen of Fire

Light.

Cassius suddenly found himself floating in a completely different place. A place where nothing existed but fires, on all sides, of every color and type, surrounding him the way a mother’s womb embraces a fetus.

It was a strange sensation, and Cassius found himself struggling to shake the feeling that he was ’inside’ someone...or maybe something.

’Where am I?’

He looked at his own body and saw that it was illusory, wavering the same way the fires around him burned.

Suddenly, Cassius felt a piercing gaze settle on him. He turned towards its source and saw nothing but a pair of burning eyes, high in the sky of that strange place.

The eyes held every color that could possibly exist between heaven and earth, yet they didn’t look chaotic at all.

They were oddly harmonious, each color representing a different kind of fire, burning at its own frequency in relation to the others.

It was mesmerizing, and Cassius didn’t need anyone to tell him who those eyes belonged to.

"Primal Queen of Fire," he said. And as if the name itself carried power, the fires around him burned even brighter.

"You have nothing of your own, Cassius Desdemona," the Primal Queen of Fire said straightaway, her voice like chains of exploding fire.

Cassius immediately frowned at those words, coming from nowhere.

But she wasn’t done.

"Your abilities belonged to your ancestors. Your Eye of Dragons exists because Amate Desdemona slaughtered red dragons and forged them. Your Spirit Affinity exists because your master, the distinguished Mallory Octavia Claweye, killed one of my own to give you the Spirit Eyes."

The more she spoke, the darker Cassius’s expression grew.

"I see, also, that you’ve obtained the Eyes of Adonis." The Queen’s eyes curved mockingly. "Given to you as well, I assume. Just as everything in your life has always been given to you."

"Is that how you see me?" Cassius shot back, the exact thing his master had told him not to do.

But he couldn’t help himself. Few things could make Cassius Desdemona genuinely angry. Only now did he realize one more of them: and it was having the effort behind these powers dismissed.

It was true none of them were originally his own, but hand these same powers to anyone else and watch them crumble under the weight.

That, however, was something the Primal Queen didn’t care about.

"That’s exactly how I see you, Cassius Desdemona," she said, unbothered. "You’re an empty shell. You only look full because of your ancestors and the people around you. On your own..."

The fire burned as if laughing, mocking him.

"...you’re nothing but the untalented Last Born of the Desdemona. You’re who you are because of what your ancestors did. Yet people around you mistake it, thinking it’s because you’re special that your ancestors did all this. That’s a false statement, if I’ve ever heard one."

Cassius’s eyes grew colder by the second, wondering why this meeting was still going on.

"You’re a product," the Queen giggled, seeming to enjoy the whole thing. "Modeled, shaped, manipulated for a purpose you don’t even understand. You’re a puppet, Cassius Desdemona. And you don’t deserve to be the contractor of my three blood children."

"You’ve been running your mouth since the start, Primal Queen," Cassius replied coldly. "And it’s honestly starting to get rather annoying. You said I have nothing of my own?"

"Oh my~" the Primal Queen cackled. "Telling me, a Spirit Ruler, that I run my mouth? Has that audacity been given to you too? From Amate, perhaps? And yes, Cassius. If you disagree, then tell me something you own — something worthy — that wasn’t given to you."

Cassius didn’t answer.

"Exactly," the Primal Queen laughed. "Nothing worthy. And you’ve insulted a Spirit Ruler. What kind of punishment would you like?"

The Last Born looked around at the fires burning, cackling, hissing endlessly. He closed his eyes to steady his nerves, all while feeling the Primal Queen’s scornful gaze bearing down on him.

It was the first time this had happened to him, the first time someone had looked at him and seen nothing special.

The first time someone had pointed out that everything he possessed was only borrowed from ancestors, or from dead people he’d never even known.

Cassius hadn’t minded that, at first. He had powerful skills and Characteristics. But somewhere inside him, he did feel that these skills weren’t truly his own.

That these powers, no matter how much Adaptation made them feel like his, still carried the imprint of the people who’d created them.

So what did he actually have? He’d created Techniques, but those were something very different from a Skill.

A Technique was a loose concept, meant to make up for the limited Skills gained by ranking up. Powerful, in some cases, but ultimately lacking, and useless in the long run.

Cassius had always believed that one day he’d be able to create something truly his own. Something, as the Primal Queen had just said, worthy.

So maybe the reason her words angered him more than he’d expected was that there was truth in them. An uncomfortable truth.

Cassius’s powers weren’t truly his own, not in the fundamental sense.

It was one thing to realize that himself. It was another to be mocked by a higher being for it.

And the Last Born wouldn’t accept the latter.

So he steadied his breathing, calmed his heartbeat, and opened his eyes again to face the Primal Queen.

"I’ll give you what you want," he said, his eyes flat. "Wherever this place is, I’m not here in my physical body."

"Of course you’re not."

"Then you must have the power to bring my body here, Primal Queen," Cassius replied. "So do it. Bring my body into this world of fire. Because you seem to forget my ancestor killed hundreds of dragons to create her Skill and Characteristic, and she did it once she was old enough, with enough experience behind her. I’m certain it was the same for the others, save a few exceptions. Either way, they had the material and the environment to create something."

He paused, then said slowly, "Give me that same environment."

"So you want to enter my very home?" The Primal Queen smirked. "You? A human?"

"I’m not just any human."

"You’re a puppet. Worse, even."

"Then let this puppet show you what he can do." He tilted his head, smirking back. "Or are you afraid of being proven wrong? I imagine it wouldn’t be easy for someone as condescending and arrogant as you to take a loss. Totally understandable."

"Oh~" The Primal Queen’s eyes narrowed into something gleeful, yet mocking. "Getting arrogant now, are we, little puppet?"

"I’m just trying to emulate you."

"You can’t. Do you know who you’re talking to?"

"A s—!"

"Someone who could kill you with a single breath," the Primal Queen cut in. "But if you want to prove you’re worth something, I’ll give you the chance to prove it. It won’t be easy, though."

Her eyes curved sinisterly.

"I’ll give you three days, Cassius. Three days to create something worthy. Don’t worry about the time, mine moves slower than yours. Three days here will only be three hours in your world." She said, "And if you lose, you give me your left eye, and part of your soul."

"And if I win, Primal Queen, you agree to become my contracted spirit."

"You’d die. You can’t bear my power, unless I do what Wind did, and seal myself." She scoffed with a cackle. "I won’t seal myself."

"Your answer has nothing to do with what I asked," Cassius said sharply. "If I win, you become my spirit. Yes or no? I didn’t ask whether I’d die or not."

"Insolent, aren’t you?"

"Annoying, aren’t you?"

"Should I just kill you?"

"You won’t," Cassius scoffed. "Otherwise you’d have done it the first second, or sent me away the moment you decided I wasn’t worthy. But you keep me here, talking, provoking me. Are you that lonely, Primal Queen? Do you need to provoke someone just to feel less alone?"

"I usually need to kill someone to feel less alone," she replied. "Maybe that’s something that speak to you?"

"I don’t think so. Nothing about you speaks to me."

"We’ll see about that, then," she replied. "Now, if you’re this confident of winning...shall we, Cassius?"

The fire surrounding them began to blaze fiercely, and Cassius felt his real-world body being forcibly pulled elsewhere.

Mallory, who’d been watching the process, widened her eyes as the runic circle for the contract shattered with a loud crack, the three sisters jolting awake, coughing blood.

Then, before she had time to react, she felt Cassius’s body, deep in the water, vanish completely, as if swallowed by some void.

"What’s happening? Cassius, what did the bastard do this time?" Mallory was baffled.

At the same moment, Cassius found himself plunging into a world of fire.

And inside that world stood a throne, where a stunning, crimson-skinned woman with flaming hair and eyes sat, her mouth curved into a condescending smirk.

"Welcome to the Fire State of the Spirit World, little insolent puppet."

DING!

[You have received a Cursed Quest!]

—End of Chapter 361—