VAP - Chapter 72
Chapter 72: The Supreme Sage Hopelessly Obsessed with Beauty (31)
The situation developed just as Yue Du had predicted. Even though Lorins, the very cause of the war, had safely returned to her people, the sudden conflict showed no signs of stopping.
If there was any change at all, it was that the magical beasts had gained another Saint-rank expert—an avian one with control of the skies, no less.
The humans: “…”
Dazed and despairing.
Were the magical beasts cheating???
Initially, the Empire had no idea what had happened. They only saw the enemy leader carry off a blonde girl, and before they could even find out who she was, the Red Moon mercenaries sensed the danger and promptly went into hiding.
As a result, the investigation yielded nothing.
As for the Saint-rank powerhouses, they hadn’t paid her much mind until they came face-to-face with the Golden-Winged Phoenix on the battlefield.
Whoops.
The Beast Emperor had just carried off a blonde young woman, and suddenly a golden-feathered queen of the bird tribe appeared on the magical beasts' side. Even though Lorins never revealed her human form on the battlefield, it was more than enough for anyone to piece together the truth.
Who would believe it was a coincidence?
Abio was the only human who knew the complete truth, but he chose to remain silent from start to finish.
Nikula City was in its snowy season.
Outside the window, white snow fluttered down. Abio watched calmly for a while, then lowered his head to fasten the clasp of his mage robe.
He hoped his dear friend was all right.
Meanwhile, at Galor Castle.
It was also snowing in the First Dharma Saint's domain. The snowfall was particularly long and heavy; by now, the snowdrifts were more than half a person's height.
Lord Nai Yin had a perfect excuse to stay indoors, and having completed the task of preventing the protagonists from falling in love, she was in a rather cheerful mood.
Yue Du closed the video feed from the black-feathered crow and said with satisfaction, “That’s settled. Now we just have to follow the prompts and stop the other plot points from happening.”
And for the host, those plot points posed no difficulty whatsoever. They were less like tasks and more like daily diversions that required no real effort.
…Though it wasn't as if the previous tasks had required much effort either.
Just as she was thinking this, Nai Yin lazily leaned over.
Yue Du tilted her head, placed a light kiss on the moon-like silver hair, and then opened the book in front of her.
The book contained a detailed description of how to improve summoning accuracy, making it perfect for a summoner at her current stage. Naturally, Yue Du was reading it intently.
Lord Nai Yin glanced gloomily at the page.
“Look at how fast they’re progressing, and then look at us. Don’t you think we’re falling behind?” she coaxed.
“Are you talking about Lorins and the Silver Wolf Emperor?”
“Mhm!”
“Then you must have forgotten that the wolf and the bird have known each other for several hundred years,” Yue Du pointed out cruelly, raising an eyebrow. “Fast?”
Nai Yin: “…”
Tsk.
Her attempt to get frisky was shut down by that casual retort. Nai Yin slid down listlessly and rested her head on her lover's lap.
Of course, this didn't mean she was giving up.
Nai Yin had always known how to use her advantages—for example, her face.
She was a natural beauty, bewitching and utterly captivating… No superlative describing peerless beauty would seem out of place when applied to her.
Set in such a face, her pure black eyes were gentle and unwavering, fixed on Yue Du without blinking. Her red lips were slightly parted, like ripe cherry jelly, seeming to invite a touch—from a fingertip, from other lips, from anything at all.
Even though her eyes were so dark they barely reflected any light, leaving no trace of a reflection, no one would doubt the affection within them.
The page trembled as Yue Du quietly tightened her fingers.
“I still think our progress is a bit slow,” Nai Yin said. “What do you think?”
This time it was Yue Du's turn: “…”
As for being slow, it had only been a little over half a year. By no means could that be considered dragging their feet.
But then again, their feelings had certainly reached that stage. Sometimes, Yue Du even felt as if they had been together for a very long time—so long that the thrill of their touch was deeply familiar, a familiarity so nostalgic it could almost bring her to tears.
Yue Du took a deep breath, instinctively avoiding her gaze. “It’s fine. It’s normal. Things like this… should happen naturally when the time is right…”
She hardly knew what she was saying, and the tips of her ears reddened against her will.
Nai Yin stared at her for a moment before suddenly letting out a soft laugh. She wrapped her arms around Yue Du's waist and said, her voice muffled, “Darling, you’re so adorable.”
Yue Du was silent for a long moment. “What a coincidence. I think so too.”
Nai Yin's laughter grew even more unrestrained and joyful.
Yue Du couldn't for the life of her figure out what was so funny. She shook her head and, while continuing to study with a System's hyper-efficiency, thought: Go ahead, laugh all you want.
Perhaps sensing a crisis, Nai Yin quickly stopped laughing.
She rubbed her smooth forehead affectionately against Yue Du's waist and said, half-joking and half-serious, “Relax, don’t overthink it. I’m not that hungry yet.”
Yue Du opened her mouth to speak, then stopped.
Actually, she was a little hungry.
Nai Yin didn't notice and continued in a soft voice, “So don’t feel pressured, okay?”
“…Mhm.”
I can still tell which part of that was true, Yue Du thought.
If her earlier guess was correct, then lust was to Nai Yin what sloth was to Qi Jiu—a nearly instinctual trait.
Would it be painful for her to keep holding back?
Yue Du frowned. Before she could finish her thought, Nai Yin suddenly sat up and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“Actually, to be honest, I am a little hungry.” Nai Yin tucked a strand of silver hair behind her ear, gestured toward her lips, and asked with a grin, “May I have a bite?”
Yue Du watched as bone-white fangs emerged.
She's already showing her vampire form, what's the point in asking?
She was rather speechless. Without ceremony, she pinched the tips of Nai Yin's pure black horns and said, “Go on.”
Nai Yin smiled. “As you command.”
Red lips pressed against a long, fair neck. One arm tightened its embrace, while the other hand discreetly closed the book and pushed it aside.
This time, the feeding was also exceptionally long.
Yue Du thought dazedly, The host is holding back? Yeah, right.
If this was her “holding back,” what would she be like if she let loose!
Of course, that thought lasted only an instant before it was drowned in a chaotic torrent of sensations and emotions, never to surface again.
Under the watch of the Goddess of Time and Space, years flowed like a river, and turmoil swept across the Ayers Continent.
If things continued on their course, humans, magical beasts, vampires, and even the typically peaceful sea-dwellers would all be swept up in the conflict.
But what did the affairs of those four races have to do with Lord Nai Yin?
Nai Yin passed a very pleasant winter, followed by an equally pleasant spring and half of the summer.
Even though the outside world was in chaos, and the emperor—angry, busy, and full of regret—kept sending her messages begging for her intervention;
Even though certain baffling individuals, most of them Saint-rank, would come to the castle to spy, forcing her to deal with them personally instead of leaving it to her subordinates;
Even though other things constantly vied for Yue Du's attention, like her summoner textbooks, the highly skilled pastry chef, or news about Abio and Lorins—
—none of it mattered.
Compared to her sweet, lovely white rose, her goddess of love, her little nightingale, none of it mattered at all.
Nai Yin thought blissfully.
Because of the chaos outside and the absence of any mission objectives lately, Yue Du rarely left, content to stay holed up in the castle with her.
Nai Yin thought this was perfect.
For someone with an obsessive personality, terrifying thoughts would often surface out of nowhere: “I should just lock her away,” or “She should only look at me and nothing else,” or “Anyone who gets near her should just die”… all sorts of dreadful ideas.
For that very reason, Yue Du's current situation couldn't have been more to her liking.
Possession, mutual love, and staying home—these things removed any trigger for the kinds of thoughts that would send a normal person running for the hills.
Although Nai Yin herself saw nothing wrong with it, she knew that for an ordinary person, such thoughts would be cause for immediate flight.
So she hid it well.
And by the looks of it, she could keep it hidden forever.
However, hints of it would occasionally surface—for instance, whenever Yue Du was engrossed in a book, her eyes never straying from the page.
Yue Du had once explained the meaning of her real name to her. “Yue” was her surname, and “Du” was her given name. It meant, one, to look at text and read it aloud, and two…
…So that’s why she liked reading books so much?
Bifula, the one who had provided Yue Du with the summoner-related books, became the target of Nai Yin's displaced anger. Nai Yin permitted the chief healer to extract venom from Bifula's precious little black spider.
Bifula had no idea how she had offended her. Terrified, she wailed more tragically than anyone, “Oh, my baby! Milan, you deviant, let my baby go! If you have to do something, do it to me!”
The healer said coolly, “Do you possess venom comparable to a Hell Black Spider's?”
“No.”
“Then shut up.”
“Sob, sob, sob—”
Nai Yin derived her satisfaction from her subordinate's suffering, feeling perfectly justified in doing so.
In truth, Yue Du didn't spend that much time actually reading. Though she was a System now, her thought processes were still fundamentally human.
Compared to absorbing knowledge, wasn't enjoying desserts, sleeping, and doing what lovers do with Nai Yin far more appealing?
Good times are always short-lived.
Around midsummer, the vampires left their enclaves and joined the fray, throwing the war into even greater chaos.
Yue Du found it hard to understand.
“I thought they would join the fight much later,” she said. “After all, the war has been going on for less than a year. Neither the humans nor the magical beasts have shown their hands yet…”
Nai Yin couldn't help but laugh. “You think the vampires would wait until both sides have worn each other down?”
Although Yue Du felt something was wrong, she still nodded.
“On the contrary, this is the perfect time. Because a war between humans and magical beasts will never be enough to shake either side to their core.”
Yue Du had a sudden realization.
While the magical beasts were indeed stronger overall than the humans, if they were to truly annihilate humanity, they would suffer grievous losses themselves.
At that point, the vampires would surely strike, and the magical beasts would be powerless to resist.
Teaming up with the vampires was also out of the question. The magical beasts held a grudge against humans, but did they not also hold one against vampires?
Vampires also coveted materials from magical beasts and even drank their blood. The only reason they hadn't caused as much harm as humans was due to their smaller population and greater distance from the main magical beast territories.
If they were to truly cooperate, the risks for the magical beasts would be too great.
The vampires were also well aware that the two warring factions would never truly fight to the death. It was far better to stir the pot while both humans and magical beasts were focused on each other and fish for some benefits in the murky water.
Nai Yin sneered. “That’s about all that man is capable of.”
The “man” she spoke of was the current ruler of the vampires and also her own biological grandfather—though, of course, he had no idea Nai Yin was his descendant.
Nai Yin Galor's background was simple: her father was a vampire, and her mother was a human.
Their love, which crossed racial boundaries and defied their families' elders, was sweet at first. But after a decade together, the two grew weary of each other and parted on bad terms.
As the “problem” left behind by this relationship, the half-vampire Nai Yin lived for a time in vampire territory before being kicked over to the human side like a soccer ball.
Her mother had since married a human man of equal standing and treated her with extreme indifference.
The girl endured a sorrowful childhood and adolescence, eventually using forbidden arts to remake her body and elevate her innate talent, achieving the rank of Dharma Saint within a century.
She was the one with the eccentric personality, and she was the one obsessed with beauty.
—Such was the story of Nai Yin Galor in the original timeline.
The Nai Yin that Yue Du knew had a much simpler story. After leaving vampire territory, she didn't bother looking for her birth mother and simply found a place to settle down.
Then she became a Dharma Saint in under three years.
With time on her hands, Nai Yin would even pick fights with other Dharma Saints, among them her grandfather—the very one who had stood by and watched coldly as other vampire children bullied his half-blood granddaughter.
The vampire leader was beaten so badly he couldn't tell which way was up, and he still had no idea how he had offended her.
Finding it boring, Nai Yin turned to leave, but he tenaciously raised a hand and asked, “Your Excellency… just who are you?”
Nai Yin considered it for a moment, then replied nonchalantly, “Me? I’m your grandmother.”
Suffering such a humiliation, the vampire leader couldn't catch his breath and passed out.
Without a backward glance, Nai Yin scoffed, “Tch. Can't even take a hit.”
Yue Du: “…”
In short, that was the extent of their relationship.
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