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Chapter 661 - Not what it looks like
🕑 Added 2025-07-13 08:49:51 +0000 UTC“I wouldn’t say awfully curious, maybe just a little bit? But don’t people do that often?”
The demon woman smiles, and something audibly cracks, likely another bone breaking.
“That’s true, people ask about us a lot, but you asking brought my attention. Can you guess why?”
“Is it this?” I ask as a tiny black orb forms over the palm of my hand.
As always, its oppressive presence fills the area, and even though I haven’t used that much mana to create it, it starts hungrily sipping on the mana surrounding me as well as mine.
“How terribly predictable I must be when even an attendee can guess that,” she breathes out in a playful tone and then tilts her head as if listening to something.
“This body isn’t that bad, actually. I picked it because it seemed stronger than the others, but examining it now, it’s quite impressive. This demoness would likely become a Champion candidate just through the power of her body alone.”
I look at it. One eye burst, bleeding tears, twisted arms, and bruises covering most of the pale skin. All that just from the presence of the Ruler, and likely a limited one.
“How do you guys even move around if just a piece of your power causes that?”
Kindness straightens up again with a movement as creepy as it is elegant while shifting the broken body. “There are different names for them. Some call them Apostles, others Heralds, but the term we use most often is Vessels. Usually, it is one of our Masters who serves us by offering their body. Others could use Projections, Avatars, Clones, Duplicates too.”
“Wouldn’t a Vessel die if you manifest yourself through them?”
“They are very durable, but most of the time, yes.”
“So you guys just stay on your planet?”
She smiles, and the corner of her lip tears. “I like the many questions you ask and how much you try to exploit the opportunity. I still think you could have been a great Greed if you decided to pick that subclass. You must have also sensed Greed nudging you towards it, greedy as always. As you said, we rarely move ourselves, often staying within our domains, the most durable planets.”
“What do you mean, durable planets?”
“You seem to suspect something already, don’t you?”
“Planets that went through a lot of pairings?”
Her laugh spreads through the room. “When I watch you sometimes, I still find myself getting surprised by that instinct you have towards how the system functions. And yes. The more pairings the planet goes through, the stronger it becomes and the…”
She cuts her words and then shakes her head. “I will keep that one to myself for now.”
"So, which floor is yours?" I ask her directly.
She stares me down with the same gentle expression.
I count three seconds before she answers: "Not telling."
Taking a few steps, more cracks sound, and her blood flows down her body, dripping onto the floor with every movement. From up close, she stares at the tiny black orb.
"Can you tell me what it is?" I ask directly. I know the body she possesses has a time limit, so I try to ask a question that hopefully won’t annoy her and might get an answer.
Looking at the black orb for a bit longer, she stands and shakes her head. “It has many names, but no one knows which one is the correct one. Or maybe all of them are. Someone like the Warden, Last Elf, or Magi could probably tell you a dozen of them.”
“That answers nothing.” I push a little bit.
“The best answers are like that.” Her smile turns more gentle, and she squints her eye a bit. “I know Greed likes to think of you as her ‘secret’ project, but I hope there is a little chance you could help me as well.”
“How could I even help someone like you?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“You probably can’t, but the same as Greed, I like to spread webs even if the chance is low. Tell me, Nathaniel, do you know what she wants of you?” Her voice turns to a whisper, and she steps closer, only to come to a halt.
I follow her eyes and look down at Biscuit, who calmly rests in my arms with his eyes now open. There is a purple glow in them. He doesn’t even do it in a threatening manner. There is no mana, no primordial energy.
He just looks at her.
The Ruler of Kindness smiles wider and stays where she is, meeting my gaze.
“I'm sure Greed is listening, and she would grow angry if I said more, so I will keep her hopes and desires to myself. I have but one request. Only one thing I have longed for through millennia. Something even Pride could not give me.”
She opens her mouth to say more, and the second leg under her cracks. She falls to the floor backwards.
Slowly, she turns onto her chest and then uses her single unbroken arm to crawl around to face me. Blood covers most of her face now.
“I want someone, anyone, to extinguish what remains of me and let it be over.”
Her mouth curves into one last gentle smile before she twitches. Her lips begin to move, as if to speak, but no sound follows. Then she goes still, and the presence vanishes.
I wait a few seconds longer, just to be sure, but the body doesn’t move again.
Looking down at Biscuit, I say. “There is no way I would be able to do that anytime soon. Do you think she told me now to ‘preorder’ my help and just asks the same thing of every other capable Beyonder?”
(Food.)
“I think so too. Most of the time, these people don’t even give it much thought. It’s just like those guys telling you to ask 100 girls on a date and hope one says yes. Like a numbers game. The thinking is: the more you try, the better your odds, and rejection, or in this case, my failure or death, is just part of the process?”
(Asshole. Food?)
I lay back on the bed and put Biscuit on my chest, where he sits in his puppy form, looking down at me.
“Maybe? They-”
The wind moves again, the side of my room explodes, and through the hole, a petite black-haired girl barges in, a gray mantle swirling around her. In her hands, she holds two axes made of bone. She breathes heavily, and her eyes first land on the dead demon at my feet before looking at me.
"It's not what it looks like," I say.
At first, her face goes blank, then confusion follows, and finally, a smile. With a groan, she lets go of her axes, which thump loudly onto the wooden floor and crack it from the impact. The mantle around her disappears, and she slides down against the back wall, landing on her bottom. There are wounds all over her body, quickly healing and almost fully closed already.
"Did she talk to you as well?" Lily asks.
"A bit, if you can call it talking. You know the type, mysterious, hiding behind 'it's too dangerous to tell you more' or 'that person wouldn't like it if I said anything.' That kind of stuff."
Lily gives a quick laugh, brushing sweat from her forehead. "She popped up out of nowhere, talked for a while, and disappeared in the direction of our base."
Another person steps through the hole, Tess, surrounded by lightning, with a crown floating above her head. "I've never seen anyone move so fast just using their body. And you too, Lily. You must have broken a record."
"I was worried she was after the others, so I rushed back, but I couldn’t catch up at all."
"I’d gift you Biscuit if you were able to catch up to her," I tell Lily.
When Biscuit looks up at me, eyes wide open, I whisper very quietly, "I wouldn’t."
He chomps down and bites my finger, then continues chewing on it as I look back at Lily. Tess, meanwhile, is in the room now, sitting on the windowsill.
"Did she say anything interesting?" I ask.
It takes a moment for Lily to take her eyes off me. She shakes her head and smiles wider. "Something about asking me to extinguish what remains of her. And that I did something before to pass her test. I don’t even know what it all means."
I shrug. "It makes sense. You've met the Ruler of Kindness, who's taken over one of the natives. And if I'm right, we've met her before. On the third floor."
Tess blinks, and while Lily seems even more confused, she says, "The Saint."
"Yup."
Lily looks between me and Tess, then briefly at Biscuit, still chewing on my finger, and back at me. "The Saint was dead. Only the body lived."
"And she also has black mana. That would explain why the King recognized it," I say aloud, thinking. "She’s looking for someone to kill her. So maybe the third floor setup wasn’t her getting assassinated, but it was her trying to kill herself. She probably failed and later became a Ruler. That floor might be designed for her to find people who might have even a small chance of killing her. There, there is Greed who wants to kill Pride. If someone kills Pride, it means that person is strong. Such a person might also be able to kill Kindness as well, and that’s why she seems to work with Greed. Pride couldn’t kill her, apparently. I don’t think she’s stronger than he. I just think he literally couldn’t kill her. Lily she might be an even more cracked-out healer than you. Scary stuff."
I pull my finger from Biscuit's mouth and wipe the saliva on his tiny nose. He scrunches it, woofs, and starts biting me again with more enthusiasm.
Thinking more, I continue, "She didn’t seem great at handling mana, but who knows? I think that unkillable maniac brute-forced her way into compressing mana into black mana. Just abused her body and mind until she figured it out. I gotta say, I admire that. I’d love to see how her use of it differs from mine. And oh, Lily, we’ll run a few tests and see if you can learn it too. I mean, I don’t think you need more terrifying abilities in your arsenal, but I’d die of curiosity if we didn’t try."
I look at her and wait. It takes her a second to realize I’m expecting an answer, and then she nods. "Yes!"
I grab Biscuit and hold him tightly with one hand while pulling my finger out of his mouth, now even wetter from his saliva. As if sensing what’s about to happen, he twists and hurriedly tries to get away. But I move quickly, stick the tip of my finger into his ear, and twist it there.
Biscuit howls long and loud with that tiny mouth of his puppy form until Tess walks by, takes him from my arms, and holds him close to her chest protectively.
(Asshole! Asshole! Asshole! Asshole! Asshole! Asshole! Asshole! Asshole! Asshole! Asshole! Asshole! Asshole! Asshole!)
I stand up from the bed and stop in front of Lily, who sits there on the ground and looks up at me. She grabs the hand I reach out, and I pull her to her feet.
As expected, she takes the opportunity to pull me into a hug. I try carefully to get out, but I can’t even push against the strength of her body and the grip of her arms, not without reinforcing myself or using kinetic energy. A part of me thinks it might be a threat or a reminder from her.
When she finally lets go, I’m about to step back, but she keeps looking at me with those big eyes.
"You haven’t pinched my nose," she jokes with a big smile.
I glance at Tess, who just watches in quiet amusement, then go ahead and pinch Lily’s nose, making sure to use the finger Biscuit was biting.
Lily hisses and jumps back, wiping her nose with sleeve while I step toward the body on the floor and glance down.
"Let’s examine it a little before the others get back," I say.
If it was good enough for the Ruler of Kindness to possess, it’s good enough for me to take a look at.
***
Comments
Shandlar
That's silly. This didn't come out of nowhere at all. The first tournament arc many books ago we saw his disciple was practically a God who explained he was a master at cultivating a particularly rare and extremely powerful primordial energy. Its been apparent for hundreds of chapters that Biscuit is weak in many ways but has obtained one or two massively overpowered abilities.
Nagy Ádám
Oh i think the little blackhaired girl will bite the dust. Hope not but have this feeling she will.
Octaeon
I like Biscuit as a character, but the way he is treated as extremely strong for literally no reason is just weird. It was funny when it was just Nat joking about the 'future Corgi Absolute' but learning that he actually is that strong for some reason???? How? Why? What is he strong in? How did he get so strong? Why would his mind be so powerful? I dont know, this plotline is just annoying. Everyone else becomes strong through grueling training and years of persistent effort, while Biscuit doesn't do shit - at least nothing we, as readers, get to see. He just gets these moments where he's supposed to be scary for some reason and I just dislike it because it feels unearned. Nat is a menace, but we've seen what it took for him to get there - same with other members of group 4, we've seen them grow from mortals to basically demigods. Only Biscuit seemed to be a normal dog until suddenly we're told he is as powerful, if not more than the others in the group. It's one of the few flaws of this novel for me.
Javen
its insane how much id be shipping Nat and Tess if it wasn't clear hes not yet capable of such feelings.
Gwalmeich
Did he just inflict a wet willi on our poor E.S.C.?
Zaim İpek
I prefer "Natly"
Sushitrash
Nat and Lily romance gets better each volume ✊ I was a firm believer in Natess but Liliniel is a fierce competitor
Mark Bullock
Didn't expect what Kindness wanted... And I made a lot of guesses waiting for this chapter...
Ronnel
TFTC!!!
Andrew
Thank you!
zoarian
Normal attendees struggling for any attention, meanwhile Natty is getting side quests from Ruelrs left and right. Truly, his rizz is unmatched.
Zaim İpek
No, it was clearly stated that Pride is the one who declined to contribute a tutorial floor when Greed initially proposed the idea to the other rulers.
Zaim İpek
It's actually too much. Her disintegration can already compete with it by default as shown when Nat tested his black mana ley line against her. If she could use black mana with her disintegration skill. . . she might accidentally kill herself very VERY quickly.
Zaim İpek
I think if Nat and Lily team up, they could do it. Disintegration is a pretty great skill for this kind of thing. If Lily can maybe evolve or merge her disintegration mantle one more time into to something even more deadly and then level that skill into the 90s, that should be enough to annihilate whatever she wants, but she seems to have as much trouble leveling that as Nat does with Manifestation, so it will be a long journey. And if Nat can level his Empyrean lance or some other Empyrean skill into the 90s and form it from black mana, that could probably also do the trick. But even better is if they both use their skills together. But in all honesty the best solution and most likely to actually happen is to have Biscuit eat her once he becomes Ruler of Gluttony. Just like how the deer champion with insane regeneration wasn't put down by Nat's insanity sword, but Biscuit ended it in one bite, I think the same applies here. She will hopefully be the first and LAST human Biscuit ever eats. I can only hope for the sake of the universe he doesn't develop a taste for human meat. Nat and Lily will both probably give it a shot, but Kindness' body is so adapted to black mana already, that I don't think it will help Nat very much, and she probably regenerates at the same speed as a full powered lvl 99 disintegration can disintegrate stuff. She is almost certainly one of the very few who has a maxed skill, and hers just happens to make her annoyingly unkillable. She might be the oldest ruler of all and profoundly exhausted with living so long. I think Biscuit is the only real solution to her problem.
Lizy Flore
Lily with black mana would be frankly terrifying
Andromeda
I wonder how many of the floors are tests for rulers. All of them? Obviously just clearing it on hell difficulty won't get their attention but maybe if they are cleared in specific ways then they would pass their test and pay a bit more attention to them if they are interesting. Originally I thought Pride was the one who didn't have a tutorial floor but it was never directly stated. Maybe because they are so strong they have no reason to test attendees. Though I could also see pride being from the 13th floor that can only be cleared by S rank beyonders
Fdrugc
Tftc
Adrian Rake
This whole chapter… Scary stuff man! Like a horror movie playing in front of your eyes pretending to be a romantic comedy 😳
mitchell kaiser
Not the request I expected from her, but it makes sense with the floor quest.
Augustus
Asshole!
Tsorov
I don't think she is stronger that the other rulers, just not able to be killed. If she entered the floor, she wouldn't die, but just be captured in that floor without any other being able to reach and kill her. Not really ideal for a suicidal immortal.
Youkai-sama
A wet whillie! 🤣
Frotzy
If Kindness want to die, what stops her from entering the 12th or 13th floor of beyond, it have been stated to be able to kill rulers
Budgie
Asshole!
BlackRazaras
Thanks for the chapter
Poutine Au Syrop d'érable
Tftc
asdsa fasfas
Suffering from success huh, invested so hard in Vitality that nothing can actually end you. Its hillarious actually, other str/agi/mana only enjoyers need to worry constantly to not kill themselfs, but with full vitality you can't even commit suicide, talk about a ruined future And yeah, to surprise of noone Kindness actually Saint, it was kinda predictable tbh but good to know for sure I guess Ty for chappie!
Daniel Francis
Tftc
Niclas Elmers
Tftc
im_among_you
Gb cerim
vEnviouz
TFTC!!!
Andrey Barragan
Thanks for the chapter
