Chapter 3: The Shattered Priest.

“You… what are you going to do?!”

The ominous premonition in Perth’s heart surged to its absolute peak.

He watched in terror as crimson light flashed in Restel’s eyes, as though silently issuing a command.

The next instant—

“Riiip—!”

[Content harmonized here]

“No… no! Let me go! What are you doing?! Get that thing away from me!”

Perth’s eyes widened in horror. His heart pounded with unbearable tension and panic.

Beneath the water, one of the tentacles had coiled around the ominous-glowing Demon Core and was slowly rising. Its tip was aimed with horrifying precision at the most [harmonized] part of his body.

An unprecedented fear seized his heart in an instant.

“Anyway, the core has to be integrated into your body,” Restel’s voice was utterly devoid of warmth—cold, carrying only cruel curiosity as he looked down to appreciate this scene of ultimate desecration. “The [harmonized…] effect should be the same.”

He seemed to be muttering to himself, yet it also sounded like the final verdict pronounced upon the silver-haired man.

“You demon! Beast! Bast— urgh aaaAAAHHHH—!!!”

The curse was abruptly cut off by a soul-tearing scream.

[Content harmonized here]

Perth’s vision went black. His body convulsed violently. His knees could no longer hold him; with a heavy “splash,” he collapsed to kneel in the freezing sewage.

Yet the torment was far from over.

That ice-cold Demon Core, brimming with violent dark energy, [harmonized…] deep into the most [harmonized…] part of his body.

[Content harmonized…]

“Urgh… ngh…”

Only broken, shattered moans could escape Perth’s throat. Sweat, blood, and filthy water streamed down his contorted face.

Immediately afterward, an unbearable burning sensation erupted from deep within his abdomen. It was as though the Demon Core had been ignited inside him. The ferocious dark energy began to rampage, frantically scouring and corroding his flesh, bones, meridians—even his very soul.

The last sacred holy light within him let out a mournful cry before being mercilessly swallowed and overwritten by the surging darkness.

His vision blurred and cleared in waves. Endless agony crashed against his consciousness like relentless tides. He wanted to roar, to struggle—but he no longer had the strength to even lift a finger.

“Kill… kill me…” His voice was a thread of air, each word bubbling with blood foam. “Please… just… kill me…”

This inhuman torture was a thousand times more terrifying than death!

“How is it? Comfortable?” Restel’s voice drifted over like something from a distant hell, laced with nauseating pleasure.

“Com… for… table… your… ass…” With the very last of his strength, Perth forced the broken syllables through clenched teeth. His eyes still burned with defiance, even as both body and mind teetered on the brink of collapse.

“Heh…” Restel let out a soft chuckle. “So even you lofty clergy can utter such vulgar words? Interesting.”

He watched with fascination as the silver-haired priest, under the dual torment of excruciating pain and utter humiliation, began to undergo bizarre and horrifying changes.

His skin turned deathly pale and almost translucent, as though one could see the dark energy flowing beneath. From either side of his forehead, a pair of small, sharp black horns slowly pierced through the skin, growing inch by inch, trailing thin threads of blood.

His bones made sickening grinding sounds—cracking, dissolving, then reforming—as though his entire skeleton was being melted down and recast into something new.

“AAAaaahhh—!”

Perth released a scream that no longer sounded human.

He could clearly feel his bones liquefying, his flesh disintegrating. The human structure inside him was being forcibly remolded and dissolved by the terrifying power contained within the Demon Core.

The core was greedily devouring everything that made him himself, attempting to completely transform this body that once carried holy light into a vessel of pure darkness.

Just when he thought the next second would see him burst apart under the violent force, reduced to a cloud of bloody mist—

The vast, annihilating dark energy, upon reaching a certain critical point at the core of his life, suddenly underwent an incomprehensible collapse.

Bzzz—

A strange, resonant hum filled the stone chamber.

The violent black light enveloping Perth’s body receded like a retreating tide, then rapidly converged. The enormous demonic power no longer destroyed; instead, in a manner that defied all reason, it folded inward—enfolding, nurturing, gestating.

When the light finally faded, the tentacles restraining Perth went slack and withdrew powerlessly beneath the water.

In the turbid pool, where the silver-haired priest had been, there was now only one thing left.

A single, enormous egg stood quietly in the water.

Precisely speaking—an egg.

A massive egg whose surface glowed with a warm, milky-white luster. It stood exactly where the silver-haired priest had been swallowed moments before.

Its shell was smooth as polished jade, covered in a gentle milky-white armor. A faint yet tangible halo of holy light flowed across its surface—yet at the same time, it emanated a deep, restrained draconic majesty.

Its size was just right for Restel to embrace with both arms.

The eggshell was not perfectly smooth; extremely fine, naturally formed mysterious patterns could be faintly seen etched across the milky-white base. Even fainter—almost imperceptible—threads of dark gold quietly circulated within, like sealed dragon blood.

For the first time, the playful mockery vanished from Restel’s face, replaced by genuine surprise and delight. He raised an eyebrow.

“It… didn’t explode?”

In the past, every experimental subject forcibly implanted with a Demon Core had—without exception—burst into chunks of meat, ultimately becoming food for his pets.

The light dissipated completely. The turbid water surface returned to dead silence, only faint ripples spreading outward without a sound.

The habitual, predatory amusement that usually played across Restel’s features was gone entirely.

He narrowed those dark crimson vertical pupils. His sharp gaze pierced through the thin mist rising from the water, fixing in disbelief on the sudden, anomalous creation before him.

What astonished him most was the aura emanating from the eggshell—an utterly contradictory yet strangely harmonious fusion.

The outer layer was shrouded in a faint but incomparably pure halo of holy light, like moonlight gauze, carrying an unyielding rejection of darkness.

And yet, in this moment, it formed a delicate, eerie equilibrium—as though ice and fire had reached a frozen critical point in absolute zero.

He slowly drew closer, advancing with an almost reverent focus. One step forward; icy sewage rose over the tops of his boots.

Restel approached the mysterious giant egg. His tall figure cast a heavy, oppressive shadow across it.

He leaned in slightly until the tip of his nose nearly brushed the shell that radiated a cool holy light.

No breath. No heartbeat. Only an indescribable, vital pulsing sensation—steady and powerful—came faintly through the shell.

Slowly, very slowly, the corners of Restel’s mouth curved upward.

A pure, heartfelt, enormous joy and fanaticism bloomed across his features—like someone who had just discovered the rarest treasure in existence.

The cold calculation in his dark crimson eyes was overtaken by a twisted, eager anticipation.

He extended a gloved hand. His fingertips carried an almost tender sense of blasphemy as they moved with extreme slowness, gently caressing the smooth, cool surface of the eggshell.

He could feel it—the unprecedented new life form being gestated within.

This was no crude monster transformation.

This was the fusion of a pure human cleric’s soul with the supreme Demon Core of an ancient dragon race—a miracle personally created by him, one that overturned every known law.

“Ha…”

A low, irrepressible laugh—mingled with excitement and possessive desire—escaped his throat.

He spread both arms wide, as though intending to cradle this egg that held the unknown future within them.

His voice came low, filled with twisted delight, echoing like demonic chant from the abyss:

“Welcome to our side.”

Those two words—“welcome”—were no longer flippant mockery.

They carried the solemn, hair-raising gravity of one heralding the dawn of a new era, burning with fanaticism.

In the interplay of the egg’s milky-white holy light and the dim shadows of the stone chamber, the demon’s lips parted in the most satisfied, terrifying smile he had ever worn.