“At last. Found the bitch.”
The woman in fine robes stood by the Ice Crystal Pool, staring at Seraphina Caldwell, who sat in the water with her eyes closed, cultivating. A cold grin crept onto the woman’s lips. She slipped a hand into her storage space, drew out five Bliss Pills, and gently set them along the edge of the pool.
She waited a moment.
Seraphina still hadn’t moved. She was deep in cultivation, cut off from the world, blind to everything outside herself.
Only then did the woman ease back, step by careful step, afraid of making the slightest sound. When she finally turned to leave, the smile on her face carried the full stink of a scheme well played.
Seraphina only felt heat.
A savage, unbearable heat.
She borrowed the chill of the Ice Crystal Pool to press it down, letting the freezing water wrap around her body and hold that burning tide in check. Ten minutes later, the surge inside her finally settled.
She had broken through.
“Damn, I’m burning up.”
She ripped off her outer robe at once, leaving only the little slip dress she had made for herself. The cloth had long since been soaked through. It clung to her skin, thin and nearly transparent, outlining every curve without mercy.
Again and again, she scooped up the icy water and splashed it over her face, trying to cool herself down.
“I’ve already advanced, so why the hell am I still this hot?”
At that moment, Seraphina wanted nothing more than to strip naked and sink straight into the pool. But the water in the Ice Crystal Pool was too shallow for that. So she simply lowered herself and lay back in it.
The cold water closed around her body.
Yet the heat inside her only grew worse.
Her brows slowly drew together.
This heat... wasn’t quite the same as the fever that came with a breakthrough.
It felt wrong.
Why did she suddenly feel so empty, so restless, so... starved?
A thought hit her like a knife.
Could someone have made a move on her while she was cultivating?
An aphrodisiac?
Seraphina’s eyes snapped open. She shot up from the water at once.
Water streamed down her body in sheets. That already transparent dress clung tightly to her exquisite figure. She swept her wet hair back, turned slightly, and had just lifted one foot onto the ground to stand—
Then she saw him.
A man.
He was standing right in front of her.
Moonlight cut across the side of his face, making those sharp features look even deeper, colder, cleaner. His eyes were dark as a bottomless pool, enough to drag a person straight in. His thin lips held a dangerous kind of allure.
A masterpiece.
A downright deadly one.
Seraphina’s breath caught.
Then, without warning, her legs went weak.
Her body tipped backward, about to crash back into the Ice Crystal Pool.
Damn it!
The pool was shallow. If her head slammed against the bottom, wouldn’t she end up a complete idiot?
The thought had barely flashed through her mind when an arm wrapped around her waist.
For one brief instant, Seraphina thought this handsome stranger had managed a proper hero’s rescue.
Then both of them fell into the pool together.
Splash.
Seraphina nearly exploded on the spot.
For heaven’s sake! After grabbing her, couldn’t he use a bit of spirit power to steady himself? Wasn’t this the part where the hero saves the beauty clean and neat? Why the hell had it turned into both of them going down together?
She choked on a mouthful of water at once.
“Cough—cough, cough, cough—”
Her face darkened. She immediately tested the man beside her.
Then her expression changed.
No elemental force.
No battle qi.
Not even the slightest ripple.
What kind of thing was that?
A man with no elemental force and no battle qi at all was plain trash. Useless. A real waste of flesh.
She had thought the body she took over before crossing into this world had already been trash enough.
Who would’ve guessed there was someone even more worthless than “her”?
Lucian Ashford frowned a little and said, “There’s Bliss Pill melted into this pool.”
“I already figured that out.” Seraphina Caldwell’s voice was cold as frost. She stared at him, then let out a sharp sneer. “Over the years, plenty of men have tried to make a move on me. The ones who actually pulled it off? You’re the first. What, you think putting on that icy face makes you look lofty? You dared drug me with Bliss Pill? Fine. I’ll make sure you regret it before this night is done.”
“…?” Lucian Ashford truly did not follow her meaning.
He had only torn open a space rift and crossed onto this continent. Who would have thought that his one-day-a-year “cripple experience” had somehow dragged on even longer? Then he sensed the surge of power from someone who had just advanced, so he came straight this way, hoping to ask whether this newly advanced expert could tear open a space rift and send him back to the Psionic Continent.
And by sheer rotten luck, he ran into this woman bathing in water where Bliss Pill had already dissolved.
He warned her out of plain goodwill, yet she took him for the one who had slipped in the Bliss Pill?
Seraphina Caldwell yanked off his belt without the least bit of grace and said, “Relax. Even if I sleep with you tonight, I won’t take responsibility. A pretty little weakling like you—doesn’t matter how good that face is, I’m not interested.”