The Magus Era

Huaxu Bai let out another mouthful of blood, then her slender body thudded loudly against the ground.

Ji Hao moved his fingers. From far away, a green light spot drifted out of a towering tree. It dropped and turned into a clear green liquid, merging into her body. Huaxu Bao trembled slightly as a strong life-force spread from her. Gasping deeply, she opened her eyes, lifted her head, and looked at Ji Hao in shock.

Squatting before her, Ji Hao held her face with his left hand, shaking her head widely as he began talking, "Little girl, you are jealous of your sister, aren’t you? You are jealous of her because all your families like her instead of you, but have you ever thought about why?"

With an equanimity that could hardly be displayed by little girls at her age, Huaxu Bai let Ji Hao hold her face, gently smiled at him and responded, "You’re Emperor Ji Hao, aren’t you? Is being smart a fault? I’m simply much smarter than my sister, but clearly, people don’t like smart girls, especially those arrogant young boys. They like silly girls..."

Knitting her eyebrows and pondering for a while, Huaxu Bai continued with a sigh, "Silly but good-looking, that’s the kind of girl they all like."

Ji Hao glanced at Huaxu Qing, who lied aside unconsciously.

Did Huaxu Family young men like the silly good-looking Huaxu Qing only? Did they truly not like Huaxu Bai, who was smart and assertive, but wasn’t willing to stay lower than men? This might be true. Coming to think about the old saying he heard back in his past life — ’Lack of talent in a woman is a virtue’, that was a ’truth’ summarized by numerous men who believed that they dominated the human society.

"So, you are jealous of your sister. Even though you sincerely don’t think of her as a better person than you are, you are jealous of her. Therefore, without noticing, you chose..." Shaking Huaxu Bai’s head, Ji Hao continued, "...to follow the voice from your heart to attain the power which would allow you to surpass your sister by far? Do you think that was the right choice to make?"

Huaxu Bai gave Ji Hao a complicated glance, then frowned and pondered shortly. She honestly nodded and responded, "It seems that you have done something to me, some magical thing that I cannot understand from my current standing point. You cast away that roaring voice in my heart, which taught me to do things. But, I memorized everything it taught me."

While speaking, she nimbly flipped her fingers. As Huaxu Bai’s ten fingers shaking like the flowing water, dark light spots flashed on her fingertips. Soon, the dark light flared up and generated a faint dark mist which then condensed into a foot-sized black lotus.

"Thai!" With her voice, she flipped her fingers again and released a black bolt of lighting from the lotus, which struck on a rock aside. The three-meters-wide rock was shattered, and quietly, a tens of meters radius pit was left on the ground.

This was the ancestral land of the Huaxu Family. In this area, after being nourished by the thunder power from the Thunder Lake year after year, the rocks had turned as strong as alloys, especially immune to thunder power. As a low-level Senior Magus, Huaxu Bai actually shattered a rock and sank the ground by casting a bolt lightning. Based on what she managed to do, the thunder magic she cast was seriously powerful.

"A devil thunder magic?" Ji Hao took in a deep breath and asked, "Is this truly learned from Original Devil?"

"The Original Devil Scripture!" Huaxu Bai proudly lifted her head, looking at Ji Hao with a pair of ice-cold, bloodshot eyes. The blood-red light in her eyes had faded as the devil inside her was killed and resealed by Ji Hao, but her watery eyes had been turning colder and colder, with a firm determination that even made Ji Hao feel a little speechless.

At the moment, Huaxu Bai wasn’t under the control of Original Devil. She made her own choice. She chose to step onto the path of Dao of devil, to willingly accept the Original Devil Scripture.

She wasn’t possessed by a devil, but the devil lived inside her. In a more specific way, the moment she woke up, the moment she cast a thunder magic determinedly in front of Ji Hao, she had turned herself into the devil.

She was fairly clear-minded now, that she knew what she had been doing and what path she had chosen. She chose to follow the path of devil, which was shown to her by Original Devil. She chose to cultivate herself with what she learned from Original Devil Scripture, which could allow her to own a stronger power in a shorter span of time, to grow far more powerful than her sister, than those young men from her family who despised her, and to turn herself into an extraordinary being.

Original Devil hadn’t been affecting her at this point in time. Yet, she had chosen to follow his path.

Ji Hao looked at Huaxu Bai helplessly. Driven by her true nature, she had made her choice. Ji Hao had the power to destroy her body and her soul within a moment, to erase her from this world. But, what could that possibly change?

Looking into Huaxu Bai’s clear and firm eyes, Ji Hao gave a bitter grin.

Original Devil was scary, not because he was able to lure people onto the path of devil, but because even after Ji Hao killed and resealed him, he managed to leave his Dao behind, deep in the hearts of people, to allow some human beings to willingly step onto his path.

Since the beginning of Pan Gu world, human beings, divine gods, spirit creatures, ghosts, and evils beings had been living in this world. This time, because of Original Devil, the devil-kind would emerge in this world as a new species. Great, the world was enriched again!

"Can I have a copy of the Original Devil Scripture?" Looking at Huaxu Bai, Ji Hao asked seriously.

"Everyone can accept a devil. Sure, I can give you a copy!" Huaxu Bai smiled at him without showing fear and awe to him like ordinary human beings usually would. She locked her fingers together and cast a spell, then gently waved her hands. Following her moves, a cloud of dark mist arose, with strands of purple mist condensing into a large number of spell symbols in it. In no time, a scripture with ten-thousand words appeared before Ji Hao’s eyes.

It was a superficial scripture compared to what Yu Yu created. In the scripture, about three-thousand words were sent to explain a cultivation method regarding absorbing natural powers to create the original devil power by using the hearts of human beings as generators.

The original devil power was about greediness and selflessness; it was unpredictable, ever-changing, able to corrode everything in the world including human hearts. Its evilness was measureless.

The other thousands of words in the scripture described a simple body-strengthening method, a few also simple but ingenious skills about the utilization of the devil power, including the thunder magic cast by Huaxu Bai just then. All cultivation methods and skills introduced in the scripture were immature, clearly newly created. But, with the power of Original Devil and his background, perfecting this scripture wasn’t difficult to him at all.

"Gathering all dark powers in the world...Impressive." Ji Hao gave a faint bitter smile, shaking his head to Huaxu Bai.

"My sister Qing is still here. Please, send her back to the family." Huaxu Bai stood up slowly, bowed to Ji Hao with reverence, and said, "Your Majesty, if you won’t kill me or imprison me, I’ll...just leave!"

Bowing to Ji Hao, a dark cloud rose from under her feet, bringing her away.

For a few times, Ji Hao gripped the hilt of his sword, but eventually failed to make the sword move.