Looking at Faen's thoroughly calm face, Styraatu felt an intense wave of fury burning within her.
But meeting Faen's gaze, the flames surrounding her body flared briefly before quickly returning to their original tranquility. And as her thoughts cooled, the many eyes attached to Styraatu's form gradually revealed a gleam of human-like lucidity.
"State your terms, mortal."
"Very simple. Submit to me." Looking at the now-calm Styraatu before him, Faen clasped his hands behind his back and said evenly, "Submit to my commands, follow my deployment, give me the knowledge within your memories, and when necessary, hand over your power to be used by those I designate."
Hearing Faen's words, Styraatu wasn't even angry; rather, she was so furious she laughed, letting out a series of roaring, blazing guffaws. After finishing her laugh, Styraatu spoke with hostility and malice: "Do you really think that defeating me means you can manipulate me at will? Or do you think that just by uttering the General's name, I will unconditionally submit to you? Stop dreaming! Even the General himself respects me! You cannot kill me; at most, you will simply seal me away again. I am long accustomed to that!"
"Oh, how badass."
Hearing Styraatu's words, Faen didn't bother arguing much. He simply clapped his hands silently while directly shoving his own vision of the Spirit Realm into Styraatu's mind.
As Faen's territory, the Domain of Pleasure might appear calm and tranquil, but to Faen, every single thought within it was a one-way mirror. Just like the current Styraatu: although her words were resolute and left absolutely no room for negotiation, in reality, her heart felt otherwise. She still yearned for freedom, yearned to see Aatrox again; she hated, despised, and even feared the seal.
It was just that her rationality and pride forbade her from showing her weaknesses, so she used a hardline response to block all subsequent negotiations.
But when Styraatu saw what Faen saw—namely, her own true thoughts—she too fell into silence.
To an Ascended, the Spirit Realm was not unfamiliar. In fact, while not all Ascended were masters of the Spirit Realm, a significant portion of them indeed derived their power from it.
Although Styraatu's flames were mostly energy of the material realm, that didn't mean she knew nothing about the Spirit Realm. Rather, the moment she realized this was the Spirit Realm, she instantly understood many things.
Looking down at her own body, after a long hesitation, Styraatu finally said in a deep voice: "When I awakened, I was wondering why, this time, my mind was free of those maddening whispers. Now it seems it is also because of the Spirit Realm here?"
"More or less," Faen didn't hide anything upon hearing her question. "The whispers in your mind still exist. The reason you can't sense them much is because the shielding effect of the Spirit Realm has separated your mind from the Darkin curse. And the reason you can regain your sanity now is because of the emotion I control."
"The emotion you control?" Suspicion showed in Styraatu's eyes.
"Joy," Faen said calmly. "The emotion I control is called Joy, which can greatly counteract the negative traits within an individual's mind. The pressure produced by the Darkin curse in your mind still exists, but through the surge of Joy, this mental pressure has reached a delicate balance with your baseline of rationality. Of course, this is limited to within my Spirit Realm. Once you leave here, unless the Darkin curse is completely lifted, you will still be affected by it."
Hearing Faen's words, Styraatu fell into another brief silence.
In the gap of Styraatu's silence, an extremely faint, sticky "squelching" sound came from the quiet Spirit Realm.
On Styraatu's flame-covered body, a few eyeballs subconsciously turned, their gaze falling on Riven beside Faen. This former swordmaster of the Noxian Legion was currently pressing her long, fishnet-wrapped legs tightly together, her whole body trembling slightly as if enduring some extreme torture.
In fact, ever since entering Faen's "Domain of Pleasure," the mark inside Riven's body had fully activated. That Joy Factor originating from the primordial demon coursed wildly through every inch of her sensitive nerves like a high-voltage current. Although Faen hadn't touched her directly, her tight bunny girl outfit had now become the most terrifying instrument of torture.
"Squelch... ngh..."
Riven bit down hard on her lower lip, trying to swallow the shameful pants back into her stomach. But her never-before-cultivated secret flower house was frantically secreting scalding love juices under the intense sexual impulse. Her flimsy panties, which were stretched tight enough to clearly outline a camel toe, were already soaked through. They couldn't even hold the endless stream of slutty water; a massive amount of crystal-clear bodily fluid slid greasily down her inner thighs and dripped onto the floor.
What made her feel even more desperate was that, amplified by the Spirit Realm, she could clearly feel her red, swollen, and out-turned flower lips continuously quivering. Even her womb was craving to be ruthlessly impaled and filled to the brim by Faen's thick, massive object. Her plump "doves," squeezed into the low-cut top, had nipples that were painfully hard, poking out as two extremely obvious bumps.
Faen didn't even turn his head; he merely snapped his fingers with malicious amusement. Riven only felt the mark on her lower abdomen flare with scalding heat. Then, her eyes rolled back. Without any foreplay or physical contact, her body convulsed violently, spraying out a warm stream of squirting fluid. Her legs gave way, and she collapsed to her knees at Faen's feet like a female dog in heat, panting heavily. Her eyes were filled with the hazy craving of someone who had been thoroughly played out.
If before, Styraatu would have stubbornly refused out of her pride as an Ascended—even if it put her at a disadvantage—now, knowing that Faen could see right through her thoughts, she no longer fixated on that pride.
Since the other party could see her true thoughts, there was no point in continuing to put up a tough front.
Thinking this, Styraatu looked at Faen and said calmly: "What exactly do you want? If you have mastered the Spirit Realm to this degree, you shouldn't be lacking the power I possess."
This wasn't a negotiation; rather, Styraatu wanted to figure out Faen's true motive for recruiting her. After all, if before she only saw Faen as a mortal who had mastered powerful forces, now, knowing of his connection to the Spirit Realm, Faen was no longer a mortal in her eyes. He was a high-tier lifeform on the same level as Ascended like herself.
Although life level affects the strength of one's power to a certain extent, there are powerhouses among mortals as well. It's just that if their life level cannot achieve a true leap, that power is at best a fleeting bloom. Look at the ancient kingdom of Icathia; their development of magic was virtually perfected. Even a mediocre mage could, through unique cooperative spellcasting, unleash magic threatening enough to endanger an Ascended.
And the Mage King of Icathia possessed magical power that far exceeded ordinary Ascended—even among Ascended, there are tiers. It's just that to mortals, all of them represent an irresistible power, which is why it's not well-known to outsiders.
But no matter how powerful an individual mortal might be, their life level remains mortal. Facing these glass cannons, the Ascended—who even when targeted by Aspects could only be dealt with via "sealing"—had every reason to be proud.
But the Spirit Realm is different—
At the very least, even among the Ascended, those whose power originated from the Spirit Realm implicitly held a higher status than those whose power originated from the material realm.
This nobility had nothing to do with the strength of their power, but rather because they could observe far more than material realm Ascended.
Under these circumstances, Styraatu had, more or less, learned some concepts and structures of the Spirit Realm through her Ascended peers. Simply put, the more universal an emotion is, the more people crave it, hate it, or are forced to feel it simply by being alive, the older and more powerful that concept is in the Spirit Realm.
And the emotion of Joy... even Styraatu had only gleaned fragments of understanding about it from the passing words of her Spirit Realm Ascended peers.