Through Roche's eyes, everything played out in agonizing clarity. She saw exactly how the spear launched forward, watched it swell and mutate into something utterly grotesque, and felt the horrifying impact as it struck her square in the face.
The moment the warm, jarring collision hit her, a strange odor filled her nose, triggering an indescribable sensation deep within her soul.
It wasn't excitement, it wasn't pain, and it certainly wasn't urgency.
It was pure, unadulterated shame.
A crushing sense of disbelief and humiliation, accompanied by the sinking realization that her life was effectively over.
She was a mature woman trapped in a petite, girl-like body, yet she had just been struck in the face by something so utterly foul!
She collapsed to the ground, utterly stunned, mourning her lack of strength and cursing her miserable fate.
Li Ke hadn't anticipated this outcome either. He hurriedly rushed over to help Roche up, but she remained completely unresponsive, frozen in a stupor.
She stared blankly into the distance, unable to process the reality of being defeated by such a thing.
Li Ke understood her feelings and knew exactly what was crossing her mind. To him, however, this sort of thing was perfectly normal.
"Well, to be honest, you're bound to run into this kind of situation again in the future," Li Ke said, trying to comfort her as he threw his clothes back on and embraced human civilization once more. "Even if you become the Victorious Fighting Buddha—wait, no, I mean, even if you become a Battle Mage, as long as you're a girl, it's pretty hard to avoid this kind of thing."
Listening from the side, Ruohua couldn't help but roll her eyes. Meanwhile, the faint glimmer of consciousness that had just returned to Roche's eyes vanished, leaving her completely catatonic once again.
Ruohua couldn't help but think: If Li Ke doesn't know how to comfort people, he really should just keep his mouth shut!
"Anyway, our top priority right now is to get out of here," Ruohua muttered, her brow furrowing as she looked past the massive corpse of the Minotaur toward the flames that were steadily spreading across the area.
Li Ke's shocking remarks and bizarre condition had completely monopolized her attention earlier. Because of that, she hadn't noticed exactly when the forest had caught fire.
Looking at it now, the fire was dangerously unnatural. It was highly likely that some kind of monster was unleashing it, meaning they needed to evacuate immediately.
"True," Li Ke agreed.
He stood upon the carriage, scanning their surroundings with a deep frown.
If there was any notorious fire monster dwelling within the Grand Flores forest, then it could only be that specific existence.
The Witch of Flamemark, Flameling Binoche. And, of course, where there was the older sister, her twin was never far behind: the Ice Crystal Witch, Keraha.
They were both exactly that kind of monster—the sort where even if you treated them brutally, you wouldn't need to feel a shred of guilt.
"Hmm, now I'm getting a little excited."
Li Ke rubbed his chin, thinking they were fair game.
Indeed, even though the influence of the forbidden power had faded, he still felt that under these circumstances, he didn't need to concern himself with the human rights of monsters.
However, rather than focusing on hunting for beautiful women, there was something else Li Ke wanted to figure out first.
As Ruohua started up the carriage again and steered it toward Hendon Myre, he opened his system interface.
"But seriously, what exactly is the deal with this forbidden power..."
Muttering to himself, he immediately began searching for entries related to Seria. Unsurprisingly, he found something.
[Forbidden Power: MAX]
Influenced by the Power of the Primordial and your own strengthening will, you have gained a terrifying power.
You are capable of absorbing the resentment and yearning attached to specific entities to augment your own strength. This power originates from this world as well as countless others—comprising the masterless yet laser-focused obsessions, yearnings, and grudges spanning myriad realms.
It is practically omnipotent.
It can even create matter out of nothing or reverse life and death. You can wield this power almost boundlessly, using it to alter anything in existence. It can even usurp another person's source of power, experience, techniques, and secret methods. So long as you make physical contact with a target harboring a high enough concentration of resentment or yearning, this power allows you to instantly learn all their skills and master their entire arsenal.
However, wielding this power requires bearing the weight of that very resentment and yearning; such is the price.
The Forbidden Power will drastically magnify all of your desires and impulses, shattering any inhibitions holding you back from what you wish to do. Should you indulge in it and become a puppet to these forbidden desires, losing your own free will is merely a matter of time.
Fulfilling the underlying wishes born from these resentments and yearnings can temporarily alleviate this condition. However, if fulfilling those wishes demands drawing upon even more Forbidden Power, things will quickly become incredibly tricky.
This is because your self-control, rationality, sense of shame—everything that acts as a barrier to your true impulses—will be systematically stripped away by the Forbidden Power. Practically no one can resist the temptation to acquire more of it.
Yet, using the Forbidden Power without restraint is nothing short of suicide.
Therefore, your ultimate challenge is learning how to wield the Forbidden Power strictly within your threshold, avoiding its backlash, and preventing it from dissolving your consciousness and allowing endless yearnings and resentments to hijack your body.
The system's explanation of the Forbidden Power was a bit abstract. But based on the text and Li Ke's personal experiences, the implications were crystal clear.
Whether it was the "lollipop" he had given Roche or the raw energy that had manifested out of thin air inside his body, the Forbidden Power could pull off anything effortlessly. Unlike blood-qi or other forms of energy, it required absolutely no training. It answered his thoughts instantly, making it incredibly convenient.
"...This actually feels a lot like the divine power of a faith-based deity," Li Ke mused. "Both in terms of its absolute versatility and its severe side effects."
Li Ke pursed his lips as he stared at the description of the Forbidden Power. He had just experienced it firsthand; a mere minor enhancement to his physical body had almost driven him off a cliff, nearly turning him into a monster driven by pure, primal slaughter.
This stuff truly earned its name. For a human being, it was indeed a forbidden force.
After all, what defined a human was the ability to control one's desires and possess independent thought. Without that, one was no different from a common beast.
Yet, he had to admit that the sensation of absolute freedom—knowing the Forbidden Power would bail him out no matter what he did—was incredibly intoxicating. Even someone like him would have fallen completely under its spell if he hadn't sensed the imminent threat of his own free will being dissolved and obliterated.
"Tch... Why are so many of my abilities traded at the expense of my IQ?" Li Ke couldn't help but complain out loud.
Leaving aside the Blood-Qi Secret Technique, when that ability was pushed to its limits in a real fight, his cognitive capacity plummeted drastically. This was precisely why he didn't care for breathing techniques. When the Blood-Qi Secret Technique was running at full throttle, his mind went completely blank; there was no room to maintain a steady breathing rhythm. Besides, breathing techniques merely stimulated the lungs to manipulate the bloodstream, whereas he could directly control blood itself, which was far more sophisticated.
And now, this Forbidden Power had been thrown into the mix. While gaining this strength was undeniably a massive jackpot, Li Ke couldn't shake the feeling that someone out there was actively trying to tank his intellect.
If he activated the Blood-Qi Secret Technique and unleashed the Forbidden Power at the same time, his combat prowess would skyrocket, but his brains would visibly vanish. He didn't even dare to imagine what kind of atrocities he might commit in that state.
"What a tragic story this is turning out to be," Li Ke muttered to himself. Fortunately, his power set was diverse enough that he didn't have to rely solely on the Forbidden Power to conquer the world. He didn't need to depend on it for survival or combat, which meant he could avoid overusing it.
"But if I only draw upon a tiny fraction of the Forbidden Power, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. According to the description, as long as I can satisfy the inherent resentments tied to the power, I can pacify the side effects. During its activation, I also felt that if Ruohua had let me have my way just now, or if Seria had been there to roll around in bed with me, things wouldn't have spiraled out of control later..."
Li Ke analyzed his sensations from earlier. He realized that his past self in that moment had been driven by an insatiable, bottomless void of desire, desperately seeking an outlet. However, because the people around him kept interfering, combined with a mindset that made him act recklessly on every whim without a fixed target, he hadn't succeeded.
If he had resolutely carried Seria into the woods back then to do those things, the influence of the Forbidden Power definitely wouldn't have reached such an extreme level. Furthermore, the reason he managed to successfully disperse the Forbidden Power afterward was highly likely because he had burned through most of it while slaying the Minotaur. The remaining resentment and yearning simply weren't strong enough to shake his resolve.
In other words, those grudges conflicted with his true inner thoughts, but because the remaining energy was too weak to shatter his mental boundaries, they were successfully neutralized.
"This is really..."
He didn't know what to say about this power. For someone like him who lacked absolute resolve and whose eyes instinctively followed a pair of breasts, it felt like an utterly terrible match.
"Still, I can't let the fear of choking stop me from eating entirely."
Li Ke pondered his recent performance, wanting to establish a safe threshold so he could employ it under secure conditions. Power was power, after all. Even with its side effects, it was still a formidable asset. He wasn't going to foolishly reject it, only to use it with half-baked knowledge when an emergency arose.
Even if the side effects couldn't be eliminated, he at least needed to know exactly how severe they were before tapping into it.
"Yeah, the real issue is that the output of the Forbidden Power is just too high."
Recalling the move he had just executed, Li Ke couldn't help but frown. Without the right kind of help, he could easily fall into a vicious cycle: using the Forbidden Power to defeat an enemy, which triggers intense desires, and then drawing upon even more Forbidden Power to satisfy those desires, only to amplify the lust further.
To break that cycle, he needed someone who could rapidly satisfy his desires without causing him to generate even more Forbidden Power.
Li Ke couldn't help but cast his gaze toward Seria, but after a moment of thought, he shook his head.
Though Seria was incredibly alluring, she possessed a pure and innocent nature. When it came to things like resentment, she didn't really harbor any—at most, she might have a tiny bit of lingering stress about paying back debts. Instead, she had an aura that instinctively made people want to protect her.
Simply put, Seria probably wouldn't be very effective at neutralizing resentment.
If that was the case...
Li Ke couldn't help but recall the dream he had experienced earlier.
"And if I remember correctly, every person and event has a corresponding resentment, right? Fulfilling these resentments and yearnings should drastically cut down the negative side effects of the Forbidden Power. Besides, back when I was in that dream... those voices of resentment seemed to be chanting a specific name."
Kiri!
Li Ke's eyes suddenly lit up.
While Li Ke was lost in thought, their carriage safely navigated through the burning woods and finally emerged onto the main highway leading to Hendon Myre.
Nothing strange occurred, and no one ambushed them. The flames behind them slowly began to die down. Because Seria was with them, Ruohua didn't have any intention of turning back to investigate.
It wasn't until dinner time that evening that the savory aroma of the food finally snapped Roche out of her dazed, bewildered state. The moment she woke up, she immediately began fighting Li Ke for food.
However, her attitude toward Li Ke had become exceptionally fierce. It took a long, drawn-out apology from Li Ke before she finally chose to forgive him.
"Seriously! How can you just throw a power like that around so recklessly?!" Roche grumbled, glaring at Li Ke while holding her rice bowl. "A power with such a massive and deeply unpleasant side effect could literally kill you!"
She continued to chide Li Ke between mouthfuls of food.
"Yeah, I know that. But sometimes, lacking power altogether is even more tragic," Li Ke replied, taking a sip of hot tea. Since they were out in the open, Seria wasn't exactly open to the idea of a wild outdoor tryst yet. Consequently, Li Ke hadn't eaten much, which left plenty of food for Roche to devour.
But as Li Ke watched her stuffing her face, he couldn't help but sigh, lamenting the fact that the energy from the food wasn't going to the right places.
Even after eating this much, Roche hadn't managed to store a single ounce of fat in her chest. It looked like she was destined to stay this size for the rest of her life.
Poor thing.