Chapter 1290. Oh Boy... I’ll Make Sure That I’ll Enjoy All Of This Till The End!

Chapter 1290: 1290. Oh Boy... I’ll Make Sure That I’ll Enjoy All Of This Till The End!

A massive block of marble at the center of the pile groaned, shifting with a sound like tectonic plates grinding together: grrrrrrnd. It slid sideways, revealing a hollow space beneath the devastation.

Then came the sound that made everyone’s blood run cold: the wet, rhythmic scraping of something moving through confined space.

A hand punched through a gap between two splintered beams. It was crimson-slicked, caked in grey ash and pulverized stone, fingers curling around the edge of a snapped oak support with inhuman strength.

Then, Rex emerged.

He rose from the ruin like a demon crawling out of Tartarus. He didn’t climb; he clawed his way upward through the broken stone, each movement deliberate and agonizingly slow.

His body was a visceral catalogue of trauma. His shirt had been incinerated, leaving only blackened, charred scraps clinging to his corded muscles.

Blood poured from a jagged gash at his temple, streaming down his cheek to mix with the blood at the corner of his mouth. His left arm hung uselessly, bent at an unnatural, nauseating angle that exposed the splintered bone beneath the skin.

A six-inch shard of ancient wood jutted from his ribs, pulsing with every ragged breath. His chest was a map of angry, third-degree burns that wept fluid.

And through the blood, through the ash, and through the pain he was smiling. A slow, terrifying smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

Then, the Infinite Regeneration began.

He didn’t try to hide it. He didn’t seek cover.

He stood in the open, letting every horrified witness watch the impossible.

CRACK POP.

The sound of his broken arm snapping back into place echoed through the silent hall like a pistol shot. The bone fused, the tendons reconnected with a wet tearing sound, and the limb straightened with flawless precision.

The wooden splinter in his side suddenly writhed; with a sickening shloop sound, it was expelled from his flesh by the sheer force of healing tissue, clattering harmlessly onto the marble floor.

The gaping wound behind it didn’t just heal; it closed in three rapid, pulsing heartbeats, leaving behind nothing but smooth, tan skin.

The blackened, charred flesh on his chest began to ripple. Like ink spreading through water, healthy bronze skin flushed over the burns, spreading across his torso in a wave of supernatural vitality.

The last jagged sliver of ice embedded in his thigh melted into a pathetic trickle of water as the muscle knit itself back together. He rolled his neck click-click-click and flexed his fingers, every vertebra and joint resettling into perfect alignment.

In less than ten seconds, the man who had been buried under a collapsed manor stood amidst the rubble, pristine and terrifying, with nothing worse than a thin film of grey dust coating his skin.

He raised his hand to his mouth, wiping a smear of blood from his split lip with the back of his knuckles. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, he licked the blood from his skin, his eyes never leaving Helena’s.

When his gaze finally locked onto hers, Helena felt her heart stop. The warm, steady light she had grown to trust the gaze of the student, the protector, and the friend was gone.

It hadn’t just faded; it had been extinguished. In its place was something ancient, cold, and infinitely patient. It was the stare of a predator that had allowed its prey to think it had won, simply to savor the moment the trap finally sprung.

The weight of that look pressed against her like a physical hand, cold and suffocating, crawling down her spine until her legs felt like water.

She took an instinctive step back, her heel catching on a piece of debris, her breathing coming in shallow, terrified whimpers.

"Thank you, Helena," Rex said, his voice smooth, calm, and utterly devoid of mercy.

His voice was quiet. It wasn’t loud, yet it possessed an unnatural clarity that pierced through the settling dust as if he were whispering directly into each person’s ear.

It was perfectly steady, devoid of rage, devoid of pain, and devoid of anything human. It carried a gravitational weight that forced the entire ruined hall to hold its breath.

Even the hardened Underlayer soldiers, creatures who had slaughtered thousands without blinking, stiffened where they stood, their knuckles whitening on their weapons.

"That was an excellent warm-up."

Rex stepped out from beneath the skeletal remains of the collapsed ceiling. His stride was casual, easy, and unhurried, the leisurely gait of a man walking through a sunlit garden after a pleasant stroll.

But as he moved, the reality of his presence began to warp.

Around his bare chest and corded shoulders, a faint, sickly violet-black glow began to coalesce. It wasn’t light; it was something darker, a bruise on reality itself. This was the aura of the Mark of Lust Authority.

At first, it was thin, like smoke threading through air, but as he moved closer to Helena, it thickened, rolling off his skin in visible waves like heat distortion rising from sun-baked stone.

The dark energy bled outward, spreading across the blood-stained marble in a slow, creeping tide that lapped against the toes of Helena’s boots like an incoming oil slick.

Helena drew in a sharp, ragged breath that sounded like a sob. She stumbled backward, her boots slipping on debris as her pupils dilated in pure, unadulterated terror.

In that moment of suspended animation, the horrifying truth finally crystallized in her mind, a truth that no amount of elemental training could have prepared her for.

’None of it worked.’

Her mind raced through the carnage she had just unleashed. The fire that should have charred his flesh to ash; the ice that should have shattered his bones; the lightning that should have cooked his organs; the stone that should have crushed his skull.

She had poured her entire soul, her entire life force, into a singular moment of annihilation. And yet, as she looked at him now pristine, powerful, and terrifyingly whole, she realized she hadn’t left a single permanent mark.

No scar, no bruise, not even a lasting sting. She had thrown everything she was at him, and he had simply walked through it like a man stepping out of a light summer rain.

He stopped exactly three paces from her. The violet-black glow rolled off him in rhythmic pulses, each wave carrying a faint, hypnotic hum that seemed to vibrate in Helena’s very womb.

The smile on his face widened by a fraction. It wasn’t a smile of triumph; it was the hungry, predatory grin of something that had finally found something worth consuming.

"Now," Rex said, his voice dropping to a velvet purr that made the hairs on her neck stand up. "Your punishment begins, Helena."

He tilted his head to the side with feline grace, and the last remnants of grey dust slid from his hair like sand from an hourglass. His eyes locked onto hers with a promise of something far more violating than death.

"And I am going to make very sure you enjoy it."