Devouring Monarch: Rebirth of the Profane Phoenix

There might be one person whom Asura could never contain himself. A person so vile that he almost single-handedly destroyed his life.

'No, that's incorrect. In truth, there were two people.'

A pair that now stood opposite him as his entire body trembled with a fiery rage.

Two people sat upon the throne, the same throne deeply etched in his memory. The throne of Drakkur and the moment of his greatest failure.

"Oh? If it isn't the pathetic cuckold, Asura." A woman's raspy voice sounded as she slowly turned to face him... the black hair and red eyes were almost unmistakable as if it was the Asura from a month ago. "What's the matter? Do you miss your beloved Verana so much you come to embarrass yourself again?"

'It's not her... it's the woman from the throne!'

The woman he saw, who claimed to be Verana, wasn't her but the strange girl who looked almost identical to her on the throne when he met Valerie the other day—the one with a small beauty spot beneath her eye.

'Her scent is wrong...' He sniffed, noticing the difference between the woman trying to get to know him and the woman on the throne.

"Fuck off, you worthless whore... have you gotten so desperate for sex you need to impersonate your betters?"

"Hm, maybe you are right. You were never any good at keeping a woman, anyway. Why would I want to be like that? You can't swing a sword if you aren't good at that. Tell me, did you enjoy having sex with my dear sister all these years?"

She then rose and cast her hand towards him. "A royal command for the pathetic wretch to hear his wife confessing the truth and humiliation he deserves!"

"Wh-what!?"

"Shall I have you strip naked and humiliate yourself as well, you stupid no-mag?"

Shang didn't speak but watched with a smirk. Instead, the imposter calling herself Verana paraded around with a proud look.

"Of course, you wouldn't say anything. My sister is such a slut; she never loved you and never did. You were nothing more than a cuckold that married her. Why would a woman like that ever love you, the person who can't even use magic?" Verana? Mocked him before dancing on the spot, her lips opening. "Of course, that's my lie."

However, her lips twisted into a sadistic smile, followed by laughter, revealing the truth. "You have been with your sweetheart all this time and still misunderstood it was me, hahaha!"

"Your face, priceless... At least your disgusting looks could be called compensation for your dumbness. Hahaha." The girl on the throne and Shang burst into laughter at him.

The hammer of despair crushed the remnant hopes that she might be redeemable, but knowing a simple truth from her words. The things his Verana told him and tried to tell him, and the dreams he had suffered for the past few weeks began forming the scene of the past.

A single act of foolishness led to his destruction. He rushed in with no information.

Asura thought it was his past.

His foolishness ruined him in his past life, and the same might have happened this time if she hadn't come to him in that state and approached him with such intense feelings and sorrow. But that made his anger worse. His previous life was a charade, and the moment he made a mistake, his entire world collapsed.

"Who are you? Tell me your identity."

"Are you sure you want to know the answer?" She asked, eyes filled with pity and remorse, the first hint of emotion she had shown him since he had come to this place.

"Are you sure you can let go of your fantasy and find the truth?" The body twirled inside a veil of darkness, encompassed by a hurricane of black smoke, "Everything that you knew has become a lie. How will you proceed from here, Asura?"

Asura's lips trembled as the dream's world started collapsing. A broken fragment fell below him, carrying him to another place. The floor was shattering, and he was falling into a black void.

"I will kill you and him. There is no other future."

"Hehe, then stop your useless pursuit and come for us," Shang replied mockingly before throwing the body of Verana aside as if it were a piece of trash.

"Sister dear, shouldn't you at least apologise to him a little before he goes crazy and hurts you again?" Verana? Now holding a blade of shadow, her body stepped down the steps as she mocked the doll on the floor with lifeless eyes. "To think, he vented his anger and lust towards me, on your body, sister. Isn't that amusing?"

"I should thank you, Asura, for warming up my sister's body while I was sleeping and having fun with Shang for years, but don't worry. The woman you loved felt fantastic, right? Her first time was yours, but that might have been a little confusing to you, as you are."

"So what? Do you think I care who I fucked?" Asura now finally cracked.

The last threads of reason in his mind snapped. His consciousness was fading away.

The only thing left was the overwhelming desire for revenge.

He would not make the same mistakes, not anymore. Black flames exploded from his body, creating a strange silence before the illusion of his greatest enemy reacted.

"You... why didn't you reveal such magic before!?" The woman's eyes almost glowed at the display, while Shang Luo's face darkened, taking out his longsword.

"Isn't that obvious?" The voice from Asura was no longer a single one but a hundred. "There is no longer any need to pretend in front of scum like you!"

"No, you aren't!" The woman's face turned pale as if she had seen a ghost. "This cannot have happened... such potent magic, so thick... I can smell it, how delicious and powerful. How did you hide this from me!?"

"Little bitch, now you are in for it," Asura said coldly, his eyes looking down at the girl as he spat out each word from his mouth. "Even if it kills me, I will rip you into shreds and scatter them. So far, no one can ever recognise your corpse again."

Suddenly, as if overtaken by jealousy. Shang Luo lunged forward and screamed, "You will leave Verena alone, bastard!"

'Verena? Who?

Asura looked at Shang Luo's rage and smiled mockingly. "Did you reconsider? What do you think can a child like you do in front of a monster like me?"

"Shut up!"

The next moment, Asura truly became a monster. He no longer felt disgust or hatred towards himself and the various forms of his body as he transformed into his Liberacíon state, but now the beautiful phoenix wings grew from his back, along with the other two pairs, creating four magnificent wings of black and red flames.

"Impossible, not such a change!"

NovelFire|mp-yr chapter

"Finally, I can stop pretending," Asura sighed in relief at the end of his charade. He didn't have to be afraid of anyone or hide his identity anymore. "Now tell me, who is Verena!"

His body shot forward despite asking, carrying his lance as it tore through the reinforced stone with a black flame. His flame wings burst open and surrounded him with the might of their pressure, and the resulting shockwave blasted towards both the figures standing before him.

Shang Luo blocked it with the back of his blade but wasn't fortunate. His body slammed into the wall. A trickle of blood left his lips as he bit them in a fit of anger. His body raised, trying to steady itself.

Asura rushed at him like a shadow and swung his left fist, now a black-plated claw crushing Shang Luo's armour, before he blocked the blade and clashed with Shang Luo. Sparks flew between the warriors, exchanging blows, black and blue mana clashing against each other.

"Aren't you proud? You're supposed to be this almighty warrior," Asura remarked in a condescending tone.

"Don't get too confident, you bastard, even if you have some powers. You are still no match for me!" Shang Luo replied as his hands grabbed the hilt of his sword and swung.

The force pushed Asura back, and the lance could hold and deflect Shang Luo's raw strength. He expressed awe and terror as he rushed towards him. The more they fought, the more frustrated Shang Luo became.

"It can't be..."

Shang Luo's face went pale, and the woman's eyes widened as she watched the fight before her. They both jumped back from one another and glanced at Asura's body, watching him covered in black scaled armour and with flaming wings behind him, now laughing with confusion and anger.

"I need him... He is the one! His blood it calls to my soul!" Verena whispered as she stepped towards the fight, slowly, step by step, with an enchanted face. This action caused Shang Luo to become bitter.

"You treacherous bitch! Are you saying he's better than me, too!? Even though you killed your older sister and usurped her position like a leech!?" Shang Luo's aura broke as he roared in the hall with anger.

"Quiet, you worm. Who told you to speak?"

Verena's voice was quiet, but Asura could feel her magic rising to a high level. Her appearance was different, as if she was not just a human but something far greater.

'Vampires... Verena... Verana, so it's true...' His eyes filled with sorrow, turned to the half-dead doll he spent hundreds, maybe thousands of nights with, the tired whispered in the dark, his broken cries of isolation... Only heard from her.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no 'no,' no!"

Asura's heart bled with regret and bitter anguish.

'I will kill him and rip her throat out!'

He was already rushing towards her; black flames burned with fury as his three pairs of wings tore apart the floor beneath him and launched him like an arrow into the air.

Verana's smile was beautiful. Even the living Verena looked at the empty doll with admiration and relief as if seeing a saintess, "Such. Pure. Love. So. Delicious." Verena couldn't help mocking the doll and Asura, who peered into each other's eyes.

"Are you Verana, my Verana!?" He shouted as the doll's body struggled to move, speak, or respond as if a soul were trying to return to it.

The doll opened her mouth, but only blood oozed from her lips as tears dripped down her cheeks... A single blade stabbed her chest as she reached out towards him.

He realised she was.... and had always been beside him, as promised, the night before he proposed.

With this realisation, he became unable to control his anguish and rage anymore. His black flames exploded from his body, flooding the entire hall with black flames.