After Entering a Contract Relationship with Hisoka - Chapter 1

The Far North is one of the four great danger zones of Kyushu. It is the most perilous and frigid place in the world. A ten-thousand-mile snowfield meets the sky, merging into a vast expanse of white that blinds the eye.

Liya stood upon the boundless glacier, dressed in a matching pristine white. Her exquisite face was indifferent and her eyes were devoid of emotion. She appeared silent, yet she radiated divinity. Though her figure should have seemed small, her powerful divine sense wrapped her in a layer of razor-sharp spiritual energy. The howling, piercing blizzard could not touch even a corner of her clothes. She tilted her head slightly toward the sky and remained motionless, having stood there for an unknown amount of time.

Suddenly, black clouds rolled across the sky. As if summoned, the brilliant aurora of the Far North filled the heavens within a few breaths. Dark thunder surged within the clouds, carrying the ruthless will of the Heavenly Dao, appearing ready to strike and shatter everything in existence at any moment.

Liya finally blinked. The frost clinging to her eyelashes abruptly shattered and dissipated. Her thin lips moved as she murmured softly, “Finally, it is here.”

Immortal Venerable Liya was the foremost person in Kyushu and the first under the Heavenly Dao. Through a thousand years of tempering beneath ten thousand miles of ice and nourished by the aurora, she had forged an invincible level of cultivation. Today was her ascension. There would be nine lightning tribulations; if she did not succeed, she would simply vanish into ashes. After living for so long, she had grown tired of it anyway.

Heavens Arena, 160th Floor, Arena Ring.

The venue, which held thousands of people, was packed to capacity. Everyone was shouting and cheering for the fighters in the ring.

“This match is another win for Hisoka, right?” a girl said.

“Definitely. He has not lost yet,” another girl’s voice replied.

When Liya woke from the darkness, these were the discussions she heard. She slowly opened her eyes and the double vision before her gradually became clear.

“Lilia, what do you think? Who do you think will win?” The girl on her left nudged her arm. This girl wore strange clothing and had a cute appearance. Her bright, pink-blue, ear-length hair made her stand out. She did not dress like someone from the Central Continent.

Liya glanced at her and remained cautiously silent.

“Do you even need to ask? She is definitely betting on her Master Hisoka,” the other girl teased, dressed in similarly strange attire.

The two seemed used to her silence and dullness, so they continued their discussion without talking to her again. Liya slowly sat up straight and finally asked one question in her mind: Where is this?

The ascension lightning tribulation triggered by the Tribulation Transcendence Stage should have been massive. Even the Donghuang Bell, which suppressed the realms, should have been humming and vibrating in excitement. The phenomenon of ascension lasts for three full days, shocking the eighteen realms of Kyushu.

Liya scanned the scene before her. It was a massive venue where a crowd was watching a match in the ring and cheering for the contestants. She was sitting right in the middle of this noisy crowd. Everyone here wore strange clothes, the venue layout was bizarre, and she had never seen any of this before. This clearly was not the Upper Realm one reached after ascension.

Had she failed her ascension?

Liya looked down at herself. Long silver hair fell across her chest, and she wore a black, cinched-waist dress that was both ornate and complex. It was the same style as the other two girls. She removed her black lace gloves and looked at her palm.

Liya’s palm lines had always lacked an emotion line. She did not fall into the red dust of the mortal world, nor did she develop inner demons. In the path of immortal cultivation, she faced no bottlenecks. She was a natural-born Heartless Path cultivation prodigy with a cold temperament and a cold fate.

But now, a clear, chain-like emotion line extended gracefully from between her index and middle fingers toward the edge of her palm. By any standard, this was the palm of someone passionate, loving, and rich in emotion.

This was not her hand. Who was this?

She checked her body. The once surging and overbearing spiritual energy was now gone. She reached for the Sumeru Bag at her waist, which should have been filled with heavenly treasures; it was gone. The Nine-Star Disk, her life-bound immortal tool stored within her divine sense, was also gone.

There was nothing. She was no different from a mortal. Liya’s gaze instantly turned hollow. Where exactly had that stingy Heavenly Dao stripped her bare and sent her? Had she possessed someone’s body?

The match in the ring ended quickly.

“Wow! As expected, Hisoka won!”

“He will probably win all the way to the 200th floor!”

“What is the 200th floor? I bet he will be the next promoted Floor Master! He clearly went easy just now!”

“Hisoka is so strong!”

The audience cheered for the winner. The girl with pink-blue hair even stood up excitedly to wave. Only Liya sat there silently, her expression indifferent and her mind drifting elsewhere. She was completely out of place in this clamorous environment.

She recalled her thousand years of bitter cultivation. Immortal Venerable Liya was the greatest genius of Kyushu. She entered the Path through the stars. At age ten, she reached Qi Refining. At twelve, she reached Foundation Establishment. By eighteen, her Golden Core was perfected. She attained eternal youth, joining the ranks of experts to discuss the Path with the immortal leaders. At a hundred, she reached Nascent Soul and requested to guard the frigid plains of the Far North, ignoring worldly affairs. After a thousand years of seeking immortality, she finally faced the Heavenly Tribulation, just one step away from becoming a God.

According to historical records, the youngest person to ever reach the stage of ascension was 5,315 years old. That was her master, True Person Moyu. She had reached the ascension tribulation in only one-fifth of the time her master took. It was clear her talent was rare and peerless.

But even so, had she still failed to withstand the wrath of Heaven and Earth? The moment the heavenly thunder arrived, she had actually felt a sense of relief. Immortal Venerable Liya did not fear ascension, nor did she fear being turned to ash. She was simply tired of repeating the same days over and over, as if neither alive nor dead.

She never expected that after such a grand display of lightning and thunder, there would be a third outcome. This place was clearly none of the three thousand secret realms she knew, and this body was not her own. What did this mean? Even if it were a possession and her cultivation had dropped, it should not have slashed the combat power of a Tribulation Transcendence stage immortal down to a mere mortal. At the very least, she should have retained a Nascent Soul or a Golden Core.

But now, Liya checked again uncertainly. It was true. She had become a frail mortal with not a single shred of spiritual energy. Liya’s heart skipped a beat as a troubling thought surfaced. If it was not possession, could it be the “transmigration” her Junior Sister wrote about in her storybooks?

Two hundred years ago, when the last member of the Bailan Sect announced their retirement, the sect was disbanded on the spot. As the first sect in the history of the cultivation world to decline and disband because every member retired, Liya did not find it honorable. She simply moved the entire empty Bailan Peak to the coldest part of the Far North to avoid public ridicule.

Her only pastime when she was bored was reading the storybooks left behind by her Junior Sister in the Scripture Library. Unlike traditional tales of scholars and ladies, her Junior Sister, as a veteran writer, described worlds that were bizarre, novel, and advanced. Liya looked at the strange clothes of the people around her, the bizarre and magnificent decoration of the venue, and the glowing equipment she had never seen before. She felt this world had many similarities to the worlds in those storybooks. Could it be that those other worlds actually existed?

In just a few minutes, the questions in her heart almost exceeded those of her previous thousand years. Suddenly, a sharp, dull pain throbbed in her head. In a daze, a massive amount of strange memories flooded her brain. The feeling of being forcibly injected with memories was extremely uncomfortable, like oil dropping into water. A certain incompatibility between her soul and the body suddenly exploded, filling her with a tearing sensation that nearly drove her mad.

A sharp, mean female voice rang out beside her. “Hey, you Zoldyck idiot, it is our turn to fight. You are not scared, are you?”

Someone kicked her knee. The woman continued, “Are you playing dead? Get down there and fight me! You are not getting out of it today. I will not allow an idiot like you to keep pestering Master Hisoka! I am definitely winning the bet!”

Liya looked up. A fiery, aggressive figure stood before her. With her vision blurred, the face was not quite clear. She pulled a name from the chaotic memories: Aura Rockefeller.

Aura was the eldest daughter of the wealthiest Rockefeller family. She had countless suitors since childhood but fell in love with Hisoka at first sight and followed him all the way to Heavens Arena. Knowing Hisoka loves battle, she insisted on climbing the tower to become a Floor Master to be worthy of him. She was a complete “love-brain” fanatic.

Of course, having accepted the original owner’s memories, Liya knew that the original Lilia Zoldyck was no different in her obsession, also frantically pursuing the man named Hisoka.

The screen soon showed their two avatars. The announcer made a final call on the microphone; the two contestants had to appear within two minutes or it would be considered a forfeiture.

“Aura, do not go too far!”

Seeing that Liya had not moved, the girl with pink-blue hair on the left noticed something was wrong. She asked, “Lilia, are you okay?”

The sense of rejection between her soul and body gradually faded, and her blurred vision became clear again. Liya looked at the girl before her, who appeared to be only eighteen or nineteen, and waved slightly to indicate she was fine. As a thousand-year-old being, she would not be provoked by this level of taunting.

Aura sneered, “Yuno, why are you acting like a hero? Or are you going to take her place and fight me?”

“You!” Yuno said angrily. “I cannot beat you! But Lilia did not say she would not fight. Is there any need to be so aggressive?”

Aura replied with a mockingly modern phrase and the two girls began to bicker.

Liya weighed the current situation. First, she had transmigrated into another world because of her failed ascension. Second, the original owner, Lilia Zoldyck, was the third child of the Zoldyck family. This family was a world-renowned family of assassins. Everyone in the family was strong, but the original owner lacked strength. She was likely sent here for training because of some mistake, though the specific reason was unknown.

From fragmented memories, Liya inferred that the original owner seemed to have suffered some special trauma, resulting in a slight intellectual disability. This made her memories of many things very vague. When Aura called her an “idiot,” she was likely stating a fact rather than just being insulting. Third, the original owner had made some kind of bet with Aura Rockefeller and was now facing a duel.

Actually, simply forfeiting would not be a big deal, but the original owner was extremely obsessed with the stake of the bet. Even with Liya now in control of the body, she could still feel the strong lingering will of the original owner screaming for her to fight and demanding she win.

Was it an obsession? Obsession is defined as loving but not obtaining, letting go but not parting, seeking but not being able, and losing but not being reconciled. Unless it is intense, it cannot become an obsession.

What exactly did they bet on? Liya could not untangle the cause and effect for a moment, and a wave of boundless hostility suddenly surged in her heart. Having practiced the Heartless Path for a thousand years, her seven emotions and six desires had long since vanished. This must be the influence of Lilia’s obsession. Resentment, longing, and unfulfilled desire now attacked her, wrapping around her tightly. Liya almost wondered if she was about to develop an inner demon.

“Lilia, if you are scared, just admit defeat,” Aura said, standing with hands on her hips. She finally stopped bickering with Yuno and turned to the protagonist, saying arrogantly, “I am generous. For the sake of our business partnership, I will give the Zoldyck family some face and will not make it hard for you. As long as you stay far away from me and Master Hisoka from now on, that will be enough.”

The girl in front of her finally looked up. Lilia’s face was undoubtedly beautiful. It was a small, palm-sized face with exquisite features that seemed carved by a deity. Even Aura, who was usually conceited about her own beauty, could not help but feel a secret pang of jealousy. However, Lilia’s face was deathly pale, as if she had suffered a major illness in just a few minutes.

Looking at the person before her, Aura felt something was strange. This idiot still looked the same, but the feeling she gave off was entirely different. Her gaze was so cold and silent that it did not seem like something a living person should have. For a split second, meeting her eyes felt like being placed in a land of extreme cold, causing Aura to involuntarily take a step back.

Liya suppressed the complicated emotions in her heart and said, “I did not say I would not fight. What if you lose?”

Aura stared at her blankly, feeling that as soon as she spoke, the coldness from before vanished as if that suffocating pressure was just an illusion. She secretly despised herself, wondering how she could feel fear toward this idiot. She snapped in anger, “What are you talking about? Were the stakes not decided long ago? Besides, how could I lose? If I lose, I will even be your dog!”

Liya said no more and made a gesture for Aura to lead the way. Aura snorted coldly, tilted her chin high, and walked down.

Liya followed Aura toward the ring, comforting the original owner’s obsession in her mind. The moment she agreed to fight, she could feel Lilia’s obsession begin to pull back, and its emotional influence on her decreased significantly.

“Lilia, can you really do this? Is your body, okay?” Yuno looked at her worriedly. From the original owner’s memories, Yuno was the only girl she had any sort of relationship with. Although the relationship was thin, Yuno was one of the few people who held no malice toward her.

Liya nodded slightly to her and said, “It is no matter.”

As she passed the first row of spectators, Liya remembered something and scanned the crowd. She said to the spectator on the far edge, “Hello, may I borrow you’re playing cards for a moment?”

Perhaps because the hostility in Liya’s eyes had not yet fully faded, this member of the audience was silent for a long moment before slowly speaking, “Oh?”