{Chapter: 234: Meeting An Acquaintance}
At present, although the city of Augustus maintained a semblance of order on the surface—with looting, arson, and vandalism forcibly suppressed by the local authorities—the undercurrent of public dissatisfaction was growing more turbulent by the day.
Tensions festered just beneath the surface, waiting to erupt.
If Dex truly wanted to stir up a catastrophe worthy of the history books, the most effective route would be to initiate a covert missionary campaign, slowly corrupting the populace from within, eroding their morale and becoming like a disease. Alternatively, he could follow the same blueprint used to annihilate the last defensive line—an act that led to the collapse of an entire country.
But that kind of operation, while flashy and destructive, would only yield short-term rewards for him at best.
The widespread chaos and carnage would naturally generate enormous hatred—an energy source he could harvest. But the sheer scale of it would also attract the attention of some truly troublesome wild bosses, beings too powerful and unpredictable. If any of them got involved, they might interfere with his long-term experiment: [The Poisoning Plan of Living in Different Worlds and Waiting to Die]—a convoluted but crucial part of his future strategy.
That experiment wasn't just a side project. It was an investment in sustainable long-term gains, a multi-world scheme that affected his ultimate goals and even his survival. The benefits of corrupting a single city were nowhere near worth jeopardizing that.
So Dex took a deep breath, suppressed the dangerous urge to throw himself into suicidal chaos, and instead wandered the city streets like an idle ghost, waiting for fate to guide his steps.
As he meandered, something caught his attention.
A subtle, almost imperceptible scent drifted into his nose—faint, yet unmistakably familiar.
Dex's senses sharpened immediately. It had been quite some time since he last encountered the owner of that scent. But once you notice a soul like that, you don't forget them. Not ever.
With careful footsteps, Dex followed the trail, weaving his way through alleys and crossing several busy streets until finally, he saw her.
A tall and elegant figure stood before a modest street vendor.
She was an elf—slender and graceful—standing at an imposing height of nearly 2.1 meters. She wore a white robe lined with golden embroidery, its divine radiance faintly catching the sunlight. She was currently browsing the snacks on offer, seemingly in no rush.
Around her, male passers-by tried to act casual, but their eyes betrayed them. They lingered too long, heads turning discreetly, some sneaking glances through reflections in windows, pretending to check their own faces.
They looked like thieves admiring an unguarded treasure, tempted but too cowardly to take action.
Dex narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Let me think... what was her name again..."
He should have remembered it instantly. But with the flood of knowledge and memories he'd been absorbing recently, his mind had become sluggish. Information that should've been at his fingertips took longer to retrieve.
"Alison? Yes… that should be it."
After a few seconds of digging through mental clutter, Dex finally extracted her identity from the fragments of one particular soul he'd devoured—a soldier who had once admired the elf from afar.
He remembered now. Back when they were on the battlefield defending that final line, aside from the coordinated mental assaults from the enemy, she had been the only individual to inflict 'serious' physical damage on him.
She had nearly blown his head off.
Fortunately, Dex's skull was particularly resilient. Only his face had exploded, and while some brain matter had leaked out, it was nothing fatal. It patched itself within seconds when he didn't even have the immortal body.
Granted, the damage she caused had more to do with the artifact-grade bow she wielded, which had the power to pierce through his exoskeleton. But even without that, Alison was still an elite among elites—a demigod with impressive raw power.
Compared to the dark elf demigod who had also been present at the time, she had clearly been the greater threat.
Dex had considered that dark elf more of a freebie—someone he could've dispatched instantly if Alison hadn't been there to delay him.
Now that he was closer, Dex tapped into more of the memories he'd collected from Alison's admirers, piecing together even more information.
She wasn't just powerful.
She was a celebrity.
A very close relative of the Elven God of Radiance. The most exceptional high elf to emerge from the Elsera Elven Nation in the past three thousand years. She held numerous titles and accolades, one of which was the illustrious moniker: Flower of Light.
Dex clicked his tongue in mild irritation.
She had at least thirty noble titles to her name. It was honestly excessive.
Just hearing about them made him feel a strange blend of admiration and pettiness.
Here he was—Dex, an unstoppable force of chaos and cunning—and yet no one had ever bothered to grant him even a single official title. Not even a nickname. A brilliant gem buried under dust.
But the jealousy passed quickly.
After all, most of the people who might've given him a title were long dead—slain by his very hands.
"Hm?"
As Dex drew nearer, he noticed that Alison had begun to sense the shift in the crowd. The people around her—especially the women—were stealing glances in his direction now, some outright staring with unease or curiosity.
Her long ears twitched slightly, and her golden eyes slowly turned toward him.
Their gazes locked.
Recognition flickered in her eyes almost immediately. Her lips parted slightly, and she murmured a question.
"Are you... Dex?"
Dex's expression remained calm. He tilted his head slightly and responded with mild curiosity.
"You know me? That's odd. I don't recall us ever speaking before."
Internally, he was somewhat surprised.
Do I really have that much of a reputation now?
After all, his knowledge of Alison was entirely second-hand—plundered from absorbed souls and reconstructed from shattered memories.
Yet here she was, identifying him by name at a glance, a name not known to many.
He found himself genuinely curious.
This meeting was shaping up to be far more interesting than he'd anticipated.
---
"Valeera Golaner and I are acquaintances," Alison began, her tone measured and diplomatic, the cadence of someone used to navigating courtrooms and war rooms alike. "She spoke highly of you. Very highly. When I visited her not long ago, your name came up—frequently. She described you in detail. Your face, your eyes... they're not easily forgotten. It wasn't difficult to connect the pieces."
What Alison did not voice, however, was the strange undertow that had pulled at her when Valeera first recounted her experiences with Dex. There had been something... primal in the way Valeera spoke. An edge of reverence tainted by unease. A familiarity laced with warning. As if Dex wasn't just a man, but an event—a presence that distorted reality around him in subtle, irreversible ways.
Alison had felt it the moment she met him. He didn't radiate menace; rather, it coiled beneath the surface, like a tide held back by sheer will. A quiet storm. A caged wildfire. There was no overt hostility in his demeanor, no posturing or intimidation—yet every instinct in her sharpened like a blade being drawn.
He was handsome, yes insanely so. Even beautiful in a way that unsettled. But there was something off about the symmetry. Something in his eyes that didn't blink the right way, or held a depth that looked too still. Like watching a forest where nothing moved, but knowing something was watching from the trees.
According to Valeera, Dex projected the image of a detached wanderer—a man without ambition or enemies, content to drift. But that was a mask, finely crafted. Beneath the surface was violence—not mindless, but something worse. Calculated. Cold. Valeera had told Alison about a legendary-ranked warrior who had once mocked Dex in front of a crowd. No one had expected a response—until Dex moved.
> "He seized him by the neck and crushed it," Valeera had said. "Like it was a twig. There was no anger in his face. No satisfaction. Just... finality. It was like watching a god swat a fly that forgot its place."
It wasn't that he was impatient—he wasn't. Valeera had described his tolerance as unnervingly vast, like the stillness of deep water. But once someone crossed a certain threshold, something ancient shifted in him. And when it rose, there were no warnings. No forgiveness. Just erasure.
That was the first time Valeera had lowered her voice. Her tone became quieter, slower, almost as if afraid the memory would hear her.
> "He doesn't hate," she said. "That would make him easier to understand. Easier to predict. But Dex... he doesn't react with emotions like we do. He decides. And once he decides you're not worth the space you occupy… he takes it back."
Still, there had been more. A softer side—though it was hardly safer.
Valeera had admitted, reluctantly, that she'd slept with him once. Only once. And it haunted her.
> "It wasn't romantic," she said. "It wasn't even tender. It was wild." Her eyes had drifted to the fire beside them. "Like kissing lightning. Like being caught in something you knew might kill you—but you didn't care. Because in that moment, you weren't alive—you were his."
Then, reluctantly, Valeera had confessed a night that still haunted her.
> "We'd just returned from a mission. Tense, dirty, exhausted. I was angry. He was quiet. We argued—it was stupid—but then he kissed me. Hard. And then I wasn't angry anymore. I was just... unmade."
Her voice had softened, turned low.
> "He was rough. Not cruel—rough. Like someone always holding back finally let go. Like he'd been caged too long. But even then, he watched me. Every breath. Every cry. He drove me insane—pinned me to the edge of madness and kept me there, not with chains, but with his body."
They'd argued before it happened. Tension in the air like a storm waiting to break. Valeera was proud, sharp-tongued, and tired. He was silent, unreadable. Then, like a match striking dry bark, something ignited.
> "He didn't ask. He didn't hesitate. But he didn't hurt me. He made me feel like I belonged to the stars, and he was the sky crashing down around me. And when I thought I couldn't take more, he whispered things—dark, gentle things that made me break apart all over again."
And yet, even then, there had been care. Precise, consuming care.
> "He ruined me slowly," Valeera had whispered. "He knew exactly how to pull me apart and put me back together. Every breath I took, he was there, controlling it. I should have been afraid. Maybe I was. But more than anything... I didn't want it to stop."*