Strongest Mage with the Lust system

Kriss wasn't in the right state of mind after hearing Pauline had harmed her Blood Essence, but he still noticed Max's unnatural expression.

Moreover, when he looked at him, he noticed his face had turned pale as if there was no blood left in his body, which made him frown.

"Are you okay?" He asked,

Max snapped back to his senses upon hearing his voice.

"I'm…" He had just begun speaking when he sensed strong fluctuations in space outside the cave and rushed out, only to witness the space in front of him splitting apart.

Swoosh!

Kriss also arrived beside him and watched the unstable rift open with wide eyes.

"We should le—" Before he could finish his words, a large figure shot out of the rift and crashed into the ground in front of them, the impact creating a crater and causing the cave behind them to collapse.

BOOM!

Kriss' expression changed. Almost instantly, he transformed into a cloud of black mist and entered the cave through rubble, extremely anxious.

Pauline was inside and unconscious. Any heavy enough rock could flatten her to death, which, if happened, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself. This was why, instead of fleeing upon seeing the figure land in front of them that his logical mind told him, he chose to go in to Pauline while desperately hoping she wasn't harmed.

Just like Kriss, Max's mind also screamed at him to flee immediately when he saw the large figure, exuding a suffocating, majestic, and wild aura, appear in front of him.

However, before he could move, he felt a strange sense of familiarity from the figure, which delayed him. Then he noticed Kriss had gone inside the crumbled cave, and since he wouldn't leave without him and Pauline, he disregarded the blaring warnings in his mind and stayed put.

A few moments passed, and the cloud of dust slowly cleared, revealing the hundred-meter-wide crater, at the center of which lay a several-meter-long golden-winged snake covered in numerous bleeding wounds. One of its wings seemed to be crippled as it was deformed in an unnatural way.

The sense of familiarity became stronger when he saw the snake. Then he saw it raise its head a little and look in his direction. For a moment, there was a look of confusion in its large, beady eyes, which then transformed into one of recognition and then jubilation, relief, affection, and lastly complaint.

[Pa…Pa…]

Thud!

Right as this childish voice sounded in Max's head, the large snake head dropped to the ground and its eyes closed.

Max stood there, stunned.

The moment he saw those almost human-like emotions in its eyes as it looked at him, he had realized this snake was the one from the Golden-Winged Python's egg that he had bought in Ninam City and had given the Supreme Mage controlling his system to nurture.

However, after the realization came questions.

Had the supreme mage hatched it before the system killed him? If yes, then why hadn't it been given to him?

If not, how did it hatch on its own? Could it be that however much energy he had put into nurturing it before his death was enough?

How was it able to recognize him? From his bloodline energy's signature? Or from Nascent Energy's?

None of these questions, however, held any immediate importance. The question that was important was why it was so badly injured and whether those who had injured it would come after it?

He already had many problems to deal with and didn't want more. However, the moment he saw those emotions directed at him, whatever fear and hesitation he felt vanished in thin air, and when he heard its childish voice call him Papa, before he even knew, he found himself in front of it, reaching out his hand to touch its scaly head with a look of affection, heartache, and fury in his eyes.

Though these sudden emotions startled him, he didn't resist them. He could feel the subtle but very intimate and strong connection with it.

Raising his head, he glanced at where the rift had closed with murder in his eyes. "I'll kill you all." He declared.

The snake, even in its unconscious state, seemed to feel his emotions and visibly relaxed.

…

Just a few hundred miles from the edge of the human continent, several demons and humans stood in the air, supporting stunned expressions on their faces.

Each of them radiated strong auras of Emperor realm experts, but all of them could do nothing but watch as the unstable spatial rift in front of them slowly closed.

"Can anyone tell me why a magic beast, especially a snake, has spatial abilities?" A human emperor mage asked after the rift closed.

"Heh, as expected of you humans, you know nothing." A man, dressed in elegant white robes with a purple horn on his forehead, scoffed mockingly. He was a demon, but if someone didn't see the horn, they wouldn't be able to tell him apart from a human.

"Oh, so you know? Tell me." The human emperor didn't get angry and asked instead, curious.

The demon sneered, "You wish."

Right then, all of them imperceptibly shuddered, feeling a bad feeling. It was so fleeting that if not for their senses, they would have thought it was nothing but a figment of their imagination.

Noticing they all seemed to have had this premonition, they exchanged a glance.

"It seems we have offended someone we shouldn't have." The human emperor smiled wryly before laughing, "Fortunately, none of my attacks landed on the snake; otherwise… hahaha!"

Save for a few of them, everyone else's expressions, especially two demons, including the scholarly purple-horned demon, and three humans' expressions, turned ugly at his words.

"Haha, don't worry too much, guys. It didn't die so that senior most likely wouldn't kill you and would just punish you lightly." The human emperor said before disappearing.

Boom! Boom!

Right then, the space where he stood at exploded.

"Haha, why be angry? I was just trying to put your minds at ease." A taunting laugh echoed in the sky.

…

A few moments later, Kriss walked out of the rubble, carrying Pauline, who seemed to have gained additional injuries to her forehead and shoulder, in his arms.

The moment he came out, he saw Max carrying the huge Golden Snake on his back and was surprised. But before he could ask anything, Max rushed out of the valley and headed deeper into the mountain range.

"Follow me."

He couldn't leave the mountain range because he would be too noticeable carrying a large beast. Even if he could deceive the demons by using his disguise technique, those who would come looking for the Golden Python would be easily able to find him.

While remaining in the mountain range would be dangerous too, he didn't plan to stay for long. The moment the Golden Python and Pauline were healed, he would leave the place.

Since the spatial rift the Python used was unstable, it should be difficult for those who attacked it to track it down easily and should take quite some time.

'Let's just hope it is enough for them to heal and for us to leave.' He thought before his mind shifted to another thing.

'That premonition...'