CH: 295 Black Flame

{Chapter: 295 Black Flame}

"Are you asking me?" Ada smiled faintly, her tone laced with subtle irony. "My situation is hard to define... but Alice—she and William were once locked in a bitter, bloody feud. She told me that every time they encountered each other, she fought him with all her strength. No holding back, no second thoughts. Life and death—didn't matter to her. Her only goal was to kill him. But she failed. Every single time."

Maria raised her brows, her voice sharp with disbelief. "Even with all that hatred… you still ended up together? That's not just strange—it's ridiculous. Absurd."

Alice chuckled softly and placed a hand over her chest. "You know the old saying? 'A woman's heart is like a needle at the bottom of the sea.' Men love to toss that phrase around as if it explains everything. But the truth is… sometimes even we don't understand our own hearts. Emotions are messy, chaotic. One moment you hate someone more than anything in the world, and the next… you're sitting beside them, wondering how it ever changed."

"That might be true for you," Maria replied, shaking her head resolutely. "But I'm not like that. My heart is clear. My convictions don't shift with the tides."

Alice's smile deepened. "That's what I used to think too. But the longer you spend with William, the more you'll realize—he has a way of tearing down every wall you've built around yourself. Brick by brick. Whether you want it or not."

Her gaze drifted toward the horizon, as if recalling distant, painful memories. "It's insane, really. How we got from being enemies to this… whatever this is. I still remember the blood, the screams, the fury in my heart. Sometimes it still echoes. But alongside it, there's this strange… warmth. Like a flame that shouldn't exist, but does anyway."

Maria looked unsettled. "Is that what you're trying to tell me? That I'll end up like you?"

Alice's voice dropped, lower and more certain. "Maria… Natasha… whatever path you take with William—whether it's love, hate, or something in between—I only believe in one thing: in the end, you won't escape his grip. None of us could. And maybe, deep down, none of us truly wanted to."

Natasha remained silent, her expression unreadable. After a long pause, she finally said, "Talk about yourselves all you want. Leave me out of it. My path has nothing to do with his."

Alice held up her hands. "Fine, fine. No need to get prickly."

"Let's just leave it here," Maria muttered, her tone weary.

Ada stretched her arms and stood up. "We're all stuck here for a few days. Might as well relax a little. Think of it as a forced vacation. I need a swim—care to join me?" Without waiting for an answer, she stripped off her clothes with practiced ease, changed into a sleek swimsuit, and dove gracefully into the pool.

"I'm in too!" The White Queen called, following suit.

"I suppose it's time to unwind." Alice shrugged and leapt in after them, making a splash.

Maria and Natasha exchanged a long glance. The atmosphere had shifted—less tense now, more surreal.

Natasha slowly began to remove her clothes, revealing a toned, perfectly sculpted figure beneath. She slipped into a black swimsuit and looked at Maria. "Since we can't escape, we might as well enjoy the ride."

As she stepped into the pool, the White Queen smirked. "Damn… what a figure. Now I get why William always says, 'Big breasts and a round ass—can't go wrong.'"

"Yeah… she's got you all beat," Alice admitted, a playful hint of envy in her tone especially looking at Natasha's breasts even bigger then Peggy's super perky DD-cups they were definitely super perky EE-cups.

Ada sighed wistfully. "Seriously, I work out constantly, and hers still puts mine to shame."

Natasha looked down at herself and shrugged. "Being an agent, sometimes I think this body with these breasts and ass is more of a burden than an asset. But hey… blame genetics." Natasha said while looking at her big EE-cup breasts.

"Oh come on," the White Queen laughed. "You're beautiful, deadly, and somehow manage to act like you don't care. You're a whole package deal. Women like you are so rare that he only had a few wives."

Alice shot the White Queen a look. "You're starting to sound more and more like William."

"Well," Ada said teasingly, "they say daughters take after their fathers. Maybe White Queen's just living up to her lineage."

"Don't joke like that!" White Queen snapped, half-embarrassed. "I'm not his daughter! Stop spreading nonsense."

Ada winked. "Can't deny it though. Your body came from his gene bank, technically speaking."

Natasha turned to her, thoughtful. "Your relationship with that bastard seems more twisted than I thought."

"It's not what you think." White Queen looked away, her voice softer now.

Natasha dove into the pool, the cool water soothing the heat bubbling under her skin. "I never imagined I'd be swimming beside women who used to be my enemies."

Alice floated nearby, her hair fanned out like seaweed. "Let's get something straight. We never wanted to be your enemies. We're not here to help you, but we're not here to sabotage you either. For now, your only real enemy is William."

She paused before adding, "But hey, if you insist on treating us like enemies, we won't stop you. That's your choice."

Maria sat poolside, legs dangling in the water. Her heart was a storm—resentment, confusion, curiosity all colliding within her.

She looked at the women before her. Once foes, now... allies? Prisoners? Something in between?

She didn't have the answers yet. But her heart was no longer as certain as it once was.

And perhaps, that frightened her the most.

---

William soared through the sky with unrestrained joy, his arms wide open as if embracing the heavens themselves. The wind rushed past him, tousling his hair and cooling his skin. Alone and unburdened, he howled like a wild wolf into the endless blue, "Ooooh, oooh, ahhh!"

The sky above stretched like an infinite canvas, the clouds lazily drifting beneath his feet. The sheer freedom of flight stirred something poetic in his soul—something primal and yet oddly sentimental.

"When will the bright moon appear?" he mused aloud, the words clumsily tumbling from his mouth. "I raise my wine to ask the blue sky… I don't know, I don't know, I don't know…"

He chuckled bitterly at his own awkward recital. For a man who had never stepped foot in a proper college, let alone studied poetry, trying to quote something elegant was like a barbarian attempting to play a violin. Still, in the solitude of the sky, even his clumsy verse felt grand.

Eventually, he gave up on trying to recite anything coherent. "Bah," he muttered, "Poetry's not my thing anyway."

But then—something shifted. A flicker. A whisper in the wind. The hair on the back of William's neck stood up.

He stopped laughing.

His gaze snapped behind him.

Nothing.

The vast blue stretched on endlessly, completely still. But the sense of being watched clung to him like a shadow, impossible to shake.

William's brows furrowed deeply. "An illusion? No… I'm sure of it. Someone's watching me."

His lips curled into a mischievous grin. "Could it be... a beautiful woman who's fallen for my charm, stalking me from the shadows?"

Then his voice rose into the sky, clear and confident. "Come out! I already sense your presence. There's no need to hide anymore!"

But no one answered.

The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating even. The clouds offered no response, the wind no whisper.

William narrowed his eyes. He closed them and focused—drawing deep into the core of his mind. His mental energy surged to its peak, spreading out like invisible tendrils to touch every fluctuation in the air, every shimmer of hidden energy. He scanned every direction.

Still nothing.

And yet, the unease remained. Clinging. Watching.

William opened his eyes and muttered, "Who was that...?"

He remained floating in the sky, eyes sharp, muscles tense. "This feeling... I hate it. I hate unknowns. I hate being toyed with."

Even in the face of powerful enemies during the Avengers incident, he had never felt such intense pressure. The so-called mighty beings of that saga hadn't been able to stir this kind of dread within him.

Suddenly—

Hmph.

A cold, disdainful snort echoed directly beside his ear.

Before William could even react, an explosion of black flames engulfed him in an instant. The searing heat was unlike anything he'd experienced before. It wasn't just hot—it was malevolent. Alive.

"AAAAAH!" William roared in agony as the flames consumed his body. His clothes disintegrated immediately, reduced to ash. His skin blistered and cracked under the black flames, and the air around him distorted from the intensity.

"This flame… this isn't normal fire!" he shouted through clenched teeth. In desperation, torrents of water burst from his core, lashing outward in waves meant to extinguish the inferno. But instead of dousing the fire, the water itself caught ablaze—twisting into steam and black smoke.

Even elemental control was useless.

"Damn it... this is real!" he growled, gritting his teeth.

With a spark of resolve, his hand shot upward. A pulse of icy blue light surged from his palm as he summoned the Casket of Ancient Winters—a relic of immense power. Cold winds screamed from the artifact, and a sheet of frost surged out to meet the black flames, freezing them momentarily in place.

His body encased in rime, William gritted his teeth and let out a guttural roar. "HAAAAH!"

The ice around him shattered into glittering fragments as he burst free. He gasped for air, chest heaving. His body was badly burned—skin charred, muscles exposed in some areas—but his eyes still burned with fury.

His fingers trembled as he held up a piece of jagged ice. Inside it, the black flames continued to burn, undeterred by the frost.

"Even this thing... can't extinguish it completely," he whispered, his voice heavy with awe and dread.

"This flame... If I'm not wrong... it's that kind of flame." His voice dropped to a whisper. "No... it can't be…"

His heart thudded in his chest.

He narrowed his eyes, the grin returning to his face—crooked, dark, full of thrill.

"So that was just a test," he muttered. "Just a little taste... The real game hasn't even started yet."

The wind carried his words away as he looked out at the horizon.

"If I'm right, and they've started to move… then things are about to get very interesting."

His smirk grew wider.

"Still," he said, sighing, "the question is: who brought that here?"

He hovered in silence, staring down at the burning ice. The questions were mounting, but the answers remained elusive. No amount of guessing would give him the truth.

But William wasn't the kind to wait around passively.

The unknown enemy would show themselves in time.

And when they did… he'd be ready.

"Come at me, whoever you are," he whispered, a cold gleam in his eyes. "Next time, I won't hold back. I'll burn you to ashes instead."

He clenched his fist, and the sky around him trembled.

The hunter had been marked.

And William—burned but unbroken—was far from finished.

*****

You can support me by joining my Patreon and get upto 60 chapters in advance.

patreon.com/Eden_Translation