Deviant: No Longer Human

Wang Xiao sat in stunned silence, his expression a perfect mask of tranquility amidst the chaos.

Below him, the dragon he was perched upon sliced through the heavens at a breakneck pace.

Wang Xiao couldn\'t shake the feeling that the last time they flew, this bastard was flying at merely half this velocity.

"Is this what you meant by a \'walk\'?" he couldn\'t resist asking.

After all, who could classify intercontinental travel as a mere stroll?

A mischievous glimmer danced in Aurora\'s eyes as her lips twisted into a knowing smile. "You should travel more. Don\'t worry, with a bit of help from me and managing air resistance, she can go even faster."

".."

Wang Xiao\'s expression darkened, suspicion brewing. "You\'re managing all this while sitting so calmly?" he inquired, his tone tinged with disbelief.

A flicker of hesitation flashed through Aurora\'s gaze, regretting her words.

Yet the die was cast; words once released into the world refused to be reeled back in.

"...Aurora," Wang Xiao\'s voice took on a new edge, "How fast can you move without relying on this dragon?" His competitive spirit, now ignited, sought to measure the breadth of their abilities.

"..."

Facing his penetrating gaze, Aurora found herself wavering, contemplating whether it might be wiser to leap away rather than confront his question.

As he steadily closed the distance between them, a ripple of discomfort washed over her.

"Okay, enough of this! Even though you fancy women, if you wish to live a long life, the very first rule you must follow is to curb your womanizing habbits!"

"Womanizing?" Wang Xiao raised an eyebrow, adopting an expression of innocent confusion, which only served to deepen the shadows of annoyance across Aurora\'s features.

A flicker of irritation flashed in her eyes.

The last time he had proclaimed his desire, he had earnestly claimed it was her he wanted.

She had been at a loss for words then, confronted with his grave sincerity.

Yet, that scoundrel had followed up with a convoluted logic that left her utterly speechless.

Does he not grasp the weight of his words, the unforeseen consequences they might usher?

Thankfully, Aurora\'s heart was fortified against such turbulence!

Anyone else in her shoes might have...

"Eh?"

Caught in the midst of her heated monologue, Aurora suddenly halted, as if frozen in time.

Wang Xiao, witnessing her animated grumbling, found an unexpected charm in this vixen. With a playful tilt of his head, he leaned in, capturing her lips with a tender, unexpected peck.

"!"

"T-This... This is precisely what I was talking about!" Aurora stammered, her voice a blend of shock and anger.

In a reflexive motion, she swiveled her head away, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribcage.

Wang Xiao queried, a playful twinkle in his eye, "Talking about what? I don\'t recall this \'womanizing\' you mentioned."

"..." Aurora glared at him, her patience thinning. "I would throw you down if you lie again."

Wang Xiao, concealing his amusement, seized her hands in his. "Then I\'d simply keep holding on to you, ensuring we both plummet together."

!!

\'Ugh?? Not this again!\' Aurora embarrassment was beyond words, baffled by his audacity to say whatever came to mind without a second thought.

[Why are you toying with her?] Yin Yue couldn\'t resist interjecting.

Wang Xiao, his smile barely contained, mused to himself, \'Isn\'t her flustered expression just adorable?\'

Yin Yue, "..."

[Wang Xiao, you really need to reflect on your actions], Yin Yue finally voiced out.

This time, even she found common ground with Aurora, though Wang Xiao remained blissfully indifferent to their critiques.

Aurora, frustration mounting, demanded, "Aura, fly me far away from this man!" Her tone was tinged with annoyance.

"..."

Wang Xiao couldn\'t help but question her logic, a smirk playing on his lips.

Given he was perched right behind her on the same dragon, how could Aura possibly whisk her away from him?

Yet, in a surprising turn, Aura did indeed pick up speed, as if attempting to honor Aurora\'s wish.

"..."

\'Dumb... Just like its owner... Huh...\' Wang Xiao mused internally, his smile betraying his amusement at the situation and his companion\'s frustration.

"Okay, now you can start asking your questions, just don\'t wear me out," Aurora said, conceding to their earlier agreement that he could inquire freely later on.

"??" Wang Xiao, visibly puzzled, cocked his head to the side. "I don\'t have any questions."

"??" Aurora mirrored his confusion. Hadn\'t he been pestering her with questions every day?

How could he suddenly have nothing to ask?

Wang Xiao simply shrugged. Given that half of Aurora\'s answers tended to be cryptic at best, he found her somewhat unreliable when it came to historical facts.

Oblivious to his silent critique, Aurora sighed, "Okay, let\'s start with something most crucial then. Tiamat—do you have any idea how the Greek gods of that era achieved immortality?"

Wang Xiao ventured a guess. "Psychokinesis?"

Aurora shook her head. "No, very few have ever achieved immortality solely through Psychokinesis."

"Then what?" Wang Xiao\'s curiosity was piqued.

Aurora began to explain. The key didn\'t lie with the Greeks but stretched far back to the time when Tiamat\'s existence was first acknowledged publicly, following Emperor Aegis\'s death.

In those desperate times, as people clamored for immortality, the ruling eight consorts faced a dilemma.

Mimi, having discovered Tiamat, persistently refused to sacrifice it.

The turning point came when they vacated the throne and vanished.

After their departure, the Pangeans abandoned their terrestrial pursuits, embarking on a quest to extract and locate reserves of Aether—a substance far more potent and mysterious.

Aurora\'s recounting painted a picture of cyclic destruction where civilizations, one after another, repeated the same grave mistakes tied to their reliance on Aether.

She lamented how, rather than evolving past their dependency on this powerful but finite resource, societies continued to anchor their advancements and survival to it—a decision that ultimately led to their downfall.

Millions of years later, the emergence of the Hyperborea civilization within Earth\'s core highlighted a temporary triumph over the challenges of sustainability.

Utilizing the Aether reserves found there, they managed to carve out an existence until those very reserves dwindled, pushing them to the brink of extinction.

Those who failed to leave were erased from history, their legacy lost to the sands of time.

Then came the Atlantekans, a civilization that, in Aurora\'s eyes, might have broken the cycle.

By choosing to live submerged in water, they detached themselves from the world above and its past mistakes.

Water, eternal and ever-flowing, offered a semblance of hope for a sustainable future, until they committed a grave mistake!

"What mistake?" Wang Xiao inquired, intrigued by the apparent paradox of a civilization that seemingly had everything figured out yet still faltered.

"They found Tiamat," Aurora replied somberly.

With those three words, Wang Xiao undersrood the situation.

Aurora elaborated that the downfall wasn\'t due to the sinking of an eighth continent, as often misconstrued.

Atlantia, the heart of the Atlantekan civilization, had always been beneath the sea, floating underwater.

This society had thrived underwater, adapting to its conditions without initially seeking Aether.

However, the discovery of Tiamat ignited a catastrophic greed.

In their end, they sought to capture Tiamat, which led to their undoing.

Mimi, along with her army, retaliated by shattering the submerged landmass, condemning it to the abyss of the deep sea.

"Her army?" Wang Xiao echoed, puzzled. If Mimi had abdicated to rule, where had this military force come from?

Aurora\'s smile gleamed with the pride of ancient secrets, "Before the rise of those who live beneath the earth, we were sovereigns. We held knowledge and secrets far beyond the grasp of others—locations of Aether reserves and wisdom so advanced that no civilization to this day has matched it."

"Mimi, or rather Naomi, found solace in the embrace of the boundless seas. As we all went our separate ways, Naomi embraced the path of water. She learned to communicate with sea creatures, drawing upon the might of Tiamat, whose seas became her great army."

Wang Xiao\'s eyebrows arched in intrigue. On the surface, it might not seem much, but pondering deeper, wasn\'t this an extraordinary power to possess?

Aurora continued, "Naomi is undeniably powerful. However, remove her from her aquatic domain, and her strength plummets significantly. She becomes akin to a fish out of water. The Atlantis that re-emerged is but a shadow of its former glory, containing the stories of the last Atlanteans who witnessed the apocalypse with their own eyes."

"The remaining Atlanteans ascended to the heavens, creating a new society among the clouds called the Aerians. Yet, this too was doomed to fail as their cities plummeted from the sky when their Aether reserves were depleted."

Wang Xiao nodded, understanding the dangerous balance of their reliance on Aether.

It seemed the more a society depended on this power, the more inevitable its downfall.

Aurora elaborated, "Amidst the rise and fall of these civilizations, a pivotal event took place. The few survivors among the original Pangaeans, enduring through the ages, resolved to pass judgment on Naomi for her actions. They sealed her away in the lands now known as China."

!!

Wang Xiao\'s eyes narrowed in astonishment. \'China?\'