My SSS-Rank Clone Talent: I Level Up Endlessly!

"NPC?" Alice asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"Oh, you don't know," Zarek said with a faint smirk.

He murmured something under his breath, then looked her in the eye. "Do you know what I'm going to do to you?" he asked, grinning.

Alice's composure snapped back into place, venom lacing her voice. "You know my mother. She won't spare you if there's even a scratch on me."

There wasn't a trace of fear in her eyes, only defiance, sharp as steel.

Zarek's amusement only deepened. He didn't reply. He simply stared at her in silence, the corners of his lips twitching as if savoring the tension.

Even though the room was silent, Alice couldn't shake off the creeping sense of dread. In mere moments, cold sweat had drenched her back, and her unease only deepened, her voice rising, trembling between defiance and desperation:

"You're only making things worse for yourself by tying me up like this. If you release me now, I might even convince my mother to go easy on you—"

"Heh." Zarek sneered.

With deliberate slowness, he raised his hand and brought it right to her forehead,then flicked her, hard and brutal.

"Ahhh!"

Alice cried out as her head snapped back. Her forehead throbbed with pain, and a red welt had already begun to form.

Zarek stared at her, and immediately, Alice felt an invisible force closing in. Her entire body tensed, organs compressing under the weight of his telekinesis, as a scream tore from her lips.

Her cries grew louder with each passing second. This wasn't ordinary pain. It was something far worse, impossible to describe in words.

Zarek was merciless. His telekinesis crushed down on every inch of her body, twisting her nerves, wringing out the maximum pain she could possibly endure.

No matter how strong Alice was, under his power, she was nothing, just a bug he could crush at any moment. And he made sure to carve that truth deep into her flesh.

"M-Mercy… pl…"

Her lips quivered, barely able to form the words. She wanted to beg but Zarek's expression remained cold, utterly unmoved.

He continued to squeeze her with his telekinesis, pushing her to the brink. Her body trembled violently, every nerve screaming as if she might burst apart at any moment.

And just as the pain reached its unbearable peak…

Her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed into unconsciousness.

Zarek shook his head and looked at the panting Melissa. He pointed with his palm, and a wisp of low-level divine energy came out of it and merged with her.

In an instant, her groggy mind was cleared, and she regained her vision again. Her limbs regained strength.

Melissa stood straight and looked at her hand and spoke with a tone of disbelief: "How?"

"It's divine energy, the energy of the gods," Zarek replied to her and returned his gaze back to Alice.

"Hmm, I am quite curious. Are you truly the daughter of Mirabella?"

Well, for starters, they shared similar features, long golden hair and golden pupils. But according to the woman sealed in his consciousness, Mirabella might be bi.

Even though it didn't seem like it, Mirabella didn't appear to have any real interest in men, which naturally cast doubt in Zarek's mind about whether this Alice was truly her daughter.

"Hey, is she?" Zarek asked inwardly.

But no response came from the chained woman. It seemed she had chosen to remain silent, invoking her Fifth Amendment if this was back on earth.

"Hey, reply to me or you will face terrifying consequences." He smirked, but the woman seemed to not hear or ignored him entirely, not a flinch.

Zarek, just when he sensed this, said, "Ignoring me? As if that will work."

Grey, who was inside his consciousness and playing around with Lilith, suddenly paused. His pupils looked over at the woman and poked her:

"Hey, woman, are you sure you are not going to reply?" Grey's question was only met with silence.

A silent protest against him.

"Oh?"

He raised an eyebrow when he saw this, then he turned towards Lilith: "Let's give her the taste of your power again, shall we?"

"Sure, dear," Lilith said with a hint of fascination.

At this time, a little fox came forward with its swaying tails and looked at Grey. "Actually, master, I might be able to help."

"Oh, you?" Grey looked at the little fox and was stunned for a moment.

This fox, Grimoire, was his first Grimoire, after Lilith, of course and her abilities were very versatile and useful, so he had constantly used her in small battles.

Of course, in real fights, she was mostly useless because she was a bronze Grimoire, and her powers were simply not effective against serious battles.

The one who he used for actual battle was only an empty void who was silently standing at the very back, with his black cloak fluttering in the wind in silence, basically aura farming even while just standing there.

As for Lilith, although she was also helpful, her use was very peculiar because her attacks were for the soul, and Nyxaria was even more useless, even though she was a platinum Grimoire.

"How will you help me?" Grey asked curiously. All things considered, this fox could technically affect this woman, but her power was simply not enough.

"Master, I feel like I can reach the next tier any time soon. As long as you write in my pages, you should be able to allow me to reach the silver rank."

"Are you sure you can affect her with the silver rank?" Grey raised an eyebrow.

"Yes." The fox nodded cutely.

"Alright, if you say so."

Grey closed his eyes, and his vision went back to his modest room, back in the book taming world!

The fox Grimoire was in front of him and flipped her pages to the empty ones.

He raised his quill pen and started to write in her pages. His spiritual Qi burst out and funneled into the tip of his quill pen.

A simple blue fire, more powerful than an ordinary flame, appeared in front of him.

Grey didn't stop as the blue fire increased by two and multiplied by two, then multiplied by two again…

The temperature in the surroundings grew to a terrifying height until the surroundings started to distort and the ground began to melt, turning almost into charcoal.

"Hmm, not bad," he muttered, admiring the intensity of the flames. This blue flame's temperature was nothing to scoff at. If it were at the Diamond rank, then he could only imagine how terrifying it could be, considering it was only at the bronze rank.

With the final stroke of his quill pen, his spiritual energy was almost completely exhausted, but at the same time, he had completely written on all the pages of her.

Immediately, he could feel a strange connection to her.

"Master." The little fox appeared in front of him and turned into a beam of light that shot into his body.

Grey was confused for a moment, until he started to see a simple vision of two foxes that were going at each other…

After they did it, around fifty days passed before a little fox was born. But at that time, humans found them and directly hunted them. Only the little fox was able to escape the place, but she was extremely injured.

A kind-hearted farmer found her and started to care for her, and she recovered quickly.

But the landlord of this place was extremely cruel and drove the farmer to the brink of collapse, and he died. The little fox grew angry and somehow managed to kill him at the cost of herself.

At the brink of collapse, the little fox was in tears, dying with regrets.

Then her spirit drifted into a nearby shrine, and time passed in the blink of an eye.

In a hundred years, the fox turned into a fox Grimoire.

'Is this her memory? Were Grimoires also living beings before they died?'

Grey grew curious. He could feel her emotion in every scene that she experienced, and he gotta say, her life was simply miserable, poor fox.

Just as he was in a trance, he felt the connection loosen.

His eyes snapped back to his room, and his pupils looked in front of him. The fox Grimoire still seemed to be the same as before; however, its presence was stronger by several times!

It had reached the silver rank!

"So easy?" Grey murmured.

"Master, you are a Master-level book tamer; of course, it would be easy for me to reach the silver rank," the fox voiced in his mind.

"Were the memories I saw your origin?" Grey asked.

"What memories?" The fox was confused, so Grey started to speak about the vision he saw.

The fox nodded her head in confirmation. "Yes, that was before I became a Grimoire."

"Hmm, alright."

Grey used Lilith again to connect with the soul of Zarek and came to his consciousness where the woman was bound in chains.

"Do it," he uttered.

The fox behind him moved forward, and a bright blue flare erupted.