I had been observing what my body was doing. The darkness had moved around, and light appeared.
When it did, it felt like I was standing in front of a large movie screen.
Everything that my eyes were seeing in the real world, I was also seeing it.
As I watched my body puml Selgaath like a punching bag, there were even monts when I winced and felt bad for the demon.
"Geez. Oh geez. Let that man breathe. Let him up, let him up!" I was saying as I saw my body hit the demon with a nasty ten-piece combo that sent the demon flying through five rooms.
Observing how my body was using my lightning magic at points, I tilted my head.
"Oh. I didn't know I could do that. Interesting. Oh! That too?"
If I had a notebook, I would've loved to write down my notes.
Then I saw my body grab the demon by its face and with a single leap, I shot the two of us into the air. From other people's perspective, they probably thought we were flying.
"Oh wow. We're quite high up. Oh. Oh! OH! How high are we going?"
Then there was a pause and my body began plumting towards the ground.
"OH MY GOD!" I scread. "Is he trying to kill ? Is… is trying to kill ?"
Then he hit the ground. Even through the screen, I could feel the impact.
"I'm still alive. Wow… I don't even look fazed whatsoever."
Then I watched as the demon turned into ash, the arrival of the Headmistress, and finally the purple aura entering my body.
"Since the Headmistress killed the demon in the novel, it was never ntioned what curse Selgaath gives its killer." I could only pray and hope that it wasn't too bad.
Then just when my body fainted, the screen before vanished.
Total darkness reappeared.
The darkness wasn't loud or violent. It was more like soone had gently pulled a curtain close, cutting off the sunlight peering through the window.
"Will I wake up now?" I uttered out loud.
I waited. And waited. And waited.
Nothing.
After a while, my mind went blank as ti beca hard to understand again.
How long has it been? An hour? A minute? A year?
I couldn't tell the difference just like before. But instead of wandering and walking around the darkness, I sat there, waiting for sothing to change.
Then sothing shifted. It wasn't the darkness.
"Finally," I groaned. "I was starting to get bored."
Sothing within the darkness was present with . At first, it wasn't a voice.
It sounded like the wind. I could feel this strange pressure as if the space between and this "sothing" was being folded so that we were being pulled closer and closer.
Then the pressure got heavier and heavier until I was suffocating.
The wind turned into whispers. It sounded like a thousand people were whispering at the sa ti.
Then silence. The pressure I was feeling had disappeared.
"...Hm," the sound of the "sothing" uttered into the void we were in.
It wasn't loud. It didn't echo because there was no such thing as echoes in this voice. It simply uttered one sound.
I stiffened as I asked, "Who's there?"
No answer.
Then it began to speak.
"What? What are you saying? I don't understand? Stop. Stop! Slow down!"
It was a single voice that sounded like three voice was overlapping with each other. It was speaking in a language that I wasn't familiar with. Was it even a human tongue?
Then fragnts of what the words ant began to bleed into my thoughts.
I spoke them in English as I heard them.
"Mistake…?"
"...Too soon?" What is too soon?
"Unstable."
You're unstable!
Then behind my eyes, images began to flicker. I saw a throne. I saw battlefields. Endless battlefield. A red sky that was split by a lightning bolt that wasn't mine.
My chest tightened as I clenched my jaw.
"Who is it talking to ?" I asked, barely able to get the words out through my closed teeth.
A sound followed. It sounded like laughter, but was it? I couldn't tell.
Maybe it was just breathing.
Then, even though it spoke in whatever tongue it had been speaking in the entire ti, I understood every word.
"You foolish human," it spoke.
"...? What did I do?" I asked.
It laughed again.
"To think that it would be a human borrowing my strength and not a demon. Hahahaha!"
"...Are you the first demon king?"
Assuming that it was, although my chest was hurting, to say that my blood ran cold would be a lie.
Then the voice spoke again, this ti, it felt like it was speaking directly to my left ear.
"You got a taste of power that you were never ant to touch."
I snapped my head to the left, but there was nothing there. Just darkness.
The squeezing of my heart, the pain in my chest, was growing more and more. It was so sharp now that it felt like my heart was about to explode.
"If I wasn't ant to touch it, then why was it the ability of my artifact?" I asked, literally grabbing my chest with my hand. My nails dug into my skin.
"Your artifact? Yanari?" it asked, uttering the true na of my artifact. The sacred na that no one other than was supposed to know.
Did that an the connection between Yanari and was now severed?
I had a feeling that this wasn't the case.
Every connection I have with my artifacts is present in my soul. It simply grows stronger to the point that I can hear their voice when I'm wielding or wearing the artifact.
Even after the first demon king spoke the na of Yanari, the connection between us still felt present.
"I can't believe Yanari hasn't been destroyed yet. It was an artifact that I forged with my own blood."
It stopped talking for a mont before resuming.
"Yanari is my artifact, but no one was ant to use it after ," it laughed.
"...Why?"
"It was a trap. One that I had set in the event that I, my physical body, die during the war against the humans. I can see that you used the ability because you had no choice. But foolish human, you did have a choice."
"..."
"Death is a choice. The correct one you should've made there. Activating the ability was the wrong choice."
If I could see their head, it was probably shaking as it mocked .
"What's the supposed to an?" I asked as I mustered up all the strength I had to get up, ignoring the pain.
The darkness moved.
"By choosing to save your life, you invited closer. You have dood your people. Hahahahaha!"
The pressure around surged violently.
I had things I wanted to say or shout, but was unable to do so. My body was pushed flat to the ground and it felt like I was being compressed.
"When you wake up, you'll forget everything we just spoke about. But… foolish human, I hope this feeling lingers in your soul. The feeling that you are the very reason your people lose."
The darkness snapped shut, and sensation returned all at once.
My chest began to feel this terrible ache, and my limbs felt heavy, like they were attached to a ball and chain.
I could hear this faint beeping sound sowhere nearby. It was a steady beep that kept the sa rhythm the entire ti.
.
.
.
My eyelids twitched.
"...Hng," I grunted as I opened my eyes that felt like I was lifting up two mountains.
There was a white ceiling. That's the first thing that I saw. A soft light illuminated the room, but only to a certain extent.
Then I slled it. I didn't even need to look any further to recognize that I was in a hospital. The sll alone gave it away.
Trying to move my hands, I felt a little bit of resistance. Very weak resistance.
Tilting my head downward, I saw the source of the resistance.
Two people were asleep on my bed, their heads leaning on my arms.
One had vivid red hair that spilled ssily across the blanket over . Even as she was sleeping, her posture was picture perfect as if she was in a photoshoot rather than genuinely being asleep.
It felt like she was ready to spring up and begin an elegant dance at a mont's notice.
Ichiko.
The other person had soft blue hair and her fingers were loosely curled into the fabric of my blanket.
Diana.
One of them was my fiancée, and the other was a bloodsucking vampire who I was the blood bank for.
Before I could say anything else, my shifting must've been noticed because Ichiko's eyes opened up and her torso straightened up.
For a split second, she just stared at , her pupils shrinking as if she was trying to confirm whether this was a reality or a dream.
"...Hey," I said.
"...You're awake," she smiled.
"Yeah. Sohow, soway, I'm awake. Guess that ans I won the battle against the demon."
I tried to recall everything but for so reason, it felt like pieces of my mory were missing.
Hmm…
"You won," she said. I could see her hands trembling. Then, she leaned forward and placed her forehead onto mine.
"...Ichiko?"
Even though she was trying to stay composed, she hissed, "I'm so glad you were awake. Another day and I would've gone back to my holand just so I can take my anger out on every clan."
"...Hahaha. That… that was a joke, right?" I asked.
She didn't say anything back. She just smiled and because of the position our faces were in, the smile looked warped and twisted.
"...Gulp~."
Then she slowly retreated, the elegance returning back to normal. She bowed her head and said, "Welco back, fiancé."
All the talking and moving must've been too much, as Diana also stirred.
Murmuring sothing under her breath, she yawned and straightened her back. Stretching her arms, her eyes were closed and she smacked her lips a few tis as her mouth was dry.
"Why are you making so much noise?" she asked Ichiko.
Her brows were making a "V" shape.
Then she looked in my direction.
One blink. Two blink. Three. Four.
Then her eyes were wide.
"...Bell?" she uttered my na with a voice crack.
Before I could respond, tears welled up and began to pour down her face. Bolting upright, her hands were flying to her chest and with a slight hunch, she began muttering, "You… you… You idiot."
Ichiko glared at her with laser eyes as she called an "idiot".
"You scared . I… I…"
I could feel the connection between us and understood all the waves of emotions that she was feeling.
Then she rushed forward and buried her forehead into my shoulder.
Am I crazy or is there the presence of an oni behind Ichiko?!
Diana was crying quietly but uncontrollably. I could feel my body shaking with every whimper.
Her fingers clutched into the fabric of my hospital gown as if she were afraid that I would vanish again.
"...Hey," I said softly. "I'm here. I'm okay. I think…"
I stuck out a tongue in gist but neither girl seed to find that funny, so my tongue slowly retracted back into my mouth.
I cleared my throat awkwardly.
The oni behind Ichiko was still present, but it crossed its arms and was being patient.
She asked , "Are you sure that you're okay? Feel anything strange?"
"Other than my new demon curse… no."
I guess I shouldn't have ntioned the curse because both girls looked like they had a raincloud above their heads.
Do I feel strange? Hmm…
If sothing was off about , I couldn't tell.
Then Ichiko stood up even though it looked like she had sothing she wanted to say.
She walked over to Diana and pulled her off of . The amount of tears and snot on Diana's face made her look like she was overreacting.
"The two of us are going to get the nurse," she said. "Please contact your parents in the anti. They've been worried sick."
Dragging Diana out who was still crying, the door clicked shut behind them.
Left alone in the room, I looked out of the window. It was really dark outside.
"It's currently nightti. Would they be awake at this ti?" I wondered.
Then I looked around for my phone. Was it here with ? It wasn't on my body during the fight, but maybe it was brought here. Or perhaps it was destroyed in the building.
I looked at the stand by my side and saw my phone.
"...It survived?" How did it get here? Who brought it here? How did they bring it here? Shouldn't it be destroyed?
So many questions were running through my mind.
But I picked it up and tossed the questions aside for the mont.
When I turned on the phone, I saw the date and my eyes nearly popped out of the socket.
I began to understand more about their reaction.
I had slept for over a week.
My first reaction was—
"Did Diana drink my blood while I was asleep?"
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