Page 34

“Okay. Never mind.”

Evan continued to hang like frozen meat from a hook.

It wasn’t so bad, actually. He could catch his breath and watch as the Hellguards aimlessly squashed the ground where he had been standing, while the hound stomped over any approaching demons. And the spirits…

Evan’s breath hitched.

As soon as he had weakened, he’d drawn all his remaining strength to create a ball of spiritual energy in his palm. But the three-eyed hound had snatched him away in a rush and that ball of energy had shot out from his hand towards the unknown.

Yet, out of all the places it could’ve aimed at, it had landed on the barrier around the Tomb of Ascension.

The barrier was meant to protect but that ball of energy was meant to annihilate the whole forest clearing in one blast. As the two light sources clashed, the ball of attack was naturally stronger, fueled by Evan’s desperation to fight the Hellguards and anger at being weak.

A huge hole gaped open in the barrier.

Sensing the crack, the resentful spirits once again dashed forward, jumping through the hole, towards the Hellfire.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Evan’s eyes blazed blue as he tried to fix the hole before more spirits jumped in. Spiritual light coursed through his body and pumped through his veins, but as a result, blood spurted from his mouth, his weak body wavering over its limits.

Still, he held onto his bleeding mouth with one hand and supplied spiritual energy with the other to repair the hole in the barrier. His spell hadn’t completely taken root when something flashed in the air, startling him.

Lightning crackled in the sky, a roar of the heavens that drowned out the wailing of the resentful spirits. A long golden rope—a whip—cracked, the sound deafening. Before it wrapped around the hoard of resentful spirits.

The intricate golden whip glowed with an otherworldly light as it tightened around the hundred or so spirits, then yanked them away from the Hellfire, into the opposite direction.

Evan’s eyes followed the whip and landed on a black figure, perched atop the shoulder of a buff Hellguard who stomped his way forward. The black figure tugged at his golden whip and the spirits along with it. As they came closer, Evan noticed there wasn’t one but two dark figures on the Hellguard’s shoulder.

A sense of recollection rose in Evan’s mind, as if he had seen the two figures somewhere before. But it wasn’t until he smelled the sharp scent of oakwood incense that the information clicked into place in his head.

Grim Reapers.

The buff Hellguard carrying the Reapers stepped forward. Sensing the intrusion, the other rock demons who were trying to fish for Evan’s corpse in the pulverized ground, whipped around. Roaring as one, they barreled toward the newcomer.

Without a second thought, the buff Hellguard swung his huge arm and sent the other demons flying, knocked unconscious with just one strike.

“Out of the fucking way, rat bastards!” the Hellguard’s voice rumbled from his hollow mouth.

Evan’s eyebrow almost brushed his hairline.

Is that…Gruu?

Oh, no wonder he had looked so terrified when they’d parted ways earlier. Xen had probably threatened him into bringing the Reapers here to fetch the wandering souls. And any demon would be wary, if not utterly terrified, of the grim reapers. Because, apparently, they also hunted demons that ran rampant in the human world.

Gruu was clearly the dictionary definition of “rampant.”

The hooded figures on Gruu’s shoulder turned to Evan in unison and seemed to pause for a moment. Then one of them cocked his head. “Hey, pal, do you need a hand with that?”

Evan blinked. “With…what?”

The other Reaper quietly pointed a gloved finger behind Evan, and he realized he was still suspended from the jaws of death.

With a tired chuckle, Evan waved a hand. “Don’t mind me, just…hanging around.”

The two figures looked at him, then at each other. Without another word, they shrugged and turned to the resentful spirits captured in the golden whip.

“You’ve wandered for far too long. Rest now.”

Although the lash of the whip earlier had been brutal and quite frightening, the Reaper’s words came out soft, almost sympathetic.

The golden light from the whip radiated brighter and engulfed the shrieking spirits into a sphere of divine energy. It glowed brighter and brighter until finally the light exploded into a shimmering golden dust, carrying the souls in the wind towards the sky.

There were no words or cries of the spirits anymore but Evan could feel their gratitude swirling in the air as they finally attained freedom from the torments of their resentment. No matter how brutal the method, a human spirit reaped by a grim reaper would always cross over to the afterlife.

Evan’s shoulders slumped slightly.

With a pat on Gruu’s shoulder, the Reapers jumped down, landing lightly on the floor. It was a little strange to see death-personified figures dressed in black pants and hoodies. It didn’t induce the same sense of dread as the old paintings of the reapers that children grew up seeing in books. But perhaps they had acquired a better sense of fashion now, or maybe the long black reaper robes were simply too hot for summer.

With the golden whip in hand, the Reaper who seemed to be the only one speaking, said, “How long are you planning on hanging from there?”

Evan glanced back at the three-eyed hound, then cleared his throat. “Well…”

Until the thing decides to let me down. Does it look like my choice to hang from its mouth?

When he trailed off, the non-talkative Reaper pointed a finger at the three-eyed hound, then dropped it to the ground.

Evan followed the movement with his eyes, trying to decipher what he was saying. Yet unexpectedly, when the Reaper pointed to the ground, the hound slowly lowered Evan.

So, all kinds of dark creatures feared the reapers, not only demons.

A little dizzy from being suspended in the air for so long, Evan wobbly stood on his legs, then craned his neck to glance back at the hound. It was staring at Evan with those bright crimson eyes, unmoving. At first glance, it was plain terrifying, but upon a closer look, it seemed to be staring at him expectantly. Waiting for…something.

What could a huge, furry beast with three eyes and seven tails possibly want?

After a moment of hesitation, Evan reached a trembling hand up to pat its snout, hoping the action wouldn’t cost him a limb. As his hand made contact with the surprisingly soft snout, the hound’s eyes closed immediately and those seven spiked tails started swishing behind it, wagging excitedly. A rumbling purr stirred from its belly.

Evan was momentarily dumbfounded, then let out a breath.

“I’ve never seen a hound so tamed,” the Reaper said, swinging the whip. It disappeared into a dust of shimmering gold.

Evan turned around. “Thank you, for your help.”

Already over a hundred spirits had been dissipated upon clashing with Evan’s barrier, but the remaining had been fortunate enough to run into the reaper’s whip. Although that wasn’t exactly consoling enough, Evan still felt a tinge of relief.

The spirits were definitely in a better place now than where his exorcist barrier had sent them.

The Reaper chuckled softly. “Just doing our jobs, pal.”

He nudged his non-talkative friend as if waiting for confirmation, but he remained tight-lipped.

As Evan was busy staring between the pair, an explosion made him jump. His head snapped in the direction of the Tomb of Ascension.

The Hellfire crackled, a shrill howl emanating from its depths, a cry of thousands of demons. The flames shrank, reduced to a ball of red. It was the same blazing ball of demonic energy that Xen had summoned from the ground earlier.

It rose from the array, humming with a murderous intent so thick it clogged the air with a sense of foreboding.

“I think your friend might be in trouble,” the Reaper said, voice flat.

Evan stepped back, intending to break into a run but then stopped. “Uh…which friend?”

The Reapers looked at each other, then at Evan. “The evil one.”

With a swift wave of his hand, the pair of dark figures vanished, leaving Evan reeling from that conflicting piece of information.

Evil one? But… which one?

Aaron was presently possessed by Knox who was undoubtedly evil. But Xen was a demon, the King of Demons, and was inherently a creature of the dark. In short, evil.

Gruu, who stood tall at a distance in his Hellguard form, turned and stomped away, muttering something under his breath.

The hound nudged Evan, urging him into the direction where the explosion had resounded.

Did it matter who was eviler? If either of them was in trouble, Evan had to go anyway. One was his friend and the other…

He turned and dashed out of the clearing, running as if a dog was chasing his tail.

Well, technically it was.

The three-eyed hound caught up to Evan and grabbed him in its spikey maw. It tore through the forest like a wild gale.

Trees blurred past Evan’s vision, wind whipping across his face. In mere seconds, they had crossed over five kilometers, and approached the very edge of the woods that gave way to a cliff. Below the cliff drifted the sacred Del, water shimmering in the moonlight, unperturbed by the violence above.

The hound lowered Evan and he jumped down, swaying only briefly before finding his footing.

Two figures loomed on the edge of the cliff, surrounded by charred trees and foliage, suffocating smoke, and the unmistakable essence of murderous intent.

Xen’s hand was wrapped around Knox’s throat, suspending him a foot off the cracked ground. Knox twisted the golden spear that was jammed into Xen’s chest with a sickening squelch. From the looks of it, Knox was the one severely injured.

But there was something strange about Xen’s expression. His brows were drawn together tight, not in anger, but in something like strained concentration. It didn’t seem like it was directed at Knox.

“Get out,” Xen rumbled, scarlet eyes ablaze. “Get out before I rip you out myself.”

Knox coughed then cackled maniacally. He was battered and bruised, one eye swollen shut. One of his arms hung loosely from his sides, detached from the shoulder socket, and his left ankle was twisted backward. But it didn’t seem like he cared about the body he was possessing anymore since it had already been broken. And with that realization, he went completely nuts.

“Go on. I’d like to see you tear this body to shreds with your bare hands. Put on a show,” he laughed. “But that won’t kill me and you know that. Nothing can kill me. Nothing! ”

He continued to cackle and the grave look on Xen’s face deepened.

Evan, noticing the change in his demeanor, cautiously stepped forward. “Xen…?”

Xen blinked, the fire in his eyes flickering ever so slightly as he turned to Evan. It seemed as though he was here, but his mind wasn’t. As if at a distance, he was arguing with someone in his head. And he was losing his end of the debate.

Evan stepped closer. “What is it? What’s happening?”

Other than pressing his lips into a line, Xen didn’t react.

Knox chose that precise moment to chime in. “Oh, boy, you have impeccable timing! Quick, come closer. Let me tell you the tale of how this puny demon became the reason for your demise—”

Xen slammed his free palm into Knox’s chest and he choked on his words. But before he could dismiss it as another useless attempt to shut him up, Knox froze. His good eye slowly widened. “You can’t…”

Evan’s eyes widened too, seeing the red shimmering through Xen’s palm and into Aaron’s body. “Wait, what are you doing?”

But as the question left his lip, Evan realized the answer and his heart dropped.

Knox was a conscience without form. A conscience could only survive in a living body by possessing its mind. And a body could only live with a soul. If the soul was ripped out, Knox would be forced out too.

Xen was going to detach Aaron’s soul from his body to drive out Knox.

With a renewed need for survival, Knox clawed at Xen’s hand around his throat. “You can’t ! This boy’s injured body wouldn’t survive having his soul ripped out. Do you really wish to kill him? Didn’t you promise your beloved that you’ll not kill his friend?!”

Evan’s jaws tightened.

With a growl, Knox twisted the golden spear deeper into Xen’s chest with one hand, the other still trying to pry the hand from his throat. “You are, after all, just a pesky demon who can’t even keep his promises!”

“Shut your mouth!” Evan barked before turning to Xen and softening his tone slightly. “Listen to me… Don’t act rashly. You can’t rip Aaron’s soul out. He won’t survive that.”

If a soul was separated from a body without a natural cause like death, or a controlled method like projection, the soul could lose its memories, unable to return to its original body because it could no longer recognize it. And if the soul removal was rough, it could also damage the soul irreversibly.

Xen stared up at Knox, unhearing, as he curled his fingers into Aaron’s chest, breaking through the skin like butter. Blood flooded Knox’s mouth, through his tightly closed lips and trickled from the sides of his mouth.

At that moment, desperation finally surfaced in his beet-red face. “Please… Don’t kill me. I’ll leave the boy alone. At once. I…I won’t return. I promise…” Blood spurted from his nostrils and ears. “I want to live… I deserve to live as much as you! Let me go!”

Xen’s face remained apathetic.

A rumble shook the cliff surface and Evan, with his already weak body, stumbled to his knees. The three-eyed hound whimpered, ducking to the ground before taking off into the woods.

From a distance, a deafening howl rapidly approached the cliff. It was like a train was roaring past Evan’s ear as he frantically shouted over the chaos at Xen. “What are you doing?!”

Xen didn’t answer. Didn’t even glance at him. That look of crazed concentration was etched permanently onto his face, sending a shiver down Evan’s spine.

Whatever he was calling onto couldn’t be good.

With a frustrated grunt, Evan unsteadily made it to his feet but as he moved to interject, a pair of hands grabbed his shoulders. Startled, he whipped around only to find a pair of green eyes staring at him.

“You—You’re alive…” he blinked at Zeev for a moment before another quake violently shook the cliff. “Let go. What are you doing? Get off!”

Zeev silently continued to restrain Evan as he struggled and protested. It seemed as though he had in fact absorbed the spiritual energy Evan had supplied to him earlier. The same one he was now using to hold him back.

If he could summon a spiritual attack, Evan would have hit Zeev without regrets. But his body had already surpassed its limits, too weak to initiate an attack. So he turned his attention back to Xen.

“You promised me you won’t kill him,” he barked. “Are you going back on your word? I’m talking to you, dumb Eternal!”

Xen ignored him like his ears were sealed with lead. His lips moved in a silent incantation, fire ablaze in his eyes.

Then he punched his hand into Knox’s chest.

Evan choked on a curse, his mouth hanging open.

Everything stilled. Even the distant howls seemed to cease.

The purple light in Knox’s—Aaron’s—wide eyes flickered, then faded away. The bloody symbol on his forehead scattered into fine dust before his eyelids drooped and he slumped in Xen’s grip.

“ Aaron! ”

Xen’s fist tightened inside Aaron’s chest, curling around something before he wrenched it out. A translucent sphere of white light.

As soon as the soul was yanked out, color drained from Aaron’s body. His heartbeat ceased, a peaceful expression on his face.

It looked as though he’d just fallen asleep. But with all that blood and bruises, his sleeping face was a chilling sight.

Evan stared wide-eyed at his best friend’s corpse hanging from the Eternal’s grip.

Then he exploded.

“What have you done?!” he growled, thrashing against Zeev. “You bastard, you killed him! You said you wouldn’t! You promised me! ”

A muscle fluttered in Xen’s jaw. Without sparing Evan a glance, he let go of Aaron’s body, but surprisingly, it didn’t tumble lifelessly to the ground. It floated before Xen as he raised his free hand. “Get out.”

A shimmering, purple orb surfaced from between Aaron’s brows, resembling the ominous firefly Evan had seen in the video Choi had shown him. Knox possessed no strength whatsoever in his original form and so, pliantly landed in Xen’s free hand.

When the purple orb detached from Aaron’s body, Xen swung his hand outward. He opened his palm, releasing the soul.

Aaron was flung to the side. His soul lurched forward and hastily slammed back into the body in mid-air. He crashed to the ground, unresponsive.

Evans stared at his friend like he was already a ghost, not even daring to breathe. After a good minute, he cautiously started, “Aar—”

Aaron jolted awake with a sharp gasp, almost making Evan’s soul flee his body. Coughing out wildly, Aaron cursed under his breath before passing out again. The puncture in his chest slowly knitted itself close as his soul unified with his body.

Everything happened so fast that Evan’s head swam uncontrollably, eyes darting all around until it started spinning in his sockets. He hadn’t expected things to fall into place in such a chaotic manner.

Aaron was alive, Knox was in Xen’s grasp, and…

He turned to Xen, who was already staring at him with those fiery eyes and blood-splattered, ever-impassive face. One might have found that face unsettling but to Evan, Xen seemed a little grieved, his brows drawn together.

Silence stretched between them and when Xen finally spoke, he sounded nothing like himself. “I never break my promise, Evan.”

Evan blinked, rearing back as if burnt. Zeev released him from his hold and stepped back, head lowered.

Evan tried to open his mouth to apologize for cursing Xen or to shout that he had almost killed Aaron and broken his promise. But nothing made it past his lips.

What was this? This odd feeling churning in his gut? Aaron was safe, the abducted men were freed and Knox was captured, but the sense of foreboding had just deepened inside Evan. He wasn’t a clairvoyant who could foresee the future, but his intuition was rarely ever a false alarm.

With the purple orb in one hand, Xen raised his other, curling his fingers and beckoning, “Come.”

Reflexively, Evan stepped forward, his body moving on its own accord. But then he stopped.

Because Xen wasn’t calling him .

The rumble that had ceased started quaking the earth again, more violently this time, and Zeev caught Evan’s shoulders to stabilize him when he stumbled.

Those tremors, Evan had felt them before, not so long ago. Those were the same thunderous quakes that had shaken the ground when Xen had summoned the Hellfire earlier. And by the looks of it, he was doing the same thing now. Only, there wasn’t a Tomb or a summoning array where the fire could descend now.

He was summoning it towards himself.

Evan’s eyes widened again, and a strange feeling of dread gripped him. He was terrified, more than he’d been when he was stabbed and on the verge of succumbing to death. More than when his friend’s soul was ripped out of his body.

Fire. A burning body. He had witnessed the scene before.

Seventeen years ago.

“Run, Evan…”

The terror of that sight was so deeply embedded into his body that it almost felt like someone else’s. The foreign scar surfaced and tore open, gushing out cold, black blood.

For some reason, the image of the burning butterfly flashed in front of his eyes and Evan felt the heat of its burning wings as if it was wrapped around him.

At a distance, light flared in the night sky as the Hellfire rose high, then rushed in the direction of Xen’s calling. The distant howl of the flames tore through the night and Evan stepped forward, but one look from Xen and his body froze in place, giving in to the blood bond.

“Stop!” Evan cried angrily, forcing his limbs to move but they remained stone-still. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do but stop !”

He, in fact, knew what Xen was doing.

Knox couldn’t possibly survive the Hellfire in his present form. Not without following the proper steps of the ritual. He was just an orb, a conscience born out of resentment. He’d disintegrate instantly.

But what about Xen?

Evan’s memory was hazy but he recalled reading in the witch’s grimoire that an Eternal born from Hellfire, could only perish in the same flames. No matter how much he wanted to erase Knox from existence, Evan couldn’t let it happen at the cost of Xen’s life.

“Listen to me,” he started, trying and failing to sound calm. Short, panicked breaths rattled his lungs. “You…you gave me your word that you’ll answer any three questions I’d ask, remember? I haven’t asked anything yet. And…and there’s so much I want to know. So much I want to ask.”

Seeing Evan struggle to try and talk him out of what he was obviously going to do, a faint smile touched Xen’s lips. It looked sad. The thought of Evan worrying over him was pleasant enough to make him forget about everything else.

His smile made Evan growl like a wounded animal. “Stop smiling, you dumbfuck! Stupid, idiotic Eternal! Let me go before I—”

A scorching heat enveloped the open air at the cliff. The ball of Hellfire screeched menacingly, coming to a halt right over Xen.

Evan’s breath stuttered, pulse pounding in his ear. The flames warmed his ice skin yet the shudders wrecking his body never ceased. He shook his head, fingers trembling as if to reach out and grasp Xen’s arm. And then…something unusual occurred.

A word slipped from his lips, involuntarily.

“Please…”

Ever since he could remember, Evan had never begged for anything in his life. Not when he was at his lowest nor when he’d lost the will to live. Even when he’d been skewed through his abdomen, he had not begged for death.

But in that moment, as he watched the calm expression on Xen’s face, the last thread of his pride snapped.

“Please, don’t…” Evan begged.

As the ball of fire descended on Xen and set the whole clearing around him ablaze, Evan begged and begged in his heart.

Please. Please. Please. I didn’t mean what I said. I didn’t mean to call you a liar. I didn’t mean any of it. So, please…don’t go.

Please come back…