The silence after the slaughter was deafening. Only the constant drip of blood and the crackle of torches filled the ruined chamber.
Then the familiar chime echoed in Sai's mind.
[Ding!]
[ Congratulations, you have Levelled Up!]
[Ding!]
[Congratulations, you have Levelled Up!]
[Ding!]
[Congratulations, you have Levelled Up!]
[Ding!]
[Congratulations, you have Levelled Up!]
[Ding!]
[Congratulations, you have Levelled up!]
[You are now Level 11]
A translucent screen flickered before his eyes.
In just the span of a few hours, he had already reached Level 10, albeit having to kill dozens of people.
Sai chuckled under his breath, rolling his shoulders. The surge of power was undeniable—faster reflexes, sharper senses, energy pooling within him like a living tide. But it was the satisfaction creeping through his chest that unsettled him. The scent of blood and gore that now smelled like victory.
He closed his eyes, forcing a breath out slowly. I don't kill because I enjoy it. It's because they deserved it. They murdered innocents and sacrificed others for their own selfishness. That's all.
Even so, his smile lingered longer than he wanted to admit.
"Master?"
Vyriss tilted her head, crimson eyes bright with curiosity. She stood among the bodies as if posing for a painting, her blonde hair glimmering against the carnage. She had the look of someone waiting for her prize.
Sai arched a brow. "Don't tell me you're pouting."
Her lips curved into a pout anyway. "I simply wondered if these rats had at least stashed away something shiny. We demons do like treasure, after all."
He smirked faintly, gesturing toward the shattered chamber. "Fine. Go check around. If they had something worth keeping, bring it."
She bowed low, wings twitching once in delight as she rose, turning towards a distant corridor. "As you command, my lord." With a satisfied smile, she slipped from the chamber, her shadow stretching unnaturally as she vanished into the halls.
Left alone, Sai's thoughts turned back to the siblings. His violet gaze softened for just a moment.
'I want their support. For that I need their trust. But I can't waste my time babysitting every mistake they make just so they'll like me.'
His hand tightened on his rapier's hilt. There was only one option. If they're going to survive in this world… I'll have to help them level up.
---
A certain girl pressed her back to the ornate door of Sai's room, every muscle tense. When the silence stretched too long, she finally cracked it open and peered into the corridor. Empty.
"Pier, come on," she whispered, tugging her little brother's arm. "We can't stay here."
Pier swallowed nervously, his small hand gripping hers tighter. His voice was a whisper, but every syllable quivered. "Sis Lydia… w-what if it's a trap?"
Lydia glanced back toward the room they had left, where shadows still lingered like ghosts. "If there's one thing I know…" Her jaw tightened as she recalled the rage sheathed in casual annoyance in his tone. "…it's that he really is set on destroying the Obsidian Palace."
Pier blinked, wide-eyed. "Then… does that mean he's...good?"
Her teeth ground together at the question. Her humanity screamed heck no! Every natural instinct told her that he was just a monster, a demon trying to sway them.Her rage, already directed towards the evil of the cult and demons, now didn't know which direction to aim. "I don't know."
They crept down the corridor. The smell hit them first—iron and smoke—and then the bodies. Dozens, sprawled across the stone. Pier whimpered at the gore and buried his face against her side, but Lydia kept walking, even as her legs shook.
Then a groan broke the silence.
Both of them froze.
Against the wall, half-hidden in shadow, a cultist stirred. His hood sagged low, and blood soaked his dark robes, but his hand stretched weakly toward them. His voice broke, wet and desperate.
"Please… h-help me…"
Lydia's stomach twisted. Her vision blurred with a memory she could never forget—the same hood, the same mocking laugh, when her parents had been struck down.
She shook where she stood. He was the one.
Pier, too young to remember, too kind to doubt, stepped forward unconsciously. "He's hurt… we can't just leave him—"
"Pier, wait!" Lydia hissed, her arm outstretched.
But the boy had already crossed the gap.
The cultist's head lifted, his lips pulling into a grotesque smile. Shadows coiled around his hand, thick with malicious energy. In a flash, his fingers wrapped Pier's throat, lifting him easily from the ground. The boy gasped and kicked, the dark glow snaking toward his chest.
Lydia screamed, snatching a broken blade from the floor. She leveled it at the man, but her grip shook violently. She wanted to charge, to stab, to end it. But her legs wouldn't move.
The cultist's grin widened. "Yes… his life force… will restore me."
BOOM!
The cultist jolted as a dark blur tore through the space. A hand snatched Pier from his grip in the same instant a voice echoed, heavy with annoyance.
"…Sigh. I knew I might've missed one."
Sai.
He stood between them, Pier cradled carefully in one arm, his rapier in the other. The boy looked up at him, wide-eyed and frail from the leeching of his essence, then finally succumbed to unconsciousness against his chest.
The cultist snarled and tried to rise. Sai didn't bother with a blade this time.
"Abyss Bullet."
The black projectile burst from his fingertips, slamming into the man's chest and pinning him to the wall. The cultist gagged, choking, his body twitching as the dark energy burned through him, forcing him down.
Sai looked at Lydia. She stood frozen, blade clutched uselessly, tears brimming but unshed. He sighed softly, crouching to hand the sleeping Pier back into her trembling arms.
"Take him back to the room," Sai said, his voice low but steady. His eyes flicked to the still-writhing cultist. "I've got some questioning to do."
The weight of his words pressed against her chest. Lydia hugged Pier tighter, staring at Sai—not with trust, not with hatred, but with something heavy in between.
She nodded once, then turned, carrying her brother away as Sai's violet gaze returned to the wounded cultist.
The real punishment, it seemed, had only just begun.
He walked towards the cultist coughing blood as he pressed against the wall, pinned by the fading remnants of the Abyss Bullet.
His hood slipped back, revealing a gaunt face twisted by pain—and pride. Even cornered and visibly at death's door, his lips curled into a sneer.
"You… hah…" He spat, flecks of red striking Sai's cheek. "You think yourself a demon? I see you. You're nothing but a soft human playing dress-up. You'll never be one of us. The great Obsidian Palace of the Demons will never be destroyed by a weak-willed abomination such as you."
Sai didn't even wipe the spit away. His expression didn't flicker with anger or disgust. Instead, he smiled—slow, eerie, and razor-thin.
"Oh," he said softly, his violet eyes glimmering as he chuckled lightly. "Never be one of you? What a joke."
The cultist's sneer faltered.
"[Nightmare]."
The world shattered.
---
The cultist gasped and found himself alone. The chamber was gone. Stone, firelight, corpses—gone. In their place stretched a boundless void of black mist, curling and writhing like it was alive. His heartbeat thundered in his ears.
"Where… where am I?" His voice echoed hollowly, swallowed by the mist.
Then came the whispers. Familiar voices, warped and distant.
His father's scornful look when he had found him with a knife buried in a maid's open chest.
His brother's scream, when he had left him to die in a dark forest, his voice dying between crimson trees.
His mother's sobs, when he sacrificed her to pave his way into the cult.
The laughter of the High Priest when he branded him like cattle.
"No… no, stop! I don't want it! NO! NOOOOOOO!!!"
He stumbled through the mist, hands pressed against his ears. But the memories weren't sounds anymore—they were visions. Scenes bled into existence around him, playing out in grotesque detail. His betrayals, his failures, every cowardly choice laid bare in front of him. He tried to close his eyes, but the visions burned against his lids, impossible to shut out.
And then the ground shifted. He fell to his knees, gasping, and looked up.
A throne of obsidian loomed before him, carved from the void itself. Upon it sat Sai, draped in shadows that curled like wings. A single horn jutted from his skull, his violet gaze burning like twin embers. The weight of his presence pressed down like a collapsing mountain.
The cultist choked. His body bowed against the crushing pressure, spine bending until his forehead scraped the void-stone floor. Every breath was agony. Every second, he thought he would break apart entirely.
"Do you still think I'm human? But more importantly...do you think I care?" Sai's voice boomed, not loud but absolute, echoing from everywhere and nowhere.
The cultist tried to scream, but the sound never left his throat. His world collapsed into silence—
---
—and he awoke, gasping raggedly in the real world. His entire body shook as sweat poured down his face. His eyes darted wildly, first to the walls, then to Sai's smirking face crouched calmly before him.
He had talked. He didn't remember when, or how, but he knew he had spilled everything: the cult's chain of command, their plans, the fractures in the kingdom beyond these walls. Sai had wrung him dry like a rag, every secret torn loose.
Sai chuckled darkly. "Thanks for the info, asshole."
The rapier sang as it sliced cleanly through the cultist's neck. His body slumped lifeless to the floor.
Ahhh...
Even now, in front of this being that was still meant to be in it's weakest state. He was still weak.
Still...weak...
Just like back then...
---
Sai exhaled, finally wiping the spit from his cheek with the back of his hand. His smile lingered, sharp and satisfied although he was slightly disturbed by the revelation. Particularly by the words that the man kept repeating even under his control.
"Humans are weak." The raspy, hate-filled voice echoed in his mind once...along with about fifteen minutes of tragic NPC backstory.
"Well, not too bad for a human, huh?"
He walked away towards the room where the siblings and Vyriss waited.as he grinned amidst the chaos.
"I don't give a fuck about your sob story. If you raise a blade against my side, I will cut you down."
.
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.
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Aiden:╮(＾▽＾)╭ Guess bro just doesn't care about back stories. Hehe.
Vere: (ಠ_ಠ)>⌐■-■ Why did you have to sacrifice the kid?
Aiden: I didn't do anything, did I? Besides, he's fine. I hope.ತ_ತ