I don't know when it happened. One moment, I was on the ground, my leg torn, breath leaving me. The next, when my eyes opened, everything was white.
No pain. No wounds. No sound. Just silence.
I stood up slowly, my body weightless, my steps echoing softly against the endless white passageway. It stretched forward into infinity, its walls glimmering like frozen glass, but there was no beginning behind me and no end in front. I walked, each step sounding like a heartbeat that wasn't mine.
And then I saw it.
A table. My table. The very same wooden desk from my room back in the Blackthorn estate. Its scratches, the faint ink stains, the corners rubbed smooth from years of use—it was unmistakable. And sitting upon it, as if it had always belonged there, was the book.
The strange, cursed book.
Its pages were closed at first, but as I approached, they fluttered open on their own. My hand twitched with hesitation. No wind blew here. No hand turned them. The paper moved as though guided by something I could not see, something that had been waiting for me all along.
The letters bled into the parchment as I stared. They weren't written with ink; they were carved in light. My name, Adrian Blackthorn, appeared across the top, glowing as if seared by invisible fire. And then below it… symbols.
Three of them.
The first I already knew—the sharp eye, drawn like an eagle's iris, glowing faint gold.The second, the coiling wave of thought, shimmering blue.And the third… the one that had been locked.
It unfolded before me like a wound opening. A symbol of fractured mirrors, overlapping one another in a spiral, shimmering silver and red. Illusion.
I whispered the word unconsciously. Illusion magic.
Before I could breathe, the white passageway cracked apart like glass breaking under a hammer. The floor beneath me shattered, and I was falling again, drowning in nothing.
Darkness swallowed me.
And then—
I was back.
The stink of blood was everywhere. My lungs burned as I gasped for air, my eyes flaring open to find myself gripping the neck of a monster. Its flesh was cold and slimy, its eyes empty sockets. But it was thrashing in my grip, snarling like a rabid dog.
Except I wasn't weak anymore. My hand tightened, and a red flame erupted in my eyes. I could see the fire reflected in the monster's hollow sockets. I lifted it effortlessly, its claws raking against my arm, sparks flying as if steel had met steel.
With a guttural growl, I hurled it across the camp. It crashed into a pile of carts, bones shattering like dry branches.
The other monsters froze. They stopped tearing at flesh, stopped feasting on the corpses of merchants. Their eyeless faces turned toward me.
And they came.
Dozens of them.
I don't remember pulling the gun from the ground, but suddenly it was in my hands. Not a simple gun anymore—the barrel hissed with mist, pale tendrils curling around my wrist.
I fired.
One shot. The mist bullet pierced a monster's skull cleanly. Its head split open like rotten fruit, its body falling twitching into the dirt.
Another shot. Another monster down.
The forest trembled. Trees themselves began to shift, groaning as if alive. Roots tore free from the ground. I blinked—and they weren't trees anymore. They were spears, massive trunks ripping upward, tearing through monsters as if they were nothing but straw dolls.
Blood sprayed the night.
Screams echoed. Not from me. From them.
The mist in my gun swirled, reshaping into black smoke. I fired again and again. Monsters leapt, jaws open wide, but bullets burst through their heads, blood splattering across my face.
Something snapped inside me. My hand reached for a knife lying abandoned near a corpse. Its hilt was slick with someone's blood, but it fit my hand perfectly.
The first monster lunged. I didn't think. I swung.
The blade cut through its neck like slicing bread. Blood sprayed across my chest, hot and sticky. The body collapsed at my feet.
I laughed. I don't know why. Maybe it wasn't me. Maybe it was the flames in my eyes.
The fire rose higher. It crawled up the trees, consuming the night sky, turning it crimson. Shadows of burning branches fell like spears around us.
The monsters kept coming. They didn't care about the merchants anymore. They wanted me. All of them.
Good.
I wanted them too.
One after another, I cut them down. My blade sank into skulls, into chests. My gun fired until the mist coughed and spat but still killed, every shot a thunderclap in the burning forest. Their screams became music. Their blood was paint. The flames were my canvas.
Some begged. Yes—begged. Their distorted mouths twisted into cries. But I didn't hear words anymore. I only heard chains. Chains clinking in the back of my mind, dragging me deeper, pulling me further.
I stabbed another through the stomach, twisted the blade, yanked it out. My face dripped red. My clothes stuck to my skin, heavy with gore.
A knife flew from my hand like instinct. It pierced another monster's chest, nailing it to a tree that was already burning. It screamed, flailing uselessly until the fire swallowed it whole.
I turned, the fire reflected in my vision. I must have looked like something worse than the monsters—my face shadowed by flame, my eyes burning red, my body dripping in blood.
A devil.
Yes. That's what I was in that moment. A devil born in fire.
The merchants… the survivors… I caught sight of them through the haze. They weren't cheering me. They weren't relieved. They were running. Running from me. Their eyes wide in terror, their screams louder than when the monsters attacked.
I should've cared. I didn't.
Because when I looked down, I saw him—the injured man from earlier, the one who had first shot the gun. He was pale, blood soaking through his arm. He stared at me, half-conscious, trembling.
I didn't speak. I simply lifted him with one arm, slung him over my shoulder. His blood soaked into my shirt, mixing with the filth already covering me.
The monsters were still shrieking, but none dared rush closer. Not now. Not with fire spreading across everything, with me standing at its center.
I found a horse. Its mane burned with flame, its body shimmering like molten iron. Or maybe I imagined it. Maybe the fire had crawled into my mind, twisting what was real.
But I mounted it anyway.
The reins burned my hands. The horse screamed like a demon. And we rode.
Through fire. Through blood. Through collapsing trees that fell like giants.
I shot down monsters as we went. My blade cut through shadows. Sparks flew every time steel clashed with claws. The forest itself was dying, burning alive, its smoke rising into the night sky like a signal to the gods.
We broke through. Out of the flames. Out of the inferno.
When we finally crossed the last line of trees, I looked back. The entire forest was a wall of fire. A hell I had created.
And in the reflection of those flames, I saw myself—bloodied, burning, holding a gun and a blade, riding a demon horse with a half-dead man clinging to me.
Not a savior.
Not a victim.
A monster.
The devil in flames.
And that was how Chapter 12 ended for me.