Chapter 290: Healing [ 1 ]
With the death of Merilyn once and for all, I decided to just go ahead and step through the portal. For a moment, I thought I’d be tossed somewhere in the middle of where all the demons were, but instead, I found myself at the bottom of the ocean, God knew how far away from the rest of civilization.
I thought it was coincidental, perhaps the portal was unstable. However, when I spotted some Divine Energy lingering in the air around me, I realized that Indra was responsible for all of this.
Still, I didn’t feel much gratitude, except hate for the sheer fact that she was someone who claimed to be neutral but was doing this. What if she’s not only partial to me? What if there were more? To what extent did she really value her neutrality?
I didn’t know the answer to that, and that was what pissed me off more than anything. But despite that, I stopped moping around and decided to finally move.
With a single thought, I burst through the endless ocean, reappearing at the very top. It was dark outside, and from the looks of things, the sky was deathly crimson, almost like the Demon Realm itself had descended here.
Well... It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say that it did, since there were so many demons now that it was as good as the Demon Realm.
Glancing around, I saw tens of boats sailing the ocean, each one moving at a snail’s pace. Upon closer look, I realized that the boats and ships that were here were more like survival rafts.
They went as far away from the rest of civilization as possible and then used their resources to be safe from the demons. Obviously, this was a mistake, since the demons have to cross the oceans to get to other continents.
Living on a timer was a bit...
It was pitiful.
For a moment, I thought of stepping in and maybe giving them some advice, but from my appearance alone, I looked nothing short of a Demon King. They wouldn’t even hear a single word that would come out of my mouth.
So be it.
If they want to die like idiots, I won’t stop them.
I took a deep breath, and finally, I vanished once more, reappearing in the Elodrenia continent. To my surprise, there were thousands of demons already walking the land, overwhelming the humans.
There were spots that weren’t as bad, mainly the ones that had some actual powerhouses defending them. But then again, a Grade 50 powerhouse one may be, when surrounded by hundreds of Demon Dukes, there wasn’t much one could do.
Cities fell before my eyes, and even one city in particular, Aldraazan, was even more destroyed than I remembered.
Everything really was gone.
But I didn’t lose hope yet, as after making my demonic horns disappear, I went ahead and arrived by the mountain where Kevin and the others should’ve been. I couldn’t feel their presence from the outside, but I thought that was just a coincidence.
Yet I was immediately proven wrong when I stepped inside and saw none other than... Well, nothing. There were some skeletons lying around, and obviously detached limbs strewn across the cave, some that had yet to even start rotting.
This was recent.
Very recent.
I wonder... Could I track them if I tried? There should be some left alive.
With every passing moment, my expression became more and more distant as I was practically grasping at straws and not being able to find anything. They were gone, Clementine’s presence was nowhere to be seen, and Aliyah?
Right...
Aliyah.
If she’s alive, then she’s definitely in the Pandora Mountain Range.
Hope once again returned, and of course, I used it to my advantage, traveling across the world in mere seconds and finding myself in front of the Pandora Mountain Range.
There weren’t any demons here, nor was there anyone from the Holy Order. It was empty, with all but a single path leading to where Aliyah and Eric lived.
I walked down that path slowly, managing to feel Aliyah’s presence slightly. It was much weaker than I remembered. Actually, it was way too weak for that presence to be her. But maybe she was just exhausted after a fight?
Right.
That must be it.
Yet the closer I got, and the more I managed to comprehend, I realized that I was wrong.
Only when I entered the cave where she lived did I realize just what kind of state she was really in.
She lay on her bed, her arms torn off and her legs twisted at odd angles. Her eyes were gouged out, and her whole face was covered in scars. She was being fed by the trembling Eric, who hadn’t even realized I had entered.
Though, to give him credit, it seemed like Aliyah didn’t realize either, as she just exhaled shallow breaths, trying her best to stay alive. But my Blood Sight told me a cruel truth, and it was the fact that her insides were so badly mangled and rotten that she would likely die by nightfall.
It was a miracle she had managed to survive this long.
"..."
I quietly sat down on the bed, startling Eric.
"Y-You! Wait, Amon? What are you doing here?" he said, his hands trembling even more now.
I smiled at him and said:
"Don’t worry, I’m not here to hurt you or your sister, for that matter. Rather, could you step out for a minute? I’d like to talk to Aliyah alone."
His expression hardened. "You want to talk to my sister alone? No, no way—"
"L-Let him..." Aliyah’s hoarse voice rang out, sending shivers down my spine. She tried to glance in Eric’s direction, only for her to miss him completely and just stare at the wall.
"L-Leave us, Eric. I-I promise... I w-will be fine."
"Sister..." Eric stared at her for a moment, his knees practically buckling. He might be stubborn, but he wasn’t stupid enough to not realize what fate awaited his sister.
So despite all of his hesitation, he got up and slowly left the cave, leaving me and Aliyah alone.
