Rampage

Alter Synchronization was a wondrous experience. When synchronizing with Nether Demon, Yaxiu had felt as if he were tossed upon a tempestuous sea beneath dense storm clouds and howling gales, drifting with the waves, bobbing up and down, as miserable as a doll thrown into a washing machine drum. When synchronizing with Mirror Demon, Yaxiu had felt himself sinking into a tranquil ocean. Whether it was moonlight or sunlight filtering into the deep, the rays took on soft contours, gently draping over him as he gradually succumbed to that tender embrace, letting himself fall toward the pitch-black seabed. Yet through it all, Yaxiu had never lost consciousness, and he remained clearly aware of what his true body was doing in reality. It was like lucid dreaming: he couldn't change the dream's course or interfere with his actions—in fact, the very thought of "interfering" didn't even exist. His thought speed slowed to that of a Lalafell, leaving him able only to record the entire process of selling his body like a surveillance camera. Thus, this time, he wasn't startled awake by his own atrocities—he was choked awake by the turbid currents of the deep sea. Darkness pressed in from every direction, without a sliver of light penetrating through. He couldn't even tell which way was up and which was down as undercurrents laden with silt tossed him back and forth. It felt as though he had fallen into the deepest ocean trench, a place abandoned by the entire world where not even the fiercest light could pierce, where even the hardiest life could not survive. There was nothing here except undersea mudstone left behind by volcanic eruptions... more terrifying than death, deeper than despair. Yaxiu opened his eyes and saw a black-haired girl sitting on the ground in the distance, hugging her knees. He swam toward her with all his might, the seawater thick with silt and viscous like black mud. When he finally reached her and was about to raise a hand in greeting, he saw the girl slowly turn her head. Her placid, serene face split into an exaggerated grin, the corners of her mouth stretching wider and wider until her eyes had almost no sclera showing at all. The turbid current suddenly surged, slamming waves of hysterical malice against Yaxiu. Yet he wasn't swept away, for threads had ensnared him, pinning him at the center like a cross of nothingness. The girl stood up slowly, walked over, and caressed Yaxiu's chin, mouth, nose, cheeks, and eyes with fingers hooked around steel wire... And then, stabbed ruthlessly into them. Amid excruciating, bone-gouging pain, Yaxiu heard her whisper briskly into his ear, yet her tone reeked of malice that had fermented and rotted away for decades: "You've finally fallen into my hands, Watcher." * * * "Ugh—bleh—" Reborn, Yaxiu knelt prostrate on the seabed, retching continuously with his mouth wide open as if trying to vomit up his internal organs. It took him a long time before he could even try to stand. His limbs trembled relentlessly, sprawled across the ground like a dog with its spine ripped out, the reverberations of agonizing pain slowly dispersing through the network of his nerves. The only solace was that this wasn't reality; without complete physiological functions, he was spared from making an even bigger fool of himself. "Hurts, doesn't it?" Dead Frenzy sat beside him, hugging her tucked legs together, not minding in the slightest that her skirt might reveal what lay beneath—though in this pitch-black deep sea, Yaxiu was the only other person anyway. She took a slow drag from her cigarette, half of it turning to ash and drifting off into the murky current. "What Black Demon loves most is torturing others. She knows the neural pain points of every species, and for creatures without pain receptors, she'll even go out of her way to invent pain for them so they learn what it means to beg for life and death in vain. Even among our lot—where destroying life is as effortless as breathing and killing is as casual as eating or sleeping—Black Demon is the most extreme... Her nature isn't 'to kill,' but 'to play.'" "We kill for results. She kills purely for the sake of killing." It took Yaxiu several dozen more seconds to regain control over his body. During that period of being bound by Black Demon—he couldn't even tell how long it had been, the excruciating agony having completely wrecked his perception of time—he had been subjected to every form of torture she could devise. Merely remembering the steel wire in her hands made him shudder uncontrollably. Had his body not completely collapsed under the strain, there was no telling how much longer that ordeal would have dragged on. He had suffered plenty of wounds in battle before and had even had his soul brought to a boil by the Shadow Sword, yet none of that pain came close to what Black Demon inflicted... Hers was not mere sadism; she weaponized pleasure, itching, coolness, and warmth to amplify pain, giving Yaxiu no chance to adapt or go numb. Black Demon's cruelty was no longer crude venting, but a perverse, sadistic art. The threads woven into Yaxiu's nerves were like strings on an instrument, and upon him she had played a suite of boundless malice. "Outside..." "This is your mental world. The time ratio compared to the outside is roughly 10,000 to 1, so you still have time to lie there and rest," Dead Frenzy said. "Why did she..." Yaxiu forced himself to recall Black Demon's appearance, struggling to banish the terror in his heart. "Didn't I ask for her help? Why did she go berserk?" "Who told you we would obey your orders just because you synchronized with us?" Dead Frenzy snubbed her cigarette out in the silt. "I only said you'd gain power after paying a quarter of your mind... but not all power obeys your will. Wielding power that doesn't belong to you comes with risks." "The risk was always there; you simply dodged it before. When you synchronized with Nether Demon, you were in Ocean Hell, so even if Nether Demon wanted to vent her fury, she could only take it out on the Forgotten. When you synchronized with Mirror Demon, it was to protect Silver Lantern, and since Mirror Demon retains at least some semblance of reason, she obeyed your command to fight the four descending God-Leaders." "But the one you synchronized with this time is Black Demon," Dead Frenzy murmured. "She's already completely mad, keeping herself warm only with despair. She longs to drag everyone into Hell with her—why would she ever heed your command to protect this world?" "But... why?" Yaxiu couldn't fathom it. "What good does that do her? Doesn't she want to drive Ouroboros away? Doesn't she want to replace us and live in a peaceful, beautiful world?" "That's not it at all." Dead Frenzy tilted her head at him. "She does want to replace Lisdia, but not so she can live... She just doesn't want Lisdia to live." Yaxiu froze. "You have no idea how much she hates Lisdia—gnashing her teeth, tearing her own heart out with hatred," Dead Frenzy said faintly, hugging her legs like a ghost telling a ghost story. "The better you treat Lisdia, the more she hates her. She hates you for cherishing Lisdia so deeply, and she hates even more that Lisdia was lucky enough to meet you." "She was tormented so terribly by the Watcher... Every time she managed to grasp a sliver of happiness, it turned out to be the Watcher's bait. She was toyed with in the palm of his hand like a doll, and in the end, he never granted her heart's desire. In her sorrow, she fractured into seventeen sisters to keep herself company, because aside from them, she had nothing at all." Yaxiu was silent for a moment before saying, "But the one who harmed her was the Watcher." "Do you truly not understand?" Dead Frenzy chuckled. "She's terrified... Just as you fear her threads right now, she fears the gaze of the Watcher. You've only been tortured once and the memory is already burned into you, but she was granted hope time after time by the Watcher, only to have despair cast down upon her again and again. When she was at her weakest, the Watcher was the person she relied on and trusted the most. Their relationship was just like yours with Lisdia. But the Watcher wasn't a knight escorting a princess—he was the ultimate dragon." "She tried to assassinate the Watcher countless times, and failed every single time. While the Watcher certainly was stronger than her, in my eyes, the sole reason she failed was that she was too terrified of him. The moment she came within five paces of the Watcher, she couldn't think straight—she couldn't even hide her killing intent." "In front of the Watcher, she was meek and subservient, but against you lot, she doesn't hesitate to strike with full force. She originally assumed you would eventually turn into someone like the Watcher, never imagining that you would genuinely love Lisdia... So every time she sees you and Lisdia being close, it cuts deep into her heart. Time and again, you remind her just how cursed she was." "'Why is she the Black Demon sinking into the mire while Lisdia is the Witch living in a jar of honey? Why did she meet the Watcher while Lisdia met you? What makes her any different from Lisdia? Just because she was in the earliest timeline, she deserved to suffer through all that misery?'" "After fighting tooth and nail to reach the peak, she ran into an Ouroboros that couldn't be defeated no matter what, and had to abandon her world to flee backward along the timeline... Her mind shattered long ago. All that remains is an empty husk named Black Demon." Dead Frenzy continued, "It isn't that she doesn't want to live; she simply doesn't believe she can." "Instead of saving the world, why not drag the whole world into Hell right away and destroy every last shred of your happy days? Whether she survives doesn't matter to her—what matters is that you and Lisdia don't." Yaxiu sighed softly. "So you mean there's absolutely no chance she'll change her mind? Can we get the Watcher—" Dead Frenzy smiled, tapping another cigarette from her pack. "Have you forgotten? If you get too close to the Watcher, you'll immediately collapse into the one and only 'Yaxiu Heath.' If you're confident you can defeat the Watcher in a resurrection match, be my guest." "Don't you guys have any after-sales service?" Yaxiu snapped, snatching the cigarette from her fingers in frustration. "I paid a quarter of my mind, and all I get in return is Black Demon running amok with my body? Why didn't you explain this to me earlier... you crooked merchant!" Dead Frenzy's face abruptly chilled, and she crooked a finger at him. Yaxiu had no choice but to light the cigarette and place it into her mouth, looking as aggrieved as a Lalafell who bought an unfinished development and could only pray for the developer's conscience to kick in. "What do I do now?" Dead Frenzy inhaled deeply, then pointed behind her. Yaxiu turned to look and realized Black Demon was sitting not far away. Yet she seemed oblivious to them, hugging her knees on the ground like a mushroom, as though doomed to grow mold forever in this pitch-black deep sea. "Suppress her," Dead Frenzy said. "Then you can reclaim control of your body."