Chapter 2: A Fever Dream
[DING!]
[The world welcomes a new sovereign.]
Sitting in a traditional, oriental chamber, a man hummed in interest. So was the woman sitting beside him.
They turned to the sky outside their window.
In a different slice of the globe, standing in the middle of the desert, a black figure also raised his head. He witnessed the notification appearing in the sky above the pyramids.
A figure clad in white, standing on a ship in the middle of the ocean... And another figure in the middle of a rainforest...
All of them raised their face to the sky.
"Woahh," a blonde man smiled as he raised his head to the sky. His breath created a thin white mist, standing in the middle of a pure white field of ice and snow.
"A new sovereign appear after some time now?"
He chuckled.
"This age is going to be interesting."
***
[Blessing: Immortality, acquired!]
"Huh?"
Covered in blood, Sorin had just witnessed the bodies of every cult member explode. As their blood drenched him, he felt the pain slowly fading away.
He raised his hands, which were supposed to still have holes in them, yet they slowly recovered, and his flesh regenerated in seconds.
Not only that, the bullet holes in his body too...
But despite all that, he noticed that the pentagram was still glowing even brighter.
[DING!]
[New quest!]
[Defeat and condemn the demon back to hell!]
Quest Rank: [SSS+]
Accept Quest?
[Accept] [Decline]
"What is—"
[5 seconds left to automatically decline...]
Wait...
[4...]
"Are you saying you'll let the demon go if I don't accept?!"
Moreover, what were these voices? And these transparent screens?
[3...]
"Ah, seriously? I don't have any time to think at all!"
[2...]
He tapped the screen before the time ran out, "Accept! Bring it on!"
Despite not having time to process everything that occurred, he could sense that his body had gained some kind of power. That regeneration...
Nothing made sense.
He managed to free himself from the rope that bound his leg and scrambled away, realizing how little he knew about what to do next.
How to condemn a demon? Heck, how to even defeat it in the first place?
"What an interesting human..."
From the ominous abyss within the darkening void on the table, a deep and malevolent voice growled. The pentagram symbol ignited a rupture on the ground, and a maleficent crimson glow oozed forth from within.
Well, whatever the way, he just had to do it, right?
As the demon materialized, a spine-chilling laugh erupted from its gnarled, fleshy maw, sending shivers down his spine. The malevolent sound reverberated through the room, making the very air tremble.
It was as if the darkness itself had taken form, revealing the obscure figure within. The demon emerged, a haunting sight to behold—a grotesque fusion of woven flesh and stone.
Its limbs extended like wicked tentacles, oozing a repulsive black sap and bound by chains. Atop its head, a horn-like crown protruded, accentuating its menacing visage.
"Ohh, what have we here? You've managed to reverse the ritual and snatch away my follower's blessing..." The demon's voice echoed with a sinister tone, his words laced with a mix of amusement and annoyance.
"Why don't you surrender, boy? Become my apostle, and I'll bestow upon you even greater blessings than what you've already received."
The demon's voice oozed with temptation, trying to lure him into his grasp.
"And if I don't want to?" Sorin asked.
A thunderous laugh emerged. Mocking, taunting.
"You may have noticed the alteration in your wretched body. Immortality... a gift bestowed by me. Did you foolishly believe I couldn't take it away?"
"Can you?" Sorin asked then, doubting it. But even if the demon can... he had made up his mind.
[What if demons were truly the ones to blame?]
[What if... every human was born truly equal, pure, and untainted by malice, and it was the demon's temptation that smeared them in sins?]
[Sorin... you are not what raised you. You are what you choose to be.]
That random preacher's words once again echoed in his mind. He was truly a piece of work.
KA-CLICK!
B-B-B-B-B-B-BANG!
Snatching guns from the ground, he loaded and fired them in rapid succession, switching to a new one before running out of bullets.
Then another round.
B-B-B-B-B-BANG! B-B-BANG! B-B-B-B-B-BANG!
There were only a few firearms in the area, so he knew he would eventually need to switch to a more traditional weapon—
Sorin's eyes widened as he noticed something peculiar. As the smoke settled, he saw the bullets suspended in mid-air, just a few meters away from the horrifying figure.
The demon chuckled.
"Naive."
The bullets changed directions toward him.
"Suffer, boy. And submit to me!"
Sorin leaped forward. Through the raining bullets, he lunged without care into the danger itself. Despite being struck by each and every one of the bullets, his speed remained unchanged.
"What?!"
The demon was taken aback by Sorin's fearless move, only to be surprised further when a peculiarly shaped dagger came hurtling in his direction.
STAB!
It landed right on his forehead when Sorin appeared from behind layers of dust and smoke, snatching the handle of the dagger to push even deeper.
"Like I thought, the blessing..."
Sorin sneered with his half-destroyed face. He clung onto the demon's shoulders, his body riddled with holes as he drove his weapon deeper into its forehead. "You can't take it away, right?"
CRUSH! CRACK!!
"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!"
The air seemed to shatter with a terrifying scream. The creature's agonizing cry reverberated through the room, shaking the very foundations of the space.
As his body convulsed, the chains wrapped around his limbs began to tighten, pulling him downward with a force that could only be described as hellish.
The demon's once-mighty form contorted in pain as it struggled against the unseen restraints. His monstrous shape started to dissipate into shadows, slowly vanishing into the dark abyss below.
Finally, with one last soul-piercing wail, the demon was yanked back into the abyss. The chain rattled and clanked, echoing the demon's torment as it was banished from the realm of the living.
Sorin narrowed his eyes.
Standing there in confusion, he turned around the space, and then...
"Huh? That's it?"
A room full of blood and flesh, the wretched odor of human excretions with burned floor shaped like a giant pentagram... he stood in the middle of it, expecting something even more...
He muttered, not expecting any answer, "Is this just a fever dream?"
"Do you want it to be just a fever dream?"
Sorin flinched. He turned around to see a tall figure clad in black.
A woman.
"Or do you want to step forward and learn about this world?"
Weekly Power Status
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