She was pulled into her embrace, held tightly.
“...Little... Ya?”
As she uttered that name, tears welled up in Sathya's golden eyes and fell onto her.
Strands of hair fell over Tina's shoulders.
They were pressed close together, able to feel each other's bodies.
Her body was soft and warm.
She wanted so badly to drift off to sleep, to just forget everything that had just happened.
The sweet, familiar scent left Tina momentarily dazed, the intoxicating fragrance reminding her of when they had kissed. She tightly gripped the ring that had been pressed into her palm—the one Little Ya had retrieved for her.
But suddenly, Tina's eyes flew wide open. Cruel reality sliced through her heart like a sharp blade.
Where was her mask?
Did that mean... her identity had already been exposed?
“...I...”
Tina's eyes lost their light. A chilling cold chased away all warmth from her body, making her feel as though she were trapped in a freezing cavern.
A loud ringing filled her ears, accompanied by a sharp, throbbing pain in her head. Then came that lightheaded sensation again. The world before her began to blur. Though she could technically see everything, she felt like a blind person, utterly unable to process the information before her eyes.
Her heart felt as though it were plummeting, tearing away from her flesh and blood to sink into an endless abyss.
“Don't let Sathya know I'm the Demon King.”
Her mind repeated this phrase like a mantra. Her brain worked at lightning speed, instantly concocting countless excuses.
After a few seconds of hesitation, she smiled.
She would just bluff her way through.
As long as she could make Sathya believe the Demon King was someone else, and that she had merely been passing by.
It was so simple. Just like before.
“Where... did you find my ring...?”
Her voice was halting, trembling as if she were choking back tears, yet carrying a hint of interrogation.
“I found it nearby,” Sathya replied.
Hearing this, Tina reacted as if she had been stung, her voice rising. “The masked woman... It was a masked woman who killed the Cardinal! It wasn't me! I... I was wounded by her... Everyone was hurt... Isn't that right?”
Yet Sathya remained completely unmoved.
It was as if she had known all along. She simply held Tina tighter, comforting her, gently stroking her head and body.
Don't do this. Sathya shouldn't know anything. I've never exposed myself.
Why? Did I fail?
Seeing Sathya's continued silence, Tina laughed—a hoarse, ragged laugh. Her tears burst through the floodgates, and her expression twisted.
“I hate you... Did you... really think... I saw you as my girlfriend? I threw that ring away like trash, and yet you actually went and picked it back up... Cough, cough... You even wanted to lock me in that... room? Ha... haha.”
At that moment, the pale sand beneath Tina turned into a pitch-black mire.
Miasma began to churn around them, like a black mist coming to life, endowed with a consciousness of its own.
It was like a dark throne rising from the abyss, tearing through planar barriers to manifest in the mortal realm, its presence suffocatingly powerful. If an ordinary human were contaminated by this miasma, even if they miraculously survived, they would spend the rest of their days in endless agony.
But the source of this chaotic energy was not Sathya—it was Tina.
An aura identical to that of a magical beast was radiating from her.
Or rather, there was no longer any fundamental difference between her and a magical beast.
“Sister Tina, I know everything,” Sathya said, nodding.
But this only fueled Tina's madness further.
“I... hated you... a long time ago... Such a hypocrite...”
“I'm sorry.”
Sathya began to stroke her back.
The wounds on Tina's body were disappearing, her sword-slashed flesh knitting back together.
Her torn school uniform left her back exposed. Upon her fair skin, black keratinous plates began to sprout, hard and incredibly resilient.
There, a silver scale had actually emerged.
The edges of the silver scale faded into a deep teal, resembling a beautiful gem. It was thicker, deeper, and harder than a snake's scale, and seemed far more dangerous.
But this was by no means good news. It was proof that she was transforming into something non-human.
“You must be... thinking of burning me to death... putting me, this demon, on a cross... and burning me. Heh, humans... are the absolute worst.”
“I will protect you forever, Sister Tina. I will always be by your side.”
“Liar... You definitely... don't think that...”
“I'm not lying to you, Sister Tina.”
“You... liar... You said we would... live together... You... lied... to me...”
Tina's tears flowed faster and faster, her voice dissolving until she could no longer form a complete sentence.
She struggled even more violently, her heart utterly unable to accept this reality.
She even tried to break free from the embrace.
She bit down on Sathya with a mouth that was growing sharp fangs. Her final remnants of sanity seemed to waver; after tearing through Sathya's clothes, she left only a trace of moisture on Sathya's shoulder.
Sathya would not let her go.
After refusing to answer, Tina seemed to resign herself to something.
“Haha... ha! You must have... misunderstood something. Of course I remember you... burning me to death. That's all there is to it. I died... and you left me... I hate you! I hate you!”
A perilous aura radiated from her. The surrounding temperature spiked rapidly as more scales sprouted across her body.
The pressure she unintentionally released sent shivers down the spines of everyone within a radius of dozens of kilometers, as if a pair of terrifying eyes were staring directly at them, ready to tear them to shreds at any moment.
“Ugh...”
She could finally bear it no longer and suddenly lunged forward, pinning Sathya to the ground.
An unstoppable urge surged within her to overpower the girl before her.
“Make Sathya mine.”
That way, Sathya wouldn't collapse in front of her, dying in despair without ever understanding their love for each other until her very last breath.
And Sathya wouldn't have to protect a "corpse," enduring eighty years of agonizing pain all alone.
She would never have to deal with damn humans again—with those hypocritical fools who spouted nonsense about justice and love but were full of nothing but lies!
She would never have to face that arrogant Elcalan again.
The Sword God and the Cardinals were all the same kind of trash in the end.
They all deserved to die!
It was time to end this.
Her deep blue eyes had transformed into teal, beast-like slit pupils. Her fingernails grew into razor-sharp claws, and two spiraled, teal horns sprouted from her head.
The black mist had already dispersed, replaced by a dark miasma that materialized out of thin air, as if to herald the birth of a new magical beast.
“Only you, Little Ya... You are not allowed... to betray me!”
“You can't... I won't let you... absolutely not!”
“My Little Ya... Ahhhhh... Little Ya... Little Ya!”
Suddenly, as if her last remaining shred of sanity had flickered back to life, the hatred in her eyes vanished in an instant.
Her entire body went limp, and she began to weep bitterly.
She kept trying to wipe away her tears, but they still rained down onto Sathya's clothes.
【You hurt her.】
#Y@u h_rt S@thya.
【H0st... %$#@... s@dn3ss...】
#C@rrupti@n.
【Sathya [ERR]: æßðñø...】
#Magic Core [ERR]: c#ll@pse.
【H0st, ¢¶§%&∆¥.】
The System whispered in her ear.
Like the writhing of a twisted, unspeakable monster, it scrambled her mind.
She curled her body inward, struggling with every ounce of her strength.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sob, sob... I don't want to hurt you, I don't want to hurt you, I didn't mean to, I really didn't... Please... It's okay, kill me... I don't care, please kill me, Little Ya... Please, kill me...”
Rate on N.U.
