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Chapter 343
More miasma spread out. It was now so thick that it blocked my vision. It was much like the time we had traveled to the newly formed dungeon by Chalm, Mina’s dungeon. It was the place where I had found Lydia. It was the place where we… pain shot through my mind and body. Was I really going to die here? Were we all going to die in this dungeon? The life was draining for me. I had nothing left…
“Life… of course… I’m… an idiot.”
I had Slave Master equipped, and it had a skill I had considered so horrible, that I had blanked it out of my conscious and never even considered using it. If Miki hadn’t been the one who used its counter to help me live just a moment longer, I perhaps never would have thought about it.
“Steal…Slave Life!”
Through the slave bond, I targeted Shao and began to take life from her. Instantly, my body started to recover. Humans consisted of a spiritual body, a mana vessel, and a body. These three things could be attacked. The mana vessel was the hardest thing to destroy. However, if it was extinguished, someone would pass out. The spiritual and physical bodies, however, were directly linked to a person’s life. If you destroyed a soul, the physical body would collapse lifelessly. Perhaps it could be turned into a zombie or puppet, but it would never be human again. Meanwhile, if the physical body was harmed, it was a natural result.
The attack of miasma had attacked both sources. Healing spells could repair the physical body, but attacks against the soul were different. That was someone’s very life source. The only way to replenish life was by taking it from another source. Of course, even life could be replenished with enough time, but only with rest and care.
What I hadn’t known at the time when I gave life to Lydia in Mina’s dungeon was that her lifeforce had already taken many various blows. That final cut had caused her spark of life to flutter out so that no matter how much I healed her, I couldn’t revive her. That was why I had to use my own life to substitute hers.
Now, my own life was in a similarly damaged state. Yet, there was a massive energy well, I had enslaved the Demon Lord herself. As I healed my own life force, I would weaken hers. In this way, it was the perfect attack. At least, that was what I thought. As my wounds started to heal and I found myself able to get up, I collapsed again down to my knees.
Her life force wasn’t pure but contaminated with miasma. Shao let out a cry, her previous levitating stopping as she collapsed. The miasma between use spread apart, a single line of miasma connecting her heart with my own. I was pulling her lifeforce right out of her, and the Demon Lord’s corruption with it!
This disruption in her miasma flow had somehow caused her to be unable to fight back. Had I done this earlier, would all of this be avoided? I didn’t think so. She had previously shaken off every slave skill I used on her. Had I attempted it earlier, she would have just immediately cut it off with her mana. However, that last attack had used up the majority of her power. She could no longer resist. As I grew stronger, she grew weaker. A horrible darkness started to seep into my soul.
Chapter 344
My vision of Shao on her knees faded, and suddenly…
I saw myself as a young girl running around a small Japanese style home. I accidentally knocked over a vase. There was the thudding of feet as a large man came from the next room. He was Japanese, with a beer in his hand and a belt in the other. I feared this man. He started hitting me. He wouldn’t stop. A beautiful Japanese woman ran out, grabbing his arm. He started hitting her too.
The vision of the pair of us returned. Was this her memories? She collapsed to the floor. The darkness, the hate, the vengeance, the desire to destroy everything, it was flowing into me. However, I was a White Mage. I was most resistant to these kinds of spiritual attacks.
“Remove Curse!” I said through gritted teeth, taking another step forward.
I was at a funeral. Father had died in a car crash. Mother started drinking. She started inviting strange men over to her home. They’d do things to her. Some of them were violent. She said she needed the money. However, I only saw her spend the money on more booze and something she liked to snort. One night, I woke up to find Mother on the floor. She was cold to the touch.
The dark miasma in me seemed to be changing. It was as if my body was rejecting it. The miasma that entered my body cracked apart and dissipated. Why was that happening? It felt painful. Shao was on the ground. Her life was ebbing away. Without a thought, I activated the skill from Hero, Give Life. Just as Miki had given me life, I started to feed life into Shao.
It was different though. The life I gave was my own. I took her corrupted life. It burned and twisted inside me, but eventually, it purified as I made it my own. Then I gave her my life. I took another step forward.
I was older now. I was in a foster home. I was too old now for anyone to have any interest in adopting me. I lived with three female siblings. They made my life hell. The torture didn’t end at home. At school, it wasn’t any better. They went to the same school as me and were more popular. My name was written in the bathrooms with the word ‘slut’ and my phone number. My foster parents got calls from dozens of boys, some perverted and some pranking. I told them I didn’t give our number out. They didn’t believe me and I was grounded.
When I recovered, Shao was looking up at me, a strangely vacant look on her face. Had she seen a vision too? Was she seeing my own life? I took a step forward.
My reputation as a school slut grew. I went out with a guy I liked, but when I didn’t kiss him at the end of the date, he started claiming I had done all kinds of things. More guys tried to ask me out, hoping to get sex. I couldn’t trust them. I couldn’t trust anybody. I thought I could trust my teacher, but then he put his hand on my knee and tried to kiss me. I tried to tell people, but no one believed me. I was suspended for spreading lies. I hate this world.
My body felt like it was breaking. It was simply unimaginable stress. Her anger, her frustration, her hopelessness pummeled my body. I felt like I was a sieve filtering out a lifetime of negative emotions. I collapsed down to my knees, but I couldn’t stop, I began to crawl.
I had gotten into a fight today. I beat up my foster sister. My foster parents called the cops. Was I going to go to jail? I started running. Then, exhaustion overtook me. I collapsed. When I woke up, I was somewhere else. It was like a videogame. There were monsters and stats! Finally, I could live a new life. I could be someone better. Someone people liked. Someone… better. The town I appeared at was immediately attacked by slavers. I tried to help, but these were level 30 bad guys and I was a level 1 jobless. What’s with this kind of bullshit difficulty curve?
I managed to reach her. We were both on our hands and knees. She was looking at me, I was looking at her. The miasma flowing between us was becoming less and less dark. It was now a light grey. She no longer emmitted any sort of miasma.
The slaver said I was a demon. I had a chance to reincarnate, and I ended up on the wrong team? What is with my luck? He started training me, day and night. I was forced to fight monster after monster, growing stronger and stronger. I wasn’t the only one, but I was the only one who survived. I killed and I killed, yet no job ever appeared. Even after 90 levels, three years of battling daily and creating rivers of blood, I had no particular talent. I ended up being sold to some small slaver’s guild in some backwater country. They didn’t know what to make of me. This world is just as awful as the last one. Everything should just die.
“Shao…” I said, my eyes red. “I’m sorry, for everything…”
“You…” Her words didn’t sound cold or dark, but terrified and confused, like a lost little girl. “You’re like me?”
I smiled bitterly. “You can stop this. You must stop this.”
“Please… kill me,” she responded.
Chapter 345
My hand tightened and I lifted up my blade. With a single swipe of my blade, I could kill her, an end-all to this. Shao looked at me pleadingly, wanting her death to come. She seemed completely helpless. I had been so angry, so frustrated, so full of killing intent, but the road here. Even though it had been only a hundred meters, felt like it had been a hundred miles. My soul had been quite literally shoved through a sieve, and my life force cycled with hers to the point where they were one and the same. Killing her would be like killing myself.
My hand loosened, and I dropped it back down to the floor. “I can’t… I won’t kill you. I don’t want you to die.”
Shao’s body shook. It would be too easy for her to call me a liar. She didn’t trust anyone, even men. I knew things about her. I knew her as if we had been lifelong friends. I knew things about her no one else knew. However, the feeling was the same the other way. I couldn’t lie to her if I wanted to. It was absolutely impossible.
She made a noise of disbelief. Even though she couldn’t call me a liar, why wouldn’t I want to kill her? She had killed everyone close to me. It wasn’t like she forgot what had happened. She had seen those girls care for me, and she has also been the one to kill them all. If you asked me why I had no anger or desire to see her dead, it was impossible to say.
She reached down, weakly picking up the blade I had dropped, She brought it to her throat.
“Then… I’ll… I’ll kill myself!” she said.
I didn’t react. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to stop her, it was just that with every second, I felt myself growing weaker and weaker. The miasma in my body had all but disappeared, but the tax on my body was unbelievable.
After a moment, her eyes shut, she let out a cry. I could feel the fear and reluctance. She didn’t really want to die.
“Please… order me.” she said. “Please, order me to die. I have to die. I will do what you tell me, but you have to tell me, please!”
She started crying, begging for me to send her on. Life was far too painful. Only in death would she be able to have happiness.
I nodded my head, straightening myself and sitting on my knees. Shao did the same, her hand tightening on the dagger, ready for the order. I reached up and grabbed her shoulders, looking her in the eyes with all the strength I had left.
“Shao! I order you…” I demanded, her hand shaking on her dagger as she waited for the final order to plunge it into her heart. “To take… responsibility…”
Whatever else I planned to say was lost as the lifeforce circulating between us cut off at that instant. An incredible sense of exhaustion shot through me. I no longer had the energy to even kneel.
Just as she heard the words and tried to ponder what I was saying, I fell forward. My lips collided with hers, and the pair of us fell down to ground. This attack had no killing intent. It wasn’t cruel or perverted. However, it maliciously stabbed into her heart more powerfully than a thousand blades. In an instant the blackness left her eyes, revealing pretty hazelnut irises. As she passed into unconsciousness, all she could feel was the warmth of those lips.
{The Demon Lord has been defeated. The emergency dungeon has dispersed!}
The miasma immediately started to dissipate like a bubble had been popped. I barely managed to roll off of the woman under me, staring up at a sun that was now bright against a blue sky. However, my eyes seemed to catch something else glowing in the sky, except it seemed to be falling down. I looked at it for a few moments as it suddenly stopped in midair, about twenty feet over my head. Suddenly, a flash of recognition popped in my eyes.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me-“
The dungeon lore immediately charged, slamming into my side. The pain began to shoot through me, and I quickly passed out unconscious.