Free Web NovelChapter 161: What is it you desire?
They say demons do not come when people are strong.
They come when a soul has been dragged so deep into despair that it no longer cares whose hand reaches for it.
They come when pain becomes louder than reason, when desperation crushes pride, when the future means nothing compared to the one thing the heart wants in that particular moment.
That is when True Demons answer.
That is when True Demons ask—
Lucian’s mind went silent.
As if something inside him... broke.
His body trembled from intense anger, blinding, violent anger he had never felt before.
Again.
It was happening again.
For a moment, the hallway disappeared. He once again returned to that place, the place where his father was beheaded and his mother was made to scream in agony until she died.
He remembered it all, the blood on the floor, his mother’s screams.
Then, he returned to the hallway, his eyes falling on the screaming Evelyn, looking at him with tears in her eyes, constantly calling his name as she was dragged away.
He was helpless then.
He was helpless now.
And as that realisation settled in, as his mind reached the deepest depths of despair, helplessness, and frustration—
When he was at his lowest—
Something answered.
A hand reached out.
What is it you desire?
He heard a deep, ancient voice in his mind and the next second, the very world around Lucian slowed down.
The alarms became distant, the screams faded, Evelyn’s tear that was falling to the floor fell very, very slowly, it was as if—
The very world was waiting for him to answer.
And Lucian—
What was it that he desired? freёweɓnovel.com
He wondered.
His eyes fell on Evelyn, at the distance between the two of them, at how far she was from him, the space he could not cross at this moment and he—
The answer came to him.
"Speed."
He answered with blood dripping from his mouth and the moment the word left his mouth—
Granted.
The voice answered and—
Lucian’s body began to change.
The demonic energy inside him, the same energy that he could no longer control, suddenly became still. The violet in his eyes deepened until it was no longer just violet, it became darker. Then it became red, then it returned to violet, the color shifted again and again, unable to settle, as if even it could not decide what it was supposed to become.
Thin lines crawled out from his chest, something that resembled... writing?
Unfinished words carved under his skin, these words spread across his throat, shoulders, arms, and face, glowing with violet-black light before breaking apart and reforming into different shapes. Some looked like demonic runes, some looked like cracks in glass, some looked like shadows trying to become flesh.
The air around him bent. An absurd amount of purple energy poured from his body, forming a crown above his head, then the crown shattered and turned into demonic horns, then those shattered as well and appeared as wings.
Again—
It couldn’t be decided.
Nothing remained long enough to be named.
*Picture*
And Lucian—
He did not care.
He only desired one thing.
Speed.
That was all that mattered.
And then, as the world returned to normal, as the distant voices returned, the alarms screamed, as Evelyn’s tear fell to the floor, as the Host dragging her completed his step—
The floor beneath Lucian cracked like glass and he—
He disappeared.
The next instant, the Host dragging Evelyn lost his head.
Splurrtttt
Blood spurted out of his neck like a fountain, but before even a drop of it could fall on Evelyn, Lucian had already taken her a few meters away from all the chaos.
And that was when the rest of the world finally reacted.
The Choir of Kneeling Flesh froze. Their target was no longer in front of them, the ’boundary’ they had created and strengthened around him to restrict his movements was torn open and when their eyes moved to find him, when their eyes finally fell on him—
They froze.
Was that...
True Form...?
But only a Greater Demon and above should have a True Form...
How did... a False Demon have one...?
They couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
It wasn’t just them, Nolan, the other Demon Hosts, the Enclave members, every single being froze, their minds unable to comprehend what had just happened.
And Lucian didn’t give them any time to comprehend it either. He placed Evelyn away from the chaos, then his figure blurred again.
No one could react to his speed. By the time they realised where he was going, Lucian was already in front of the Sixth Veil Host Alaric was fighting. He punched his chest, the impact folding his body before it flew back and crashed into the second Sixth Veil Host, driving both of them through the side wall.
Lucian didn’t wait, he could feel it.
Whatever this power was, it wasn’t permanent, so his mind cleared into something brutally simple.
Evelyn.
Exit.
That was all that mattered.
He grabbed Evelyn again.
"Lucian..."
Evelyn looked at him. She still didn’t understand what had happened to him, but she was relieved he was fine.
Lucian looked at her. For one short instant, the demonic coldness in his eyes softened. By then, a thin, violet-black barrier formed around Evelyn’s body, the air around Evelyn stilled and before Evelyn could understand what he was doing and why he was doing it—
Lucian moved towards the hallway exit, directly jumping into the line of Hosts in front of him.
No, more accurately, he specifically chose the path with the most Hosts ’on the way’ and as he approached these Hosts at a speed not a single one of them could react to—
Lucian did as much damage as he could in the shortest amount of time.
A Third Veil Host lost its chest, a Fourth Veil Host’s spine was shattered, one of the Kneeling Court Demons tried to use the same technique again, he lost his head, another Host raised both his hands, he lost his arms.
Lucian did not kill all of them.
He killed those he could, as for those who survived, he let them be.
Two seconds.
That was all he spent in this damned space. The hallway, which was filled with demonic Hosts, had now become a line of broken bodies.
Orpheus widened his eyes in sheer terror when he saw that sight, his face turning completely pale.
Lucian, standing at the hallway exit, looked at him one last time. Orpheus’s body shuddered at that gaze, his legs lost all their strength, his knees collapsed, the floor beneath him turned wet.
It was... pathetic.
Lucian did not give him another glance. He only tightened his hold around Evelyn, he tightened the barrier around her one more time, isolating her from the air, from the acceleration, and the impact that came from moving at the speed he was moving at.
Then, Lucian ran.
Orpheus survived because he did not matter.
As for Lucian and Evelyn—
They were gone.
