My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

”It was years before you were born. Perhaps it was the reason you were even born,” Damon whispered softly.

”Like me, Xander had fallen. He had become a small man driven by vengeance. He was better than this. I admit, I hated him for how stalwart and honorable he had always been to his ideals, but on that day, it felt like I was looking into a mirror.”

Damon had not forgotten how Xander had looked that day. His expression, his clothes, even the scent of despair that seemed to cling to him.

”A small part of me was satisfied. I wanted them to suffer. I wanted all of House Ravenscroft gone. I wanted to erase their entire bloodline. The only thing I didn’t have was justification. Not for anyone else, but for myself. Without that, I had no reason to do it.”

He glanced at Ric. His true expression was hidden behind the body of the woman he was possessing, but Ric could still see it.

”I say it was fate’s cruel joke, but it really wasn’t. It was a choice we both made. It’s easy to say, ’Put down the butcher’s blade,’ but putting down the blade is much harder.”

Damon lowered his gaze.

”Xander Ravenscroft came to me seeking vengeance. He came to ask for my help to avenge his brother. Maybe he saw a friend in me. Maybe he simply wanted someone who was good at killing others. Either way, it doesn’t matter now.”

He took a slow breath, the chilling mountain air reaching his lungs and leaving a heaviness in his chest.

Ric and Ranar continued staring at him. Damon did not want them to see him like this. He wanted them to see the cheerful and confident side of him, the man who treated life like one enormous joke. But he could not do that now.

Perhaps what he was doing was like when wolves showed their young how to hunt before finally allowing them to venture out on their own.

Choice.

It was all choice.

Yet choice was never infinite. No one could possess such freedom. Their choices were always limited, and therefore their possibilities were limited as well.

If that was the case, then perhaps choice was merely another name for fate.

Even when people believed they were walking a road freely, what good was that freedom when the roads available to them had already been determined?

Like a spider’s web, each strand branching out and becoming more complex, only for every thread to eventually lead toward the same place.

The center.

Where the spider waited to feast.

”When I saw his expression, I was sad. But at the same time, an ugly part of me was happy to see him suffer. It was my vengeance.”

Damon’s voice gradually became colder.

”But then I didn’t want to help him kill me. It was ridiculous. I saw him as someone better. He should have been better. How dare he let me down?”

The bitterness in his voice made it sound as though Xander wanting revenge had been the greatest betrayal of all.

”On a whim, I asked for his firstborn child. I thought that would finally snap him back to his senses, but the fool was more lost than I was. At least I knew how lost I was.”

Damon scoffed at the absurdity of everything that had led them there.

”The fool agreed. That bastard actually agreed to give up his child. Why? For what? A brief moment of satisfaction and a lifetime of emptiness?”

He fell silent for a moment.

”Maybe I was wrong to ask for that.”

He sighed before sitting down with a quiet chuckle.

”Fine. If that was what he wanted, then I would make sure he kept his promise. So I used a contract from a god, one that ensured no promise bound by it could ever be broken.”

Damon looked at Ric.

”I’m sorry, Ric. I gave you this life, but I also added a clause to the contract. Maybe it was because I felt guilty. Maybe I regretted what I was doing. Whatever the reason, I made it so the contract could be broken and all its effects reversed as long as Xander and I both agreed to it.”

A faint smile appeared on his face.

”I suppose that clause was forgiveness.”

He stared into the fire.

”Our contract was also bound by secrecy. No one could know about it.”

”In my heart, I told myself I would make him suffer. I would raise you as an agent of hate and eventually use you to destroy him.”

Damon’s expression darkened.

”Years later, Ranar was born, and I could no longer imagine losing her. I was sure Xander would feel the same about you, so I confronted him.”

He slowly shook his head.

”He refused.”

His voice carried a trace of anger.

”He was so blind that he couldn’t even see the clues I left for him. All he had to do to see the truth was open his eyes. I would have told him everything if he had simply asked me.”

The anger in Damon’s voice could no longer be hidden. Yet Ranar and Ric could not tell who he was truly angry with.

Was it Xander?

Or himself?

”One day, I returned, and Xander had a child.”

Damon’s fingers tightened slightly.

”On the day you spoke your first words, I was compelled to take you. So I met Xander.”

He raised his hands and stared at them.

These hands did not belong to him. They belonged to an unknown woman whose body he was currently possessing, yet he still remembered those hands from that day.

”With his own two hands, he picked you up and gave you to me.”

His voice became quieter.

”And so our contract began.”

Damon closed his eyes.

”I never forgot that moment. It wasn’t because Xander hesitated. No. It was because he didn’t.”

His expression became cold.

”He had the resolve to sacrifice his own child to obtain his wish.”

Damon paused.

”And the scream...”

His voice almost disappeared.

”Your mother, Emilia, arrived at the last moment and witnessed everything. She tried to take you back, but I was vastly more powerful than she was. She stood no chance.”

His fingers slowly curled.

”When I took you away, she screamed in a way only a mother could.”

The fire crackled softly.

”To this day, your disappearance torments her. She searches for you every day. I don’t even want to know what she is doing. I fear that if I knew, I might falter in my resolve.”

Damon looked at Ric.

”That’s how you ended up in the Tomb.”

He smiled faintly.

”Taking you was the easy part. The hardest part was having to call you by your name.”

His gaze softened.

”I couldn’t stand the name Godric. So I simply decided to call you Ric. But at the same time, I didn’t want you to forget your name. Who you are. Where you came from.”

He looked between Ric and Ranar.

”This is the cycle you are both trapped in. When the truth is finally revealed, Xander and I will fight to the death. I am vastly more powerful than him, but the contract will even the playing field and give him a fair chance of killing me.”

Damon fell silent.

”I no longer care about the truth.”

His eyes lowered.

”I’m just tired of having to keep the lies.”

He looked at them without saying anything more.

For a long moment, neither child spoke.

Then Ric bit his lip. He slowly raised his head, his eyes trembling as he stared at Damon.

”Then... then do you hate me?”

Damon smiled.

”I don’t think I am capable of such a thing.”

His voice was soft.

”I could never hate you.”

He reached out his hand.

”My dear Ricky.”

The moment those words left his mouth, Ric suddenly threw himself into his arms.

Damon froze.

The hug caught him completely by surprise.

For a moment, he simply sat there with his arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. Then, slowly, he closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around the boy.

He felt Ric’s small body tremble against him.

Damon said nothing.

Of all the choices he had made in his life, perhaps not all of them had been right.

But as he held Ric in his arms, he knew one thing.

This did not feel wrong.