Demon Hunter

Book 5 Chapter 24.2 - Hurt

Hurried footsteps sounded from the staircase above. The room’s door was suddenly pushed open, and then Cirvanas staggered as he rushed in, couldn’t help but cry out, “Master, he… ah! What’s wrong?”

Dark gray hair covered Madeline’s face, but she slowly raised her head, using her left hand to brush it aside, not minding that Cirvanas could see her own face at all. She put up her long gray hair, and then her right hand tore off a piece of wood from the floor, inserting it into her hair and using it to hold it in place. Madeline didn’t deliberately try to hide anything while doing all of this, hot tears continuously rolling down her cheeks from her pretty eyes, not being controlled by her, nor did she want to control them.

Cirvanas stood there blankly, not knowing what to say or do. Instead, it was Madeline who asked indifferently, “Is it strange?”

The young man was startled awake, frantically shaking his head and saying, “No, no! Definitely not strange! However… actually… it should be like this…”

Madeline stood up, her steps unstable, seemingly extremely weak. She walked towards the entrance, and when she passed by Cirvanas’ side, she said softly, “It shouldn’t have been like this. Did you know? He… really is an idiot.”

The young lady was an entire head taller than Cirvanas, several strands of silver gray hair brushing past his delicate and beautiful face when they passed each other. Madeline was extremely weak, but right now, she was like a sword that had returned to the scabbard, silently waiting to erupt. Compared to her, Cirvanas was weak like a wounded rabbit.

The young lady with her hair up displayed a completely different style, a different type of somber and desolateness. Cirvanas only felt as if the young lady he was familiar with suddenly grew up, the deep aura of darkness released around her even more so making him shiver with fear. That type of trembling that came from the depths of her heart was something that he had never experienced even from Su’s body. However, when the young lady’s rear figure disappeared, what remained in Cirvanas’ mind wasn’t only the tears he had never seen from her body, but even more so the scarlet streak on her face.

That was a new wound, red to the point of suffocation.

The sound of wood shattering sounded. Without looking, Cirvanas could tell from his senses that what shattered was an old-fashioned display cabinet, inside a few handicraft articles and an old-fashioned 19th century violin. The violin moved through the air, landing in Madeline’s hands. She pushed open the door at the end of the corridor, arriving at a spacious balcony.

The balcony’s cement poles’ workmanship was crude, dried up vines crawling all over their surface. However, that night, this made it seem especially desolate and lonely.

The clouds and in the sky were extremely low, stifling to the point of driving one mad. Not far out below was a faint green radiance that came from who knew where. The light was extremely dim, yet enough to illuminate parts of Madeline’s face, as well as cast large shadows. This was a place of black and white, a world formed from deep gray and dark green. Only that scarlet red streak was different, a blinding red.

Madeline supported the violin between her neck and shoulder, the ancient bow supporting itself against the similarly age old bow strings, and then without any delay, began to move.

Screech! An ear-splitting sound thus started the opening movement.

This didn’t sound like the sound a violin released at all, the sound the instrument released full of rumbling, trembling, and metal pounding sounds! It was as if one was standing ten thousand meters in the air, overlooking the boundless wilderness from above.

The wilderness’ great earth ruptured, high mountains collapsed, dried river channels displaying large amounts of cracks. Towering building ruins slowly topped one after another, gradually swallowed up by the bottomless crevices. Vehicles were smashed flat after colliding, while reinforced bars were rigidly torn apart. This was a world that was currently dying, one without any life force left. In this world, there were no humans visible, no ability users or mutated creatures, not even insects. This world didn’t have any life.

The short violin piece came to a screeching stop at the highest note, and the ancient violin completely exploded into ashes in Madeline’s hands, finishing its final elegy. Meanwhile, Madeline still maintained the same posture, as if she was unaware that the violin had exploded under the surging energy, only slowly lowering her hands a while later.

A song, thus ended.

Only now could Cirvanas resume his breathing. During that short tune, he was already completely seized by that world, the powerful syllables like powerful hands as they tightly gripped his heart. From this movement of destruction, Cirvanas didn’t hear any sadness, only icy coldness, indifference, slaughter, as well as…

Inside that world completely devoid of life, an everlasting loneliness.

This short piece already spread several dozen kilometers, audible even from the Land of Rest. It was unknown just how many people were woken up from their dreams in the middle of this cold night by this sudden song.

Cirvanas discovered that he had unknowingly when knelt down on the floor, only able to support himself by relying on his hands. His emotions that were earnestly sealed were completely released by this song, his mental defenses long collapsed. He discovered that right now, he unexpectedly couldn’t say how he felt towards Su. It already surpassed the fear and servitude of a puppet towards its master, yet as for what exactly it was, he still couldn’t say clearly. He only knew that at this moment, his heart was in such pain that he was in a bit of despair.

In his somewhat blurry line of sight, he saw that a new marking had appeared on the floor before him, and then he recalled the wood piece Madeline ripped from this place to hold her hair. Around this new marking was a puddle of water, vaguely able to differentiate that these were the remains of a melted small creature. It melted into water, breaking down the carpet, and then seeped into the floor below. A bit later, when the water dried up, all traces of its existence in this world would vanish. Thus, he knew that Madeline would forever keep that wooden piece, because it was soaked with Su’s traces, the remains of his previous master.

Footsteps sounded from outside the room’s door. Madeline walked inside. She looked extremely calm, not much different from normal, to the extent where there was even a slight smile hanging from her lips that carried a feeling of indifference. However, Cirvanas knew clearly that she was already completely different. He didn’t feel the slightest trace of light or warmth from Madeline. At the very least, in his world of perception, she was already completely drowned in darkness and icy coldness.

Forever returning to darkness.