Young Master's PoV: Woke Up As A Villain In A Game One Day

Chapter 327: The Protagonist Needs Therapy... And Possibly A Few Brochures For Gambling Rehab

Battered and broken, Michael Godswill sat slumped against the canyon wall, his body barely held upright by the pointed stone biting into his bruised back.

It was painful, but he had no energy left to move anymore.

There was a ragged hole torn in his tunic, exposing his bare chest, which was marred by an ugly scar and streaked with flakes of dried blood that clung stubbornly to his skin.

From the center of his sternum, an ethereal white thread seeped forth.

The thread shimmered like it was woven from strands of starlight, trickling upward into the shattered sky, toward the bleeding moon... and the dark silhouette floating against its crimson glow.

”You know what that creature is, boy?”

Michael heard a familiar voice from somewhere to his far right, but he didn’t move his head to face it. He already knew who it was anyway.

The Sixth Demon Prince, Xaldreth.

”He is a god. And when I say god, I don’t mean it in the sense you humans do when you talk about your Monarchs. No. He really is a god. He was the assigned protector of this world. When the Spirit King appeared to conquer it, he didn’t run and hide like the others of his kind. He stayed and fought... and fell with the world he tried to save.”

The shimmering thread kept pouring out of Michael’s chest, rising upward and disappearing into one of the three elongated mouths of the dark silhouette in the fractured sky.

The more this glowing thread was reeled out of him, the weaker Michael felt... but not just in body. In soul, too.

It was as if his very existence was unraveling one strand at a time.

That didn’t stop him from letting out a humorless huff, though.

”You always... had a talent for stating the obvious,” he murmured, his voice scraping his throat raw. ”You didn’t have to go through the trouble of appearing before me just to tell me I’m screwed.”

A low chuckle echoed beside him. It sounded distorted, layered with too many overlapping voices to belong to anything human.

”Oh, but I did,” Xaldreth replied pleasantly. ”Perspective matters at the end of things.”

Michael’s vision swam. The bleeding moon above blurred, its crimson light smearing across the sky like spilled ink. He blinked hard, forcing it back into focus, though doing so sent a sharp spike of pain through his skull.

”...End of things, huh?” he repeated quietly.

”Yes,” the Demon Prince said. ”Yours.”

The silhouette against the crimson moon shifted. Even from this distance, Michael could sense an immeasurable pressure emanating from that creature, something ancient and utterly indifferent.

That god — if he really was one — did not look at him the way one would look at an enemy.

Because Michael wasn’t even qualified to be an enemy.

So he was being looked down on the way a tide looks down at sand.

Michael swallowed. His fingers twitched uselessly at his side and brushed against the sharp stone, slick with his own blood. That blood had been spilled back when he still had the energy to struggle.

”Every day,” Xaldreth continued, ”when the god takes a break from eating your fate and ambushes your friends, you help them by resisting him. Attacking your own thread, even. You distract him and buy them time they will forget they were even given the moment he gets back to eating your fate again.”

Michael’s lips parted slightly. ”So...?”

”So,” Xaldreth continued gently, almost fondly, ”now you don’t have the strength to even lift a finger. But it’s fine. I’m still here by your side. Now, you can let me take over and—”

”I said your name.”

Xaldreth halted mid-thought and turned his gaze back to the boy with a flicker of irritation... only to stiffen when he found Michael staring back at him with eyes that were tired, bloodshot, and yet painfully lucid.

...Just how strong was this boy’s will?

Just how long would it take before he finally broke?

”I’ve been thinking about it ever since Sam told us about Vaeghar,” Michael continued. ”About what happens when you speak a higher entity’s true name. Why didn’t you tell me you could influence people that way? Was my choice not to throw away your sword and instead choose your powers ever really mine?”

Xaldreth didn’t immediately speak, choosing to reply with silence instead.

Michael was referring to the moment he first found the cursed sword among his parents’ belongings. A name had been etched into its pommel.

The name of the Sixth Demon Prince, of course.

”...Influence is such an ugly word,” Xaldreth finally said. ”I prefer helping you realize your true feelings.”

Michael scoffed weakly. ”Figures.”

The white thread tugged harder. His chest burned, then went numb. He could no longer feel his legs. The canyon wall against his back might as well have been air.

”You were never forced, boy,” Xaldreth went on. ”Every choice you made was yours. I merely... helped you make them faster.”

There were a few moments of quiet.

When Michael spoke again, his voice wasn’t as hoarse as it was accusatory. ”And what about her? You made me make her say your name too.”

This time, when Xaldreth fell silent, he didn’t speak again.

In its stead, the sound that followed was a loud, harsh, broken laugh tearing out of Michael’s throat, ending in a wet cough that splattered blood against the stone near his knee.

”So that’s it,” the boy rasped. ”That’s where you crossed the line, demon! I’ll never let you take over! My will is absolute. I’ll never falter. You are trapped inside me, and you’ll stay there until your mind breaks and your consciousness rots away! I’ll make your powers mine, and then I’ll seize everything you are!”

The Demon Prince simply stared at him for a long time. He didn’t look angry, just contemplative.

When he finally started again, the fondness was gone, replaced by an edge that made Michael feel as if a blade were pressed against his throat.

”Absolute, you say? Foolish boy. You have no idea how many times I have heard those words.”

Michael forced himself to keep breathing as the pressure in the air around him thickened. Each exhale felt thinner than the last, and each inhale burned.

But the expression on his face remained calm... almost amused rather than threatened.

Xaldreth didn’t care. ”Heroes. Kings. Saints. Men who believed their will was iron and their strength indomitable. They all said similar things, with similar fire in their eyes! And they all broke, one way or another. They all fell to my blade.”

Michael laughed again, much quieter this time. ”Then rejoice, Prince of Broken Swords. You’ve finally met your match.”

Xaldreth tilted his head. ”Have I? We’ll see when you’re forced to watch all these pests you care so much about getting slaughtered right in front of you.”

Michael simply turned his head forward.

Before him, in the distance, a girl with gunmetal-gray hair sat on a flat rock with her knees drawn up to her chest.

...And her haunting violet eyes were looking directly at him.

She couldn’t see him, obviously. No one could.

And yet, for some reason, her gaze always found him, no matter where he went.

He couldn’t bear to see her cry anymore.

”They won’t be,” he said, shaking his head.

Xaldreth snickered. ”Who’ll save them this time? You can’t even get up.”

”Not me, then.”

The Demon Prince waited a moment, then, ”That blond bastard?”

”That blond bastard.”

”He can’t save you.”

”He will.”

”Then he won’t be able to save the others.”

”He will.”

Xaldreth’s lip scrunched up in annoyance. ”You’re already starting to lose your mind.”

A genuinely happy smile spread across the black-haired boy’s face, one that bewildered the Demon Prince to no end.

”No, I’m actually just gambling,” he said, far too cheerfully for someone in his position. ”I recently found out that I love the thrill of gambling! So I’m betting everything I have left on someone arrogant enough to think he could take on a god!”

...Goodness.

He had truly lost it.

For the first time since they had met, Xaldreth momentarily forgot his goal and found himself genuinely concerned about the boy’s mental state.