But his response was worse than silence.
SHLUK!
His left hand tore into my chest without hesitation, plunging through flesh and bone with merciless ease. It wasn't just my blood he wanted, it was as if he meant to consume me whole, devour not only my body but whatever I was. Or maybe… maybe this was simply him fulfilling the choice he'd already made.
A cold, searing pain flooded my body, hollowing me from within. My lungs collapsed around the agony, and for a moment, it felt as though the air itself had abandoned me.
He pulled his face back, lips glistening with my blood, and smiled with cruel amusement. Satisfaction burned in his eyes as he murmured,
"Wow… I wish I could keep you. But I won't bear it, knowing someone with such sweet blood might become a demon. I don't drink demon blood… so I'll just have to kill you before you transform."
Before the words could even settle, his fangs sank into me again; sharp, merciless, piercing like twin daggers. But this time, he wasn't just drinking. His fingers pressed deeper into my chest, clawing through flesh as though searching for something buried inside me, something only he could sense.
Pain ripped through me, jagged and merciless, yet… I didn't fight back. Not because I couldn't, or because fear had broken me but because, in that moment, I wanted it. I had already surrendered to something I thought he would give me, even as he twisted it into torment. I had already let go.
Blood bubbled at my lips, warm and metallic, but instead of groaning, I let out a faint, broken smile. My voice came out as little more than a whisper.
"I've known pain my whole life… but I never learned how to save myself from it. So… let me stay here, just for a moment. Until I figure out what to do with myself."
His expression shifted instantly. The satisfaction drained, leaving only shadow. His brows drew tight, his eyes sharpened into cold steel.
"You refused to choose," he said flatly. "So I made the choice for you."
I blinked, dazed, my head light with blood loss.
Yeah, of course. What did I expect from a demon? I must be the dumbest man alive living with this dumb mind that takes forever to process anything.
That was always the problem. Whenever I chose to think, I ended up nowhere. Thought became a maze, and I was always lost in it.
Curse the White Unit. They spoke of teaching control, discipline, strength, but what good was it, when their methods stripped the mind bare in the process? What kind of control was left when your thoughts weren't even your own?
I wanted to act in that moment; anything, everything. If I stopped to think of the possibilities, if I hesitated even a second longer, I knew I would do nothing at all.
My throat ached as I forced the words out, each one rasping like sandpaper.
"After you took my blood… you promised you wouldn't kill me."
"Yes," he replied smoothly, his smile twisting into something colder and more cruel. "But I've changed my mind. No one else should taste it. Or if someone already has…" His eyes narrowed, dark amusement flickering. "…then that was their last. Even a Shinkari would've done the same if we crossed paths. He wouldn't leave me alive."
Shinkari?
The word struck me, heavy and foreign, ringing in my skull with a sting I couldn't shake. I didn't know what it meant, but the way he said it, like a name that carried judgment, finality, made my chest tighten.
His arm drove deeper into my chest, clawing at something unseen, a mockery twisting across his lips as if he were savoring the torment.
My jaw locked tight, pain shredding through me, but I swallowed the scream, refusing to let it spill into the night and rattle the neighbors. He thought because I looked weak, I was weak.
He was wrong.
My hand shot up, clamping around his right arm, fingers digging in like steel jaws. With a single, violent squeeze, bone cracked beneath my grip. His mocking smile faltered just as a roar ripped out of me, raw and unrestrained.
The scream that followed wasn't human. It wasn't just pain. It was rage, feral and primal, echoing into the night like a beast set free.
He staggered, trying to wrench himself away, but I yanked harder, hard enough to tear. Flesh ripped, bone snapped, and in a wet spray of blood, his arm came free in my hands. Without hesitation, I swung it back at him, smashing the severed limb across his skull with bone-crushing force.
He hit the ground hard, rolling, his body convulsing under the weight of shock. He hadn't expected this, the boy trembling in fear, suddenly driving him into a corner with a single strike.
When he rose again, one arm gone, his eyes burned with confusion as he locked onto me.
I met his gaze, breath ragged, blood running cold down my neck.
"Leave," I growled, my voice low, sharpened to ice. "Or you lose more than one hand."
He stared at me, his face twisted; not with pain, but something far worse. Horror. His reaction wasn't just to what I had done; it was far from that. If I crushed his arm again, I doubted it would even make him flinch. No… this was different.
In his eyes, I caught the flicker of a thought he couldn't name, a dread even he couldn't place. At the moment I shattered his hand, something else had happened, something that clawed at him beneath the surface. And it was clear… It had everything to do with Vanik'shur.
What was that? The question burned in his gaze as he stumbled, his remaining hand pressed tight against his stamp, as if bracing against an unseen weight.
"He's neither spirit-bound… nor Shinkari," he muttered under his breath, confusion leaking into the horror. "But what I saw…?"
Whatever Vanik'shur had done left him shaken, hollow-eyed, caught between fear and disbelief. He couldn't understand it, he couldn't even name it.
Then his eyes dropped to the bleeding stump where his arm should have been. Panic sharpened his face.
"Why… why is my arm not regenerating?"
A sudden realization flashed in his eyes, widening them before narrowing into something grim. He studied every detail of me remembering the mark he saw on my back as he drank my blood, looking at the scars, the weight in my gaze – then his lips parted in recognition.
"You… you're that kid."
His expression darkened, heavy with the same look I had seen on countless faces before; revulsion, fear and judgment.
"You're the cursed demon's vessel."
The word stung. Vessel.
Others had always branded me with simpler names; the demon, the cursed boy, the demon guy, the monster. But this… this was different. He was the first, apart from the doctors in the White Unit, to call me what I truly was: a vessel. Not the demon itself, but the body that bore it. It meant he understood more than most. He knew me.
I lifted my voice, steady and sharp as steel.
"Now that you've realized it… that's another reason you should vanish."
For a heartbeat, silence stretched between us. Then, without another word, he stepped back; one, two, three quiet steps, before melting into the dark, clutching the bleeding stump of his arm.
But his face as he withdrew… that expression was not what I expected from a demon. Not rage, not vengeance, but fear.