A sudden shift rippled through the world, not a sound, not a tremor, but a turning, as if reality itself inhaled sharply and forgot to exhale. The air folded in on itself. Colors drained. The sky stretched thin like old cloth. Within a single heartbeat, the atmosphere bled into stark black and white, swallowing every hue except the ones she wore.
Her body remained at the centre, suspended between the collapsing dual worlds, but her clothes… they glowed.
From the black domain on her right—red aura surged like liquid fire, wrapping her form in furious heat.
From the white domain on her left—blue aura flowed like moonlit water, cold, ancient, deliberate.
Her eyes were no longer her own. They split the world into two halves, each vision bleeding into the other, beauty and ruin stitched along a single line.
On the white side…
A breath-taking scene unfolded, yet it glimmered with an eerie kind of wrongness. Mountains painted entirely in charcoal strokes rose like jagged spines from the earth. Mist drifted around them in feather-like ribbons. At the horizon, a blue sun climbed upward in slow motion, its rays dripping like luminous ink, bending the surrounding space into a dreamlike distortion.
And at the centre of this monochrome world stood a woman.
No, half a woman.
Her right half appeared noble, robed in celestial white brushstrokes, looking as if a painter had sketched her into existence with utmost reverence. But the left half was consumed: white flame, shape-shivering, eating itself endlessly, revealing nothing but heat only.
On the black side…
Bones littered the ground like flowers. White flames flickered at their edges, whispering soundlessly. The sky was ink, and in the middle of that void sat a massive throne: forged from skulls, fused, melted, reshaped. Blood oozed from hollow sockets, dripping into a pool that reflected the world like polished obsidian.
On that throne reclined another half-woman, this one draped in shadows. Her visible flesh was marked with ancient sigils, and the other half of her was pure churning flame, black as the abyss, rising and receding like breath.
Both halves. Both worlds. Staring at each other.
And the boy… broken, bleeding, barely holding onto consciousness… was dragged into this split realm as if the world wanted him to witness something forbidden.
But deep inside her real body… far beneath the surface…
The blood silk realm began to tremble.
This was where her true soul was imprisoned, entangled by living veins of red, threads twisting through every inch of the crimson world like roots of a monstrous tree. For a long time, she had been unconscious, or unwilling to open her eyes.
Now they opened.
Bright. Sharp. Terrified.
The realm reacted instantly, silk threads fluttering like disturbed insects, blood veins pulsing, walls of red flesh tightening and throbbing like a giant heart falling out of rhythm.
Across from her, seated upon a throne formed entirely from twisted silk strands, was the demonic version of herself. Her eyes widened.
The strings that sealed her, now binding her wrists, that pierced through her chest, that pinned her legs like a puppet whose master died—
SNAP.
One by one they broke, like brittle twigs under immense pressure.
She rose slowly.
Limping.
Outside, the woman, the real one, pressed a hand over one of her eyes, squeezing it shut as the other eye saw the consequences she never intended. She didn't mean to kill him. She didn't mean to return to this place. She didn't mean to trigger the one thing she feared most.
And yet… she had done all of it.
She exhaled, a quiet, defeated breath.
In the silk realm, she began calculating, trying to find a path to reseal her other half. Her fingers danced, weaving invisible patterns, searching for a sequence, a method…
Then she shook her head.
No.
Not possible. Not now.
The demonic one laughed, soft at first, then louder, cracking the realm like glass.
She stepped forward, dragging her half-torn silk bindings behind her like dead serpents. Her smile was crooked, wicked, broken in all the ways a human heart shouldn't be.
"Ahh… don't worry," she said. "I finished the job thoroughly. The thing you couldn't do. You simply wanted to examine his body, peel back his layers, figure out what made him abnormal… and maybe—eventually—kill him."
She leaned closer, grin widening.
"But I hate waiting. So I killed him for you."
The real woman lifted her chin, cold, sorrowful, firm.
"Do you think you've won? Fool. I sealed you once. I'll seal you again."
The demoness laughed harder, head thrown back, the sound echoing unnaturally, like several throats speaking at once.
"Then let's see," she whispered, stepping forward into the red fog, "how long you can stay true… to your heart."
The demonic woman tilted her head, her cracked smile widening as threads of red light pulsed beneath her skin."You," she said in a voice dripping with poisoned honey, "are just a pawn in someone else's game. You don't even know what you are. A fool. A nuisance. To your kind… and to yourself. What will you do about it?"
Her words sliced the air like invisible razors.
The real one met her gaze, her form trembling not from fear, but from the weight of the realm pressing against her chest."Are you trying to sway my heart?" she whispered. "You can't. You never could."
The demoness laughed. She put a hand to her mouth, shoulders shaking, delight radiating like a child watching a butterfly struggle just before plucking off its wings.
"Oh, I love it," she purred. "The unbreakable ones… the stubborn hearts… they are the most fun to break."
The real one narrowed her eyes."I am true to my heart. I was caught off guard today, yes. But there will not be a next time. Don't think I know only one method to kill you. I can kill you, seal you, bend you to my will. I will never hand over my body."
The demoness stopped laughing.
For the first time, something else flickered across her face, a smirk edged with cruelty more refined than malice.
"Oh… really?" she said softly, almost tenderly.
Her voice dipped, sharp as a needle sliding under fingernails.
"But your body already belongs to that boy. Your chastity was taken by him."
A vein twitched beneath the real woman's eye.Her jaw tightened.She whispered, voice cracking through clenched teeth:
"He's dead… why bother?"
The demoness inhaled deeply, savouring the emotion like perfume."Why angry?" she mocked. "Didn't you say you would be true to your heart? And yet, already cracking. Already breaking."
Her laughter burst like a ruptured artery, splattering the silk realm with echoing malice.
"Why fight me," she asked, "when I can use your body better than you ever could? Why not give up? Why resist? I handle your miseries far better than you do. And tell me, do you not remember who saved you when you were drowning in agony?"
The real one's eyes dimmed.Then warmed with a painful, soft glow.
"…Yes," she said quietly. "I remember. And I'm grateful. I always will be."
"Then hand it over.""Never."
The demoness leaned forward, eyes shining like shattered rubies."Then you are as stupid as you are weak."
"I have work left in that world," the real one said, slowly raising her hand. "I cannot surrender to you. I cannot do evil. I will carve my own path."
The demoness's eyes burst wide, expanding like cracks of black lightning in white porcelain. Her laughter roared outward with a force that made the entire realm quake. Silk threads snapped. Blood pools vibrated. The pulsating heart-walls spasmed like they were choking.
"Do you remember?" she shrieked, voice deepening into something inhuman. "Do you remember how you killed your lover with these very hands?"
The world dimmed.
Her words echoed.
"Do. You. Remember?"
The real woman's breath hitched.Her pupils shook violently.
"Don't—" she whispered.
"Do you remember the corpses left in your wake?"A thousand silhouettes flickered behind the demoness like shadow puppets made from rot.Their faces melted, warped, screaming without voices.
"Do you remember the souls crawling on your back every night, weighing your spine until you cannot walk straight?"
Dark ghostly hands appeared behind the real woman, tugging her limbs, clawing her hair, reaching through her ribs.
"Do you remember their anguish? Their pain? Their anger? Their solitude? All because of your selfishness?"
The pain struck like a hammer inside her chest.
She staggered.Her knees buckled.Her breath turned cold.Her veins bulged, pulsing like black worms under her skin.
Tears burst from her eyes—not drops but streams, falling like a river carved from agony. They hit the silk realm and evaporated into smoke, as if even her tears were unacceptable here.
"Shut up…" she whispered.
"Do you remember how your cherished one died due to your incompetence?"
"Stop…"
"Do you remember how your own clan betrayed you? Left you for dead? Laughed as your future burned?"
Her voice rose again, a banshee scream drowned in joy.
"What a pitiful life you cling to."
The real one couldn't hold it in anymore.She screamed, a raw, broken sound that tore through the silk realm like an earthquake.Her body contorted, folding inward as if her bones were melting.Her eyes bled.Her tears ran black.
"SHUT UP! DON'T YOU DARE, DON'T YOU DARE SPEAK OF THEM!"
But there was no strength behind the roar.Only heartbreak.Only guilt.Only a truth she never wanted to face.
The demoness approached her slowly with triumph laughing, each step leaving behind ripples of darkness that swallowed the red silk ground. Her eyes gleamed with amusement, hunger, affection twisted into cruelty.
She crouched in front of the trembling woman, lifted her chin with one clawed finger, and whispered sweetly:
"Join me."
The air froze.Silence pulsed like a second heartbeat.
"I will show you the beauty of this damned world. The pleasure of this heretic realm. Power, freedom, ecstasy beyond what your fragile morals can comprehend."
Her breath brushed the other's ear, warm as sin.
"We will kill anyone who stands in our way. We will burn this world into a shape we desire. I will help you slaughter every name etched into your heart."
Her smile stretched, breaking the edges of her lips.
"Let's kill by heart's content."
She extended her hand toward her.
"Come…Let's join."
She collapsed to her knees, her breath catching as though the air itself had turned into needles. She stared at the floor, the shifting, bleeding silk ground, and saw only her legs trembling violently. Tears swelled in her eyes. Hatred dripped, anguish trembled, anger throbbed… each emotion crossing her face like cracks spreading across porcelain.
The demoness leaned close, her smile widening with ravenous delight."Ahh… that's it. Sweet. More… more hatred. More anger. Show them your indomitable anguish. Let it grow. Let us build a world where only we reign supreme."
Her hand reached forward.
And slowly, too slowly, the real one's trembling fingers lifted toward the demonic palm. Her vision blurred. Her breath hitched. Her eyes glowed faintly red as threads of crimson aura leaked from the corners like blood-tears dripping backward into her skull.
When their hands touched, the demoness's grin stretched further, too wide, too sharp.She tapped a finger against the real one's forehead.
"Now," she whispered, "fall into the eternal dream."
But the moment the demonic will pressed in, she froze."Hmm…? Something is wrong."Her smile flickered slightly."Alright… let's see your will."
The woman's eyelids lowered to three-fourths, heavy like stone gates shutting. And inside the darkness of those almost-closed eyes—
A world awakened.
She stood in a memory she never wanted to revisit or should say someone sealed it.
The courtyard was pale, moonlit, cold. Her small hands trembled as she saw her father's body dragged across the floor, blood staining the tiles like ink poured from a shattered well. Her uncle stood above him, blade red, eyes glinting with greed as he tore a jade pendent off her father's hand.
Then, her mother, limp in another man's arms, placed on a bed beside her dying husband.She saw herself, small, asleep near their feet.She felt her killing intent surge, boiling, spiralling, growing like a demon hatching inside her ribs.
But before the rage reached full bloom—
The scene cracked.
Like a film burning.
She found herself in a dim room.A lamp flickered.And she stood silently in the corner, completely still, watching something unseen.
The woman she once called "Mother" entered the room.She smiled toward the bed with a sweetness that curdled into something rotten.Then, without hesitation, she slipped off her night-robe, revealing her bare jade skin, laughing softly to herself.She crawled into the bed's shadows with a serpentine grace.
The real one tried to move, screamed to move, but her legs wouldn't obey.Her hands clawed at the air, but her body remained frozen.A heavy, suffocating pressure bound her limbs like invisible ropes.
Her heart thundered, cracking with panic.Her throat dried as though she was swallowing glass.She felt like she was drowning inside her own skull.
She tried to scream.
But no sound left her mouth.
The darkness in the corners pulsed.The walls bent inward as though breathing.And every breath of the room whispered—
"Watch."
To be Continued…