Chapter 21: Inhuman Perseverance
Lumine wanted to visit the Razawin Cathedral of the Red Moon and verify the records registered about him, for there was no trace of Amelia in his house, and no one remembered her, but he chose to believe her.
However, if there were another piece of evidence, it would completely extinguish the remaining doubts; there might be a marriage certificate at the cathedral. But to his misfortune, the cathedral was closed, so he had no choice but to return home and check on his sister.
As Lumine approached the house, he noticed his old neighbor, Virgal, waiting on the path.
Lumine walked past him and tried to avoid speaking with him while anger flared from his eyes in pure hatred.
Lumine tried to compose himself as memories of his father flooded back, before his father had gone out to sacrifice himself in a ritual—that moment which left an unforgettable mark on his life, when his father gifted him his cloak and left the house never to return.
Later, he heard from Deco a truth that broke a part of his soul: on the night of the celebration, Virgal took a piece of Lumine's father's intestines and danced in the square.
Lumine could not control himself; he burst into old Virgal's house and beat him mercilessly. Deco tried to stop him, shouting, "Stop! They will accuse you of hostility against the Red Moon! Stop!"
Lumine clenched his fist and, with all his strength, struck Deco on his jaw while responding with a louder shout, "Damn them! I will kill him and I don't care what happens!"
Deco fell to the ground, his consciousness shattered, having received a blow that came close to breaking his jaw.
Lumine turned his gaze back to Virgal and shouted aloud as he clenched his fist.
One strike: "Why?!"
Two strikes: "Despicable!"
Three: "Scoundrel!"
Four: "Ingrate!"
..
Nine: "Filth!"
Virgal received the final blows submissively. In the beginning, he tried to resist and throw Lumine away, but he failed to evade the last strikes, until his nose was broken.
Lumine grabbed old Virgal by the neck and shouted, "Why?!"
Virgal smiled at Lumine's question and slowly fainted without an answer. The rage mounted inside Lumine without stopping; he clenched his fist, determined to beat him to death.
Tsk. Lumine received a blow to his jaw and flew, falling to the ground before he could strike Virgal again.
Slowly, Lumine tried to endure the severe pain and headache as he sat up and raised his head, saying, "Deco..."
With furious features, Deco took a powerful leap forward and struck Lumine, sending him falling once again.
Deco sat on top of Lumine, pinning his elbows down with force in a position that prevented him from breaking free, and then attempted to choke him.
Lumine wanted to resist, but he could not, for Deco pinned his hand with all his might. Before that, he had received a powerful blow to his jaw and was on the verge of fainting, so he could only utter with difficulty before passing out, "Wh... y..."
..
With difficulty, Lumine had managed to restrain himself from killing Virgal. But when he walked a few steps away from him, he heard his voice calling him from behind, "The Castle Man succeeded; it seems you are bonded now."
Lumine turned around quickly and controlled his anger as he said, "Do you know the Castle Man?"
The old man Virgal raised his finger and approached slowly to touch Lumine's temple.
Lumine tried to take steps backward, but his body did not obey him, as if he had lost control of his body and become a consciousness without a physical form.
Mr. Virgal touched Lumine's temple and said with a smile, "Know him? What happened to you and Rahil was because of us, and now we must move to the next step."
Lumine felt his world changing. In a few brief moments, he was in the middle of a sea stretching without limits, but he ignored this and eyed Virgal, who was before him, with intense rage.
He closed his fist and, with all his strength, struck Virgal, but he felt no impact on his fist, as if he had touched an empty mist.
Before Lumine could react to this mysterious state, he realized he was floating in the air above the sea.
In an instant, he felt a hand grabbing him by his shoulder and heard Virgal's voice from behind him, "Do not let anger control you."
Lumine wanted to turn around and punch Virgal while hatred boiled within him, but for a second time he could not control his body. In this mysterious circumstance, he noticed the sea churning beneath him.
In a second, a massive island emerged from the bottom of the stretching sea.
Virgal raised his hand and closed his fist as he said, "This is the Island of Consciousness. Your entire consciousness is within it. Do you know what would happen if you duplicated it?"
Lumine wanted to move and strike Virgal without caring about his question, but he could not.
Virgal answered himself and said with confidence as another island emerged from the sea, "The Island of Consciousness contains all your behaviors and actions, and when duplicating it, you will have two islands of consciousness... What if you altered one of them while leaving the other as it is? What do you think would happen?"
Lumine's pupils dilated as he realized the answer to the question, but he could not move to prevent Virgal from executing his step.
Virgal answered himself and said, "Then your body will develop a second identity... you will be afflicted with Dissociative Identity Disorder... meaning there will be a split in your personality."
Virgal extended his finger to Lumine's temple while a massive mountain formed on the duplicated island, "Do you know why I am telling you about this?"
Virgal smiled as he eyed Lumine's furious face and his hateful eyes, and continued, "Because I can manipulate your memories."
...
A creaking sound echoed through the place and Lumine entered the house.
Lumine wanted to visit the Razawin Cathedral of the Red Moon and verify the registered information about him, for there was no trace of Amelia in his house, and no one remembered her, but he chose to believe her.
However, if there were another piece of evidence, it would completely extinguish the remaining doubts; there might be a marriage certificate at the cathedral. But to his misfortune, the cathedral was closed, so he had no choice but to return home and check on his sister.
He opened the door and felt a severe headache in his head. He tried to endure the headache and go to his room.
For he had taken longer than he expected in his discussion with Count Vicoth regarding the establishment of the exchanges, and it did not end until midnight arrived, and he did not want to disturb Deco and Fiona by bursting into their room at night.
But he intended to see Rahil quickly before going to his room to sleep.
With every step he took, a foul and familiar odor intensified in his nose. A feeling of nausea came over him from the smell, and he felt panic because of it, for it was the smell of a discarded corpse.
Lumine endured the odor and nausea, then ran at his maximum speed to the stairs to ascend to his sister's room.
He reached the room, his breath ragged. With all his strength, he extended his hand and opened the door.
The door slammed against the wall, making a loud noise. Lumine ignored it and found before him a white female dog, resembling a white wolf, fallen on the floor... Rahil.
Lumine's panic vanished in an instant, and the light of life returned to his eyes, for there was no blood around Rahil or on her body.
He raised his hand, wanting to exhale to calm himself down. He placed his hand before his mouth and exhaled the air to relax, but he noticed that he had lost all his fingers except for his index finger, and blood was flowing profusely.
He had felt no pain from his fingers because his psychological relief surpassed the pain, but upon seeing his fingers severed, he felt a sharp, almost indescribable pain.
He bit his lips hard and eyed the doorknob with eyes half-closed from the pain, and found his four fingers frozen onto the door.
A freezing cold breeze, like bullets, swept through Lumine's body. His body began to stiffen and grow heavy from the cold, and his movement became more difficult.
He felt lethargy rising from his chest; his shoulders began to turn to stone and lose their flexibility, and his limbs were colored white.
Lumine felt despair and pain throughout his entire body, but from his heart emerged a determination and perseverance that made him endure the severe pain and advance forward with difficulty.
The white color in his limbs cracked with every step he took, and the pain increased enough to make him weep, but tears did not fall from his eyes due to the severity of the cold.
Lumine advanced slowly, enduring the pain and cold, until only a few steps remained for him to reach Rahil, but the matter was becoming more difficult, as the breeze grew stronger the closer he got to Rahil.
At this stage, Lumine no longer felt the pain or the cold, as if he had lost the ability to feel, but there was a determination emerging from his chest, preventing him from turning back or stopping.
Lumine took another step forward, but the moment he did so, his leg shattered from the ankle.
Lumine fell on his forehead and felt his hand touching thick, soft fur.
A thought hovered in Lumine's mind as he wondered why he had fallen. Slowly, he shifted his gaze from the soft fur to the back and found his leg frozen to the ground.
Lumine felt intense nausea from his stomach and wanted to throw up. Within a few brief moments, he felt sharp thorns in his throat and a green fluid reaching his tongue. Lumine stopped throwing up for a moment due to the sharp thorns that got stuck in his throat.
Lumine found a foul taste in his mouth and experienced a nausea greater than before, and this time, he threw up everything in his stomach.
Viscous and semi-frozen green water, sharp thorns of frozen water, and pieces of eaten chicken—Lumine threw up everything he had consumed this evening.
Lumine tasted blood, and on his tongue was a fluid draining down through his throat.
There was a peculiar feeling in his chest, as if a fluid was slowly gathering in his lungs.
Lumine wanted to stand up and placed his other hand on the floor to rise, but his fingers were severed and blood was flowing from them.
Lumine could only turn himself over and look at his severed ankle, and there was a red color like blood beginning to gather, blurring his vision. He was on the verge of surrendering to death, but there was a perseverance in his heart that made him endure and return his hand to Rahil's soft fur.
Lumine touched the head of his sister Rahil and spoke in broken syllables while coughing blood, "Ra... hi... l."
Clap, clap, clap. Lumine heard the sound of clapping coming from the direction of the door. He wanted to raise his neck from the floor and see the person who was clapping.
But his neck was frozen and petrified; he could not move it, as if it were a hard stone.
Lumine's gaze was fixed on Rahil's fur while he heard the voice of an old man bearing malice toward him, "Your perseverance is inhuman. Does saving her deserve all this effort?"
Lumine heard the voice and could only think with hatred, 'Virgal.'
Lumine wanted to speak, but he coughed blood instead, and breathing had become more difficult for him.
Virgal answered his own question and did not wait or take pity on Lumine, who coughed blood nonstop, "Your sister is already dead, but do not worry, with this perseverance of yours, you will join her soon."
...
Lumine woke up in his bed and found himself in a large, red-colored bed, like the bed he had bought for Deco and Fiona, and he was feeling a slight coldness in his head.
He felt a slight headache in the front of his head, and he did not remember what had happened to him. The last thing he could remember was that he had passed beside Virgal while he was returning home, so how did he come here?
He raised his head from the pillow while he thought, 'This is the second time... why didn't I transport to the Red Mist?'
When Lumine raised his torso, a damp tissue paper fell from his head. Lumine picked it up slowly and realized that someone was taking care of him.
Lumine picked up the tissue normally, but suddenly he felt a severe headache and a piercing coldness upon seeing his fingers.
Lumine closed his eyes as he tried to remember what had happened to him after he bypassed old Virgal, but nothing flowed into his memory except strange and scattered images.
Like floating above a mysterious island, and beside him an old man, misty in form.
He was looking at his sister fallen on the floor in her room.
He was fallen on the floor, and the fingers of his hand were severed.
He was looking back, and his ankle was severed down below.
Lumine felt a severe pain in his head, but it quickly dissipated, and those images vanished from his mind as if they had been sealed.
He no longer felt the headache and the coldness; he did not understand the reason, but he felt a person standing behind all of this.
Knock, knock. The echo of a knock on the door resounded, and a voice familiar to Lumine spoke, making him stop thinking, "I'm coming in."
Lumine eyed the door and spoke, "Come in."
Deco entered the room, and Lumine noticed clear exhaustion on his face, and tiredness was evident on his body.
Deco approached Lumine and made him lie on his back. Lumine tried to resist and said, "It's alright, I feel nothing but a slight headache, I can stand up."
Deco lied and said, "Yesterday you were fallen on the floor when I found you, you shouldn't stand up."
In truth, Lumine had come with the assistance of Virgal while suffering from a massive headache, but Deco hid the fact of Virgal's involvement so as not to provoke Lumine's emotions and his hatred.
Lumine eyed Deco's face for a few seconds before replying, "Look at your face, you are the one who needs rest, not me."
Deco's face froze as if he had heard a truth he did not want to hear, but in a second, he drew a comforting smile on his face and said, "Lumine, a few days ago Fiona gave birth early. Fortunately, no one died and a healthy baby girl was born, I decided to name her Lovia."
Lumine smiled with joy and said, "Isn't this something to be joyful about? Why are you so exhausted?"
Deco continued his speech and said, "I suppose so... but Fiona hasn't woken up since that day... five days have passed since her delivery. She is in the hospital, but there are no signs of her waking up."
Lumine's lips frowned at what he heard, as he realized the great burden on Deco's shoulders in an instant. For he had been taking care of his sister Rahil who had transformed, and he had to stay beside his wife and take care of her.
On top of that, he had to commit to paying the costs of Fiona's stay in the hospital and the costs of a doctor staying beside his daughter Lovia.
And worst of all, he was forced to stay beside Lumine, whom he found fallen before the house, without sleep.
Lumine remained frozen without speaking for a while until he sighed heavily and said, "Take a nap, I will stay here and nothing will happen. Rest, and then let's go to see Lovia and Fiona."
Deco was on the verge of refusing, but he stopped, for he was feeling extreme exhaustion and a pain in his head from staying awake. He nodded his head and said, grateful to Lumine, "You will be amazed by Lovia, she is extremely cute."
Lumine nodded his head and replied, smiling, "I am excited to see her, but rest first."