178: Side Quest [4]

Side Quest [4]

Ruyue stared in shock at the scene of her Junior brother strangling the kind Village Elder she had agreed to help before they left the village. 

She couldn't understand what was happening. Her emotions were in such turmoil that she could barely think straight.

Blood everywhere, holding an innocent by her throat. The image that was painted in Ruyue's eyes was clear.

"Y-you…"

She looked at Damien in disbelief, trying to get the words out. 'You killed them all?' 

She wanted to say it, but the words got stuck in her throat. Rage began to bubble inside of her. 

She knew that Damien had a beast inside of him, something he couldn't control. She had seen it herself when they were subjected to Tian Yang's aura suppression. 

But, to think he would go so far.

"…!"

Her rage reached its peak and she couldn't take it anymore. Blueish white flames burst forth from her hands and encased her whole body.

"Let…LET GO OF HER!"

She screamed in fury, discharging a massive wave of flame towards Damien. But she didn't stop there. Flame swords like the one she used before and explosive lotuses with all 13 petals were thrown at his location.

But despite the flurry of attacks charging towards him, Damien didn't move. A strange power left his body, causing slight ripples in space.

And then, when the plethora of flaming attacks reached within 5 meters of his body…

They disappeared.

Well, not all of them. The massive wave of flames was gone entirely, but the rest of the attacks were still there.

Only, they weren't moving forward in the slightest. No matter how Ruyue urged them or tried to increase her output, her attacks seemed to be stuck in a deadlock.

Damien suddenly raised his arm that wasn't holding on to Elder Baba and flicked the air in front of him lightly. Following this movement, the barrage of flames shot forth once more.

Except, they were flying towards the sky, no longer on the path Ruyue had set them towards. 

B-b-boom!

A massive explosion rang out in the night sky, resembling fireworks. When Ruyue looked back at Damien, she was met with a pair of incomparably cold eyes.

However, his gaze didn't stay on her for long. Despite the anguish that was present on her face, the pain of betrayal she was currently feeling, he ignored her.

Or at least, that's what it seemed like.

When those ice-cold eyes returned back to meet the eyes of the figure in his grasp, two emotionless words left his mouth.

"Release her."

Emotionless? No, that wasn't the right word. Those two words contained an unbridled fury that surpassed even the fury Ruyue was feeling at the moment.

Damien at the moment was like a volcano on the precipice of eruption.

"I-I have…no idea…what you're…talking about," Elder Baba replied between strained breaths. "P-please! Let go…of me!"

Ruyue's anguish only heightened at the desperate cries of the elder, but before she could attack Damien once more, she felt a restrictive force encase her body, limiting her movement. 

"Stay there for now." Damien's words echoed in her ear. Unlike the biting cold that was contained in them when speaking to the elder, there was an untold gentleness when he addressed her.

"Stop playing mind games, bitch. Unless you want me to crush your skull right now, release her."

Elder Baba's eyes widened at his words before her panicked expression vanished as if it never existed. Instead, it was replaced by a sickening smile.

"Kek…I never expected there to be a young man like you involved in all this."

The voice that left her mouth was no longer that of the kind elder Ruyue remembered meeting. The voice that was now being broadcasted was grating, like nails being scraped across a chalkboard.

But Damien didn't care. He tightened his grip around her- no, the thing that was pretending to be her's throat and repeated the same line over again.

"Release. Her."

"Tch." The thing pretending to be Elder Baba clicked its tongue in dissatisfaction before its eyes glowed slightly, releasing a dull grey light.

All of a sudden, Ruyue dropped to the ground as a splitting headache assaulted her. 

'W-what is happening?'

All her previous animosity and anguish vanished like smoke as a change began to take place in her mind.

Her thoughts flashed back to all the actions she had taken ever since visiting the village.

The way she volunteered to help, the way she charged forward without thinking, the way she disregarded help in a fit of arrogance, and the way she kept overreacting to every slight problem that had happened. 

Not to mention, the odd peaceful feeling she felt from the forest, the feeling that made her not want to leave. 

The second that dull grey light disappeared from Elder Baba's eyes, it was all gone. The splitting headache soon ended and Ruyue once again opened her eyes.

Looking at the scene around her once more, she felt nothing. Not the slightest hint of sympathy. At most, she felt a slight regret that those two teenagers had died.

She panned her gaze back towards Damien as a complicated light flashed across her eyes. She didn't understand yet what was happening, but she could no longer find it in her to doubt his actions.

"Kek…now that I've released your little lover, let me go! You said you would let me go!"

That thing, it valued its life above all else. Even if it was caught in the end, at least it could live and scheme once more to get what it wanted.

However…

"Who said you could live?"

Damien ruthlessly grabbed Elder Baba's face and pulled as hard as he could. With the sound of fabric being torn from velcro, the entire face was ripped off.

Damien threw the skin to the side and looked at the creature whose features were now revealed. 

It was a creature with a face ugly enough to scar children, causing legitimate trauma. Its eyes were hollow, with dull grey flames lighting up its sockets, its skin was a mix of green and brown like sewage water, and its nose and mouth were crooked as if someone had bent them out of position.

Staring into those dull grey flames, Damien felt a pull on his consciousness, but in the end, nothing happened.

"So even at this point, you are trying to fool me." He said to the creature, who still didn't show signs of fear. 

"What else should I do? Bow down and beg for forgiveness? You're going to kill me anyway, aren't you?" It responded with disdain reeking from its tone.

Damien lightly closed his eyes. "I see." And without another word, he tightened his grip around its neck, distorting it with his spatial mana until the creature's head was upside down similar to the pack leader that had died before.

The flames in the creature's eye sockets dimmed before extinguishing completely and the small human body of Elder Baba faded into the grass beneath them.

Damien charged lightning into his hands and let it superheat before shooting it towards the already dead creature, incinerating its body. He wanted to be sure nothing else would come of it.

The coldness in Damien's gaze slowly faded as he turned to look at Ruyue, who had watched the entire ordeal take place. Seeing the lost look on her face, he sighed lightly.

"I'm sorry…"2

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