Cheon Do-Yoon frowned, glaring at Kwon Oh-Jin.
“What nonsense are you spouting?” Even now, the scorching sunlight was beating down hard enough to sting his skin, yet Kwon Oh-Jin had mentioned a dark sky. “Did you go blind or something—Huh?”
Cheon Do-Yoon looked up to find the clear, cloudless blue sky sinking into darkness. Day was collapsing into night.
“W-What? What the hell did you do, you bastard?!” he stumbled backward in panic. The sky wasn't what had been swallowed by darkness.
“Haa...! Haa...! Haa...! W-What the hell is happening...?” He touched his eyes with trembling arms. His vision had disappeared.
A superhuman like him would never lose his sight no matter how dark the surroundings got, yet a pitch-black darkness devoured his sight, leaving him unable to see even an inch ahead.
He heard a spark cut through the silence.
He desperately turned his head toward the sound and vaguely saw a pair of blue flames.
Flickering ominously like goblin fire, those eerie blue lights were the only things glowing in the darkness before him.
More than eighty percent of human perception was based on sight. Having lost it in an instant, he flailed around in complete panic.
Footsteps echoed quietly in the darkness ominously like water dripping in an empty alley at dawn. Cheon Do-Yoon’s face turned deathly pale.
“Y-You think just because I can’t see, I can’t take down a bastard like you?!”
He blindly fired a barrage of feathers toward the flickering blue flames.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Hearing the faint sound of feathers slicing through the air, he wondered if it had worked. The distant blue flames vanished as if they had been snuffed right out.
“H-Hahaha! Didn’t I tell you?!” he shouted in the direction of the extinguished flames. "Even without my sight, taking care of a bastard like you is a piece of cake!”
I don't know if it landed properly, but he was on the verge of collapsing just moments ago. I can't imagine he survived.
But then why? The eerie blue flames are gone. The crackling sparks and the arrogant voice are all gone... so why is the world still pitch-black?
“Damn it! Why?! Why can I still not see?!” He frantically rubbed his eyes. “Haa! Haa!”
Anxiety spread through him like poison.
What if... this isn't temporary? What if I'm forever trapped inside this endless night?
He contorted, as if having a seizure, and suddenly lost balance.
Did I trip over a rock...?
He barely managed to steady himself at the last moment, preventing an embarrassing fall.
But... what the hell is this?
A cold chill crept down his spine. That unsettling feeling from earlier about something being off was now undeniable.
“My sight... isn’t the only thing I lost.”
Even blind, he was a nine-star Awakener, a being who had long since surpassed human limits. There was no reason he should have stumbled over something as trivial as a rock, but he had.
All my other senses... are fading.
His sense of smell, touch, hearing, and perhaps even taste hadn't vanished completely. However, they had severely dulled without a doubt.
“Haa... haa... haa...!”
Even his own breathing sounded distant like it belonged to someone else.
A suffocating terror crushed in around him, the kind that made it feel like he’d been left adrift and utterly alone in an empty void.
Just then, he heard a faint sound.
He whipped his head toward the source of the sound, but all he found was pitch-black darkness, thick and impenetrable.
“Ugh! W-Where are you?!” he screamed in desperation, but there was no response. “Where the hell are you, you bastard?!”
Channeling mana from his Stigma, he shot feathers in every direction.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Hundreds, thousands, or maybe millions of feathers tore through the air in a violent storm.
Is it just my imagination...? He felt his stamina drain quickly as if he were prancing around in water. No, it's really dissipating...!
Like dry earth soaking up water, his mana was being drained at an alarming rate.
“Where are you?! Answer me, damn it!”
Lost in this void where he couldn’t tell up from down and left from right, his Stigma's power was the only thing keeping him grounded. He was bound by a feeling that if he stopped attacking now, he'd never escape the endless abyss he was in.
He felt like he couldn’t breathe. His massive mana reserves were dwindling as if being soaked up by a sponge.
He didn’t know where Kwon Oh-Jin was hiding, but he unleashed attacks powerful enough to wipe a mountain off the face of the earth.
This should be enough... There's no way he could have survived even in perfect condition.
Cheon Do-Yoon glanced around with a faint smile. “It's over for you!”
Then, he heard the spark again.
Except this time, it came from right beneath his chin.
“W-What the...?” He instinctively lowered his head to find a pair of ominous blue flames right under his nose—so close he could touch them. “A-Ah...”
He staggered back as goosebumps crawled over his skin.
If those flickering flames are Kwon Oh-Jin’s eyes... then that bastard was right here the whole time while I was wildly sending out a storm of feathers.
Cheon Do-Yoon’s face turned deathly pale. “Aaaaaah!”
He threw away all his dignity as a king and pathetically fell on his ass. A wet warmth ran between his legs.
“Y-You bastard!” Driven by sheer panic, he flailed his arms wildly, raining down black feathers toward the blue flames. “T-Ten-Thousand Black Feather Blossom!”
His attack was pathetic while wetting himself. Nonetheless, it was still powerful considering he was a nine-star Awakener, a level said to be attainable by only a chosen few among the countless Awakeners.
The storm of black feathers aimed straight for the blue flames. Just then, a black form of lightning, imbued with darkness, tore through the air.
The feathers, once filled with destructive might, suddenly fell weakly to the ground.
“Hic!” Cheon Do-Yoon gritted his teeth and thrust his arm forward. A single strand of black lightning lashed out and grazed his outstretched arm.
He could no longer feel anything below his left elbow. A strangled groan escaped his lips, and fear seeped into him like ink spreading into water.
“Why...? Just why...?”
Am I scared because my arm was severed? Or because blood is gushing from the stump?
No... That's not why.
It was because even though his arm had been cut off, he felt no pain.
Overwhelmed by maddening fear, he desperately screamed, “I-I lost! I’ll give up the Draconic Eye! And the dragon’s heart! I’ll give up everything!”
The treasures he had chronically desired no longer mattered.
“S-So, please! Pleaaase!”
I don't need any of those things! Who cares about the Serpens Queen’s orders at this point?
“J-Just let me out of here! I’m begging you!”
He'd be okay if he could escape this seemingly endless darkness.
With another crackle of black lightning, he lost all sensation in his right arm. Again, there was no pain.
“A-Ah... S-S-Stop...”
It was an unimaginable, horrifying feeling. Having one's senses fade one by one like switches being turned off as the mind-shattering despair of being erased from existence set in.
The feeling in his legs disappeared.
The feeling in his waist disappeared.
The feeling in his shoulders disappeared.
Tears streamed down Cheon Do-Yoon’s face as he pleaded, “No... No... Please...”
A faint voice echoed through the pitch-black darkness. “Do you want to leave this place?”
Cheon Do-Yoon’s eyes widened, and he frantically nodded. “Y-Yes! Please, let me out!! I’ll do whatever you ask! A-Anything, so please...!”
He didn’t know why on earth the apostle of Vega possessed such a terrifying power, but it didn't matter. If Kwon Oh-Jin could pull him out of this darkness, he would even lick his feet in gratitude.
“Then, let’s make a deal," Kwon Oh-Jin replied. "You like deals, don’t you?”
Cheon Do-Yoon flinched.
“If you do me one favor, I’ll let you leave this place,” Kwon Oh-Jin conveyed. His voice rang out like sweet honey—no, more like a devil's temptations.
A glimmer of hope sparked in Cheon Do-Yoon’s eyes. “R-Really? You’ll really let me leave?”
As desperate as a man clinging to life by his fingertips on the edge of a cliff, he bowed deeply. Then, he looked up at the devil standing before him.
“Of course. I always keep my word.”
Beneath the eerie glow of the blue flames, Cheon Do-Yoon caught a glimpse of a row of gleaming white teeth.
“I don’t know how to lie, after all.”