Chapter 844: A Girl’s Tears
Arthur could tell that Elaine possessed a strong death attribute, but that death affinity was still lying dormant.
What had awakened in her now was her lesser life power, which, in its uncontrolled state, drained the life force of anyone she touched.
And with his life law energy flowing into her body, amplifying that life power, it stimulated her dormant death power, triggering a quiet awakening.
"Elaine."
At the sound of her name, she lifted her eyes from her arms to Arthur, and as his smile slowly faded, he asked.
"What do you want to do to these people?"
"...what...I...do?"
"Mhmm. The ones who branded you cursed just because you were different. The ones who hurt you out of fear of your power. The ones who tried to kill you when you were only a normal girl with a little bit of power."
"..."
Elaine stayed quiet. She didn’t understand why Arthur was asking her this, and seeing the confusion in her face, he went on, guiding her thoughts with his words.
"If I unfreeze them, they’ll try to hurt you again."
"!"
"You don’t want that, right?"
Elaine nodded without hesitation, and at that, Arthur pointed at her hand and spoke.
"Then why don’t you use your power to stop them from doing so?"
Her eyes widened at the question, shifting from Arthur to the frozen people whose faces were still locked in agonised expressions.
Arthur had planted the thought of her deciding their fate herself, but the weight of such a choice overwhelmed her.
’I expected this much,’ Arthur thought as he watched her eyes swim with confusion.
He hadn’t outright told her to kill them because he wanted to test the waters, but his words had already nudged her toward recognising that she could choose to use her power against those who hurt her.
"You were victimised by them, and you suffered at their hands because they couldn’t understand you.
But now, you can change that. You can make them feel the pain they made you feel."
His smile vanished completely as he asked.
"So, what do you choose?"
"..."
Elaine couldn’t give an answer right away. Her hesitation was natural, expected, and while she silently struggled with herself, sound suddenly returned to her ears.
The strained groans of the townspeople began to echo again, and soon the square filled with the sound of their pained cries.
"!"
The priests staggered upright, fear and wariness etched across their faces as they looked around.
Elaine’s head snapped up, not at the voices of the townspeople or the growing panic, but at the sudden absence of the one person who had been right in front of her.
Arthur was gone.
Her breath hitched, lips trembling as she whipped her head about with wide eyes.
"W-where is he?! Where...where is he?!"
Her voice cracked, drawing the attention of the knights who had just managed to get to their feet.
Their eyes fell on her unchained arms and the black mist spilling from her hands, and immediately their expressions froze in horrified recognition.
"The witch is free!"
"Re-restrain the witch!"
Their blades slid free from their scabbards, steel gleaming in the light. The townsfolk shrieked, the knights’ words enough to ignite their fear into wildfire.
Screams rose into panicked wails as the square broke into a stampede, bodies shoving and trampling each other in their rush to escape the cursed girl who could ’kill with a thought’.
The priests, shaken but bound to their habits, raised their holy symbols high and roused their divine power.
Elaine flinched at the sight, her body jerking back as light sparked from their hands and symbols.
She tried to scramble upright, but her legs buckled, her frail body collapsing onto the platform again. Her butt hit the wood with a dull thud, and she braced herself on her hands, arms shaking as she fearfully crawled backwards.
Tears welled in her eyes as the knights began to form a slow circle around her.
Just then, her anti-divinity reacted to the priests’ divine power, spilling outward uncontrollably, and the priests recoiled in fear.
At the sight of them retreating, Elaine lowered her gaze to the energy pouring from her hands, her eyes widening.
Her meeting with Arthur was real and not a dream or hallucination, and the ’power’ pouring from her hands was proof enough of that.
She didn’t understand how or why he’d vanished, but she now knew what he said was true.
They were terrified of her power.
She could see it in the tremors of their lips, in the way the priests’ hands shook as they gripped their symbols tighter, and in the hard frowns and darkened brows of the knights.
Even as their weapons gleamed, their gazes betrayed it.
’They’re scared... like I was,’ she thought, her chest rising and falling as she breathed heavily while keeping her gaze fixed on the silent priests, the frowning knights, and the townspeople who had thrown stones and were now running in the background.
Her nails dug into her palm as the black mist thickened and darkened, wrapping around her arms like a second skin.
With the realisation that they feared her for being different, a new thought slid into her mind.
’If they’re scared... then I can hurt them, like they hurt me.’
At that thought, her cross-shaped pupils glowed faintly, the light steadily intensifying as the black mist escaping her arms spilt outward like a cloud of shadows, flowing off the platform toward the priests and knights who backed away while the screams of the fleeing townspeople swelled louder.
"W-what is that?!" one priest shouted, his voice cracking.
"Fall back—!"
But it was too late.
The black wave of energy rolled forward like a rising tide, the force sweeping them off their feet and throwing them to the ground.
The knights’ armour cracked, the priests’ holy symbols crumbled to dust, and the townspeople’s screams braided into a single wail as the mist swallowed them whole.
As the cloud of darkness siphoned the life from their bodies, Elaine felt an invigorating rush of strength flood her, and with that came the terrible realisation.
They would die.
And she would be their killer.
Her eyes widened in horror, her breath catching as her glowing pupils dimmed and her head shook violently.
"N-no... no, no, no, no!"
She couldn’t bring herself to cross that last boundary of ’willingly’ killing someone.
"St-stop—! I-I don’t... I don’t want this!"
The cloud of darkness answered her will, pulling back into her body as sobs burst from her throat.
The life drain ceased, but the screams of fear didn’t stop, each one sinking the pit of rage and grief in Elaine’s chest even deeper.
She wept not for them, but for her dead friend whose face burned in her memory, for the cruel stones hurled at her body, for the curse of power that marked her as a devil when she was nothing more than a girl.
Her arms trembled as she curled inward, sobbing uncontrollably while the black mist that had only just come under her control threatened to spill free and engulf everything around her once more.
But before it could, an unseen force pressed it back, and a familiar voice echoed in her ears.
"So that’s your choice, huh?"
She lifted her head to see Arthur crouched in front of her once more, her eyes widening in shock at his sudden reappearance.
Once again, everything around them was frozen except for the two of them, and with a faint smile, Arthur spoke.
"They didn’t die. You stopped it on your own. You’ve already taken the first step in controlling your power."
That much was true.
"Like I told you, it’s not a curse, just a power you can control. And you’re already doing well with it."
Arthur chose not to mention that her unstable emotions would have caused it to go out of control again as he reached out and patted her head.
"Good job".
With that, the last barrier broke, and she cried harder, her voice cracking as she clung tightly to him, desperate to hold on to the one person who was ’different’ like her.
Arthur simply patted her back in silence while his eyes shifted briefly toward the frozen crowd.
’About a third? No, closer to half. She only drained around half their life forces.’
For a moment, he considered killing them all, crimson light bleeding into his obsidian eyes, but before he could act, Elaine grew quiet, and when he looked down, he saw she’d cried herself to sleep.
Sighing, Arthur shook his head, the crimson fading from his eyes as he poured cosmic energy into the Cosmic Teleporter, forming a gate that would take them straight back to Chazat.
