Chapter 585: Blessing Awakens!
They bit and tore and ripped with their teeth, like a pack of wolves that had finally cornered their prey.
BITE!
RIP!
TEAR!
One of them grabbed Mika’s arm and tore a chunk of flesh from his bicep.
Another bit into his chest, peeling away skin and muscle.
A third gnawed at his scalp, while a fourth tore off one of his toes with a sickening crunch.
"ARGHHH—! I-IT HURTS!" Mika screamed, his voice cracking with agony. "STOP—PLEASE—IT HURTS—"
But they didn’t stop. They couldn’t stop.
They were lost in a feeding frenzy, their humanity completely consumed by the hunger for power that had been growing inside them for weeks.
They tore pieces from Mika’s body like vultures picking at a carcass, except Mika wasn’t dead.
He was still alive. Still conscious. Still feeling every single moment of it.
Anya watched it all through a haze of tears and rage and despair.
She watched as they ripped the flesh from his legs, the same legs he had sacrificed over and over to keep them fed.
She watched as they tore open his stomach and pulled out his organs, fighting over them like dogs over scraps.
She watched as they bit off his nose, his ears, his lips, his fingers—reducing the boy she loved to a mutilated, barely recognizable ruin.
And through it all, Mika kept screaming.
"Stop...please...it hurts...make it stop...Anya...Anya...help me..."
His voice grew weaker with each word.
His struggles grew fainter.
The light in his eyes, that bright, clever, knowing light that had always been there, even in the darkest moments began to fade
And Anya, held helpless by the nurses who had stayed back to guard her, could only watch.
’This...is my fault.’
The thought rose up from somewhere deep inside her, cold and terrible and absolute.
’This is all my fault.’
’If I were stronger. If I had a blessing. If I had been able to protect him the way he protected me...’
’If I hadn’t been so happy when he didn’t get his blessing. So selfish. So cruel. So relieved that he would be mortal like me.’
’This is my punishment. This is what I deserve.’
The memories of Mika flooded through her mind.
—
Mika, who had been by her side for as long as she could remember.
"Come on, Anya. Let’s go watch the sunset together."
—
Mika, who understood her silence, indulged her little hobbies, and sat beside her in peaceful companionship without ever demanding a word.
"You don’t have to say anything. I’m happy just sitting here with you."
—
Mika, who held her through her tears when she hated her blessing, gently wiping them away as he smiled.
"Your blessing doesn’t define you, Anya. You’re already enough...exactly the way you are."
—
Mika, who had severed his own legs over and over again, never once hesitating if it meant keeping her alive.
"They’re just legs. They’ll grow back. As long as Anya safe...that’s all that matters."
—
Mika...who was now being devoured alive before her eyes because she was too weak to save him.
"It hurts, Anya..."
"It hurts...so much..."
—
The world seemed to fall silent.
Every memory, every promise, every smile they had shared flashed through her mind in an instant.
And then...
Something inside Anya snapped.
It wasn’t a gradual process. It wasn’t a slow erosion of her sanity over days and weeks and months.
It was instantaneous, a single, cataclysmic fracture that split her mind in two and let something else crawl out through the cracks.
She started to laugh.
"Haha..."
"Hahahahaha!"
The nurses holding her exchanged nervous glances.
"W-What’s wrong with her? Why is she laughing?"
"Shut up, girl. Shut up right now or I’ll—"
But Anya didn’t shut up. She kept laughing, a high, brittle sound that echoed through the cavern like shattering glass.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Her eyes, which had been filled with tears moments ago, were now dry and burning with an unnatural light.
The light in Anya’s hair grew brighter. .
The colors began to shift and swirl—red to blue to green to gold, cycling faster and faster until they became a blur.
"W-What’s happening to her?" One of the nurses whispered. "Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong."
The air around her crackled with energy.
The ground beneath her feet began to tremble.
"Shit! I don’t want anything to do with this!"
They tried to let go of her. Tried to run.
They were too late.
BOOM!
A massive shockwave of rainbow light exploded outward from Anya’s body, blasting through the cavern with the force of a thunderclap.
"Ahhhh—!"
"Arghhhh—!"
The nurses were thrown backward, slamming into the walls with sickening crunches.
The adults who had been feasting on Mika were knocked away from his body, tumbling across the stone floor like ragdolls.
And Anya rose into the air.
She floated there, suspended in the center of the cavern, wreathed in an aura of shifting, prismatic light.
Her rainbow hair streamed behind her like a banner of war.
Her dark eyes surveyed the scene below her with an expression that was no longer human.
It was the expression of a goddess.
A goddess of vengeance!
A goddess of pain!
The head doctor, his mouth still dripping with Mika’s blood, was the first to recover his senses.
He looked at Anya and forced a smile onto his face.
"Now, now, Lady Anya." He said, his voice trembling despite his efforts to sound calm. "Let’s not be hasty. We didn’t mean any harm."
"We were just...just hungry."
"You understand, don’t you? You’ve been hungry too."
Anya tilted her head. Her expression was unreadable.
"The boy was dying anyway." Another doctor added quickly. "He was already so weak. It was only a matter of time."
"We just...We just made use of what was available. That’s all."
"No need for hard feelings—"
But before he could finish—Anya smirked.
And the head doctor’s doctor’s skin...peeled off.
Not slowly. Not gradually. One moment it was there, and the next it was gone—
SHLIRCKKK—!
—ripped from his body by an invisible force that left him standing there in nothing but his exposed muscles and tendons.
For one horrible second, he didn’t seem to understand what had happened.
He looked down at his hands, at the wet glistening red where his skin should have been and he screamed.
"AAAAAAAGH! WHAT—WHAT DID YOU—MY SKIN—MY SKIN IS—"
He thrashed and stumbled, his exposed flesh scraping against the rough stone floor.
"ARGHHHHHH—! IT HURTS—! IT HURTS SO MUCH—! AHHHHHHH—!"
Every pebble, every grain of sand, every jagged edge sent fresh waves of agony through his body.
"What—what did you do to him?!" One of the nurses shrieked.
Anya didn’t answer. She just tilted her head again.
SHRIIIIICKKK!
The doctor’s muscles tore themselves from his bones!
Not all at once—that would have been too merciful.
Instead, they unraveled layer by layer, fiber by fiber, stripping away from his bones like meat falling off a slow-cooked roast.
He collapsed to the ground, unable to stand without muscles to support him, and his screams reached a pitch that was almost inaudible.
"PLEEEASE! I BEG YOU! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT—"
She chuckled and his bones shattered.
The sound was like dry twigs snapping—crack, crack, crack—as every bone in his body broke simultaneously.
His skull. His spine. His ribs. His arms. His legs. His fingers. His toes.
All of them, reduced to fragments in an instant!
But he was still somehow alive. Still conscious.
Still aware of every single shattered piece of himself.
Anya smiled at the sight before she turned her attention to the others.
—
The fat nurse who had stolen Anya’s mattress was the next to die.
Anya didn’t touch her. She didn’t need to.
She simply looked at the woman, and the woman’s body began to betray her.
"Wai—what’s happening?! BLERGHHHH!"
Her stomach convulsed, and she doubled over, vomiting—but it wasn’t bile that came out of her mouth.
It was her own organs!
Her stomach. Her liver. Her kidneys.
They pushed their way up through her throat and out past her lips, splattering onto the ground in a wet, steaming pile.
"I’M SORRY!" The nurse gasped, choking on her own intestines.
"I’M SORRY—PLEASE—I HAVE CHILDREN—"
"Did you...think about Mika’s mothers when you were eating him alive?" Anya serenely asked.
"Did you...think about how she would feel when she found out what you did to her son?"
The nurse couldn’t answer. Her lungs had just come out of her nose.
—
The administrator tried to run.
But Anya just giggled and twisted her fingers, and his legs twisted along with them—spinning around and around like corkscrews until the bones snapped and the flesh tore and he collapsed into a screaming heap of broken limbs.
"PLEASE!" He sobbed. "PLEASE, I’LL DO ANYTHING! I’LL GIVE YOU ANYTHING! JUST STOP—"
"You already took everything." Anya said in a daze.
"You took his flesh..."
"You took his blood..."
"You took his smile and his laugh and the light in his eyes..."
"What else is there for you to give?"
She twisted her fingers again, and his neck snapped until his head was facing the wrong way and his screams had been reduced to a wet gurgle.
—
The other nurse, the one who had been obsessed with her beauty tried to plead.
"I-I just wanted to be pretty." She whimpered, tears streaming down her face. "That’s all I wanted. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone—"
Anya looked at her, and the nurse’s body split in half.
SHLURKK!
Not a clean split down the middle. It was as if the left side of her body and the right side of her body had decided they no longer wanted to be together.
They pulled apart slowly, agonizingly, the flesh stretching and tearing, the bones cracking, the organs spilling out into the space between them.
"Monster!" One of the nurses shrieked. "She’s a monster! Run! RUN!"
What followed was a symphony of suffering.
—
One doctor had his blood heated to boiling, his skin bubbling and blistering as he cooked from the inside out.
Another had his cells multiply uncontrollably, his body swelling and distorting until he burst like an overripe fruit.
A nurse felt her bones begin to grow—expanding, stretching, pushing against her flesh until they erupted through her skin in a spray of crimson.
And through it all, Anya laughed.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
She laughed and laughed and laughed, her rainbow hair swirling around her, her dark eyes gleaming with unholy joy.
Every scream was music to her ears.
Every death was a brushstroke on the canvas of her vengeance.
She had been helpless for so long—weak and timid and afraid—but now she was powerful.
Now she was the one in control. Now she was the one who decided who lived and who died.
But death was too easy. Death was too quick.
So when the last adult had breathed their last, Anya simply waved her hand and brought them back.
The flesh knitted together. The bones reformed. The blood flowed backward into veins.
The adults gasped back to life, their eyes wide with the horror of resurrection, their minds reeling from the memory of their own deaths.
"What—how—"
"We’re alive?!"
"Thank the gods, we’re—"
"Shall we go again?" Anya asked sweetly.
And she killed them a second time.
This time, she was more creative.
She inverted one woman’s skin, turning her inside out like a glove.
She caused another’s brain to develop sentience and begin consuming the other organs in his body.
She made a third tear off his own jaw with his bare hands, his body obeying her commands rather than his own will.
They screamed. They begged. They pleaded for mercy.
Anya didn’t care.
She killed them again, and she brought them back, and she killed them again, and she brought them back.
Ten times. Twenty times. A hundred times.
Each death was more creative than the last.
Each resurrection was followed by a fresh wave of hope that was immediately crushed by another round of agony.
"PLEASE! LADY ANYA, PLEASE!"
"I HAVE CHILDREN! I HAVE A FAMILY!"
"WE’LL DO ANYTHING! WE’LL GIVE YOU ANYTHING!"
"JUST LET US DIE! PLEASE, LET US STAY DEAD!"
But Anya didn’t want their offerings. She didn’t want their apologies.
She was going to keep killing them forever.
She was going to spend the rest of her life in this cavern, surrounded by the bones of Mika’s sacrifice, torturing these monsters until the end of time itself.
She was going to—
"Anya..."
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