Devil's Eye Reborn - Shadow Angel Awakens - Chapter 56

Chapter 56: Chapter 54: Rescue Zicheng
 

“Zicheng!” I watched in horror as Zicheng’s face slowly melted away before my eyes, feeling a sense of helplessness and fear.

“Xiao Nuo, what is happening… I feel so weak… Where are you…” Zicheng’s skin was slowly dripping off, his eyes and mouth being covered by the melting flesh, making his speech indistinct.

“Don’t worry, I’m here. Do you feel anything unusual in your body?” I held Zicheng’s hand, only to find it had become soft and boneless.

“I… I just feel… empty… like my body doesn’t belong to me at all…” Zicheng tried to lift his head to look at me, but his neck was now as flexible as a snake, nearly causing his head to separate from his body.

Seeing Zicheng in this state, my anxiety grew. Rahab had never mentioned such a situation to me. Typically, going berserk would only cause the demonic energy to leak continuously, but Zicheng’s condition was evidently different.

“Wait! Could it be that his demonic energy is exhausted?” I suddenly recalled Rahab mentioning that if a demon’s demonic energy ran out, which meant their lifespan had ended, they would suffer “Divine Retribution.”

“Divine Retribution” was a curse placed on demons by God to force them to constantly feed on desires to survive, never finding release in death. Each demon’s experience of “Divine Retribution” varied, but it was generally terrifying. Zicheng’s body melting into a puddle could very well be a sign of his impending doom.

Realizing that Zicheng was not going berserk, I felt a bit more at ease. If his demonic energy was depleted, I could simply replenish it. However, if he were going berserk, only the sacred artifact ‘Molin’ could wrap around the demon’s eye to save him.

“Zicheng, you are suffering ‘Divine Retribution’ because your demonic energy is depleted. I need to make a blood pact with you immediately, or you won’t survive.” With that, I quickly bit my finger and inserted it into Zicheng’s dissolving vein, allowing our blood to merge.

“I am making a deal with you now. I will give you ten years of life, but you must consume at least fifty years’ worth of desires within the next month. Do you accept this deal?” I asked Zicheng, whose body was slowly dissolving.

“Ugh… ugh…” Zicheng, now unrecognizable as his mouth had completely melted, could only make muffled sounds.

At first, I thought he was agreeing to the deal, but after a while, I noticed that my energy hadn’t decreased at all.

“Zicheng, you need to accept quickly, or you’ll die… Ah!” As I tried to lift his head, my hands felt a slippery sensation, and I realized that Zicheng’s head had already dissolved into a syrupy liquid, making him unable to hear my words due to the loss of his ear structure.

Cursing inwardly, I racked my brain for another solution. Suddenly, I noticed an old loudspeaker on the cluttered desk in the room.

“That’s it!” I quickly put Zicheng down, ran to the desk, and turned on the loudspeaker.

After testing it to ensure it was working, I urgently spoke into the loudspeaker, mimicking the orphanage director’s voice: “Cough, cough… Everyone, due to a special incident in the courtyard, all housemasters and nuns, please bring the children and gather in front of my room immediately. This is urgent, so please hurry!”

After repeating the broadcast several times, I leaned by the window and gently lifted the curtain to peek outside. Soon, the lights brightened, and the sound of people gathering outside reached my ears. I deliberately left the door ajar so they couldn’t see inside, but the bloodstains on the ground outside the door were left untouched to instill fear.

Looking back at Zicheng, I saw that his melting seemed to have slowed down, indicating that my plan might be working.

Demons survive on the negative emotions generated by humans, such as desire, fear, jealousy, and hatred. Through deals, demons absorb these negative energies and convert them into their own demonic energy.

Sometimes, merely provoking negative emotions in humans allows demons to absorb these emotions as sustenance, even without a deal. Although the amount released is minimal, if enough people are provoked, these small amounts of negative emotions can accumulate into a significant energy source.

Throughout history, many tyrants who waged endless wars were actually demons in disguise, aiming to feed on the hatred and fear of countless soldiers.

Since Zicheng couldn’t make a deal with me, my only option was to summon the people from the orphanage and incite their fear to provide Zicheng with the energy he needed.

However, the negative emotions being emitted were far from sufficient for his recovery.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A nun kept knocking on the door, anxiously asking, “Director, are you alright in there? Why did you call us here? We’re all confused, and the children are very frightened! Please come out and explain!”

I chuckled softly behind the door, then mimicked the director’s voice again, saying, “Alright, I’m coming out now. Have everyone look at the front door.”

Though puzzled, the nun followed my instructions and loudly told everyone to watch the door.

Once all eyes were on the door, I slowly opened it from behind, revealing the bloodstained walls inside, with the melting Zicheng at the center.

Seeing Zicheng’s grotesque form, everyone thought he was a monster and screamed in terror. The orphanage was filled with cries of fear and panic.

“Monster!” Facing the sudden and eerie scene, everyone in the orphanage tried to flee, but a strange wind surrounded them, preventing their escape.

Blinded by the wind, they had no choice but to stop and cover their faces.

When they finally stopped and the wind disappeared, they found themselves no longer in the familiar courtyard filled with cherry trees, but in a vast expanse of blood rivers and bone mountains.

The air was thick with a nauseating stench of blood.

The people from the orphanage were too stunned to scream, paralyzed by the sight before them.

“Father… where have you taken us?” The nun who had knocked on the door earlier muttered, staring at the blood-red landscape.

“Oh, I apologize for bringing you to the place you least wanted to go.” A male voice suddenly echoed above them.

Everyone looked up to see a handsome young man with an evil smile floating in the sky filled with dark red clouds.

The young man’s left eye glowed with a sinister red light.

The nun looked up at him in disbelief and asked, “Who are you? Where is this place?”

“Me? I am the demon you despise the most, Satan.” I replied softly, snapping my fingers. Countless gnarled hands made of bones emerged from the ground, grabbing everyone and pulling them into the earth, leaving only their heads above the surface.

Dragged underground, surrounded by bloodstained skulls, everyone screamed and cried in terror.

At that moment, the owners of the skeletal hands crawled out of the ground—hundreds of blood-soaked, naked demons.

The demons had no ears or noses, only a large mouth and a single eye.

“This is the first layer of ‘Hell,’ the ‘Tongue Extraction’ layer,” I said with a smile, as the demons opened their mouths and spat out rusty, broken iron hooks.

The courtyard outside the director’s room was filled with intense fear.

Hundreds of people lay on the ground, trembling. They foamed at the mouth, their faces contorted with terror, as they experienced the sensation of having their tongues repeatedly torn out by the nonexistent demons.

When the rough but blunt iron hooks pierced their tongues, the demons would hold their heads and slowly, slowly pull back, stretching the elastic tongues longer and longer.

When the muscles reached their limit, a ripping pain would shoot through the tongue’s root, filling their mouths with blood, as the demons’ hooks dangled with the bloody tongues.

Then, miraculously, a new tongue would grow back in their mouths.

The crows in the cherry trees cawed in distress, sensing the pain the people were enduring.

I returned to the room and closed the door, trying to block out the sounds, but the low, anguished moans still reached my ears.

I shook my head, trying to dispel a nagging sense of unease, but I couldn’t.

The great Satan, feeling a pang of guilt for his actions, no matter how small—Rahab was right, I still harbored a trace of compassion.

Though the people outside were only experiencing the weakest of the eighteen layers of ‘Hell,’ the ‘Tongue Extraction,’ most of their minds would be shattered by the ordeal, leaving them as mere shells, if they survived at all.

“But to save Zicheng, I have no other choice,” I said firmly, pushing aside my guilt. Zicheng’s potential was greater than Rahab and I had anticipated, and it would be a shame to lose him now.

Looking at Zicheng, I saw that his body was beginning to reform, despite the pain of reorganization causing him to faint. I closed my eyes and sat quietly to rest.

Though my demonic energy was depleted, I had stored away the ‘Eye of Illusions,’ as the fear outside was just enough for Zicheng. I had to suppress my urge to absorb the energy and wait until later to find sustenance.

Hmm? Sustenance?

I thought of Yuko on the bed.