In the white expanse of infinity, three figures stood, silently observing each other.
'I never thought I would be seeing her here.'
Levi was filled with a sense of dread, he clenched his fists at the sides. He had left everything behind to get away from her, yet he was seeing her in this world too?
He sighed and gathered his composure. She was not here, it was his mind playing against him. Whoever had put him in this situation must have been an expert at mind magic.
The girls were most likely in danger too. He needed to get out of this situation as soon as possible, they could be dead at this point of time, or they could be carrying him to safety.
He ought to at least know what was happening, even if waking up meant death. Which he hoped that things would not end up that way.
With pushing unnecessary thoughts out of his mind, he focused on the two women in front of him. His eyes kept drifting towards the blonde woman, she was ethereal and pleasant to look at even if her face seemed blurry.
Looking at her... made Levi feel a hint of longing.
It was as if she was someone who he has been yearning for centuries.
Once the ethereal beauty turned her gaze towards him, he felt those emotions grow even stronger to the point it made him want to cry. Even if her face was blurry, Levi could somehow feel that she was smiling at him.
That smile was filled with a mixture of sadness and happiness.
"Who... just who are you?" Levi asked in a baffled tone. His emotions were a bit too much for him to comprehend.
However instead of an answer, all he received was a shrug. A slow shrug that inevitably made him even more sadness, making his heart ache at the sight of her.
Why did she have the power to make him yearn for answers? Why did that shrug feel so painful?
Not wanting to feel this much anymore, he looked away from the ethereal beauty.
Almost immediately, the foreign feelings that did not belong to him faded away.
Replaced by the ones he was all too familiar with, the kind that settled in his chest like chains tightening around his heart.
When he looked at Seraphine, she was smiling at him.
An empty smile.
Seraphine was his former lover.
Or perhaps a tormenter.
He had met her after entering the university of his dreams. A place he had worked his entire life to reach, where he thought his new beginning would start. But instead, that was where his ruin began.
Levi had never been good with people. He was quiet, reserved, too used to silence. The unfamiliar city and the unfamiliar faces surrounded him from all sides.
Then he met her.
Seraphine. A senior student, four years older, bright and confident, everything he wasn't. She was kind at first, attentive in a way that disarmed him. When she smiled, it was like sunlight in a place that had long forgotten warmth.
Back in his household, there had never been much warmth. His parents weren't cruel, but they weren't tender either. They valued achievement, not emotion. Praise was rare; affection, rarer.
Levi had never known what it felt like to be cared for, so when Seraphine reached out her hand, he mistook control for comfort.
He thought he'd finally found someone who saw him.
But what he'd really found was someone who wanted to own him.
His mood became dependent on her approval, his schedule molded around her demands. His world shrank until it fit neatly in the palm of her hand.
Her voice became law. Her silence, punishment.
And when she grew jealous at the slightest thing, her affection turned to accusation. When he tried to argue, her words became violence. Then her hands followed.
Levi endured six years of that quiet, rotting nightmare. Six years of walking on eggshells, smiling when he was told to smile, apologizing for things he hadn't done.
He couldn't escape, not from her, not from the power her family held. The police brushed him off; his reports vanished as if swallowed by air. She came from money, from influence, and his words weighed nothing against hers.
Yet somehow, he survived long enough to graduate.
He boarded a plane home without saying goodbye, thinking distance would finally grant him peace.
But peace never came.
Despite finishing the best of the best university, he was rejected from every hospital he had applied to. They did not even accept an interview with him.
On the verge of breaking, Levi who had never opened up to his parents finally told them everything he had experienced during those six years. As expected of a parent, no matter how unfeeling they seemed to be, they were shocked.
But there was nothing they could do. Authorities did not even acknowledge their reports, corruption made its appearance.
Levi and his family, even their relatives started to receive death threats from strangers on the internet.
Levi did not want to burden them.
So, in the end, Levi left.
And now, here she was again.
No matter how much he tried to deny it, he felt a sick, familiar pull toward her. A sense of belonging that made his stomach twist.
She had broken him so thoroughly that even now, part of him still remembered his place.
Beneath her gaze. Beneath her will.
Nothing more than a shadow of the person she once molded. A victim of her emotions, trapped by the memory of what she called love.
Levi's throat tightened.
He wanted to look away, he wanted to deny that she had any effect on him.
And yet, his eyes stayed locked on hers.
Seraphine stepped closer.
The faint sound of her bare feet against the white expanse was almost nonexistent, like she was walking on air. Her every movement carried that same cruel gentleness he remembered.
"Wont you say anything? Mutt." she asked. Her voice was trembling, but not from sorrow. It was the one she used to apologize after leaving bruises on his body. "You said you would always stay by my side, did you not?"
Levi's lips parted, but no sound came out.
Seraphine smiled again, a shiver running down her face like a crack in glass. Tears welled in her eyes. "You left me all alone." she said, her tone rising with every word. "You ran away, even after all the love I gave you. Was I not enough?!"
Her voice shattered the quiet world. The white around them began to darken, dimming into shades of grey.
As Levi looked at her, he felt his pulse quicken. He took a few steps backwards, almost stumbling.
"I... had every right to leave." He finally choked out.
Something in her expression snapped.
Seraphine let out a choked sound, halfway between a sob and a laugh. What she did next, made his eyes widen.
Her hand reached up to her own chest. Her fingers sank past her skin as if it were water, and when she pulled her hand free, a crystalline heart shimmered in her palm.
It pulsed faintly, alive, beating with a rhythm that wasn't hers.
"What is...-"
Before he could finish, she lunged forward, knocking him to the ground.
He hit the floor hard, or maybe it wasn't a floor at all, just the blinding white turned solid beneath him. Seraphine straddled his chest, her tears falling fast, her hands trembling.
"Why didn't you accept my love?!" she screamed, pressing the glowing heart against his lips. "Why did you run away from me?"
"Stop-!" he choked, but she pushed harder.
"You said you loved me! You said it!" Her voice was incoherent as she sobbed almost violently. "Accept my love!"
The edges of the crystal scraped against his teeth, filling his mouth with the taste of iron and salt.
As Levi looked up at her, he felt a sense of anger.
How dare she cry when she put him through hell? Who was she to miss him? How did she have the guts to say she wanted him back?!
Levi's chest filled up with rage that even he did not know existed.
Without even considering his teeth, he bit down.
It hurt, his teeth brushed against the crystal violently as they scraped against each other. Levi's teeth started to show cracks, however his will did not.
A sharp crack split the silence.
The heart shattered between his teeth, bursting into fragments of white light that scattered into the air like dying stars.
Seraphine froze. For a moment, she looked human again, confused, wounded, her tears catching the fading light.
The world began to crumble around them.
"I wish you a life of pain and loneliness." Levi said, blood trailing down his chin. His voice was calm, almost gentle.
"Oh... right... You didn't have anything you cherish in your life other than me. So, can you really call your existence meaningful?"
His voice was laced with mockery suddenly, even if this Seraphine was just a part of his mind, he wanted to curse it.
Her body dissolved into streaks of red and gold, her scream twisting into silence.
The last thing Levi saw before the white collapsed was the silhouette of the blonde woman in the distance, watching him quietly, her expression unreadable.
Then came a voice.
Steady, soft, neither man nor woman. The one who used the brainwash on him.
[What a spectacular will, would you like to make a deal with me?]
***
Mattie's blades left many scars along the infected's body. Her sabers flashed through the air and carved themselves into its skin, making it whine and scream in agony.
However those wounds were too little to deal actual damage.
She was also using her light magic to flash the abomination every time it tried to regain its balance. Her mana was depleting in a fast rate as the body enhancement was also active.
Mattie was pushing herself to her limits. Her eyes were strangely focused, and carried a cold hint on them.
Killing intent.
As for Saranda, her eyes were darkening even as she tried to keep herself awake.
'Don't fall asleep, don't... or else you will die... Stay awake..'
She circulated her mana around her body to enhance her bodily functions such as the healing aspect. However the second ladder's did not have great healing powers. So the wounds on her body stayed fresh.
Saranda weakly raised her arm, it trembled in agony as she suddenly focused all her mana towards her palm and then outside of her palm. A big ball of water started forming in front of her, it was circulating at fast speeds and she could feel its high temperature increasing.
Suddenly she choked out blood from her mouth, almost losing her focus. The water ball was about to dissolve if she hadn't focused back on it.
When all of her mana left her body, she was left with no healing aspect.
But she did not care.
The water ball suddenly left her palm and started gliding towards the beast at high speeds, its surface circulating so fast that it cleaved through a tree with no problems.
Seeing this, Mattie immediately dashed away from the abomination, she was surprised too see the water ball speeding towards their way, so she was a tad bit late to blind the monster.
But even if it saw the ball, what could it even do? It was going to get hit and suffer some injuries which would allow Mattie to finish it off.
They were foolish to think that.
The blinded beast knew where the ball was coming from, so it swung its arm towards it and then they clashed. The hot and salty water splashed onto the beast, making its skin burn and its injuries feel even more painful.
But the force of the water ball was diminished greatly when the beast attacked it back, so it only received some minor damage.
Saranda did not see all this, her vision had went dark, but she was still conscious. Even forming thoughts had started to become hard.
Mattie's face paled when she saw the monster turn towards her once again.
"I.. I wont die here!" She mumbled even as the beast lunged towards her.
And then the beast suddenly stumbled, its eyes suddenly rolling backwards as if it suddenly lost consciousness. Then a spear whistled through the air and lodged itself against its back, the force of the attack making the beast kneel in front of Mattie.
Mattie's eyes shone in a yellow light as she saw the opportunity, she poured large amounts of mana to her sabers, which shone in gold. With a resolved scream, she swung her sabers against the head of the creature.
The steel cleaved through the skin, and then severed the spine of the beast, severing its head from its body. Its headless body fell to the ground with a thud.
Mattie stood over the creature, looking at the familiar spear lodged into its back. She gave a faint smile before collapsing due to mana exhaustion.
***
Saranda was dying.
She perhaps had only a few seconds left.
But that didn't stop her from hearing the footsteps that were nearing her. She opened her mouth, coughing a handful of blood.
"W-was I.... helpful..?"
"A little bit." She heard Levi's tone, surprisingly gentle even if his answer was not very reassuring. A faint smile appeared on her lips, so he was safe.
During her last breaths, she felt something fluffy sit on her lap. And that was when she lost consciousness.