"You returned here again... this place..."
Lusk, appearing in his true form, strolled across the charred wooden debris where faint flames flickered.
His bare, rough skin brushed against the fragile, paper thin reality of this realm.
"This place is truly empty; prior to that fateful day, everything felt like an ethereal, violent sea wave."
Lusk spoke, his voice both raspy and strangely gentle.
He sounded like an ancient old man.
"I see that before that day, the day of Joe and Ron's mystical catastrophe, nothing concealed the truth."
The old man's eyes widened, filled with apparent shock.
"It is always like this.
Indeed, the human brain cannot endure it; that memory is far too heavy."
The creature sank to his knees, clutching his head, while Ron stood behind him, watching impassively.
"So that means... you, are you a reincarnated soul??"
He stood up and turned toward Ron, his eyes completely obscured by a mess of tangled black hair.
A flash of white light glinted in his eyes before vanishing just as quickly.
Yet it sent a chilling shiver down Ron's spine, as a growing dread surfaced within his gaze.
Ron trembled; he was... empathizing.
Ron's pupils moved slowly as he gradually raised his hands toward his head.
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
Ron shrieked at the top of his lungs, then collapsed to his knees, gasping frantically for air, yet this place held nothing for him to inhale save for dust and ash.
Ron could not feel any air, leaving his throat parched, rigid, as if a fistful of coarse gravel were crammed down his windpipe.
It crushed him, crushing Ron's mind and remaining sanity.
Ron clutched his head, crawling toward a piece of burning wood, before raising his head high and smashing it repeatedly against the timber.
STAB STAB STAB
Splinters of wood impaled his skull, yet Ron grabbed the burning log, pulled his head free, and slammed himself down once more.
Blood poured forth continuously, mingling with the log's flames.
Ron hammered his head repeatedly until his skull and brain matter fractured, causing both eyeballs to dislodge and fall from their sockets.
Ron screamed, but his dry mouth could utter no sound, releasing only a tiny, wheezing hiss like a deflating balloon.
"It is utterly futile; even if you pulverize your brain, that flood of emotions will not vanish because of it."
Lusk stepped up beside Ron, his eyes oozing blood as he stared intently at Ron's small, shattered body.
Was he angry? In anguish? Exhausted? Or amused? Impressed? It was impossible to discern.
His eyes seemed to carry a thousand distinct shades, a thousand nameless emotions gathering within his gaze.
"I know you are exceptionally intelligent; you realized what I was attempting to do, so you tried committing suicide to escape."
Lusk took a step forward as the flames of the orphanage gradually turned pure white, incinerating reality itself.
"Yet you are far too arrogant, excessively full of pride."
He seized Ron by the hair to stop him from smashing his head, then delivered a brutal kick that sent Ron flying.
He treated Ron like a worthless plaything, stepping forward to stomp repeatedly on Ron's abdomen.
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
Ron cried out, his entire head submerged in blood, making it impossible to tell what he was experiencing.
"Did you truly believe yourself emotionless, floating between life and death, capable of trapping me inside your mind?"
Lusk approached, lifted his foot high, and brought it slamming down onto Ron's face.
CRASH!!!
That single stomp tore a hole into the ground, causing the surrounding space to quake violent.
Lusk casually raised his boot once more, stomping relentlessly into Ron's face without hesitation, crushing him underfoot like a potato.
CRASH CRASH!
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
How massive was the gap between magic rank ten and rank three?
Ron had always known, yet he was far too arrogant.
He assumed that with a necrotic, emotionless body, no weakness could ever be targeted.
He believed that through his insensibility, he could evade mental magic; even against a supreme power, he thought he could render body stealing spells completely ineffective.
Because of that, he had drawn Lusk into his own sea of consciousness, treating him as a disposable strategic asset.
"You might evade my body possession. But so what?"
Lusk halted his foot, then crouched down and grabbed a fistful of Ron's hair.
Ron's face was pitch black, stinking of a decaying corpse, infested with tiny black worms gnawing away at his flesh.
"Did you think a dark realm king like me would be easy to deal with?"
Ron had forced him to possess a different body, and this time, he glimpsed another truth regarding Ron.
The truth that only he and Ron shared about that fateful night.
"You consider yourself quite intelligent, do you not? You mentally deficient fool?"
Lusk slammed Ron's head into the soil, forcing him to feel the smoldering embers underneath.
"How about this then?"
Lusk chuckled, a strange, wild madness flaring in his eyes.
"Tell me about it, about that reincarnated past.
And I, I shall grant you the answer, the answer you risked your very life to come here for."
Hearing those words, Ron twitched slightly; in truth, he still required Lusk's help.
He knew that even if it meant death, Lusk remained vital.
Ron gnashed his teeth, though his teeth were long since shattered; trembling, Ron used his sparse remnants of teeth to bite hard into his own tongue.
The sharp pain granted him a moment of mental clarity, and was that... all?
BANG!!!
Lusk's eyes snapped wide open as a phantom bullet pierced straight through his heart out of nowhere.
CRACK CRACK.
The entirety of reality shook uncontrollably, fracturing into cracks before turning into sea foam that dissolved into the surrounding void.
In an instant, it transformed into strange, perfect transparent glass squares.
Beyond those glass panes, glowing crimson eyes intertwined with one another like a shifting veil of illusions.
"HA—HAH—COUGH!"
Lusk gasped for breath, closing his eyes tightly and clutching his head.
"A curse... AN ASSIMILATION CURSE, YOU BASTARD!!!"
Lusk roared in fury, raising his hand to execute Ron in a single strike, when suddenly his entire body froze stiff.
Ron, whose body was utterly ruined, stared up at him; his eyes were drenched in blood, yet deep bitterness and grief still burned within them.
'ASSIMILATION'.
"NO—NO!!"
Lusk screamed in horror, right before reality fully invaded and consumed both him and Ron.