Rain continued falling.
Soft.
Steady.
Endless.
The girl's body remained motionless beside the alley wall.
Rainwater slid slowly across her pale skin.
Azael stood nearby.
Silent.
Watching.
Demion's breathing still felt uneven.
"I didn't mean to kill her," he whispered.
Azael said nothing.
The silence stretched.
Then—
Azael disappeared.
Not gradually.
Not dramatically.
One moment he remained behind him.
The next moment there was only empty space.
Demion froze.
"...Azael?"
No answer.
Only rain striking stone.
The alley suddenly felt colder without him.
Demion looked around slowly.
The shadows remained still.
The rain continued falling.
Gone.
Something uneasy settled inside his chest.
Not relief.
Not fear.
Something worse.
Now the thoughts remained alone with him.
His eyes slowly returned toward the girl.
Rainwater gathered near her half-open eyes.
Demion stared silently.
Then slowly lowered himself beside the body.
His hand moved toward her face.
Not to hurt her.
Just to close her eyes.
His fingers brushed against her skin.
The body collapsed instantly.
No scream.
No blood.
The girl's flesh broke apart beneath his hand like wet ash.
Demion recoiled violently.
Grey dust scattered into the rain.
Within seconds—
there was nothing left.
Only wet stone.
His breathing stopped.
"...What?"
The word barely escaped him.
His hands trembled.
Gone.
Completely gone.
Fear crawled slowly through his chest.
Then another thought emerged beneath it.
No more suffering.
Demion shut his eyes tightly.
"No."
The answer came immediately.
Too quickly.
But Azael's voice still echoed through his head.
Would she have suffered less if she lived?
Demion grabbed his own arm tightly.
"Stop it."
His thoughts refused.
He imagined the men dragging her deeper into the alley.
The years afterward.
The fear.
The helplessness.
Then silence.
Stillness.
An ending.
Mercy.
"No," Demion whispered again.
But this time the word sounded weaker.
He stood slowly.
Rain slid down his face.
Then he began walking.
The slums remained alive.
Barely.
Children still ran through flooded alleys.
Women carried water through mud.
Old men coughed beneath rusted roofs.
Everyone kept moving.
As though suffering itself had existed long enough to become ordinary.
Demion walked silently past them.
Azael's words repeated endlessly inside his head.
Humans cling to life with incredible desperation.
A child laughed nearby.
Demion looked toward the sound.
Two small boys chased each other through the rain.
One slipped into the mud.
The other laughed harder.
For a moment—
Demion remembered his sister humming quietly beside the wall.
Then the memory twisted.
His sister beneath the blanket.
Still.
Cold.
His chest tightened.
Life persists. That is its purpose.
Vermilion's voice.
Then another thought answered beneath it.
Even if life only continues suffering?
Demion lowered his eyes.
The laughter behind him suddenly stopped.
A strange silence followed.
Demion turned slowly.
One of the boys stood motionless in the rain.
The other child lay face-first in the flooded street.
Not moving.
The standing boy blinked once.
Confused.
"...Hey?"
No answer.
He grabbed his friend's shoulder.
Shook him weakly.
The body rolled slightly.
Eyes open.
Empty.
The surviving child stared.
Then his breathing became uneven.
"Get up..."
Fear entered his voice.
"Get up."
Demion felt something cold move through his chest.
The standing boy suddenly coughed.
Once.
Then blood spilled from his mouth.
The child collapsed beside his friend.
Silence swallowed the alley.
Demion couldn't move.
Rainwater slowly gathered around the two small bodies.
His breathing became uneven.
"...No."
The word came quietly.
Almost pleading.
Nearby, a woman carrying water stumbled.
The bucket slipped from her hands.
Water crashed across the stones.
Then her body collapsed beside it.
The sound echoed strangely loudly.
People nearby froze.
"...Ma'am?"
No answer.
The woman twitched once.
Then stopped moving.
A coughing fit erupted nearby.
An old man sitting beneath a rusted roof bent forward violently. Blood spilled from his mouth.
Then he slumped sideways into the mud.
A nearby child screamed.
Demion stared.
Another body fell.
A laborer carrying sacks collapsed face-first into the flooded street. His body struck the stone with a dull crack.
He did not move again.
Panic spread slowly.
Then all at once.
"What's happening?"
"Move away from him!"
"Something's wrong—"
Demion looked around.
Fear spread through the street faster than rainwater.
A mother grabbed her daughter and pulled her backward.
Someone dropped prayer beads into the mud.
Two men stumbled away from Demion with pale faces.
Another child suddenly collapsed nearby.
The screaming started immediately afterward.
Demion stepped backward instinctively.
"No..."
But the thoughts continued anyway.
If all of them continue living... what waits for them?
More hunger.
More fear.
More suffering.
Wouldn't ending it be kinder?
"Stop..."
His voice trembled.
Several people flinched.
They stared at him with widening terror.
Not confusion anymore.
Recognition.
Monster.
The whispers spread through the rain.
Demion looked toward them desperately.
"Why are you afraid?"
Nobody answered.
A frightened woman pulled her daughter behind her.
Her entire body trembled.
Demion stared at them.
Then quietly asked:
"Don't you want the suffering to end?"
The street fell completely silent.
For one terrible moment—
no one moved.
Then panic exploded.
People ran.
Doors slammed shut.
Someone began screaming prayers toward the sky.
"MONSTER!"
"DON'T LOOK AT HIM!"
"RUN!"
Demion stood alone in the flooded street.
Bodies surrounded him.
Rainwater carried thin streams of blood through the cracks between the stones.
His chest hurt.
Because part of him truly meant the question.
A young girl suddenly stumbled nearby.
She collapsed hard against the street. Coughing weakly.
Demion immediately moved toward her.
Her mother recoiled in horror.
"Stay away from her!"
The girl looked up at him weakly. Terrified. Confused.
Demion slowly knelt beside her.
Rainwater slid down her face.
He noticed the bruises on her arms. The hunger buried behind her eyes. The exhaustion already settling into someone far too young.
His chest tightened painfully.
Azael's voice returned again.
Would she suffer less if she lived?
Demion's hand trembled.
The girl stared at him silently.
Fear. Begging. Confusion.
He had seen that same expression before. Too many times.
"Let's end your suffering," he whispered.
The girl's eyes widened.
Then suddenly—
something grabbed his wrist.
Hard.
Demion froze.
A man stood beside him.
Or what remained of one.
Burned flesh stretched across exposed bone. Half his face no longer existed. One eye stared outward from a ruin that barely resembled human skin anymore.
The crowd screamed.
Demion's breathing stopped.
The burned man's grip tightened.
Not angry. Not violent.
Desperate.
"Not her," he whispered.
His voice sounded broken. Raw. Like every word scraped against old wounds.
Demion stared at him silently.
For the first time since the alley... something inside his chest wavered.
The burned man looked directly into his eyes.
Not with fear.
Recognition.
Then suddenly— Demion's vision blurred.
Pain exploded through his skull.
The street tilted violently.
The screams. The deaths. Azael's voice. Vermilion's voice. Everything crashed together inside his head.
Mercy. Cruelty. Life. Death.
Demion collapsed.
The last thing he heard before darkness swallowed him was screaming.
"Call the guards!"
Then movement. Strong arms lifting him. Running. Rain. Darkness.
Demion slowly opened his eyes.
A ceiling. Wood. Dim candlelight flickering nearby.
The smell reached him first.
Paint. Medicine. Something rotten beneath both.
His body felt weak.
For several seconds he couldn't remember where he was.
Then the memories returned.
The street. The deaths. The burned man.
Demion slowly sat upright.
The room around him remained silent.
Until a voice emerged quietly from the darkness.
"You're awake."
END OF CHAPTER 6