章 23: In a new place
Early morning had arrived with little time to rest. Damien and the two women went straight to Nephelia's mansion after leaving the Manga Coffee.
The girl slept soundly all the way, and when they arrived, Damien placed her in her bed. Watching her in silence, he slowly lowered his face and pressed his lips to Nephelia's forehead.
Longer than he planned, Damien stayed in Nephelia's room. Just as he was about to retire to his own home, something unexpected happened.
The expressionless maid suddenly pushed him towards the bed!
Damien shot a questioning look at the woman, but she only raised a finger to her lips in a gesture of silence. She lifted the folds of her dress and bowed elegantly before turning away.
She left the room with leisurely strides. But before she closed the door, her eyes, which seemed to sparkle slightly, peered out for a few moments and she raised her thumb in his direction as if to say, "Enjoy the moment, Mr. Damien."
He himself had no intention of complaining about the outcome. Nephelia was his, and there was no reason to refuse Camille's goodwill, was there?
While he found this servant quite pleasant, Damien slipped quietly under the blankets next to Nephelia, who, as if sensing his presence, murmured his name and snuggled against his chest for warmth.
Of course, since becoming a vampire, Damien no longer needed sleep, nor did he feel sleepy. However, for the first time since entering the supernatural world, he closed his eyes with the intention of letting his mind go blank for a while.
Too much had happened in such a short time, and he needed some mental rest to take it all in.
He just hoped that when he woke up, things would be easier and he wouldn't have to deal with the supernatural anymore. Yet as soon as his exhausted mind sank into a deep sleep, a sudden change occurred.
He felt himself falling endlessly into an abyss of darkness. With amazement, anxiety, and something akin to fear, he watched as thousands of red eyes opened in the shadows. Pupils larger than his own, fixed on him as he fell.
Damien wanted to make a sarcastic comment about his situation, but he could not. He simply remained silent, thinking that he now lived in a world where the eyes of the dark abyss could stare back at him with intensity.
Immediately after that, a disturbing, dull murmur began to sound next to his ears.
At first it was barely a whisper, sometimes real, sometimes illusory. Then it took on the texture of screeching metal or terrible laughter, rising and intensifying.
Damien was clearly tense under the stares that never seemed to stop following him and the wailing that he certainly could not decipher.
He wanted to cover his ears to block out the voices, but he could not move. A sharp pain began to pierce his head. It was so painful that he thought someone had beaten him with a metal club to crack his skull open.
Damien knew that something was wrong, very wrong. He tried to open his eyes to reality, but even that simple action proved impossible.
Seconds barely passed, though they seemed like an eternity in his mind. He had the feeling he would go mad at any moment. Would he lose control and become a Corrupted? No, he couldn't bear that!
He was about to make Sophie's life better with the reward money shared between him and Nephelia!
Just when he thought his head would explode like a watermelon falling from the tenth floor, the murmuring stopped and finally disappeared. Even the hundreds of eyes watching him slowly closed.
The environment became completely silent, so silent that if a needle fell to the ground, it would be heard from hundreds of feet away. The darkness in front of Damien became blurred, turbulent, and suddenly something like a black hole sucked him in before he could react.
This time, when he regained clarity, an extremely surreal scene appeared before his eyes.
He found himself in a large castle that showed signs of ruin. As he looked closer, he could see that parts of the thick walls had collapsed and lay on the ground like rubble. Even the massive pillars that held up the roof sometimes let the dust slide to the ground.
He took a few steps forward and saw crystals on the ground. He peered through where windows used to be, and noticed that the glass was shattered.
This allowed him to see what was outside the castle, and his eyes widened - the surroundings outside took on a look as if he were looking at them through an oil painting.
Beyond the window, he saw oddly shaped trees that were changing colors in an unnatural way, as if drops of water were mixing with the different oil paints. Their branches twisted and tangled, sometimes slipping to the ground and then rising again.
Looking up at the sky, he observed the clouds, which did not have a fixed shape, but were constantly changing into completely different ones.
The different colors were quite saturated, and he felt dizzy just looking at the scene.
"Is this a dream? But I can think clearly." Damien pursed his lips. "But considering how mysterious the supernatural world is, I can also assume that I am in a strange world in my dream."
Damien withdrew his gaze from the outside scene and focused his attention on the inside of the castle. At least the colors looked normal inside. If he had to point out anything about this castle, it would be that it was huge, the kind you only see in fantasy movies.
The domes rose high above. His feet were on a dusty red carpet that led to the bottom of the castle. There were no lights, and the torches in the walls had long since been extinguished.
He began to walk forward. Each step raised clouds of dust as small pieces of debris and broken glass crunched beneath his feet.
He walked for a few minutes until his footsteps stopped in front of a concrete staircase leading up to a high platform. There was a stone throne.
The throne looked majestic and, surprisingly, in perfect condition, despite the sorry state of the entire castle.
Damien climbed the steps. He looked around, and his gaze was drawn to something.
"Hm? What's that?"
There was neither a person nor a skeleton on the throne where someone would normally sit. As he approached, he discerned that it was a dusty book.
He approached, looking suspiciously around, as if he were a thief, afraid that someone would see what he was about to do.
He picked up the volume. Despite its size, which seemed to be about a thousand pages long, it was not heavy.
"Phew, I hope nothing happens when I open it..."
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