The Ruler Of Darkness

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Web Novel: Volume 1 Chapter 3

The Title: Awakening

Darkness, a deep blackness with no front or rear, no up or down. In this emptiness that obfuscated everlasting eternity, I had found myself lying down, engulfed in the lives of innumerable people.

Clearly, they weren’t people living in this place and time, yet I could see and hear their stories. Their birth. Their lives. And their deaths.

They seemed to me as if I were hallucinating them, like a mirage on a hot day. But I knew they were all genuine.

Each of them was unique. Their age, gender, and color were all different. Some lived in a culture so mysterious and unfamiliar to me, and others lived in a strange civilization I would have never dared to imagine.

Still, they all had something in common. Their lives had something in common. A terrible tragedy.

All of them were protagonists of stories that only ended in tragic disaster.

I dared to guess, thinking they may be the ones chosen before me. Of course, I could never be certain.

Time continued to pass. The voice I had been talking to was nowhere to be heard. Thinking about it, it might be that there was no such thing as a voice from the beginning.

Maybe I made up all these tragic stories out of boredom. Or maybe they were just delusions formed by a mind that had gone insane after enduring a series of horrific tortures.

Time moved slowly and heavily. It seemed like forever, like nothing would ever change.

At one point, from a distance, I could see a dim light, emitting a mild warmth of life.

Approaching it as though possessed, I sensed the world’s vitality. And as I went closer, I fully grasped that this desolate, lonely, dreadful darkness was the deepest part and essence of my soul.

The closer I got to the light, the clearer it seemed that I didn’t belong there. Not anymore. I was freshly assembled and composed by an unknown immemorial monster called The Ruler of Darkness.

And as I acknowledged that, I came to know that I was ready to go.

***

He opened his eyes feeling rejuvenated, as though he’d just awoken from a long afternoon slumber.

As if all those hours of anguish and terror had been falsehoods, he awoke nonchalantly, as if it had been a brief nightmare in his sleep.

His body was in such a relaxed condition that the recollection of being tormented and losing limbs seemed pitiful. As if he awakened after obtaining enough sleep.

“Was it all a dream?” Of course, he was fully aware that it couldn’t be.

A heavy and evil energy quietly coiled up around him, emanating from his Dantian. It was unmistakably the energy of “the ruler of darkness”.

The hideous demonic energy that had engulfed him that day in the subterranean cell had been entrenched in his Dantian. Although at this moment, only a fraction of the whole energy was allotted to him.

Nonetheless, the ruler of darkness’s pure demonic energy, like sparks falling on his clothes, plainly made him believe that all was genuine.

“Hmm... ... ”

In his naturally moving body, he felt discomfort. The body, which had formerly been destroyed to the brink of death, was now in near-perfect shape.Nnêw n0vel chapters are published at novelhall.com

He lifted his palm up in front of his face, opened it, and clinched it over and over again. There were five digits attached to his fair, white hand, without even a single blemish, let alone a wound or scar.

“This is...” He got up, surveying his surroundings. What filled his vision was an elegant bedroon. From the wall of bookshelves filled with books and the pungent ink scent that tickled his nostrils, he immediately recognized its owner.

“This is my room.”

His scanning eyes appeared to know the location of each book without having to look. His bedroom, which he had occupied since he was a toddler, was the most comfortable place in the house for him.

“He said he would give me one more chance.”

The ruler of darkness had clearly said that he would give him a second chance. But reverting to the past!? He would have been content if he could have smuggled him out of that terrible purgatory.

And yet, he could quite clearly hear the servants’ whispering outside. “Is this likewise a power derived from the ruler of darkness?” Perhaps it wasn’t simply the hearing that had been affected.

Calmly, he took his time. He examined and experimented on his physique over and over. Not too long had passed before he reached a conclusion.

A dramatic increase in overall physical ability!

All of his physical abilities, including stamina, muscular strength, and his five senses, had been enhanced.

“Great...” He looked in the mirror. What was there was not the frail body he had had. Instead, there was a body like steel, only those who trained to the limit could have.

His body, where every muscle was clearly visible, felt somehow bizarre.

He was first enjoying his muscles, but then he noticed that something wasn’t right. “What the f.....?”

The mirror reflected his own face with a terrifyingly distorted expression. Was this how a demon would seem, pickled in his murderous look, and his demonic energy had intensified to the depths of his heart?

“Oh my.” Looking in the mirror, he tried to change his expression.

“Like this....” He said as he lowered the corner of his mouth a little more. He then smoothed out the wrinkles on his forehead, and drooped his brows a little.

“It’s turned into a more grotesque face, cle cle cle.”

A phlegmy laugh escaped his lips. It seemed that the laughter had to be fixed as well.

“That’s okay, I have plenty of time....”

He put his hands to his face and rubbed it like paste. First, he needed to relax his muscles a little.

As heat rose from his rough-rubbed face, the muscles softened. Then he looked in the mirror again and began to practice facial expressions.

“Uhm. I need a more human expression....”

After staring in the mirror for a time, he realized his appearance was absurd, and he burst out laughing.

It was laughter mixed with purring metallic sounds.

He continued to wrestle with his face for a long before finally speaking.

“That’s what I mean.”

In the mirror, he appeared with an almost natural countenance that a child would not be frightened to see.

“Am I even human?” he murmured in a confused voice, glancing at himself in the mirror as though the answer was right there.

Regardless of how weird the look in the mirror was, it was still his face. Everyone would agree he was that worthless, handsome young man.

But what he was gazing into was utterly different.

The place where the eyes should have been was empty and deformed with pain, dripping bloody tears.

Only two holes remained where the nose should be, and pus was oozing out.

There was no part of his face’s skin that was still intact.

In his throat, the tongue, which had only the root left, was dangling.

It wasn’t a reflection of his image.

It was his mental image of himself that he was looking into.

Wounded, twisted, distorted, tainted...

It was the demonic energy of the ruler of darkness that he was harboring.