Hert lay flat on the bed, with the window beside him wide open. The damp sea breeze carried a strange odor, reminiscent of the stench emitted by decaying bodies in a heap of dead fish.
With his eyes closed, Hert felt like he lay amidst a pile of corpses. He could sense countless flies and mosquitoes swarming above his head, and hordes of rats peering at him from the shadows, like vultures waiting for the mont he stops breathing so they could feast.
Sharp pain surged through his mind, and Hert furrowed his brows in agony. He felt as though his brain was covered in mold, slowly spreading, crawling inch by inch into his nostrils, and then growing out from his mouth and nose.
His eyes were veined with red, and cold sweat trickled down his forehead as if countless hands were clutching his body, making every movent feel exhausting.
Dim light filtered through the window, and the far end of the sky had taken on a milky hue. The noise outside rose again as the early-rising fishern prepared to head out to sea.
Taking deep breaths repeatedly, Hert tried hard to calm himself down. With red eyes, he opened the cabinet, pried open bottle after bottle, and stuffed a handful of pills into his mouth.
Illusion Syndro.
A bizarre hereditary disease hidden within the Motleys’ bloodline, primarily manifested as severe ntal disturbance and neurological disorder. Its influence grows stronger with age until the patient dies.
The Motleys spent a long ti trying to cure this disease but to no avail; they couldn’t even comprehend its origins.
So claid the Motleys were cursed at sea, while others blad it on the regressive and feudal traditions of the Sea tribes, causing this malignant outco.
The Sea tribes viewed themselves as sea people, believing that the people of the land harbored sinful blood. Because of this, they avoided setting foot on land or interacting with land dwellers unless necessary.
Intermarriage occurred between tribes, furthering the story of the Sea tribes upon the ocean. But they were too few, and the intermarriage led to various deformities and diseases, sothing the Sea tribes only realized with the advent of modern dicine.
The Motleys always suspected that Illusion Syndro was a malignant outco of their close intermarriage, this ntal illness buried in their bloodline, affecting almost every family mber until they perished in hallucination and madness.
Swallowing the pills with cold water, Hert sat on the bed and lit a cigarette. In his battle against Illusion Syndro, Hert had never slacked off on his research of Etherealization after advancing as a Negative Power User.
Regrettably, his acquired efforts could not compensate for this congenital disease, at most allowing Hert to retain his firm will to maintain his existence amid the mad hallucinations.
Hert was already very tired; grasping the cigarette between his fingers, he suddenly noticed that his hand was trembling uncontrollably. He tried to quiet it, but the wrist kept shaking until his other hand clamped down on it, and only then did the tremor cease.
After a long calm, Hert let out an abrupt laugh; first the pain in the head, then the hallucinations, followed by the gradual loss of control over his limbs.
Hert was all too familiar with this.
Back then, his father had died this way. In the end, his father had lost all control over his body; his muscles shriveled and atrophied, and he was reliant on machines to breathe, never to rise from the sickbed again.
The flesh beca a prison, confining an almost-crazed will.
Thinking about it, he was almost the sa age as his father was when everything ca upon him.
No matter how Etherealized the body beca, it ultimately bore human flaws, unable to entirely exempt from congenital diseases.
Hert didn’t care about these things; he only worried about his daughter, worried about Emily.
Before Emily was born, Hert had prayed with all his heart, but nothing could alter the dreadful fate that Emily, like him, suffered from Illusion Syndro.
Hert stopped thinking further, emptied his mind, and picked up a photo by the bed, gazing at the group picture within.
Only when he saw this picture did Hert feel a long-lost tranquility, under the gaze of this image could he sleep peacefully.
His eyelids grew heavy, and just as Hert drifted into sleep, a stranger silently entered the room. The mont he approached Hert, Hert awoke, the piercing sound of wind scraping his eardrums, and two pieces of tal clashing at high speed, tearing a fleeting arc of fire.
"It’s you again..."
With red eyes, Hert muttered. For Hert, a peaceful sleep was a luxurious term, yet the arrival of the stranger disrupted his rest.
The stranger mocked, "Up so early, Hert."
Hert withdrew his long blade, and imdiately his figure began to collapse, losing material form, transforming into an untouchable gust of wind.
In an instant, a dense sound of slashing filled the room; the shattered afterimages roared like a miniature storm brewing indoors, with cold tal slicing through the wind, landing millions of strikes within seconds.
Hert’s silhouette began to reconstruct behind the stranger, the long knife still firmly gripped in his hand. Due to the high-speed slashing, the knife’s edge glowed slightly red, emitting high heat.
The stranger remained standing at the original spot. After a brief delay, his flesh shattered into bits on the ground, yet even in death, the flesh continued to wriggle powerfully, crawling like slugs, leaving trails of scarlet blood.
The stranger’s head lay on the ground, and Hert chopped off half of his face, exposing the scarlet cross-section beneath.
"Wow, that’s a pretty fast blade."
A raspy voice sounded, with black lines interspaced over the shattered flesh, resembling an adept mortician stitching the broken body back together.
Black threads quickly stitched the stranger’s limbs and internal organs. He coughed out large blotches of fresh blood, then slowly stood up, his body covered in stitches like an old stuffed toy.
Hert returned the long knife to the rack as if the stranger didn’t exist, sat back on his bed, holding a family photo.
"Don’t be so cold, Hert, I’m here to help you, aren’t I?"
The stranger ca over, looking disappointed, and sat by Hert’s side on the bed.
Hert didn’t look at the stranger, much like pain and illusions, he had long beco accustod to the stranger’s presence.
Since the first eting with the stranger several years ago, Hert had been trying to kill him, but even if Hert turned the stranger into mince, he would still co back to life.
As things stood now, Hert had to admit the stranger wasn’t lying to him—he truly was an Undead.
"Get out, don’t disturb ."
Unless necessary, Hert didn’t want to see anyone, especially such people.
"No, no, no, Hert, I’m not here to bother you today but to bring you good news."
The stranger patted Hert’s shoulder, feigning concern.
"Just complete this task, and consider your debts repaid, all accounts between us settled."
This indeed was a tempting proposal, Hert felt intrigued.
"My boss needs an item," the stranger pressed his finger on the family photo, his fingertips hovering between Hert’s wife and daughter, "and it happens to be in your brother Nolen Motley’s possession."
"You just need to help us with a small favor, your current predicant, your daughter’s illness."
The stranger covered his face with his hands, then opened them in the next second, making a ghost face, childishly shouting.
"Poof! All gone."
"How about it, Hert, isn’t this deal worthwhile," afraid Hert might refuse, the stranger added, "We never break promises and never lie."
"What is the item?"
"Hmm... a square iron box, locked on a man’s wrist, and that man is lying within your brother’s Paradise," the stranger said, "Oh, although the man is a Defender, rest assured, he poses no threat for now."
"Your task is simple, find that man, chop off his arm, give us the item, and we’re squared."
"Defender... I guess that man is called Gold, right?" Hert inhaled deeply on his cigarette; a few hours ago, he had been discussing this with Lebius, "You’re stealing from the Order Bureau, and it’s sothing guarded by a Defender."
The stranger didn’t respond, just smiled and asked, "Want to refuse?"
Hert remained silent, not speaking, while the stranger leaned closer to Hert’s ear, whispering softly.
"I’ll make my boss happy, and you’ll reunite with your daughter.
A wonderful ending, isn’t it?"
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