——It was a dusk where dark clouds had gradually gathered, a dusk dimr than the blackest night.
Humming a song, I took out the umbrella my wife had packed for . My daughter had even embroidered a cute pink rabbit on it—sure, it leaked a little, but who cared about that!
’I wonder what my wife made for dinner tonight...’
And just as I was heading ho with my umbrella, full of anticipation, at the very mont the downpour began, thick, dark clouds blotted out all sunlight, plunging everything into darkness.
An intangible Dark Shadow poured out from a fissure to the Otherworld that had opened at so unknown ti, enveloping as I walked through the small alley.
An indescribable evil invaded my body, devouring my Soul and Spiritual Energy completely.
[Dusk True Demon]
A Demon from the Otherworld, the lowest and most malevolent of its kind. A Monster rooted in destruction, apocalypse, and Dusk.
It uses the bodies and Souls of intelligent life as vessels for incubation. From the remnants of the Soul, it crafts a shell and skin—the ’current Li Zhi’—to protect its fragile self before hatching. All these human husks, long dead, are unaware of their own demise. They continue to hum on their way ho to spend the incubation period, a phase known as the ’embryo,’ with their spouses, children, relatives, and friends.
[Everything happened silently. I was already dead.]
Li Zhi suddenly understood. He was already damned beyond redemption.
Recently, with the Spiritual Energy Revival, the True Demon had awakened. ’It’ had gradually taken over his body, beginning to hunt and kill while he was unconscious, devouring the Spiritual Energy and flesh of other intelligent beings to strengthen the True Demon’s real form.
It was because he had sensed sothing was wrong with his condition that he had driven his wife and daughter away and moved here alone...
Ah... so that’s it... I... was already...
As his consciousness was about to fall into pure Void, the man didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He didn’t want to die, but even more, he didn’t want to beco that kind of Demon and harm his family.
’But do I have a choice?’
Just as Li Zhi was about to completely break down and transform into the True Demon, a hand reached out and tore the tape from the man’s mouth.
Su Zhou, with a motion that seed gentle but was impossible to refuse, pulled the man upright, turning the tightly bound man to face the sun, allowing him to gaze at the street and the flow of people outside the window.
Su Zhou looked out the window with Li Zhi and said calmly, "Look at the sunlight."
"Look at the world of the living."
And finally...
"Look, at this photo of your family of three."
The middle-aged man, whose gaze had been growing lifeless, suddenly saw a photo of his family of three appear before his eyes.
His daughter, jumping up and down and cheering in the park. His wife, sitting on a nearby bench, smiling with resignation.
And himself, looking like a fool as he followed closely behind his daughter, terrified she might fall.
It was a precious mory they had specially asked soone to photograph and had preserved as a physical copy... The smiles of his wife and daughter appeared in his mind.
’That’s right... I can’t... I can’t hurt them...’
A mory surfaced: the scene where he had invented an excuse to fly into a rage, driving his wife and daughter back to her parents’ ho in the countryside. His wife, sensing sothing was wrong with him and guessing his hidden intentions, had left in tears. But the last thing she said was to comfort their daughter, ’Daddy’s just a little on edge. We’ll go visit Grandpa and Grandma in the country.’
’She’s truly a good wife, my partner for life. She’s probably still waiting for to go back to normal. But she doesn’t know... that ’Li Zhi’ already died five years ago.’
At this thought, a bit of Spiritual Energy gradually returned to the man’s eyes.
Then, facing the sunlight, he shed tears.
’Yes, I understand now. If that’s the case, then dying would be a release...’
’It’s just...’
’Such a... regret.’
With black gas seeping from all his facial orifices, the man struggled to turn his head. Li Zhi looked at the expressionless Su Zhou, the stiff muscles of his face seeming to try and pull into a smile.
He opened his mouth, as if wanting to say sothing, but in the end, no sound ca out.
’Tha-thank you...’
The Soul of ’Li Zhi’ sputtered out its last flicker of human consciousness. Then, with a sound like shattering glass, shadows spread as the Dusk that surged from the depths of the body took control of this vessel.
He was transforming—being thoroughly corroded and replaced from the inside out, from ’human’ into ’Dusk True Demon,’ becoming a node for ’Dusk’ to erode this world.
"Completely gone, huh... Goodbye. And you’re welco."
’Because this is the code I live by.’
Watching as ’Li Zhi’s’ expression gradually returned from collapse to normal, strange patterns began to appear on his body. Amid flashes of dim light, black gas drifted like mist, enveloping the entire room.
Su Zhou couldn’t help but sigh, a sigh for the last shred of Li Zhi’s human will.
Then, with a solemn expression, he tossed Li Zhi’s body back into the center of the Array and activated the rcury Orbit that covered the floor.
In the center of the Array was a wood splinter, encased in a small crystal box.
"A Purification Orbit. This’ll keep you from exploding when you die, contaminating the place and harming bystanders."
Pulling a small vial from his belt, Su Zhou carelessly splashed the almost semi-solid Holy Water around. Spiritual Fire burned, turning it into a vapor and filling the room with a mist that glowed with white light.
Within the Array, stimulated by the dense, holy Spiritual Power in the air, sacred Runes lit up one by one. A searing white light filled the room, forcing all the black gas on the ninth floor back into the tightly bound body of the Evil Demon.
"CRACK—GRIND!"
Accompanied by the grinding sound of bone on bone, the still-humanoid ’Dusk True Demon’ writhed violently as the Holy Water corroded it like sulfuric acid. It seed to struggle to break free, but Su Zhou’s ropes perfectly restrained all its points of leverage. Even with heaven-defying power, the Evil Demon could do nothing with this human body unless it mutated into a monstrous form.
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