Afterward, I didn't waste any more time.
Tonight, I was heading out with Manaka to track down the wild Assassin, some stray Servant wandering the city after we spent the entire night fucking like depraved siblings. Incest or not, it didn't matter.
What mattered now was getting our hands on that broken girl before anyone else did.
Manaka told me about her. This Assassin had been lost ever since she accidentally killed her Master.
Not by choice, no, the bastard just couldn't handle her.
Her body was drenched in a toxin so potent that even the slightest touch meant death.
Didn't matter if it was a graze or a full-on embrace, human skin against hers was a death sentence.
She couldn't control it. She never could. And that was exactly why she was dangerous and useful.
Anyone who could survive her poison, who could endure the rot in her veins, would earn not just her loyalty, but her obsession, her madness, her broken devotion.
And Manaka told me flat out: Get her. If I wanted to increase our odds of winning this Holy Grail War, I needed that girl.
Even her last Master, the dumbass who summoned her had plans to rape her.
Typical mage scum.
Unfortunately for him, he died before he even got the chance.
Yeah, his dick never got anywhere near her. His body couldn't handle the poison.
But Manaka told me, with that usual grin on her face, that if someone did survive her toxicity… if someone did push through…
There's a good chance she'd accept it. Not resist. Not run. Just open herself up and let it happen.
That's how fucked up she was.
Starved for affection, for any kind of human contact. She wanted a normal relationship or at least her twisted version of it, but all she ever got was people treating her like a walking plague.
So now? Anyone who touched her and didn't die instantly? She'd break for them.
But the people who did accept her existence only wanted to use her as an Assassin to send her off killing people.
It's a sad story. Most people, the bleeding-heart types, would probably feel something. Sympathy. Pity. The urge to help her, to hug her and say you're not a monster.
But me? I didn't feel anything.
My heart was still. Ice cold. Not even a ripple of emotion. No sorrow. No kindness. Just calculations. I was already measuring how much advantage I could pull out of her vulnerability.
I'm not pretending to be better than I am. I know how I am. I was born this way. This isn't some tragic backstory, I'm just wired wrong.
The only emotions that seem to work in me are intense ones: anger, possessiveness, lust. Even my love, if you can call it that, is twisted. Obsessive. Corrosive. It's not my fault. God made me like this.
You want to blame someone? Blame Him.
Because if God wanted me to feel love like normal people, why was I born this way, so fucked in the head?
People say war is ugly. Conflict is evil. But me? I get off on it. I enjoy humiliated others, especially when it's served cold to someone who wronged me.
I relish chaos and bloodshed. I even laughed my ass off watching Theon's cock get chopped off and turned into a sausage by Ramsay Bolton.
I know it's fucked up, but I couldn't stop laughing.
And I don't think I ever will.
Some of you might be wondering why someone as fucked up as me could visit the higher realm and not get expelled.
Bitch, please. Aleister Crowley himself was totally immoral, but he still managed to communicate with guardian spirits and higher beings.
So what sets us apart from the rest?
It's simple. We don't carry guilt toward the people we've wronged. We keep moving forward without fear, without weakness, and without the negative emotions that tie most people down.
That's what makes us different from all those sinners who wallow in regret over their shitty actions and end up trapped in limbo or burning in hell.
It's either you go all-in on being evil or you dedicate yourself completely to being good. There's no room for middle ground in the afterlife.
If you can't fully embrace your own darkness, then fine, go be a good person. Apologize, make amends, and compensate the people you fucked over, so you won't be stuck with regret or guilt after you die.
Being evil in itself isn't wrong. What's wrong is being so weak that you can't control your own negative emotions and let them consume you.
That's why I chose the path of pure self-centeredness. In my world, I'm the only one who's right, and everyone else is wrong.
I've already seen firsthand how being "good" fucking sucks.
It's only by walking this path that I know I'll die without regrets and won't be chained by shit like guilt, shame, or sorrow, unlike those pathetic lower-realm spirit scums who drown in regret, forget who they even are, and get stuck forever in limbo.
Of course, not everything I've experienced is accurate. Maybe my path is right… maybe it's completely wrong.
What I've seen so far in the spirit world has never been consistent. It always seems to bend toward what I want and what I believe, rather than guiding me toward truth or real knowledge.
It feeds my ego instead of confronting me with the ugly answers I keep asking for.
Sometimes I even wonder, why does our universe feel like a programmed machine? Why does its logic align so perfectly with mathematics?
Rituals can be flawed. Religion shifts and contradicts itself constantly. But math? Logic? They've never been wrong and honestly, that terrifies me.
It's as if the world we live in is too logical for its own good.
Like our waking life is a cage, one reinforced by invisible code and running on a predictable algorithm, while the unconscious world, the spirit realm is like a bad signal, pouring in scrambled data, chaotic and raw, unfiltered by the protection of the physical body.
The waking world is built on logic and numbers.
The spirit world, though? It thrives on will and intent.
Why is that?
Why are these two realms so sharply different?
I don't know.
And I'll be honest…
I'm completely perplexed.
But fuck all that. The past life is over. Now, I'm gonna enjoy this new life of mine with a fucking smile.
"Hello, Assassin. Good night." I greeted her with a lazy smirk.
Behind the plain white mask, the purple-haired girl with dusky skin stared at me warily, her eyes gleaming with something between caution and curiosity.
She might look like a petite little loli, but in reality, she was older than your grandma's grandma. Which made her perfectly legal to toss into my personal Pokéball collection, no objections allowed.
"Alright, let's not waste any more time, shall we?" I said with a sigh, stepping forward while she instinctively took a step back. She didn't say a word, just stood there in silence, every muscle tensed like I was a walking biohazard.
Didn't matter. I grabbed her hand anyway.
Her eyes went wide instantly. She tried to pull back, clearly terrified I'd die just from her touch—her poison, her curse, whatever.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds…
Still breathing.
She stood frozen, hesitant, cautious—but now clearly hopeful.
After a full minute passed and I was still standing there with my smug-ass grin, she looked like she was just about to let herself feel relief.
Too bad for her.
SLAP
Manaka's hand smacked hers away like it was something filthy.
Her expression turned sharp, feral.
"Brother is not someone you can touch at will, Assassin," she growled, voice dipped in menace, eyes glowing with unhinged devotion.
"Serve him well, but don't get any ideas. He's mine."
She wrapped herself around my arm. staking her claim with a possessiveness that was borderline feral.
"She's cute, don't you think, Assassin?" I chuckled, running my fingers through Manaka's soft, golden hair.
The moment I touched her, all her raging emotion melted like butter.
Her breath hitched, and she nuzzled into me like a spoiled cat desperate for attention.
But my eyes never left Assassin.
"Anyway," I asked, "what's your answer, Assassin? You coming with us or not?"
I stretched out my hand to her again, palm open in invitation.
Her masked face tilted up, her dark eyes locking onto mine for a long, silent moment.
"Yes, master," the Assassin finally murmured, her voice calm but tinged with something like surrender as she clasped my hand firmly.
And just like that, Hassan of Serenity officially joined our camp.
The die is cast.
There's no turning back now.