Belial's eyes widened in pure horror as the shadowy figure loomed above him, its grip a vice around his throat. He gasped, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, the sound of choking too quiet in the still, cold room. Panic clawed at his chest, primal and overwhelming. He thrashed beneath the thing, kicking, struggling, nails scraping uselessly against the figure's faceless form. But the creature did not budge. It remained still, like a statue made of midnight, unmoving and impenetrable.
Belial's gaze darted across the room, looking for anything, anyone. His eyes landed on the foot of the bed.
He froze.
Rose.
Her head was not where it should have been. It lay on the floor beside the bed like a broken doll, glassy eyes staring at him with an eerie calm. A thick trail of blood stretched from her severed neck to her body, which sat propped against the wall in a grotesque mockery of rest. Her dark curls were matted with gore, her once serene expression now frozen in that final moment between disbelief and death.
A scream tried to tear its way out of his throat, but the grip only tightened.
This was no nightmare.
In desperation, he reached inward, trying to summon the power that had never failed him before. The dark ether within, the cursed blood, his demonic form. Anything.
Nothing happened.
He strained harder. Pushed deeper. Willed his body to shift, to fight, to awaken.
Still nothing.
Then something flickered across his vision.
A grey, translucent screen appeared before his eyes, framed by cold static. The text was harsh, jagged, as if etched by a knife rather than typed.
ㄴActors restriction: You cannot use your talents. Racial or not. You don't deserve to use them, you filthy worm. Just do everyone a favor and die.ㄱ
Belial's pupils shrank. The breath caught in what little space was left in his throat.
The Visor.
It knew about him. Not just what he was, but what he had been hiding. What he feared. The term "actor" made bile rise in his throat. No one had called him that since the days he tried to run from fate. No one should have known.
His body trembled.
His face contorted in a mixture of fear and disbelief. The veins in his face bulged as his skin shifted from pale to a terrifying shade of violet. Not just from the pressure. This thing, this presence, was not just suppressing him. It was trying to end him. Permanently. Without ceremony. Without purpose.
He stared at the grey screen, his eyes watering as the static flickered, and the words remained.
Not a warning.
A sentence.
No racial talents. No transformation. No escape.
He tried to lift his hands again, tried to muster anything from the pits of his being. His muscles refused to respond. His power lay dormant. Caged. Like it had been ripped from him without his consent. The sheer helplessness flooded every corner of his being.
He wasn't being toyed with.
He was being punished.
"Who..." he tried to mouth the words, though they came out as nothing but strained gurgles. The shadow above him showed no interest in responding. It tilted its head slightly, almost curious, as if studying the last gasps of a lesser being.
Was it the neighboring factions in the demon realm?
Had they found him at last? The traitor, the defector, the 'impure' demon who dared to walk among humans?
Or perhaps it was the Holy Order, those righteous fools always whispering about purges and divine correction. Did one of them finally breach the mountain?
Or was it something else?
Something older. Deeper.
"Damn it," he thought, the phrase fractured by panic and blurring thought. "I'm losing consciousness…"
He tried to think. To reason. But the edges of his vision were going dark. His limbs began to fall limp, his struggling reduced to spasms. His head throbbed with each desperate beat of his heart.
The figure leaned closer.
He could see nothing in its face. No eyes. No mouth. But he could feel the malice. It radiated from the thing like heat from a forge. Except colder. Ancient. Infinite.
Then it spoke.
Not in words, but in feeling. In pressure. In violation.
And Belial understood.
You were never meant to climb the mountain. You were never meant to leave it. You were never meant to live.
He realized, in that final moment, that this wasn't revenge.
It was correction.
He had broken some unseen rule. Had become an anomaly. And something was here to fix that.
His mind flashed with faces. Rose, smiling. Xin, laughing. Cole's scowl. The guild. The forest. The ogre. The damned valley and its silence.
Would they know he was gone?
Would they come?
Would they even remember him?
The darkness now was total. He felt the blood vessels in his eyes rupture. Felt the fire in his chest fade to embers. His legs had stopped moving. His arms were numb. His vision was completely grey.
Then white.
Then—
SNAP.
A sickening crack echoed across the stone chamber.
His body stilled.
The shadow let go, and Belial's form crumpled into the sheets like a discarded puppet. His neck hung at an unnatural angle, jaw slack, eyes rolled to the back of his head. Silence reclaimed the room.
The fire had gone out.
Blood soaked the floor, a trail of it still warm beneath Rose's head.
The shadowy figure stood in place for a moment longer, then slowly turned to the door. No footsteps, no sound. Just movement. The kind that didn't belong in any natural world.
Ragged gasps tore from his throat, sharp and wet, as if every breath was being pulled through water. He staggered back, spine slamming into the jagged stone wall behind him. Panic surged through his veins like venom. His heart was pounding, not just fast, but violently—each beat like a drum being beaten from the inside, battering his ribcage until it felt like it might shatter.
He couldn't control it.
His lungs refused to listen, drawing in short, useless bursts of air. His hands trembled violently as they clutched the front of his tattered clothes, fingers digging into the thin fabric until his nails tore through it and scraped his skin beneath. The world around him twisted, spinning slightly—walls warping, shadows stretching.
What was happening to him?
He slid down the wall, his knees buckling, cold sweat pouring down his face. His tongue felt swollen in his mouth. His vision pulsed with his heartbeat, shrinking into a tunnel of flickering, dim light. His body was rejecting him, revolting against him. Every nerve screamed.
"Stop… stop…!" he croaked, not sure if he was commanding himself or whatever force had taken root inside.
He pressed his palm to his chest. His heart was hammering too hard, too fast. It wasn't natural. He could feel it vibrating, thrumming like something foreign had burrowed into his core and begun to take over.
Was he sick?
Was he cursed?
He stared at his trembling hands in disbelief. His fingertips were pale, almost gray. Tiny veins beneath his skin glowed faintly, something dark pulsing just beneath the surface. It wasn't ether. It wasn't anything he recognized. It was wrong.
"No… no, no, no…"
His mind reeled. Was this a delayed attack from the shadowy figure? A curse laid upon him during his sleep? But he had died—he remembered dying. His neck snapping. The cold. The void. And yet, here he was.
Alive.
Or was he?
He suddenly gagged, doubling over, clutching his gut. A burning sensation clawed up his throat. He vomited violently onto the stone floor—thick black bile mixed with shards of something glistening. Not food. Not blood. Something else entirely.
His breathing hitched again.
He tried to scream.
But only a choked gasp came out.
He looked to the doorway of the chamber. No one came. The silence was suffocating. His vision blurred again. The walls pulsed. The air grew thinner. His heart beat faster.
And then, it stopped.
Just for a second.