The sky was red.
Not crimson like a setting sun. Not blood-red in a poetic sense. It was a cracked, pulsing scar above, a gaping wound in reality that bled madness with every second. The ground beneath their feet shifted, not with tremors, but as if it were alive—breathing, waiting, watching.
Dev Rajan gritted his teeth as black smoke coiled out of the eyes of the fallen duo beside him. Their bodies remained intact, but their minds… had long vanished.
"Three minutes in contact," Meera whispered beside him, her voice raw. "Just three minutes, and they started tearing at their own skin."
Dev didn't respond.
Because in front of them stood the reason.
Nurarihyon.
The Demon of a Hundred Faces.
The Lord of Lies.
A Japanese folklore monster once dismissed as a tale told to keep children obedient—now fully real and far more terrifying than any story had hinted.
And worst of all…
He smiled like a man.
"Ah... Dev-chan. Meera-chan," the demon purred, adjusting his long ornate robe like a kindly grandfather. "What lovely memories you have. What fragile minds. May I come in?"
The air rippled.
Suddenly, the battlefield was gone.
---
[Mindscape: Dev's Memory Zone]
He was back.
Back in the alley.
Back in the slum.
Six years old. Blood on his knuckles. Mother crying on the floor.
"No, no, no!" Dev roared, grabbing his head. "This isn't real! I buried this!"
"I didn't," Nurarihyon's voice echoed inside his mind. "You buried her, Dev, remember? Not just her body. You buried her memory."
Dev collapsed to his knees. The room twisted—ceiling turning into tongues, walls into accusing eyes.
---
[Mindscape: Meera's Zone]
Silence.
A mansion. Empty halls. Marble cold against her bare feet. She wandered the corridors endlessly.
Until the doors opened… and there they stood.
Her parents. Her fiancée. Her mentors.
Applauding.
"You finally left that filthy caste boy, Meera. You're one of us again."
"No…" Meera whispered. "No, I didn't…"
"You had potential," her father said coldly. "Then you wasted it for a charity case."
"SHUT UP!"
Her hands turned to fire. Her own powers attacked the illusions—but the walls bled, and the faces kept smiling.
---
[Reality: Outside the Illusions]
Kaito and Aya stood on the far end of the collapsed rift, watching as more duos entered the mindtrap.
"Seventy entered," Kaito muttered. "Twelve came back. Two alive, ten drooling vegetables."
Aya's face was pale.
"Nurarihyon's power isn't just illusion. He breaks the spirit. Slowly, carefully."
"And it's getting stronger," Kaito added. "It's feeding off their memories. Off their past."
She nodded. "The longer he stands… the more we forget who we are."
Kaito reached under his mask, tightened it slightly.
"Then we kill him fast."
Aya turned sharply. "You're going in?"
He tilted his head.
"I'm not watching more people get devoured by their regrets. I'm done watching."
---
[System Notification]
> ⚠️ WARNING: Nurarihyon has absorbed 100,000 Memories
Phase Shift: "Fragmented God" Initiated
Zone Collapse in: 23 minutes
---
Back in Dev's Mindscape
He was kneeling. Not breathing. About to break.
And then—
A blade of blue light cut through the illusion.
And a voice whispered:
> "Come back. I need you."
Meera's voice.
His eyes snapped open, and the sky bled white.
---
To Be Continued in Chapter 39: "Dreams That Burn the Soul"