"Goddammit… it had to have stabbed me in the stomach… Where's plot armor when it's needed?" Vergil muttered bitterly, a twisted smile forming for just a second before pain overtook everything.
His thoughts weren't clear—they were scattered like leaves in a storm, swirling around in a chaotic blur of agony and disbelief. He didn't even know when he started falling. One moment he was standing, blood spraying from his torn abdomen, the next he was plummeting into nothingness, darkness stretching around him like an eternal night. The wind screamed past him, cold and sharp, tearing at the tattered edges of his cloak as if trying to strip him bare.
But he barely noticed the fall.
The pain was too much.
His abdomen—no, his whole midsection—was aflame, as if molten steel had been poured inside him. The wound wasn't clean. Whatever had pierced him had torn through flesh and muscle like paper, jagged and unforgiving. Blood gushed from it in thick streams, hot and wet and endless, soaking his torn tunic, sticking to his skin. He couldn't breathe properly. Each gasp felt like inhaling glass, his lungs tightening with the weight of reality.
And worse—his arm.
His arm.
It was gone. Just… gone. Ripped from him in a moment of desperate calculation. A necessary loss, he told himself. Sacrifice. He had severed it himself with teeth gritted and soul screaming to avoid the creeping corruption that had begun crawling up from the fingertips. A poison that would have taken him whole. But knowing why didn't make the memory less harrowing.
All that remained was a jagged stump just below the shoulder, that just finished closing off from 'Verdant regeneration'
Yet in his remaining hand, clutched so tightly his fingers trembled from the strain, was the blood jade.
The strange, cursed bead pulsed against his skin, its crimson glow pulsing with every heartbeat—or was it his heartbeat? Or was it its own? He couldn't tell. He was beginning to lose the distinction between where he ended and where the jade began. It was warm. Almost… hungry.
It devoured the blood.
His blood.
Every drop that spilled into his palm was slurped into the jade like a sponge soaking in the ocean. A soft vibration ran through it, like it was feeding, like it was enjoying this.
The thought sent a chill through him.
"How much do you absorb, at this rate? I'll have to give up," Vergil rasped, not even sure if he was speaking aloud anymore.
The words barely made it past his lips. He wasn't sure if they were directed at the jade or at himself.
The system did say that the blood jade would need alot of blood. He had a spark stuck in him, his right arm exploded and leaking blood. Being stabbed multiple times and coughing blood. It absorbed all of that and still yearned for more. 'Greedy bastard'
But you are my hope. Devil's are a symbol of hope, when all is lost, the devil gives hope, but the light at the end is only despair. I will cling to this hope with everything I have.'
The thought flitted through his mind, sharp and bitter. The jade? Vergil didn't know what it would do. But he knew if he was going to survive, the blood jade was the key. He couldn't feel his body healing, couldn't feel any strength returning. He was slipping.
'It seems Verdant regeneration has reached its limit' Vergil said
"Just a little more... just hold on," he thought, his hand tightening around the jade, desperately trying to summon something, anything, to fight back the overwhelming tide of pain and exhaustion. But it was no use. His vision blurred. His chest was tight, each breath more difficult than the last. His stamina had hit rock bottom.
The fall felt endless. He couldn't tell how long he had been falling. The wind rushed past him, a relentless scream in his ears, but it wasn't enough to drown out the deafening sound of his own heart thudding, each beat slower than the last. The weight of his failure pressed down on him like a crushing boulder.
"I can only hope at this point."
The thought echoed in his mind, a feeble whisper of optimism—but it was hollow, like the dying bellows of a forge long since abandoned. There was no flame left. No warmth. Hope had become a mockery, a cruel phantom that dangled just out of reach, only to vanish the moment he reached for it.
He had always told himself that strength would be enough. That if he pushed harder, fought longer, endured more than anyone else, he could win. He could survive. He could protect what mattered.
But now—now as his broken body plummeted into darkness, bleeding from too many wounds to count—he realized how empty that belief was.
His lungs burned with every breath, the air too thin, too heavy. His chest heaved, trying to suck in life where there was none left. His muscles spasmed. His vision frayed at the edges, the world reduced to a blur of colorless shadow and pain. Reality was unraveling—unfastening like the last threads of a torn tapestry.
His soul felt like it was being pulled apart.
Death was close. He could feel its cold fingers brushing the edges of his mind, a whisper at the nape of his neck. He hovered on the precipice of unconsciousness, and part of him wanted to let go. To fall completely. To sink into that dark ocean and never rise again.
And then—without warning—it happened.
"Blegh!"
The sound burst from his throat, a guttural, choking cough as his body seized up. His chest heaved one last time, and blood sprayed from his mouth in a violent spasm. The movement jolted him—and in that instant, he felt it.
A cold, merciless spike of obsidian shot up from below with supernatural speed—silent, sudden, and precise.
It pierced through the base of his torso, shattered his ribcage like brittle glass—and then tore straight through his heart.
His world shattered with it.
There was no scream. Only silence, as if even pain was stunned by what had just occurred. The spike had obliterated his heart, the very core of his existence. There was no heartbeat. No rhythm. Only a hollow cavity where his life had once pulsed with purpose.
His body convulsed, trembling violently as blood gushed from the hole in his chest, a gory fountain spraying into the air. His back arched unnaturally as the spike erupted from between his shoulder blades, soaked in crimson. Flesh, bone, soul—everything was torn apart.
His mind reeled, spiraling into a state beyond agony. The pain was too complete. Too overwhelming. It wasn't a sensation anymore—it was a state of being. He was pain. He was death.
And still, the blood jade fed.
His hand clenched it on instinct, a desperate reflex, even as his fingers were coated in the blood of his ruined heart. The jade glowed brighter, greedier, pulsing violently with unnatural energy. It vibrated in his palm, drawing the blood from his gaping wound in rhythmic pulses, as though siphoning the last fragments of his existence.
Vergil's thoughts fractured. He couldn't focus. Couldn't form words. Couldn't move. His limbs hung limp. His vision was a red haze, darkening fast.
He had prepared to die from the fall. He had resigned himself to a slow fade into the abyss.
But this?
This was final.
This was the annihilation of everything he was.
His body slumped, impaled like a discarded offering, pinned to the spike like a grotesque banner of failure.
And yet—his hand still held the jade.
The blood flowed. The jade consumed. And the world began to tremble.
Even with no heart.
Even with death pouring out of him.
Vergil still hadn't let go.
"So many regrets," he thought, his mind a whirlpool of remorse. He could feel it—the crushing weight of everything he had done, every mistake, every failure. The faces of those he had failed flashed through his mind, their voices screaming at him from the darkness. Eleanor. Elina. His companions. His only 'friends.' If he could even call them that. He had promised them, he would be behind them. And now, here he was, impaled on a spike, unable to protect them, unable to protect anyone.
I should have been better. I should have been stronger.
But it was too late for those thoughts. Too late for redemption. Vergil had always prided himself on being a survivor. He had always fought, never willing to accept defeat. If defeat was inevitable, he would win using any method. He'd crawl, bleed, manipulate, destroy—anything to stay alive and see the next dawn. But now, as the blood flowed from his body and his life force drained away, all he could do was realize how little strength he had left.
"I hope Eleanor and Elina get to the academy."
His thoughts turned to them, and his breath hitched as guilt curled in his gut like a parasite. The two of them—he had never truly let them in. Especially Eleanor. He treated her more like a tool than a person. Someone to rely on for her sharp mind, her skill, her usefulness. He'd pushed her. Used her. Never once did he consider how she felt about any of it. And yet, she stayed.
Elina had been alot more on the cheerful side when Vergil met her. She was a kind hearted person, who understood all sorts of people. Due to her occupation as a receptionist. 'I wonder if she is going to the academy or the capital.' Vergil thought to himself
'It seems I've grown too much of a heart,' Vergil thought to himself as the memories came running in, uninvited and cruel.
He remembered the moments now, the little fragments that stung the most—the brief smiles exchanged during travel, the times Eleanor rolled her eyes at his sarcasm, the way Elina held her spellbook with both hands like it was a shield from the world. Back then, he didn't care. He had a mission, a purpose. Sentiment was a weakness. Caring was a risk.
But now, staring death in the face, all of it came flooding back.
Maybe they were still alive. Maybe those bastards lied. Or maybe… they were already gone. And if they were, if they died because of his arrogance, his mistakes—then his suffering was justified. This pain, this slow bleed into oblivion—it wasn't punishment enough.
He wanted to believe they had a chance. That they made it out. That they'd reach the academy. That they'd live normal lives and forget about him. Forget the cold, distant man who saw them as assets instead of people. That was his final wish, buried under all the regret and unspoken truths.
If he had more time—he didn't even know what he'd do. Apologize? Protect them better? Treat them like the humans they were instead of extensions of his will?
But none of that mattered now.
Only the silence remained, broken by the soft pulse of the blood jade as it devoured his life drop by drop.
And the crushing knowledge that, in the end, he wasn't the protector he thought he was.
Just another fool who realized too late what really mattered.
But it didn't matter anymore. The realization hit him like a weight to the chest.
"System."
His voice was barely more than a rasp, a fragile whisper lost in the wind, but he called out to it nonetheless. The system that had guided him, the system that had been a constant presence in his new life. That cold, mechanical voice had once felt like a divine hand, lifting him from nothing, giving him a second chance—a new identity, new strength, a path to walk when he had nothing else.
He had relied on it so much. Used it like a crutch. Let it become his guiding star as he clawed his way through the filth of this world. It made him powerful. It made him matter. But now, as he hung there, bleeding and broken, the system felt so distant. So useless. So meaningless.
"I disappointed you."
The words fell from his lips with a deep, aching sorrow. It wasn't just a system to him anymore—it had become a companion. The one voice that had never left. The one force that had stood by him, cold but reliable. And he had failed it. Failed himself. Failed everything.
The weight of that failure pressed down on him like a thousand pounds of stone. He had always believed the system would be enough. That it would carry him through everything. That if he trusted it—relied on it—he could never truly fall.
But now, as the jagged spike jutted through his shattered chest where his heart once beat, all those beliefs crumbled. He realized how wrong he had been. How blind.
"My friend…"
The thought formed like a flicker in his fading consciousness. A vague, warm memory. He couldn't even remember when it happened anymore—but he remembered the feeling. The laughter. The presence. The jokes that used to annoy him so much. He always teased him about how serious he was or joke about his near-death experiences It used to irritate him. He'd scoff and roll his eyes, pretend it didn't get to him.
But it did.
It mattered more than he ever admitted.
He missed them.
He wanted to hear just one more joke.
[Don't give up, my friend. After everything we've gone through, your going to give up just like that?] The system begged
A whisper in his mind. He didn't know if it was real or imagined, if the system was responding or if it was the dying echo of a bond he never cherished enough. His eyes blurred, and the darkness closed in on him like a black tide. The pain was becoming a part of him now, a dull throb wrapped in fire. His mind was fraying at the edges, slipping away, thoughts unraveling.
He couldn't think. Couldn't feel. The world was shrinking around him, becoming so small, so empty.
The spike—cold and cruel—had taken everything from him. His body hung limp, chest torn open, the absence of his heart leaving a void that nothing could fill. The blood jade beneath him pulsed faintly, greedily absorbing the crimson flood that spilled endlessly from his wound.
He could feel the end. Taste it. Hear it in the silence between each fading heartbeat.
It was over.
Vergil's final breath escaped as a broken sigh, nothing but air and regret. His body slumped further, skin pale, soul flickering. His once-proud form now just meat hanging from metal.
His heart, once hardened by battle but only just beginning to soften in the presence of others—of friends—now lay obliterated.
And in the silence that followed, the world carried on, indifferent to the fall of a half-breed.
'I don't want to be alone.'
[Adrenaline Surge has been activated. User is in a near-death state.]
The system's voice came suddenly, mechanical and calm, like an echo in a void. But it was enough.
His eye twitched. The blood in his veins ignited with a final, desperate spark.
He moved.
Vergil reached up with his one working arm. Fingers trembling, bones grinding against each other, nerves screaming. His entire body was agony, his mind a haze. But the thought stayed, loud and stubborn.
'I don't want to be alone.'
'I want to keep going… to reach greater heights.'
He pulled.
Flesh tore. Muscles snapped like overstretched wires. His body screamed at him, begged him to stop, but he didn't. Inch by inch, he dragged himself off the spike. The jagged stone scraped along bone, ripping deeper, widening the already fatal wound. Blood poured out of him in a waterfall of red, soaking the ground, the blood jade, his shattered armor.
And then, with a sickening sound, he fell—slamming into the blood-soaked dirt, body rolling like a broken doll down a slope of stone and crimson as he layed on his back and starred deep into the abyssal sky
His chest heaved, what was left of it anyway. His torso—a hollow shell where his heart once beat—throbbed with the echo of what had been. There was no rhythm anymore. No center. Just pain and emptiness.
Still… he was alive.
Barely.
Vergil lay in a pool of his own blood, gasping. Eyes wide and hollow. Limbs shaking violently. The world spun around him, blurry and distorted. Each breath felt like drowning. Every twitch of his muscles brought on a new wave of agony.
But even now, something in him refused to die.
More. More.
He tried to crawl. Just a little. Just enough to prove he wasn't done yet.
But he didn't even get to move a centimeter.
And then—