"You shouldn't have come here…"
It was a blackened creature, its skin bubbling like boiling tar, eyes glowing a sickly yellow, and fangs that looked like they'd been carved from old bones.
It screeched, throwing its body at them with a violent force.
Before Omen could flinch, before he could even understand what was happening, Lilith moved.
Her fingernails stretched outward, turning long and sharp like dark blades.
Her red eyes, once a steady crimson, deepened into a darker, glowing red that almost looked alive.
The girl dashed forward, so fast that Omen's eyes couldn't even follow.
It was a single motion.
A sharp, slicing sound echoed.
And then silence.
When Omen's eyes focused again, the creature wasn't whole anymore.
Its body was cleanly divided into four pieces, each one falling to the ground with a wet, sickening sound.
Flesh slapped against each other as if all fell apart.
Blood sprayed across the trees like dark paint as the stench of raw meat and iron filled the air.
Omen froze.
His mind couldn't process what had just happened.
He looked down at himself, his plain white shirt, once clean, was now splattered with black-red blood.
And then came the shock, the disgust, and the smell.
The boy's stomach turned instantly.
His body trembled uncontrollably as a warm wetness spread down his leg before he could even stop it.
His throat gulped, and he vomited right there, acid burning his mouth.
Omen gasped, choking as tears took over his vision.
The ugly scene in front of him was too much, the lifeless body, the smell, the blood dripping from Lilith's claws.
Everything spun as Omen's body lost all strength, and his mind blanked out.
The last thing he remembered was the sound of Lilith's voice softly calling his name before everything went dark.
***
When Omen opened his eyes again, the world felt still.
He blinked a few times before feeling a faint flicker of fire nearby.
The air smelled wet but clean.
The ground beneath him was cool, and water dripped from the cave walls somewhere deeper inside.
It took him a moment to understand that he wasn't in the forest anymore.
He turned his head slightly and froze again.
His head was resting on something soft…something extremely soft yet cold.
It was Lilith.
The pale-skinned girl was sitting with her back against the rocky wall, her long black hair falling over her shoulders.
Her expression was calm, red eyes glowing faintly in the dim cave light. Omen realized his head was resting on her lap, and for some reason, he didn't wanna move.
He noticed something else too, his clothes were different now. Gone was the blood-stained white shirt and pants. Now he wore a simple dark tunic that felt cleaner and thicker. Someone had clearly cleaned and changed him.
And he didn't even have to guess who.
Lilith looked down when she noticed his eyes open. For a second, her face softened, almost gentle. "You're awake," she said quietly.
Her voice was calm, but there was a strange tone behind it, like she had been worried.
Omen stared at her for a long while, memories slowly flashing back through his mind, the fight, the blood, the creature's body falling apart.
But what he remembered most vividly was his fear, his weaknesses.
That was the first time he had felt useless after getting his eyesight back in the game.
Plus, Omen didn't want to be scared of Lilith.
No matter how much he tried to ignore what just happened, there was a part of him fhat just wanted to back away, to question how she could move like that, how she could kill so mercilessly.
But the truth hit him harder than anything else, if Lilith hadn't been there, he'd be dead, perhaps in an even worse way than the creature she'd killed.
He felt a wave of embarrassment hit him, but mixed within it was something else, gratitude.
All his life, he had been treated as something fragile, useless, cursed.
He had never seen what standing up for oneself even felt like.
But watching her fight, that was the first time he truly saw what strength looked like.
The boy quietly studied her face, her glowing red eyes that seemed comparitively distant, pehaps in fear of how he would react at her actions.
"You…saved me," the boy said softly.
Lilith didn't respond right away.
She just looked at him, knowing full well that a part of him immensely disliked how easily she 'handled' things back with that creature.
Her fingers brushing through his rough black hair absentmindedly, as if she didn't even notice she was doing it.
"You were unconscious," she finally said. "Plus, you should have told me that you were still an unawakened ghoul."
Hearing Lilith's word, Omen almost couldn't believe himself.
"How did you know that I–"
"…I knew it since the start."
There was a long gap of silence in between.
Omen smiled wryly, completely ignoring the topic, though his chest still felt heavy. "I just…didn't expect you to turn that thing into meat slices before I could even blink."
That earned him the smallest hint of a smile from Lilith. "I told you, right?" She said, her eyes narrowing slightly, "I'm a ghoul as well."
Seeing that she didn't get any reaction from Omen, the girl couldn't help but ask, facepalming.
"…do you really not know anything about yourself, ay, Master?"
"…"
***