Grabbing his sword, Yu jumped out of the carriage and ran towards the tower where Yurine was. Sivina and the two roarons were running right behind him.
Sivina called Yu. “Yu! Wait! Just come in-”
“YURINE IS THERE!”
There was a hardness in his voice that made it clear he would listen to no objections. All he had to do now, even if it meant risking his life, was to enter the tower, make sure Yurine was safe and find out why the bells were ringing.
He was going to a tower again, he was not good with towers and he hoped that this one would not hurt him again. He crossed the unusually deserted tower and came to the front of the tower, the door was closed. He gave the door a few kicks but could not open it.
“OPEN IT!” he yelled at the roarons, seething with anger.
“Yu, calm-” Sivina was interrupted again.
“I'M CALM!”
The roarons knocked on the door several times. The last time they knocked, the door opened and a pungent smell filled their noses.
“It's the smell of blood,” said one of the roarons.
Hearing those three words only added to Yu's worries. If Yurine had been harmed while he was away, he could not forgive himself or Sivina for taking him away from her. Knowing that it was dangerous to go ahead, he rushed forward and began to make his way inside the tower.
“What are you waiting for! Follow me!” He could hear Sivina behind him shouting at the roarons. Then she called to him too. “Yu! Wait for me!”
Yu had no time to wait for anyone. He was just heading upstairs, not even trying to figure out what was going on, but he knew that this silence, this emptiness around him, did not bode well.
He shuddered as he remembered the last time he had entered such a silent and empty tower. He shouted at the top of his lungs to break the silence.
“YURINE! YURINE! YURINE!” There was no response to his voice. “Fuck your mother! Not again!”
He climbed one more flight and saw that the way to the top floor was blocked. The rubble had blocked the top of the stairs, and if he tried to move all the rubble to get past them, he would lose a lot of time.
As Yu was wondering what to do, the bells kept ringing and Sivina and the roarons caught up with him. Yu's knee trembled where he stood and he clenched his sword as if he would never let go.
“Why? How?”
“How? This world is full of sons of bitches!” Yu answered Sivina's question and angrily kicked the rubble. His foot hurt. “Isn't there another staircase here?”
Sivina replied in a low voice. “No.”
“Fuck the people who built this tower!” Unlike Sivina, Yu's voice was not hoarse. “You two pull them over!”
He commanded the roarons and after leaving them behind, he entered one of the rooms on their floor. It was a sitting room reserved for guests. Sivina came up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder.
“What are we going to do here?”
Without answering her, Yu went to the windows and stuck his head out. If he fell from this point, at best, he would have suffered many fractures and would have died without intervention. Of course, this 'best case' was a low probability. More likely he would die.
But knowing that Yurine was in danger, especially in a tower, took away the time he had to worry about his own life.
“Hey? What are you gonna do? Don't do what I think you're gonna do.”
He was grateful to Sivina, but at the moment gratitude would not make him listen to her. To the left of the window were drains for the toilet to be flushed down, and if he managed to jump up there he could put his hands over the drains.
“What do I do next?”
After that he could see nothing to hold on to. After putting his hands on the drains, if there was something on the wall to hold on to, he could have stood up and jumped to the window upstairs, but the wall was completely flat.
“Fuck this kind of life...” He turned to Sivina and threw his black sword at her. “Hold this.”
As he excitedly left the carriage, he could not put the sword on his waist because he had forgotten to take the scabbard.
Sivina caught the sword in mid-air, but to stop him from leaving, she moved closer to Yu and got in front of him. Yu grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to push her away, but Sivina was stronger, she didn't move.
“I won't let you kill yourself!” Sivina shouted.
“Listen to me, woman!” Yu responded in the same tone. “If Yurine dies, I won't live another second in this world! Do you understand me? I won't let a fucking tower take anything from me again!”
Sivina insisted on not withdrawing. She was right in her own way, even if Yu didn't think so, Sivina's rightness was obvious. Yu's fall from that spot would certainly not be good.
“Let's wait for the roarons, or you wait-”
“SHUT UP!”
He shouted at Sivina, this time literally, directly, angrily. He could see the confusion on her face and the disappointment in her sea-green eyes. He would regret it later, but now was not the time.
He pushed Sivina, whose lips were trembling, and went to the window, jumped into the toilet drain without taking a breath and stuck his hands through the holes.
“Fuck!”
“Yu!”
His fingers slipped for a moment because of the shit in the drains, it was the abnormal strength of his left hand that kept him up. He had pressed his claw-shaped fingers so hard that they had shattered the stone and his fingers had caved in.
“I'm fine,” he said to Sivina below. Once again he cursed his own weakness. If he had mana in his body, this would have been so much easier.
When he was sure that both hands were properly positioned, he started to pull himself upwards. After a few pulls he let go and returned to his original position, testing his strength.
“Okay, I'm fifty percent sure Sivina will do something if I fall.”
Now he felt like he needed to take a deep breath, but it wasn't a very deep breath, after all, he was beginning to think that even breathing was a waste of time. He had to go upstairs immediately and make sure Yurine was safe.
It was like doing pull-ups, but this time his hands didn't stay at the point of support, he took his hands away and jumped up. He couldn't jump very high because he didn't have extraordinary strength, but he believed that this height was better than nothing.
When he reached the highest point he could reach, he dug the fingers of his left hand into the wall. If he had tried to do it with his right hand, there is a good chance that he would be lying dead on the floor right now, but he could not feel anything because of the bony structure on the outside of his left hand.
But that didn't change the fact that his shoulder hurt. The point connecting the bony structure to the rest of his body was struggling to support Yu's weight.
“Tsk!”
“Yu!”
For a moment the wall seemed unable to support Yu's weight and his fingers smashed through the wall and went a little lower. Yu had scared the hell out of Sivina again.
“I'm fine!” he said again. Now all that was left was to get up with the strength of his left hand, leap once more and break through the glass of the window.
He wiped the shit off his hand to make it less slippery and took another breath. Then he threw himself up with the support of his left arm and with his right hand he hit the glass and broke it, so that he was able to hold on under the window.
“AAHHR!”
He screamed in pain as the glass hit his hand, Sivina screamed with him. Yu couldn't ignore the pain, but he pulled himself up, broke the window a little more with his left hand and held on. Then he went up with both hands, broke the window completely and threw himself inside.
As soon as he threw himself inside, he started writhing on the floor. He was holding his hand, cut by glass shards, and screaming in pain.
“YU! YU!”
He could hear Sivina shouting from downstairs.
“I'm fine!” he replied. Of course he was not fine. He removed as much of the glass as he could, but his hand was still bleeding. Tearing off part of his clothing and wrapping it around his hand, he went to the window and opened it.
“Throw the sword.”
As Yu continued to grit his teeth in pain, Sivina looked at his face as if she had the same wound. Yu's pain was hurting her too.
“Throw it.”
The second time Sivina threw the black sword into the air and Yu caught it with his left hand. It would not be easy to use this sword with his right hand when he needed to use it.
“Stay down,” he said. “Your hand is not like mine, if it slips, you'll fall.”
“Stop! Wait!”
It might have been the wrong decision to leave Sivina there, obviously it was the wrong decision when he thought about it with a clear head, but he didn't want to lose one more person. He cared about Sivina and it would not be nice for Yu to see her die too.
Moreover, even she had mana in her body, unlike Yu, Sivina's body was not flat. Her chest would definitely get in the way during this jump, so she would probably fall down. So it was safer down than trying to jump up.
He walked as Sivina continued to call him. This was the restroom. He opened the door to the restroom and went out into the hallway. From here he could see the rubble below, but he couldn't see anything that had been destroyed to make it there.
“Somebody moved them here. What kind of crazy whoreson would do that?”
The stairs were covered with rubble from top to bottom. If the roarons didn't finish clearing the rubble by the time he found Yurine and came down, they might have to jump down again.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Why am I stalling!”
The bells were still ringing and Yu was wasting time. Realizing this, he headed for the stairs leading upstairs and took the first step.
“No.”
He was nailed to his seat by the sound he heard. It was a thick male voice and he had not expected to hear a voice here. He could have been glad that he was not alone in the tower and that he had encountered a sign of life, but the dark tone of the voice would not allow him.
He turned around and felt a sensation he had never felt before. If asked how he could say that, he would have said he just felt it, but he was sure it was a demon.
He wore the kind of robe a beggar would wear, his skin was a shade of yellow, unlike the demons he had encountered before, and his hair and eyes were jet black. He could only be described as a strange-looking person, but Yu knew he was not like that.
“Inu abit maaz hevan.” He used words that were not among the languages Yu knew. “Nat damaz.”
The demon unsheathed his black sword and pointed it at Yu. When Yu pointed his own sword at him, he studied the sword in Yu's hand for a few seconds.
“Nice sword,” he said with a broken accent. He had difficulty speaking Yu’s language.
Yu's injured hand hurt and gripping the sword tightly hurt even more. Even though it hurt, he knew that if he couldn't endure the pain now, worse things would happen. He gritted his teeth and moved closer to close the distance between himself and his larger opponent.
He could have tried to escape and run up the stairs, but it was not hard to see that this could have had worse consequences. With his back turned, there was no reason why a demon couldn't shoot him in the back.
As the distance between them closed, they lightly clashed their swords. This close to the demon, he saw that it was taller than he had calculated. Unlike the demons that had attacked Kigaro's tribe, there was no smile on his face, he was serious.
“Ha!” Yu made his first attack.
He pushed his sword aside and brought his own sword forward to stab him in the chest. The demon reacted quickly, took a step back and immediately drew his sword back and struck Yu's sword.
When Yu's arm went up with his sword, the demon attacked. Yu dodged the lunge, doing exactly what the demon had done, but he realized that he was too slow against him. He had to push himself harder, something that was difficult to do when his hand was injured.
The devil brought his sword down on Yu's shoulder and Yu defended with his own sword. His right hand trembled with the clash of the swords and he almost dropped his sword, so he put his left hand under the steel to support it. After a brief struggle, the demon dodged under his sword and attacked his left arm.
The demon met Yu's sword with his sword and approached him, shouldering him, causing Yu to fall back and crash into the wall. Yu had expected a fight like in the movies, with swords clashing all the time, but when he couldn't even hold his sword properly, let alone fight like in the movies, it was only a matter of time before he would lose after a few moves.
When the demon attacked again, he feared his hand would hurt if he met it with his sword, so he ducked and dodged, got behind him and kicked him in the back. Contrary to what he expected, this move had no effect. The demon aimed at Yu's neck and swung his sword. Yu reflexively defended himself with his sword and although he used both hands, the pain from his right hand spread to his shoulder.
“If only we were in a fair world!”
There would be a winner and a loser in this fight, it was only natural that one of them would lose, but it made him angry that he was losing just because he had come into this world weak. In that anger he tried to thrust his sword into his chest, but the demon nimbly turned his body sideways and slammed his elbow into Yu's face.
As his eyes watered, he could see blood splashing from his nose, he couldn't tell if his nose was broken or not because of the shock of the sudden attack, but it burned as if it had been pressed against a stove.
He staggered back and fell on the rubble. He had taken the sword in his left hand because he couldn't hold it with his right, but he didn't know how to fight with that hand either. So when the demon attacked him while he was on the rubble, he took his sword in his right hand again and gripped it tightly, even though it hurt so much that it made him scream.
Yu's sword was on his face and the devil's sword was on Yu's sword. If Yu did nothing he would cut his own face with his own sword because the devil had put all his weight on Yu.
He could see his own face in his black eyes, the blood from his nose had trickled down to his chin and he was screaming like he would not stop. Just as his sword was about to touch his nose, he drew both feet back, put them on the devil's stomach and pushed him back.
He couldn't push too hard because he wasn't strong enough, but it gave him the chance to get up and attack the demon. With the same momentum he stood up and jumped at the demon. As the swords clashed, blood dripped down the cloth he had torn from his clothes and wrapped around his hand.
The demon pushed Yu's sword again, but instead of giving him a chance to attack, Yu took his left hand off the hilt of his sword and brought it forward to slice the demon's neck. The demon avoided this by pulling his upper body back, before Yu brought his sword down again, threw his own hand around Yu's throat and began to squeeze.
Not only had he strangled him, but he had also brought his sword to his face, but Yu had defended it. Now he was trying to stop the sword with his weakened right hand, and with his left hand he was trying to squeeze the demon's wrist, to hurt it so that he would let go of Yu’s throat.
He didn't think he could hurt his wrist because of the mana in the demon's body, he couldn't breathe and the sword was now cutting his nose, unlike the last time. The more he tried to breathe, the more the sword came down, and he knew that if he stopped trying to breathe, this fight would end much sooner.
He threw himself to the ground and pulled the demon down with him as he fell. While this was happening, his own sword cut the bridge of his nose and his right cheek. When the devil's hand loosened around Yu's throat, Yu turned him around, got on top of him and tried to strike him in the face with his own sword, but the devil grabbed Yu's hand and prevented him from bringing the sword down.
Then he used his legs to throw Yu off of him. Yu was really thrown, he hit the wall on the other side of the corridor and fell to the floor with a groan. He had dropped his sword next to the devil. The demon and Yu got up at the same time, but now the demon had two swords in his hands.
Yu didn't know what to do when the demon took a few steps towards him and raised the swords. His knees were shaking and he stood still, trying to get his brain to work.
“You should thank to our Lord,” the devil spoke again in the language he understood. He still had difficulty speaking this language. “Or else someone like you-”
Before the demon could finish, he swung his swords like scissors. Yu had stopped trying to think at this point, he just did the first thing that came to his mind and gave up trying to control his trembling knees. So he fell on his buttocks and the swords in the devil's hands just cut the air.
While Yu was on the ground, he made the same move he had done before. The last time he had faced a terrible enemy in a tower, he had done it with his foot, but now he had to do it with his hand. He raised his left hand and stabbed his sharp fingers between the two legs of the demon.
“...Ah?” The devil did not react except to be surprised for the first second. “AAAAAAAHAHHHHHHHH!”
When the demon realized what was happening, he started screaming. When he dropped the swords, Yu clenched his palm and pulled his hand back. The devil's testicles and part of his penis were in his hand. While the demon was still standing, he grabbed his right leg and pulled it towards him, causing him to fall on his back. Then he pounced on him and punched his screaming opponent in the face until he turned into a burning black liquid.
As the demon began to turn to pitch, his right hand burned and he threw himself off of it. The fingers of his right hand were trembling and he found it difficult to control them and squeeze them, but to stop despite his weakness could lead him to events he would regret for the rest of his life. So he stood up, took his own sword in his left hand and started running up the stairs.
“YURINE!” he shouted. “YURINE! CAN'T YOU HEAR ME?!”
There was no answer, Yu would keep going up the stairs and hope Yurine was safe. He kept yelling as he ran. “YURINE!”
There was no answer. He was alone in a tower again. When he took his first step on the stairs to the top floor, his world suddenly went black, his eyes could see nothing but darkness and he fell on the wet stairs. It was as if he had passed through an invisible wall.
“Die! Die! Die!”
He had not yet regained his sight when he heard a familiar voice, the voice of his daughter, Yurine. When the curtain that had obscured his eyes lifted, he saw a yellow light filling everything, and when the yellow light faded and disappeared, everything was revealed to him.
The wetness at the top of the stairs was blood, and bodies were lined up at the top. Some of the bodies were those of roarons, some of servants, some of soldiers. Some had died of cuts and punctures, others had been mutilated.
The smell of blood and organs in his nose made him vomit. He wasn't disgusted to look at it, but the smell was so bad that he couldn't stomach it.
“YURINE!”
His voice echoed through the tower, he could feel it hitting the walls. He could hear Yurine upstairs, still screaming and shouting 'die'. Now his voice had to reach her, now it had to reach her. He lifted his blood-soaked body and started running through the bodies.
“YU!”
By this time there was an answer to his voice, Yurine was close by.
“YURINE!”
When he went upstairs and into the hallway, he could see Yurine now. His daughter should have been completely white except for her red eyes, black eyelashes and pink lips and cheeks that occasionally flushed, but now they were tinged with red.
“Yurine!”
“Yu...”
Seeing her like this made him angry. Not at the demons that had made her this way, but at the weakness of himself that had made her daughter this way. Seeing the blood smeared on her silky, soft, white hair brought tears to his eyes, made him clench his already aching right hand even tighter and hurt even more.
Yu was not in a good mood either and it was clear that Yurine was experiencing the same feelings. There were three demons among them. Two of the demons were in human form, one white and one black. The one in the middle had reddish skin, long black horns and unlike the other two, he was facing Yu.
“Ah...” The devil sighed. “You're finally here.”
He really looked like a demon, unlike those in human form. His upper body was naked and underneath he wore a shalwar-like outfit. He had black tattoos on his chest and arms, and no sword in his hand.
His eyes were the deepest Yu had ever seen. The redness of those eyes enveloped the beholder completely, making him feel the creature's desire for evil to the fullest. His teeth were also beastly, canines long and sharp like vampire fangs. His white hair fell down to his back.
Unlike the previous demon, this demon had no difficulty speaking Yu's language.
“Yu, they're not normal! They're not like the ones we've met! They're not even like the one we just met!” Yurine quickly sorted out the words. “Yu... Run away...”
Tears were visible on the blood smeared on her face.
“That's not possible,” he said. “Don't worry, everything will be fine.”
He had regained control of his right hand. He still had difficulty controlling it, but he only had to push a little harder, even if he would never use it again. He took his sword back in his right hand and squeezed the hilt as hard as he could to feel the pain.
“This pain is the pain I deserve. The pain I need.”
The horned devil smiled when he saw him frown. “Zata in.”
Again it was spoken in a language he did not know, but this time he thought he understood what was being said. The human-shaped demons turned to Yu while the horned one turned to Yurine.
“GET AWAY FROM HER!” Yu raised his sword and ran at the horned one, but the human-shaped ones stopped him. “BASTARDS!”
They paid no attention to Yu's blasphemy. Unlike the demons Yurine had described, they were not laughing at all, they were aware of the seriousness of what they were doing. They were indeed different from the demons they had encountered in that forest.
As one of the demons stopped Yu's sword, the other punched him in the stomach, sending him into the air, then grabbed Yu by the throat and slammed him to the ground. Meanwhile, Yu could see the red and yellow flashes coming from where Yurine was and feel the wind hitting him.
“Yu! Hang on! After I kill-” Yurine's words were interrupted as Yu was lifted again and slammed to the ground.
“YURINE!”
He could not see her because of the two demons in front of him. The demons pulled him back to his feet and as his sword fell, one went behind him and grabbed his arms, immobilizing him. The other punched him in the face. One of Yu's molars broke off and came out of his mouth.
The one who had punched him stepped aside, grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head. Now Yu could see Yurine. He was struggling to reach her, screaming and using all the strength he had, but it was no use.
Yurine and the horned devil were facing each other. Yurine was trying to gather the storm around her, but the devil was throwing fireballs, disrupting Yurine's focus. When Yurine realized Yu's situation, her focus was completely disrupted.
“That's it,” said the horned devil.
Yu could see that he had just thrown a fireball, but now he was gathering a different spell in his hand, and as the wind gathered in the horned demon's hand, Yurine froze and could do nothing but stare at Yu.
“Why are you standing still?”
Yu didn't understand why she was frozen, he was going to shout for her to do something as he struggled to break free, but the energy he had gathered to shout was turned into a scream by the horned demon's attack.
He spat blood as his scream mingled with Yurine's, Yu was still screaming and trying to break free from the demons holding him when Yurine flew down the hallway and through a door.
Suddenly black wings appeared on the horned demon's back, it took a strong step forward and flapped his black wings. Yu couldn't tell if he was flying or gliding, but he wasn't going to try to, all he knew was that in two seconds he would reach Yurine. He entered through the door Yurine had broken down and lifted her up again, throwing her to Yu’s feet.
Yurine floated in the air like a hollow toy, fell to the ground and did several somersaults before landing at Yu's feet.
“YURINE! YURINE!”
Yurine was still trying to get up, and when Yu was about to break free from the demons' grasp, one of the demons kicked Yu in the back of the knee and brought him to his knees. They were still holding her.
“YURINE!”
Yurine was unable to answer Yu as he tried to stand up. The horned demon came slowly and stood in front of them.
First shadows appeared in the horned devil's hand, the shadows solidified and turned into a purple spear.
“Don't...” Those were the only words that came out of Yu's mouth when he realized what was about to happen.
But the devil smiled and raised his spear. When he brought it back down, a hole had appeared in Yurine's back. The demons left Yu as the spear turned back into shadow and disappeared, and Yurine screamed louder than Yu had ever heard her scream before.
“YURINEEE! YURINEEEEE! YURINEEEEEEEE!”
The two demons holding him stopped being serious at this point and started laughing. Laughing at him, laughing at his pain. As Yu cradled Yurine in his arms, he realized that he could not fight them. He had somehow defeated the demon below, but the horned one was far above his human standards.
He picked up Yurine and ran away, not knowing where he was going. The demons were laughing behind him. Yu could have sworn that the eyes of the human-shaped ones were turning red, but he didn't look back to prove it. He just ran away.
He began to feel the energy flow between him and Yurine that he had felt before. Maybe this power would have helped him fight, but he kept running.