Chapter 18 - Help Me

“I teleported him to somewhere else,” Rhema responded and glanced at the sky. The rain abruptly stopped. The clear night sky was exposed in a flash. Then he placed his hand over Azriel’s leg. “Reshith.” With a low incantation, the wound on her leg quickly healed.

Azriel could not afford to watch that. She did not even feel her wound heal. The thing that had been blocked all along and began overflowing just now was knocking on her entire body and awakening.

“Ugh…” She began to see things similar to sparkling dots from one point. Azriel blinked her eyes a few times and rubbed them, and then opened them wide again. The sparkling dots were becoming clearer and increasing. Finally, they filled up the surroundings like the stars. Mesmerized, she looked at the dimly shining, spinning, and flowing stars in a variety of colors and sizes. In the night sky, swaying grass leaves, the air, the rocks that made the well where she was leaning against, and even her body, Maylie’s body which was laid down next to her, and Rhema’s body before her, from around her feet to the far distance that she could hardly see, everywhere were the stars. She felt like she had dived into the sea of stars.

She was so refreshed to the point she was ecstatic. It was like something that had been blinding her eyes was taken off, as the lost sense had come back. The world where the stars twinkled and flowed was her own world by nature. It was what only she could see. She found enlightenment by instinct.

Azriel held out her hand as if she was possessed to the star group shining nearest to her. Rhema grabbed that hand.

“Don’t touch that,” Rhema said, grabbing her hand. His hand covered her eyes. It felt cool. She finally realized that her eyes were hot as if she were feverish. Tears had welled up in her eyes. Still covering her eyes, Rhema whispered. “Since you have forgotten how to look at them, I’ll block it for a while.” As soon as his hand was taken away, fantastical stars were no longer seen. Everything was the same as usual. Then she felt a strong sense of loss. She was mesmerized even though she saw it only once. The beautiful sight even felt familiar as if she wore well-fitting clothes.

“What was the thing I just saw…?”

“That was mana.”

“Mana…?”

“It’s what only you and I can see in our time.”

He said as he picked her up in his arms. Azriel was still unable to come to her senses due to the lingering feelings. She was about to ask more questions, but she let out a low groan crouching despite herself as his arm touched her back.

“Ahh…” Azriel groaned.

“…Excuse me, Azriel.” Rhema flinched and suddenly turned her around and made her sit. Then he grabbed the hem of her clothes. He pulled her shirt down despite Azriel, who tried to pull herself free instinctively, and checked her back. Then he was silent for a long time. Her fragile back was full of wounds. From old scars to recently formed ones, her back was filled with scars, which looked like a reckless doodle.

“Wh, what are you doing?!” Azriel, who was not able to move freely because of exhaustion and dizziness, narrowly came to her senses due to the coldness. She yelled as she pulled up her clothes but Rhema did not respond. All of a sudden, something like a soft cloth landed on her. It was the white robe he was wearing.

Adjusting the robe on her, he spoke in a whisper. “Please wait here for a moment.”

“What? Where are you…” Before she finished her sentence, his appearance vanished. Buried under the huge robe, Azriel emptily gazed at the spot where he vanished.

*

Rhema Reshith teleported into the place where he had left Damon. It was the guest room where he turned Tarbo Tameion into sand. Damon, who was stiffened in the same position as before like a stick, was only rolling his eyes. When Rhema appeared, his eyes wandered as if he was in fear.

“Do you have any idea who you were about to lay your hand on?” It was unlikely of Rhema, but his question was imbued with ridicule. He asked as he put his hand over Damon’s head. “What kind of life did Azriel live after I left?” It was not a question asking for an answer. Precisely, it was a question to find out the answer from Damon’s head instead of his mouth. When he heard the question, he reflexly recalled related memories in his head. Rhema read through the memories in detail.

Digging up his memories was horribly painful. Damon wanted to scream and twist his limbs but could not move a finger. He dropped foam at the mouth. Learning everything he wanted to know, Rhema took his hand off. Damon’s eyes were halfway rolled away. Looking down at his hand, Rhema mumbled.

“…If I knew this was going to happen, I would’ve continuously watched her even by twisting Ofeq’s neck.”

Damon saw Rhema’s lowered grey eyes sink bleakly. They were in the color of a frosted metal piece. That became the last color Damon saw alive. Damon’s body was crumpled like a piece of paper. He opened his mouth wide but no scream came out this time as well. When his blood was about to flow, Rhema put his hand on him. He did not like messy corpses or leaving bloodstains. The crumpled body soon turned into sand and ran down.

Looking at the pile of sand, Rhema thought about the scars left on Azriel Esthera’s back and the memories of Damon trying to get his hand on her. It was not enough. What was not enough? Inside him, dried and crumbled wastes of emotion were gathered to form a figure and rose. It was a figure of a monster. Instead of suppressing it, Rhema left it to wail. Then, the vibration that spread from around his feet became an earthquake and struck the whole Colte Castle. Anywhere the vibration grazed through turned into sand. To be exact, they were shattered to the point that they turned into dust and became like sand. The sandcastle collapsed. People fled and shrieked. Some were dying as they were buried under the sand but the wizard paid no attention. He merely searched for someone among the fleeing and dying people.