Pitch blackness.
"Where the hell am I?" Nick muttered. "I have eyes, yet I can't see a damn thing."
He gave a bitter laugh. "So this is mortality. And that lunatic Devon actually chose this. Hope you don't live to regret it, bastard."
He raised a hand.
"Mantes quesin twlupis fajóle."
Soft white light bloomed above his palm, pushing the darkness back.
Nick's eyes widened.
Before him towered a statue of a being he had never seen. No name came to mind, yet every instinct screamed: true god. The urge to kneel clawed at him. He resisted.
He moved deeper. Another statue stood at the far end—this one smaller, less regal, clearly a slave. Tattered cloth hung from its shoulders, but the carved face held something mystical, almost sorrowful.
Both statues had their backs to each other: the eternal rule carved in stone—no slave may ever gaze upon the face of a god.
Nick frowned. Gods could own countless slaves—human, beast, variant, anything—but why immortalize one here? He shook it off. Not his concern.
A faint red glow pulsed from the far corner. He glided toward it in silence.
…
Back at school. Men's restroom.
Stephanie still had Sophia pinned to the wall with her elbow.
"Let her go," Devon said.
"You don't give me orders," Stephanie replied, but she released the girl anyway.
Devon stepped forward until he and Sophia were barely five centimeters apart.
Sophia's cheeks flushed crimson.
"Wha… wha… do u think you're doing?"
She turned her face away.
Both of them are nuts. I didn't understand half of what they said, but they're not normal. Especially him—he's acted high and noble from day one. And yet why is my heart beating so fast?
Devon spoke, voice low.
"I'm checking if you could be useful to my plans."
"Plans?" she echoed, confused.
"Don't think about it too much. After all, the dead have no business with the living."
"Huh? What the hell are u saying?"
Panic flashed across her face.
"Elliot?" Devon called.
"It's Stephanie, you lunatic," she shot back.
"Well then, Stephanie," Devon said without turning, "do it."
Stephanie's hand slipped to her thigh strap. A kunai flashed silver.
"Wait please hold on, you are joking right? That knife is fake right? Devon?"
Sophia's voice cracked.
Steel sang.
Stephanie launched forward, blade aimed straight for Sophia's throat.
Death filled the room like sudden winter.