Chapter 233: Nirvana (Part Two)
Whoosh—
Dust and black vine branches cascaded down from the roof, and then—boom! A beam fell with a resounding crash, smashing a big hole in the floor not too far away. The table went crash too, scattering junk all over the place, while a dirty jar rolled right up to me with a “glug-glug,” like an earthquake shaking with intensifying intensity in just a matter of seconds. Yet all this chaos felt strangely unreal in my hazy consciousness.
I couldn’t think at all about what was happening.
All the remaining awareness was laser-focused on the pain throughout my body. I tried forcing myself to ignore it, but the more I tried, the sharper the pain became, to the point where I felt I might truly lose my mind.
I imagined my insides were a jumbled mess, all ground up into meat paste. My skin felt like it was on a hot stove, black smoke hissing as it wafted off me, slowly scorching the floor beneath. This wasn’t some illusion; I felt as though I was slowly sinking in.
Something on my back tore at my skin, growing violently as I heard my heart pounding like a drum, beating faster than a hyperactive rabbit, at a rate more than the body could handle. Thump-thump-thump-thump, it felt like it might explode at any moment. The pain in my bones felt like they were being crushed, then put back together, crushed again, repetitively, each time more agonizing than the last, making me feel as though the world was slipping away from me. I was no longer truly alive.
I might actually be dying…
At that moment, I wished I could just pass out right away, but the intense agony stimulated my brain and nerves. My body continued to twitch, and the original drowsiness was long gone. Instead, I became hyper-aware, even though I couldn’t move a muscle, my mind was racing.
It hurts…
Hurts, hurts, hurts, hurts…
It hurts so much!!!
Excruciating pain devoured every part of my body, like thousands of steel needles stabbing through flesh and bone, radiating from every cell until I felt I was in a hellish torment that consumed my sanity. Slowly, I even began to regret things.
I regretted resisting Angel, I regretted resisting those people. I should have come out here and just not cared about anything, just passed out immediately. After that, even if they’d taken me for more experiments, even if I woke up with nothing remembered, I wouldn’t care, as long as I didn’t have to experience this pain anymore. I would have been fine with anything, I truly wouldn’t care anymore…
I can’t take it anymore…
I just want to d*e…
“Ah…”
I tensed up my entire body on the ground, curling into a ball, letting out a faint groan. I opened my mouth but couldn’t let out a single breath. Every finger and toe strained as if that would relieve the pain, but it did nothing at all. The intense agony surged into my brain, and the next moment, I abruptly bit down on a good chunk of my tongue.
bl**d gushed from my mouth, splattering onto the charred floor.
“Cough, cough…”
That bite almost took off my tongue! The salty, metallic liquid flooded down my throat, causing me to cough violently, and soon bl**d sprayed from my nose too. The mixture of bl**d and tears flowed together along the scorched trail on the floor.
Let me d*e…
Just let me d*e…
I can’t take this anymore…
“Ugh… cough cough…”
I kept vomiting bl**d, coughing, my eyes completely bloodshot, losing all rational thinking, wishing for d*ath to come swiftly so I wouldn’t have to endure this torment. But my tongue hadn’t come off; not enough bl**d flowed yet. I wanted to bite down again to hasten my demise, but before I could do anything, the bl**d in my mouth had already stopped.
Hiss, hiss, hiss—
It was like the sound of something burning coming from my mouth. In less than a second, the wound healed up, and bl**d stopped clogging my throat. I sank into total despair.
Why…
What did I do wrong… Why do I have to suffer like this…
Why—
Crack…
A small, decayed wood-splitting sound came from beneath me. Then—boom! The charred wooden board couldn’t take my weight any longer and suddenly collapsed. I fell through the gaping hole, tangling with branches on the way down, and then landed flat on my back with a thud.
“Cough cough—”
I kept coughing, almost expelling all the bl**d that had gone down my lungs, lying dazed on the ground. It felt like I was on black muck, as the sizzling heat began to bubble and burp the mud beneath me, the bubbles bursting right by my ears, dirty water splashing onto my face—but none of that mattered.
At this point, even whether Angel would come back quickly with others didn’t matter. I lay on the ground motionless, shaking like a leaf, eyes wide open, mouth agape, gasping for breath but completely unable to draw air, not knowing how to make myself pass out. The weariness and fatigue I once felt were entirely gone.
“Ah… ah…”
I could only lie there, emitting weak, meaningless sounds, as if my vision had partially cleared up. I stared intently at the two crescent moons in the night sky above, which felt unbearably distant.
The moon…
It looked kind of bl**d-red…
The imagined sunrise I had awaited didn’t arrive; the sky remained dotted with stars, the dark night looming above me showing no hint of dawn. I saw no light breaking through. Instead, a bl**d-like scarlet glow seeped into the night, drifting like flowing auroras, illuminating the clouds and tinting the moon red.
Is this… a hallucination?
I didn’t know and couldn’t think about it.
Just a faint feeling that it was quite noisy in the distance, with a continuous “boom-boom-boom” sound rumbling on, but accompanied by earthshaking vibrations, it didn’t feel quite real either, everything seemed like a dream.
Time passed silently amidst extreme despair and unbearable torment.
Every minute felt like a whole year.
In this process, the torment didn’t allow me to lose consciousness as I had wished; I remained awake.
But apart from being awake, I lost almost everything else.
I don’t know how long it was, but in pain, I slowly lost my vision, my hearing, even my basic ability to think. My desire to live was gone. My body felt like an empty shell, undergoing what felt like an endless, hellish punishment. Deep despair shrouded me, just like that night four years ago when I fell off the cliff and never managed to crawl back out.
“Giggling…”
In my dazed state, it seemed I heard my own laughter.
It was like I was truly dreaming, and suddenly images flashed in my mind.
A gentle breeze warmed the air, rustling through the grass, stirring up shimmering dust. A clear creek babbled as a young woman in a linen white dress sashayed along a narrow path with a wicker basket, her flowing black hair fluttering behind her.
The girl looked so cheerful, sporting a slight smile while humming an unknown little tune as she walked toward the edge of the village. Her sister was getting married in two days, and she planned to gather fresh flowers in the forest to make the prettiest flower crown, making her sister the most beautiful bride in the village.
That was all she could think about.
In those days, her world was clean and untainted, her life simple, just like everyone else in the village. There was little noise or glamour around, the days were dull and monotonous, but the smile on her face bore no trace of sorrow or worries.
The girl’s silhouette gradually faded under the noon sun and gentle breeze.
When she reached the village border, it seemed she remembered something, stopping to glance back at me with a smile.
“Giggling…”
She looked so happy.
I really want to go back to that time…
In that village, with Grandma Claire by my side, no one could take me away; I wouldn’t go anywhere…
I don’t even know when I stood back up.
Nor do I know when white branches floated above my head, casting down a soft glow like moonlight, enveloping me. After a brief blur, the scenery before my eyes returned to clarity.
I felt the pain in my body gradually fading.
At the same time, that suffocating despair diminished too. I regained a bit of sanity, yet my mind still felt muddled. I staggered a couple of steps toward the tree I had fallen from, wanting to lean against its dry trunk and wait for my body to recover. But as soon as I touched the trunk, pain twisted my face again, and gritting my teeth, I ran away a few paces, “thud!” I collapsed into the mud.
“Ah…”
I couldn’t help but cry out, reaching back to feel my back, and touched something soft, a bit warm, that felt like a thin membrane.
!
What is this…
My heart leapt in surprise, and without my brain fully processing it, my hand instinctively traced the membrane upwards, and it suddenly jumped a little. It was sensitive, perhaps because it was newly formed, and touching it brought extremely clear sensations.
It felt a little itchy, but mostly painful.
It was a part of my body…
Is this a wing?
I pondered in confusion, my hand continuing to explore until I reached my shoulder blades. It had grown from right there! I almost felt a bone, hard and hidden beneath soft flesh…
Bone, extending out from my back…
I was stunned for a long while.
The pain in my body was easing, but I still felt frequent sharp pangs. While I didn’t feel sleepy anymore, my mind was still foggy. It took me quite a while to realize I needed to look back, and just in that moment, the night sky suddenly erupted with thunderous roars.
Boom, boom, boom, boom—!!!
The immense sound generated sound waves that slammed towards me; I instinctively looked up in the direction of the noise.
Then, time froze for me.
Before my eyes was a scene drenched in bl**d-red light.
It was almost in the same direction as where I had just emerged; the vast night had completely receded, and the scarlet glow spilled down like a gushing torrent of bl**d, shrouding the clouds and the moon, flooding the entire grassland with its color.
This glimmering light reached all the way to the night sky above me, tinting the blackened earth with a reddish hue. This light was what I previously mistook for sunrise, thinking daylight was breaking, but that wasn’t it at all.
No, it was something terrifying, a manifestation of sin.
Accompanied by the echoing rumble, from far away in the sky, where the red light was most intense, a massive fissure suddenly tore open, revealing pure darkness within. Right after, a flaming bony hand violently reached out from the crack, flames billowing thick smoke as that hand gripped the edge of the rift amidst the continuous booming.
