Chapter 280: Do you think blood is your strength?
It was a child’s voice. Small, trembling, familiar.
Damon’s body went rigid. His eyes flicked around warily, even though the fog was so dense he could barely see his own arm. "What the hell is this?" he muttered, but his heart skipped a beat.
"I’m cold... Damon... why didn’t you come sooner?" The voice continued. It was unmistakable his niece’s voice.
"Lola?" Damon frowned, pausing for a moment. He then snarled. "Illusions. Cheap tricks." But the growl lacked conviction. His hands trembled slightly.
There was no possible reason why his niece should be here. She was probably with Leira or still locked up. He knew that for a fact and yet he couldn’t bring himself to just let it go.
What if it was her? What is this trial had somehow teleported her just to test him? All sorts of theories popped up in his mind. Soon he was not sure of anything. There was a strange unease rising in his heart which made him extremely anxious and nervous.
His mind felt muddled and his breathing became uneven. Then, through the soupy haze, the fog twisted and she appeared.
A small girl, standing barefoot on the cold stone, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Her dress was tattered, stained, like she’d been running from something.
"Why didn’t you come for me, Uncle Damon?" she whispered again. Her eyes were hollow, void of light. "You said you’d protect me."
Damon staggered back a step, his breath caught in his throat. "This isn’t real," he said, as if repeating it could make it true. "You’re not real. This... this is just a poison dream."
But even as he said it, his heart clenched in agony. Why did everything feel so damn real? What the hell was going on?
The girl took a step forward. "I waited. They hurt me, and I waited. You never came." A pair of blood slick hands reached for him from within the fog. "Uncle, it is hurting so much..."
Damon was about to break and rush to her when suddenly his instincts stopped him. His primordial senses told him that there was no one there where the little girl was standing.
He narrowed his eyes, forcing himself to stillness. There was no one there. No blood. No body. Nothing. His veins pulsed green as his poisoned blood surged, burning through the creeping haze of doubt clouding his mind. This wasn’t Lola. It was never her.
He exhaled slowly, then growled. "You almost had me. Almost." His mind was still in a haze but he forced himself to think clearly. Right at this moment, a sharp hiss sounded from the fog as a monstrous snake charged at him baring its fangs.
Damon was caught off guard but he still managed to slap the snake away. However, that was not the only one. One after another snakes started attacking him from the fog. They were coming at him in waves, coming in from all directions.
Damon immediately tried to use blood energy but his mind felt muddled and he couldn’t connect properly. He tried using his mana and once again everything felt wrong. There was a haze in his mind that prevented him from using anything.
"Fuck it." Damon caught the snake with his bare hand and squeezed the life out of the damn thing. "I don’t need mana or blood to deal with the likes of you." He punched out the next one and bit the one after.
Poison splattered across his face, but Damon didn’t even flinch. The taste was foul, acidic, and searing hot but all it did was make his blood burn brighter. His veins pulsed violently, glowing faint green through his skin, his blood quickly absorbing it.
Another snake lunged, and this time Damon caught it mid-air with his teeth, snapping its spine with a savage twist of his jaw. He spat out the head and stomped the body flat with a sickening crunch, laughing darkly as more serpents hissed around him.
His mind was a storm of chaos and pain. "You want madness?" he growled. "I’ll show you madness!"
He ripped through the next wave of snakes with nothing but brute force, fists flying, feet stomping, venom-soaked mist boiling off his skin like steam. No techniques. No weapons. No magic. Just raw, physical strength.
But slowly and steadily his mind was becoming clearer and clearer. The fights were calming him down little by little. Soon he managed to snap out of the mental haze and successfully connected with his body and his energy channels.
The next second he sent out a powerful blast of mana in all directions, a dozen serpents exploding into mist and shreds of illusion as the wave of energy surged outward. The shockwave tore through the poisonous fog, clearing a wide radius around Damon, finally giving him space to breathe, to think.
His chest rose and fell, blood-streaked and trembling, but his eyes were sharp now, no longer clouded by guilt, confusion, or fear. "Nice try," he spat. "But you’re going to need more than illusions and snakes to break me."
The green mist writhed at the edges of the cleared zone, as if angry it had been pushed back. Whispers echoed faintly through the air, countless voices merging into one discordant hum. Damon ignored them.
Then, from the mist, came a new figure. Not a child. Not a monster. It was himself. Or rather, a twisted version, half rotted, with black veins, hollow eyes, and a cruel grin.
"Congratulations," the doppelgänger said, voice a perfect match. "You survived the guilt, the illusions, the pain. But now comes the final piece of the soul trial, can you kill yourself?"
Damon didn’t flinch. "You’re not me," he said coolly.
The doppelganger smirked. "I’m everything you’ve buried. Every drop of madness you swallowed. Every ounce of power you took without thinking of the cost. You think blood is your strength?" The creature laughed. "It’s your corruption."
Damon cracked his knuckles, his grin returning. "Why don’t you go ahead and shut the hell up!"