Stray

When did it start?

When he was still in Roadside Town, Oliver occasionally thought about his future. He would inherit the small inn, form a family with a girl in town, or continue to live alone and peacefully.

He was destined to age and die in that familiar land.

He would spend the rest of his life listening to the legends of others to relieve boredom, running a business, calculating the income and expenditures of the inn, and at most occasionally go to a larger city with friends and family to wander around. As long as there wasn’t war on the border, the time waiting in front of him was ordinary and smooth.

Oliver had genuinely thought that it had been the biggest accident of his life to be attracted to Nemo Light, who was also a male.

It wasn’t just because the other side had an excellent appearance. Oliver liked the feeling of getting along with Nemo very much. He liked the curves of his lips when he smiled, the unabashed honesty in his tone, and the sporadic details of his gentleness.

And that little bit of danger that made people’s hearts flutter.

Oliver had encountered countless adventurers before. Although he wasn’t too old, he thought he had seen the dark side of many people in a place where adventurers gathered in Roadside Town. Nemo Light had an inexplicable sense of purity compared to him. If it hadn’t been for his embarrassment and fear when he was younger, he wouldn’t have avoided him deliberately and maybe they would’ve become friends.

After all, they met because of disaster.

[You didn’t leave me at the beginning, and I definitely won’t leave you either.] Just a few months ago, Nemo promised him this in the Border Forest.

After that, as a mortal, he had caught a tiny miracle— The person he was most attracted to had a similarly strong affection for his ordinary self.

Oliver didn’t think the poems describing love were all that accurate, and perhaps everyone’s love was different. In the past, he didn’t taste the sweetness of honey in his mouth, nor did he feel his heart was filled with fluffy feather. Just like at this moment, there was no sharp pain in his chest as if a blade was agitating it, nor was there any heartbreaking despair.

It wasn’t something that intense.

It was just like losing part of one’s own limbs. The world had become empty and strange, and the ordinary scenery of the past seemed unbearable at this time. He was still used to subconsciously chasing a figure who wasn’t there with his gaze, and he still remembered the touch and temperature of the palm of the other person’s hand.

He clearly remembered.

Memories came up little by little, and those peaceful times faded slightly, becoming cold because of the terrible possibility of “this is the last time”.

This wasn’t the first time they had separated, but it was indeed the first time he realized that “Nemo might never come back”.

What they had wasn’t a storm, but more like a small cluster of quiet bonfires. Oliver had always put his feelings in the brightest corner of his heart. Even in the darkest and most desperate time, he could still look forward to a new day.

But now Nemo is gone, Oliver thought to himself.

It didn’t matter if he was man. It didn’t matter if he was a demon warlock. It didn’t matter if they weren’t the same kind, or if he was a superior demon.

Even if he was the Demon King… As long as they were still looking at the same world, they could always find a way to move forward together.

Thinking about it this way, it seemed like a long time since he had felt this kind of fear that was cold; a chill that could burrow deep in his bones. If, just saying if— the underground behemoth slept quietly, the Demon King was still alive. His Nemo, however, had disappeared into that overwhelming memory and consciousness, like a drop of blood falling into a lake.

Unfortunately, it couldn’t dye that lake red.

Oliver scratched the palm of his hand causing dark red blood to spill into the soil

“That prophecy.” Oliver’s voice was dry. “You should know the details, Dylan. I am the one who is destined to end all of this, am I not? That means I’ll definitely see him again.”

He couldn’t accept such a hasty farewell.

“Of course I remember that prophecy. It was so interesting that it made me weak for a whole week and a half. That prophet was very lucky. It stands to reason that humans can’t afford that price— I wouldn’t have given him that level of power if I hadn’t seen that he was asking somewhat interesting questions that even I couldn’t intervene with my calculations.”

Jesse rubbed Adrian’s lips with his fingers, and the joking meaning in his tone faded.

“I should have told you my advice… but your current state is not very suitable for communication. So, next I will only tell you the facts, Lord Captain.”

“As far as I know, even for ‘Nemo Light’, who is only a piece of flesh, that level of destruction will not destroy him, but it’s undoubtedly fatal, enough to trigger Mr. Light’s self-protection mechanism. Yes, you don’t need to show that expression. It’s just like what happened when you fought against Witherspoon for the first time— The two of you made a lot of noise then. Mr. Light directly connected the Abyss from the surface, so it was difficult for me to ignore it.”

“At the time, he didn’t seem as bad as the rumors. He saved my life.” It was the first time he was moved by Nemo, and Oliver remembered it very clearly.

“We’ll talk about that later. Listen, Lord Captain. My point is that if Mr. Light regains consciousness in the depths of the Abyss, the situation will be completely different— He will fall back to the bottom of the Abyss. In an optimistic situation, he will be bound again, in a pessimistic situation…” Jesse twisted the corner of his mouth and didn’t continue.

“I don’t understand. Nemo is not a complete demon. After he recovers, the law will not forcibly remove him…”

“Laws, laws, laws. Humans always like to set things that they can’t explain as rules. A complete superior can’t come to the surface? The ‘superior demon’ is defined by your own words. How can that be use as a condition for the operation of the Abyss?”

Oliver looked at the annoying “God” in front of him a little blankly.

“From beginning to end, all that matters is power.”

Jesse’s tone was flat.

“I agreed with the lord of the underground a long time ago that in order to prevent too many beasts from running into my flock, the power of the abyssal creatures above a certain threshold isn’t allowed to ascend to the surface. What you call the ‘law’ is nothing more than a fence on a ranch. Remember, it’s because the demons that couldn’t come up are so powerful that humans designated them as superiors… Over time, you got the cause and effect wrong.”

“Even if they sneak up to the surface, the superior demons can only exist in the form of a piece of flesh with incomplete power. Strictly speaking, this isn’t a violation of the rules, and the damage is still within control. As for our Mr. Light, he should have erased his cognition in some way, pretending to pass the cordon we jointly laid.”

Oliver suddenly guessed something, and his face suddenly paled. And Jesse looked at him coldly, without a smile in his icy blue eyes.

“I believe you guessed it. If he wants to leave again by such means, he must find ways to abandon his cognition again, but it doesn’t matter. Mr. Ramon, he doesn’t need to come up again… You won’t like what I’m about to say next. Are you sure you want to listen to it?”

“Continue.” Blood kept gushing out along his fingers as his palm was gouged by his nails kept bleeding, but the pain that was ignited was slightly distant.

“Just as you call him the ‘Demon King’, we prefer to call his race the ‘Pillar of the World’. They are very famous— Gathering the remains of their brethren to be born alone and die alone. They cultivate, analyze, adjust, and evolve according to the information obtained. After thoroughly exploring the possibilities of one sun, they unfold their bodies and fly to another sun. Guess what will happen on the surface in this process?”

Jesse sighed and shook his head, looking at Oliver again.

“…Continue.”

“Okay, okay. You really don’t give up… Do you know why they are so famous? You see, even if it’s me, at least I have a little likable emotion, but they are different. To put it bluntly, the Pillar of the World is the most indifferent creature I have ever seen. Their consciousness ascending to the surface only means one thing—”

“They have completely lost interest in analyzing the many civilizations that currently exist in their own bodies. It is the last sample record before destruction.”

Before the voice fell, a slight tremor from the depths of the earth swept across the soles of their boots.

Jesse was stunned for a moment, his expression changed intricately, and finally fixed on “regret”.

“The Demon King’s cognition is restored,” he said softly, “Answer me now, are you ready to ‘save the world’, Lord Hero? Or are you willing to do nothing and wait to be obliterated by the ’world’?”

Half a day ago, deep in the Abyss.

Nemo could perceive that he was falling quickly.

His body smashed through hard rocks, scorching magma, and thick ice. The pain wasn’t too strong, but the tearing and dizziness were more serious. It seemed to grab his limbs with countless invisible hands intensely pulling him downwards.

His body was corroded out of shape by the explosion of the dragon breath stones, and now it was rapidly recovering.

But Nemo couldn’t lift a finger.

Now he had no intention of paying attention to this.

Countless fragments of information poured frantically into his consciousness. No, it was better to say that his consciousness fell into a certain ocean of memory fragments. Nemo almost forgot his identity for a moment, and the excessive influx of information made him want to scream, but he didn’t even have the strength to open his mouth.

The pain was too intense, and for a few seconds, he almost wanted to die.

His body finally hit the bottom, and the excessive speed caused him to create a huge crater at the bottom of the Abyss, which Nemo could vaguely perceive. The cessation of the fall didn’t make his situation better. His eyelids were still amazingly heavy, and his body’s control didn’t return.

The mixed memories made his consciousness intermittent, and it was difficult to tell whether he felt memories or reality.

This was the sequelae of actively interfering with cognition, Nemo thought vaguely. His mind was full of too much unfamiliar knowledge, and he was like a baby trying to unlock it with different keys. The key was in his hand, and the keyhole was in front, but whether he could put it in or rotate it, it all was incomprehensible and only made his head ached.

But he had felt this, and he may be able to pull through. Despite the memories enormity, they rarely had clear emotions. He was more like a spectator who could empathize.

This was a good thing. In the torture of several explosions in his brain, Nemo desperately repeated to himself…

Hold on. As long as he survives, he had the possibility of seeing Oliver again.

He wanted to look at those eyes again.

Unfortunately, he completely lost control of his body. He couldn’t even grit his teeth. He could only endure a floating sense of powerlessness and protect what little sanity was there.

It was like protecting a dying candle with your bare hands in a torrential rain.

A strong and familiar sense of oppression was approaching. It was Ulysses.

He knew this. If it was his current self, he could barely understand it. The Demon King’s plan pierced his brain in pieces. As long as he…

Killing intent.

The unquestionable killing intent suddenly dropped, almost pressing Nemo’s body into the sand a few inches deeper.

No.

Nemo turned this thought frantically, and the little clue he caught made him extremely horrified. His consciousness was still floating, a miracle didn’t happen, and his body still didn’t obey orders. Not to mention opening his eyes, he couldn’t even shed tears.

Impossible.

He could hear the sound of scythe-like hook claws wrapped in spells, breaking through the air and coming straight at him.

Not now.

Then a little warm liquid splashed on his face, but no pain accompanied it.

He was moving, but not out of his own will. Something threw him away from Ulysses’ attack, then roughly pulled his arm and dragged him quickly in a certain direction.

The aura felt familiar.

But Nemo couldn’t hold on any longer. In the increasingly turbulent tide of memory, his consciousness gradually slid into darkness.

Before that, he could barely feel the long, smooth hair sweeping across his cheeks.

There were several cold and dense auras of death in front of him. From the intensity, it seemed that one of the bodies should be distinctly huge, while the others surrounded it, relatively small.

He recognized these auras, Nemo faintly thought. Those smaller corpses were the ones he had once dragged here personally, and he never forgot any details.

And the one in the middle was particularly huge…

That’s it.

…They were heading towards the remains of Aurorae’s body.