Chapter 119: The Seventh Harbinger

What should I do?

I pressed my good hand against the floor and tried to get up. When my knees trembled, I had to lean my shoulder against the wall. My right wrist throbbed beneath Umbrella’s wrapping, pain spreading up my arm with every heartbeat.

I had exhausted my stamina.

I had tried hiding, fighting, and running away.

I had even sacrificed my hand...

Yet here I was, back in the same cave. The old man stood before me without a single injury, that strange expression still on his face.

There was no point in resisting anymore.

On the bright side, I was probably safe for now. At least, I hoped so. The old man had just saved me from crashing into the ground, even if he was the reason all of this had happened in the first place.

There was something else bothering me, too.

Just how powerful was this freak of an old man?

From what I had seen so far, he could easily rank among the ten strongest Guardians in the world.

Okay, I might not be very good at judging someone’s strength, but something in my gut told me I was right.

So how could no one know someone like him existed?

When the old man set my severed hand on the edge of the table, I looked away.

Talking to him was the only thing I could do now.

I cleared my throat.

"Who are you?"

The old man didn’t answer for several seconds.

Then he went down on one knee before me.

His beard spread across his chest as he bowed his head. The man who had stood motionless in the middle of my flames calmly rested his hands on his knee.

"Oswald, Seventh Harbinger of the Eternal Night, greets the Chosen One."

Unsure how to react, I looked at his face.

Then at the knee pressed against the floor.

I waited for him to say something else. Perhaps there was more to that sentence. Perhaps I just needed a few more seconds to understand what he had said.

But nothing changed.

Why was he kneeling before me?

What was the Eternal Night?

What did he mean by Harbinger?

And why had he said it as though I would understand immediately?

System, do you know anything about this?

[...]

I briefly closed my eyes, then opened them again.

As expected. This son of a bitch had no intention of helping me.

Oswald was still waiting with his head bowed.

"Um... All right, Oswald, Seventh Harbinger of the Eternal Night," I said, hoping the words would make more sense as I repeated them. "May I ask what you want from me?"

"Allow me to serve you."

I frowned.

Oswald raised his head slightly. When those white eyes turned toward my face again, I found myself pressing harder against the wall.

"Though I am not as young or as strong as the others, these old bones still wish to be of use to you."

His voice had grown quieter, carrying a trace of hesitation and a fear of rejection.

"Please accept me," he said, looking into my eyes with his white ones.

Then he bowed his head again, innocently waiting for an answer.

For a while, I just stared at him.

The man who had caught me as easily as a child’s toy didn’t consider himself strong enough. And nothing about his manner suggested that he was trying to boast.

How many people did he mean by "the others"?

More importantly, who were they?

He really was waiting for an answer.

His bowed head, his wrinkled face, the outline of his shoulders beneath that worn fabric... For a moment, I forgot my fear of the thing in front of me and simply saw an old man.

An unwanted sense of pity stirred inside me.

But what did he mean by serving me?

I didn’t even know who he was yet. I still didn’t understand why I was here, why he had carved my old face into the wall, or what he expected from me.

"Why don’t you explain first?" I said. "If I find you useful, I’ll give you a chance."

Even I was surprised by how easily those words left my mouth. Just moments ago, I had thrown myself off a cliff to escape him.

Honestly, I wanted to turn him down outright. Who would want anything to do with a strange old man who had a bizarre title and hid inside an Overlap?

Especially when that man had kidnapped them and chained them to a cross.

Oswald didn’t object.

Instead, a faint glimmer of hope appeared in his white eyes.

"What are the Harbingers and the Eternal Night?" I asked.

The old man raised his head and began to speak.

"We—"

I heard the first few syllables.

Then the sound changed.

I frowned involuntarily. A harsh, high-pitched noise seemed to creep between the words I was hearing. The harder I tried to listen, the louder it grew, building a sharp pressure inside my ears.

"Wait..."

Even my own voice sounded strange.

I pressed my good hand against my ear. When I tried to raise my other arm, the pain in my wrist made me grit my teeth.

Oswald’s lips were moving.

I couldn’t understand what he was saying.

The noise felt as though it were scraping the inside of my skull.

Something warm and wet coated my fingers.

When I pulled my hand away from my ear and looked, I saw it.

A warm, red liquid.

Blood.

As a drop trickled into my palm, my shoulder slipped against the wall.

"Sir Henry!"

Oswald had risen to his feet. He caught me as my legs gave way.

"Are you all right?"

His voice sounded far away.

I wanted to answer, but all that escaped my mouth was a broken breath.

Someone was screaming inside my head.

I couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from or whom it belonged to. I covered my bleeding ear, trying to silence it, but it didn’t help.

It was as though the voice had settled in the very center of my mind, screaming madly without pausing for breath.

For some reason, I could sense deep anger, hatred, and disappointment in that scream. Those feelings seemed to fill my own heart, as if I had experienced them myself.

I dug my hand into my hair.

"Shut up..."

Oswald’s lips were no longer moving.

The screaming continued.

"Shut up."

My fingers tightened in my hair. My head spun, and the face before my eyes seemed to break apart and come back together.

"Shut up!"

I struggled to pull free of Oswald’s arm. My shoulder struck the wall.

The sound didn’t stop.

"AAAHHH!"

I slammed my head against the stone.

For a moment, I felt a different pain. A sharp, hard ache spread from my forehead to the backs of my eyes...

But the scream was still there.

Before I could move my head again, Oswald’s hand caught my forehead.

White light spread before my eyes.

My body went rigid.

Then the sound inside my mind began to break apart.

The scream became an uneven hum. As that, too, slowly faded into the distance, I dragged a deep breath into my lungs. A ragged sob escaped my throat.

Oswald didn’t withdraw his hand.

Beneath the white light, my eyelids grew heavy. Keeping my head upright was becoming difficult. I felt as though I would fall asleep the moment I closed my eyes.

But I didn’t want to sleep.

Not yet.

"That..." I paused to catch my breath. "What was that?"

When I looked at Oswald’s face, I saw that he was surprised, too.

"I don’t know."

The light beneath his hand slowly dimmed.

For several seconds, he stood there looking at his own palm, his brows drawn together in thought.

Then he spoke again.

"It’s as though something has built an enormous barrier between you and the outside world."

"A barrier?"

The old man didn’t answer. After helping me lean against the wall again, he studied my face for several seconds.

In the silence, I listened to the faint ringing in my ear. I kept waiting for it to grow louder again, watching anxiously whenever Oswald opened his mouth.

"Sir Henry..."

"Have you ever died before?"

My gaze locked onto his face.

"Huh?"

Died before?!

My old body...

The unanswered questions about what had happened that night were beginning to fill my mind again when Oswald gave a slight shake of his head.

"No. Never mind."

I opened my mouth.

Then closed it.

Never mind?

This old man had managed to confuse me even more without giving me a single answer.

Oswald stepped back and went down on one knee again.

For a moment, I wanted to stop him. But before I could think of what to say, he had already bowed his head.

I rested my forehead against the cold stone and exhaled.

"Oi..."

The old man looked up.

"So how can you help me? I still don’t know who or what you are. I don’t know what you’re after, either."

My voice came out harsher than I had intended.

Oswald’s shoulders slumped slightly.

"I apologize for being so useless."

The words I had been about to say caught in my throat.

I was afraid of him. I hadn’t forgotten that he had kidnapped me. Yet seeing him apologize with his head bowed made me feel bad.

Don’t make me look like the bad guy here, you crazy old man...

I felt like a cranky child scolding an elderly man.

I wanted to rub my eyes, but abandoned the idea when I saw the blood on my left hand.

"Hey, get up."

Oswald didn’t move.

"You can get up now."

After a few seconds of hesitation, he rose.

Seeing him stand again reminded me of just how powerful he was. The pity hadn’t disappeared, but neither had the unease in my chest.

Still, the thought that someone like him genuinely wanted to serve me...

It was hard to believe.

"Can you swear you won’t betray me?" I asked. "That you won’t harm me, and that you’ll remain loyal. On your life."

Oswald’s expression changed.

His gaze settled on my face. A smile slowly formed among his wrinkles.

"I swear on my life," he said. "I will not betray you. I will not harm you, and I will remain loyal."

The answer had come without a moment’s hesitation.

I studied his face.

I didn’t know how much protection an oath could offer me. But I no longer had the strength to escape. If this really was what he wanted, I wasn’t sure what reason I could give for refusing.

Besides, I didn’t even know what would happen if I turned him down. He might kill me.

"All right," I said at last.

Oswald waited as though holding his breath.

"You may serve me."

A tear gathered at the corner of one of his pure white eyes.

As it slipped through the wrinkles on his cheek, the old man raised his hand.

I thought he was about to say something.

Perhaps he would kneel before me again.

Then his hand turned toward his own chest.

An instant later—

Warm blood splashed onto my face.

I couldn’t even close my eyes.

Oswald had torn his own heart apart.

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, but his face held a smile so radiant it could have made the sun jealous.

"Thank you."