Chapter 64 - You Disappoint Me, Zane
Nero landed and jumped again beside the slab where Laira remains rested. He raised his right hand and looked at the bracelet that had only half of the pearls left.
"Why did you stop? You should have broken!" he yelled.
Nero moved his left hand to remove the bracelet forcefully. As soon as Nero touched the bracelet, it sparkled lightning, and it burned Nero's palm.
"I hate you, mama."
The black in Nero's eyes slowly covered the red— although Nero wasn't aware of that. Nero tapped the finger of his right hand on the wrist of his left hand, and his hand was severed.
Blood came gushing out, and Nero let it drop on the slab. Nero's blood got mixed with Laira's blood, and it started regenerating. The blood turned into cells, then tissue, then muscles, and bones also restored. Laira's body was back to normal in about two minutes— and Nero's hand was also perfectly healed.
"Hey, can you hear me?" Nero slowly moved his hand towards her and shook her. "She doesn't have a soul."
Nero was able to regenerate her body but couldn't bring her soul back.
"Sadly, the souls don't go to the heavens; they pass to the afterlife or a resting place. If I knew where you were, I would have brought you back."
Nero then remembered his last decent conversation with Laira. It was right after they talked in the morning.
"What will you do after you have accomplished your goal?" Laira asked.
"There are some people who I must kill, and for that, I need to travel not only the continents but the worlds too."
Nero planned to go back to his previous world and kill his girlfriend, so he was looking for a way to travel through worlds.
"Will you ever come back?" Laira questioned, then waved her hand and uttered, "Let me rephrase that; will we ever meet again?"
"Probably not," Nero replied.
Laira smiled wryly and ran away after hearing Nero's response.
——
"I was rude to her even till her last moments," he mumbled.
Nero dug a grave and carried Laira's body to the grave, then buried her.
"I told you that `Kind people always meet a bad end`, didn't I?"
Nero placed the spell on the grave that would keep animals away from it.
"You know, I knew that you were in love with me, and I also knew that you were always awake when Emilia and I sneaked out in the middle of the night."
Nero let out a soft chuckle then continued, "I was going to ask you to come and travel with me." He stopped and looked up at the sky, "I… I would have probably fallen in love with you if we had spent more time."
"I am simp for innocent girls," Nero remembered his lover from his previous life. "She was innocent." Then remembered his lover from this life, "And she was innocent too."
"Emilia was innocent too… at first, though she has changed now," Nero tittered.
Nero looked at the grave as his appearance changed to his human form with black hair and azure eyes.
"You hold a special place in my heart. And I hope you feel satisfied with the punishment I gave them."
He raised his hand in the air, and white flowers appeared in front of him. He placed them on the grave and uttered, "These flowers were called 'White pearl hyacinth' in my previous world, and they don't exist here. They were my sister's favorite flowers, and I hope you like them too."
Nero then went back to the party and found Emilia and Elise crying in Sophia's arms.
—|—|—|—
65 Days Passed Since that Dreadful Day.
A hooded figure and a petite wolf walked through Korrupt village.
They entered the barrier and witnessed the scent of death. There was blood everywhere, but no sign or any flesh or bones.
"You disappoint me, Zane," the hooded figure muttered as she glanced around.
They walked further and saw a bear curling up in the middle. The wolf started growling as its size changed— but the girl stopped the wolf and asserted, "Wait for me at the end of the barrier."
The wolf walked away, and the bear turned around. Its mouth was full of blood, and it was eating its own body.
The bear growled and dashed at the girl with pure bloodlust. The next second, the girl had walked past the bear and the bear's body was torn apart as it fell down.
The girl tilted her head to look back, and uttered, "You disappoint me, Zane."
She walked to the wolf standing at the edge of the barrier and spoke, "You can change your form now. And I said this before, that it feels weird talking to you when you are in your wolf form."
The wolf cuddled the girl's leg and changed its form to a beautiful girl with wolf ears and tail.
"You can be honest and say `I want to touch your wolf ears`, you know?" said the wolf girl.
"Fenris, can you do one thing for me?" the girl asked the wolf girl.
Fenris nodded and spoke with sincerity, "Anything you say."
"Try passing through the barrier. I want to check if it works on you or not. Since you are from the beast realm, it might not work on you."
Fenris tried to walk out of the barrier, but she couldn't.
"It appears your prey is stronger than you think."
Fenris was referring to Nero as the girl's prey.
"I am aware of it already. No one can surpass my Zane." The girl raised her hand and clenched the barrier as though it was a piece of cloth.
"Break." The barrier broke as the girl giggled, "You disappoint me, Zane."
They were leaving the area, but the girl stopped suddenly and muttered, "No way."
She turned around and sniffed as though her nose had emanated a pleasant fragrance. She started running towards the smell, which led her to Laira's grave.
The smell was from the flower Nero had placed on Laira's grave, and they still hadn't decayed. The girl picked up one flower and smelled it, "You enraptured me, Stupid Zane."
Fenris caught up to the girl and stood beside her, "What caught your attention, Jane?"
"My name is Hera now, so don't call me by my past life's name," Hera asserted and placed the flower back on the grave.
"So, Hera, what caught your attention?" Fenris asked again.
"These flowers…" Hera shook her head in denial. "That's impossible."
"Hera?"
"It seems I wasn't the only one who retained the memories from my previous life— he remembers everything as well."
"Is that a problem?" Fenris asked curiously.
"Hope it isn't," Hera mumbled and looked at the grave— or rather at the flowers.
She furrowed her brows and squinted her eyes, "Step back, Fenris."
Fenris hid behind Hera and hugged her from behind. "What's wrong?"
A smirk appeared on Hera's face as she asserted, "You disappoint me, Zane."
The sand and the flowers on the grave started moving abruptly as if someone was moving inside the grave. Then suddenly, the flowers were pulled inside the grave, and after a brief moment of silence, a hand came out of the grave.