All at once, the weight of his pain came crashing down. The memory of his parents, bloodied and helpless… the image of Alice, crying out as she was snapped and dusted away… the guilt, the rage, the despair he thought he had buried deep within—everything resurfaced.
It came not as thoughts, but as raw emotion. He couldn't breathe. His fists clenched. His heart thundered with hatred. His teeth ground against each other as the infernal energy tried to feed on his rage, intensifying it, deepening it, pushing him further into that violent abyss. He felt himself slipping, his mind warping under the pressure.
The red strings of energy pulsed, spreading now toward his left shoulder—slowly, inch by inch, threatening to wrap around his entire being. His breathing grew erratic. His aura turned monstrous. He was no longer thinking—he was reacting, like a beast that had tasted blood.
But then... the pond moved.
