Path of the Unmentioned: The Missing Piece-Chapter 179: The One Who Started It All [3]

Kyle’s breath came in short, ragged gasps as the vines coiled tighter around his body.

Each exhale burned like fire in his lungs.

The crushing pressure of the spider lilies’ grip making his ribs creak. Sweat dripped down his temples, stinging his eyes as he struggled against the unnatural bindings.

His fingers twitched around Zalrielle’s hilt. The familiar weight of his sword cold against his palm, but useless.

His arms were pinned to his sides. The vines squeezing tighter with every weak attempt to break free.

Vesper watched him from just a few paces away, hands tucked casually in the pockets of his long black coat.

His dark eyes gleamed with quiet amusement. His lips curled into a faint smirk. The flowers beneath his boots withered and blackened as if his very presence poisoned the earth.

"Five minutes," Vesper said again, his voice smooth, almost conversational. "Tick-tock, Kyle. Join us... or die here."

Kyle gritted his teeth, forcing himself to breathe through the pain.

The vines weren’t just restraining him. They were draining him. He could feel it.

The slow, insidious pull of his strength leaching away. His muscles growing heavier. His thoughts sluggish.

’What a thick demonic energy.’

The realization hit him like a punch to the gut. Vesper had called demons "scavengers," had spoken of them with disdain. Yet the power radiating from him was undeniably demonic, dark, twisted, wrong.

It slithered through the air like a living thing, thick and suffocating, wrapping around Kyle’s lungs like invisible hands.

But something about it was... different.

"Kyle." Zalrielle’s voice cut through his thoughts, sharp and urgent in his mind. "This mana. It’s not the same as the demons."

Kyle’s pulse spiked. ’What do you mean?’

"It’s similar, but not identical," she murmured, her presence in his mind like a cold blade pressed against his skin.

"It reminds me of that stitched-mask bastard from Viper’s Hideout."

A memory flashed. Sharp. Brutal. The masked man who had nearly killed him. Whose power had felt wrong in a way Kyle couldn’t explain.

The way his magic had itched against Kyle’s skin, like oil mixing with water.

’Are they connected?’ Kyle asked silently.

"I don’t know," Zalrielle admitted. "But this isn’t pure demonic energy. It’s something else. Something worse."

Vesper tilted his head, studying Kyle’s expression with mild curiosity. "What are you thinking so deeply about?"

Kyle didn’t answer. His throat was too dry, his tongue like lead in his mouth.

Vesper sighed, as if disappointed by the silence. "Three minutes left."

’Shit.’

Kyle’s vision blurred at the edges, dark spots dancing in his periphery. The vines were draining him too fast.

His legs trembled. His muscles weakening. If this kept up. He’d pass out before the time was even up.

’If I accept his deal... does that mean selling my soul?’

The thought twisted his stomach. He didn’t know what Vesper truly was.

But he knew one thing. This wasn’t just a choice between life and death.

It was a choice between what he would become.

"Two minutes," Vesper announced, his voice light almost playful.

Kyle’s heartbeat pounded in his ears, drowning out everything else.

He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t run. The domain was Vesper’s world, and in here. Kyle was nothing more than a trapped animal.

His fingers twitched again. Brushing against Zalrielle’s hilt.

"I—"

Then—

CRACK.

The sound tore through the air like a gunshot. Sharp, sudden, deafening. It wasn’t just noise.

It was the world itself breaking.

Kyle’s head snapped up just in time to see it.

A vertical slash of pure darkness splitting the fractured sky above them.

The black gash spread like ink in water. Jagged and unnatural, cutting through the domain’s false reality.

The spider lilies surrounding them withered instantly. Their blood-red petals curling inward, blackening at the edges before crumbling to ash.

The ground beneath Kyle’s feet trembled. Fissures spiderwebbing outward as the domain shuddered like a dying beast.

The vines binding him disintegrated.

One second, they were there. Coiled around his limbs like serpents, draining him dry.

The next, they were gone. Vanishing into wisps of black smoke that dissipated into nothing.

Kyle gasped. His body lurching forward as the pressure vanished.

His legs gave out beneath him, muscles weak from the strain. He barely caught himself on his hands before his face hit the ground.

His breath came in ragged, heaving gulps. Each inhale burning as his lungs remembered how to work without the crushing weight of the vines.

Above him. The sky shattered.

The domain. Vesper’s twisted world of red flowers and fractured light, collapsed in on itself.

The jagged streaks of reds, purples and blues in the false sky darkened.

Then splintered like broken glass. The pieces didn’t fall. They dissolved, fading into nothingness as the illusion unraveled.

And then...

Silence.

The hospital room snapped back into focus.

White walls. The steady beep of the heart monitor. The sharp scent of antiseptic. The cold floor beneath Kyle’s palms.

They were back.

But they weren’t alone.

Between Kyle and Vesper stood a figure.

Cloaked in black. Their face hidden beneath a deep hood, they moved with a stillness that felt unnatural.

In their hand was a sword. But not steel, not anything mortal.

A blade of pure darkness. Its edges flickering like living shadow, tendrils of inky blackness curling around it like smoke.

The air around it warped. As if the light itself recoiled from its presence.

Vesper’s reaction was instantaneous.

His eyes. Always so calm, widened. Just for a fraction of a second.

A flicker of surprise. Then something darker.

Recognition.

The cloaked figure didn’t speak.

They moved.

Fast. Too fast.

The dark blade cut through the air with a sound like a whisper, aimed straight for Vesper’s throat.

Vesper reacted a heartbeat too late.

His hand shot up, crimson mana erupting from his fingertips in a swirling shield of liquid mana.

The two forces collided. Darkness against blood-red energy.

The impact sent a shockwave rippling outward.

The room exploded.

Monitors burst in showers of sparks. Screens blinking out with final, dying shrieks of static.

Glass shattered, shards raining down like glittering hail. Scattering across the floor in jagged fragments.

Vesper skidded back. His boots scraping against the tile.

His usual composure cracked, just slightly. His lips curled into a snarl. The first real emotion Kyle had ever seen on his face.

"You..."

The cloaked figure didn’t let him finish.

Another slash. Another burst of darkness.

This time. Vesper barely blocked in time.

The force of the blow sent him flying backward.

His body slamming into the wall with bone-jarring force. Plaster cracked in a spiderweb pattern behind him as the entire structure shuddered from the collision.

———

[Elderemere Hospital — Parking Area]

The parking lot looked like a warzone.

Thick, gnarled roots. Unnaturally large, pulsing with greenish light.

They had erupted from the concrete, twisting through the wreckage like the grasping fingers of some ancient beast.

Cars lay overturned. Their metal frames crumpled as if tossed aside by a giant’s hand.

Some were encased in jagged ice. Frost spiderwebbing across shattered windshields.

Others had been split clean in half by the roots. Their interiors gutted, wires and upholstery spilling out like entrails.

The concrete pillars holding up the parking structure hadn’t fared any better.

Half of them had been reduced to rubble. Chunks of stone scattered across the ground.

The air smelled of gasoline, damp earth, and something sharper. The metallic tang of blood.

And in the center of it all stood Seraphina Vaelstryx.

Her pristine white coat fluttered slightly in the cold night breeze, untouched by the destruction around her.

Not a single speck of dust marred the fabric. Not a single crease out of place.

Her pink eyes glowed.

Not the soft, warm hue they usually carried.

This was something else.

Something cold.

Beneath her. Pinned against the remnants of a shattered pillar, was the man.

The one who had altered the dungeon gate.

The one who had trapped Kyle and the others inside.

She held him by the throat. Her fingers curled just tight enough to keep him suspended.

His toes barely scraping the broken concrete.

His face was a mess of blood and bruises, one eye swollen shut, his lip split. His clothes were torn. His left arm bent at an unnatural angle.

He was breathing. But just barely.

Seraphina tilted her head. Studying him like a scientist might examine a particularly revolting insect.

"Who are you?" Her voice was calm. Too calm. Like the stillness before a storm.

The man choked. His fingers clawing at her wrist. She didn’t loosen her grip.

"W-Wait—"

"I didn’t ask you to speak," she said softly. "I asked who you are."

His lips moved, but no sound came out. His face darkened, veins bulging at his temples.

Seraphina tilted her head, studying him like a scientist examining a particularly disgusting insect.

Then, with a flick of her wrist. She slammed him back against the concrete pillar.

The Concrete cracked under the impact. The man wheezed, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

"Let’s try again," she murmured. "Who sent you?"

This time, he managed a strangled laugh. "You, you think I’ll just... tell you?"

Seraphina’s expression didn’t change.

But her glowing pink eyes. Darkened.

"Disgusting cultist," she said, almost bored. "You’re all the same. Pathetic little rats hiding behind your masters."

The man’s grin faltered.

Then...

BOOM.

An explosion rocked the building above them.

The sound was distant, muffled, but unmistakable. Glass shattering. Metal groaning.

Seraphina’s head snapped up. Her glowing eyes locking onto the hospital’s upper floors.

’Kyle.’

She didn’t have time for this.

Her gaze dropped back to the man.

He was still grinning.

"You’re too late," he choked out. "He’s already—"

The roots moved before he could finish.

They erupted from the ground with terrifying speed, thick as tree trunks, their bark-like surfaces gleaming with that same eerie green light.

They coiled around the man’s legs. His torso. His arms.

Crushing. Squeezing.

His grin vanished.

His ribs cracked first.

A wet, sickening sound. Like stepping on rotten wood.

The man screamed.

Seraphina didn’t flinch.

The roots tightened further.

His arms, the one already broken. Twisted with a grotesque snap, bone tearing through skin.

His scream turned into a gurgle as a particularly thick root lashed around his throat, cutting off his air.

His remaining eye bulged. Veins popping as he struggled uselessly against the inevitable.

Seraphina watched. Her face impassive.

Then, with a final, brutal crunch. The roots contracted all at once.

The man came apart like overripe fruit.

Blood sprayed across the concrete, painting the roots crimson. Chunks of flesh and splinters of bone scattered across the wreckage.

Seraphina didn’t linger.

She stepped back. Her coat still immaculate, her hands clean.

The roots retreated. Slithering back into the earth as quickly as they had come, dragging what was left of the man with them.

Within seconds, there was no trace of him left.

Just the destruction. freeweɓnovel-cøm

And the silence.

Seraphina didn’t waste another moment.

She turned on her heel and ran for the hospital entrance. Her boots barely making a sound against the broken concrete.

Kyle was in trouble.

And she had already wasted enough time.

———