Chapter 78: Erness stopped being Erness
Drip—! Drip! Drip!
Rain fell slowly from the darkened sky. The wet streets, softened by the light patter of raindrops, followed the light footsteps of Erness, walking down the middle of the road, moving against the flow of panicked residents fleeing in the opposite direction.
Her face looked calm, but the furrow in her brow was unmistakable, revealing just how tense Erness genuinely was right now.
For a moment, her white hair got gently soaked by the rain, sticking to her face.
Her gaze fixed on the distance, toward the western forest, where she could feel an overwhelming amount of negative energy, so massive it left her feeling genuinely overwhelmed. Not just from the corruption seed, but from something tainted, from the rampaging monsters, from residents scared half to death, and from soldiers on the brink of despair.
All of it felt so vivid it started bleeding into Erness’s own mind. Because, even though the spirit race relied on negative energy to sustain their human form, that didn’t mean they could just keep absorbing it endlessly—absorbing too much would only end up contaminating them, turning them into malevolent spirits that would go on to harm humans and other species alike.
She drew a breath. "Where the hell did he even go?" Her gaze swept across her surroundings, amid all the chaos, every resident fleeing, leaving their homes behind in complete disarray.
Erness needed to find Eiros immediately, since he’d suddenly vanished, and she had no idea what might happen next. She let out a short sigh, pouting at the thought of Eiros suddenly leaving her all alone, for whatever reason.
Either way, Erness would make Eiros pay for this later—
Crash—!
A girl, looking about fifteen years old, glasses framing her face, appeared startled as she ran and collided with Erness, sobbing.
"Agh...! Ow! Ugh... s-sorry."
Watching how genuinely pitiful she looked, Erness blinked, then put on her usual soft smile, bending down to help her, but—
Throb—!
"....!"
Erness froze in place. In her pale white eyes, as she looked deep inside the girl’s body—currently trapped in a state of panic, despair, and terror—she saw a massive amount of negative energy slowly gathering in one spot within her chest, deep inside, as though something were absorbing it. And whatever was there, it was growing.
Erness didn’t need to verify anything—she knew instantly what it was. A corruption seed.
Another seed. Her body tensed for a moment.
Then, she blinked, the screaming all around her sounding so loud. The rain fell harder as she let the girl get back up and flee.
Erness didn’t say anything, because after seeing that girl, once she came back to her senses, she looked around at everything else.
"Run! Hurry, run! We need to get to the first district!"
An old man tried running with everything he had left.
An elderly woman wept, helpless.
There were so many of them—so many corruption seeds suddenly appearing right in front of Erness’s eyes.
Her pupils caught them, one after another. A dozen, no, more than that. The more people fled, the more of them who came from the west, the more of them Erness discovered were carrying a corruption seed.
’Ah?’
Erness stood frozen, her usually relaxed face now stunned, her entire body trembling at the sheer presence of that many corruption seeds.
Her heart pounded harder and harder, and suddenly she felt as though she’d been pulled somewhere else entirely.
A world that felt like a mystical realm, where she could see unique creatures, where she could turn transparent at will, a world blanketed in a pleasant, thick mist, a world where... a place she’d once been born into.
That vision then shattered into pieces.
Something like Cray appeared everywhere, in all sorts of forms. They destroyed everything, slaughtering every last inhabitant of the spirit world. She saw her father and her mother fighting, every soldier, every person she’d ever known, each of them fighting only to die.
The scent of blue blood filled the air everywhere, so thick, as Erness stood alone, the only one left alive.
"KYAAAH—!"
Her body jolted at the scream of a young girl, unconsciously making Erness turn toward the source of that cry. Her gaze landed on the little girl, staring at a boy who looked slightly older. The two of them appeared to be orphans living out on the streets.
"B-brother! Are you okay?!"
The little girl called out to the boy as "brother," making their relationship clear. Her older brother here had fallen, accidentally stabbed by a nail scattered near his foot.
But none of that mattered. What mattered was the corruption seed lodged inside that boy’s body.
Erness watched them, cold sweat spilling down her face, and her claws slowly began to grow.
’...There won’t be... any mistakes next time.’
With a gaze filled with regret, sorrow, and an anger so old it ran deep, she took a step closer.
The little girl seemed to notice, staring at her in fear as Erness approached, claws now as long as razors.
She spread her arms wide, shielding her older brother, tears streaming down her face.
"Stop! Stop, stay back!"
The way Erness looked at them was more than enough to make it clear she hadn’t come with good intentions.
The boy stared at her, trembling, consumed by fear.
"R-rina, get out of here fast, b-brother will catch up soon."
But the little girl shook her head. "No! No! Why should I leave?! I, I don’t want to... lose anyone else, please..."
Her crying grew even louder.
"Please let us go... What did brother and I even do wrong? W-we haven’t done anything wrong!"
Watching her plead like that, Erness didn’t say a word. She just kept walking closer, closer still, then her body vanished, reappearing right behind the boy.
"H-huh?! Aaah!!" The boy screamed, raising his hands in a panic, trying to shield himself.
The little girl, not getting the chance to react, spun around, screaming, only to find Erness’s sharp claws already buried in her brother’s throat.
Erness pulled her claws free, blood spraying out from the boy’s neck, his eyes filled with agony.
"Ri...na.... hurry... g-go..."
Those were the only words he managed, along with his eyes searching for his little sister, looking at her one last time.
The rain fell even harder, soaking Erness’s dress completely, along with her hair and her face.
Her expression turned dark.
"Brother! Brother! No! D-don’t, don’t, don’t leave me! I, I don’t have anyone left..... What’s the point of living if, if you’re not here? You promised.... you promised... that we’d live together, buy a big house and... be happy...!"
Erness’s heart pounded even harder. Her vision blurred, overlapping, but she pushed through it, biting down on her lip until it bled.
Something unbearably painful gripped her chest. One of the factors that could turn a spirit into a malevolent one was when they lost control of their own emotions.
And right now, Erness genuinely felt like she was falling apart.
Her breathing grew ragged, and the more she heard that little girl’s voice, the angrier she felt.
Unable to bear it any longer, her body vanished from that spot. She reappeared far off, deep within a district much further away, her exhausted gaze landing on ordinary residents fleeing.
So many of them.
So many hosts carrying the corruption seed.
She had to kill them.
But...
Her memories weren’t cooperating with her, refusing to stay friendly, and Erness kept finding her vision blurring, overlapping.
She remembered that little girl’s scream, and somehow, that scream became her own scream, shouting out in despair over her own brother.
Erness stopped being Erness.
For this moment, she was Renessa, who’d lost her brother, Erness.
Her pupils tensed, then slowly narrowed into pale white vertical slits. Her once-normal skin now showed scales spreading across her entire body, like a suit of pale white armor.
Along with that, two long fangs emerged from her teeth.
Renessa let out a breath.
She needed to kill every last host carrying the corruption seed that she found. Her own condition—she’d deal with that later.
Her body vanished then.
***