Damn it... Curse it all.

  The pain from my torn-off arm was so agonizing that for a second, I forgot my own name. But when I saw his face—crushed, lost, plunged into the eternal darkness of oblivion—I felt... joy?

  I crawled toward him over the hot ash, dragging my stump behind me. My breath scorched my throat. I reached his motionless body and loomed over him.

  "I won... do you hear me? DO YOU HEAR ME, ZENKHALD?!"

  I screamed right into his ear, hoping to see even a spark of awareness. But his eyes were empty. Everything inside me should have been rejoicing. I had erased him. I HAD DESTROYED HIM.

  So why did it feel so empty beneath my ribs? Why did I feel only fear instead of triumph?

  Zenkhald began to stir. Weakly, convulsively. His chest heaved frantically; he tried to take a breath, but... he couldn't. He simply didn't remember how. The mechanism of his body, stripped of its memory, had stopped.

  I watched him turn blue. Watched him helplessly gasp for air, suffocating right at my feet.

  "Why won't you just die?!" I screamed, my fingers digging into his shirt. "Come on! Just die already!"

  He wasn't dying. He just kept suffering.

  "BREATHE! BREATHE, YOU BASTARD!"

  I don't know what came over me. Some kind of madness that drowned out the voice of reason. Lines from that stupid book of the old woman's, which I used to memorize at night, surfaced in my head: “When a child is born, you must strike them on the back so the first breath opens their lungs.”

  With the last of my strength, I rolled his heavy body onto his stomach. I swung my remaining arm and struck him between the shoulder blades with all my might.

  "BREATHE!" A strike. "BREATHE!" Another strike. "WHY AREN'T YOU BREATHING, YOU SCUM?!"

  I struck him again, pouring all my anger, all my disappointment into the motion. His body shuddered, and a hoarse, strained sound tore from his throat. Zenkhald took a heavy, greedy breath.

  Exhausted, I collapsed onto the ground beside him. My arm had already started throbbing—the regeneration of the vessel was slowly rebuilding bone and flesh. But only one question throbbed in my head. As massive as this burning village.

  Why?

  I had dreamed of your death. I hated your every breath. So why now, when you were on the brink, did I drag you back with my own hands? Why didn't I let you die?

  I looked up at the smoke-filled sky.

  POV: Aurora (Demon of Oblivion)

  I got to my feet, feeling the remnants of mana barely flickering within my vessel. The stump of my left shoulder throbbed with pain, demanding immediate nourishment. Regeneration is a gluttonous thing, and I had pushed myself so hard today that I could barely see the road in front of me.

  I looked at what was left of the village. Pikes, ash, silence.

  I needed fuel.

  I approached the bodies of those old men. Their blood had already begun to cool, soaking into the earth. No sympathy, no pity. They were just a resource. I pressed my mouth to their wounds, greedily absorbing their blood. With every gulp, I felt the bones knitting together inside me with a crunch, and the skin on my shoulder beginning to close.

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  Once my arm had recovered enough for me to move it, I returned to Zenkhald.

  He was still lying on his back, staring into the smoke-choked sky with his new eyes. His breathing was ragged, hoarse. He inhaled as if every gasp of air was a revelation to him. Or a torture.

  "Well, 'hero'?" I whispered, looming over him. "Are you just an empty shell now?"

  I expected to feel triumph. But instead, something heavy shifted in my chest.

  I grabbed his arms and hoisted him onto my back with a jerk. Zenkhald was heavy—not in weight, but in presence. It was as if I wasn't carrying a teenager, but all that cursed immortality he had so desperately wanted to forget. His head flopped lifelessly onto my shoulder, and I felt the warmth of his breath on my neck.

  "Breathe, you freak," I said, readjusting my grip on his legs. "I still need you alive. I haven't decided what to do with you yet."

  I marched away, heading East. Towards the rising sun. To the Sultanate.

  POV: Aurora

  I dragged him all day. My back ached, and my arms went so numb I stopped feeling them. Finally, I just dumped him onto the ground.

  I sat down beside him, breathing heavily, and stared into his face.

  "Why didn't you die?!" I snarled. "You were supposed to forget everything. How to swallow, how to open your eyelids, how to contract your heart muscles... You were supposed to become a piece of meat that simply goes cold."

  But he was alive. His chest rose and fell rhythmically. He looked at me with his eyes—absolutely vacant eyes.

  "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!" I raised my hand to strike, but held back.

  There was no fear in his gaze. No memory. Only this infuriating, animalistic will to live.

  Suddenly, his fingers twitched. First one, then another. He scraped his nails against the dry earth, trying to find a purchase.

  "How... how did you keep your mind?" my voice broke into a wheeze. "My magic doesn't make mistakes. You were supposed to fade away!"

  It became physically difficult to look at him. Too much effort. Too much was wrong. I looked down at my hands and felt something hot stream down my cheeks.

  I touched the drops with my fingers. Wet. Salty.

  "WHY WON'T YOU JUST DIE?!" I screamed, choking on those damned tears. "WHY ARE YOU SO HEAVY?! WHY ARE YOU STILL BREATHING?!"

  I covered my face with my hands and simply howled, curling into a ball next to him.

  POV: Aurora

  The next day was dragging on. Zenkhald kept tossing on my back, twitching and making it hard to walk. At some point, I got completely sick of it and just let go.

  He dropped into the road dust like a sack and started making pathetic noises—something between a whimper and a whine.

  "WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" I barked, feeling the rage boiling up inside me. "You should be thanking me that I didn't leave you to rot in that ash!"

  I snapped. I kicked him in the face with my boot with all my might. His head snapped back. I kicked him again. On the third time, as I was winding up for the strike, something happened that I didn't expect.

  Zenkhald, this memory-less "vegetable," suddenly thrust his head forward and sank his teeth into my shin.

  "AAARGH! YOU ANIMAL!"

  I tried to tear him off my leg, beating him on the back of the head, but he only dug in harder, like a starving dog. A sickening sound rang out.

  CRUNCH.

  He just bit a chunk out of my leg. Cleanly, right down to the bone. I hissed in pain, staggering back and clutching the wound with my hand. Blood sprayed onto the grass.

  "Filthy beast... senile freak..." I sputtered with anger.

  I raised my fist for a crushing blow to smear him across the dirt, when suddenly the world blinked.

  SNAP.

  I was simply thrown three meters back. I froze, not understanding what had happened. I rushed at him again, trying to reach him with a teleport... and I was hurled three meters in the other direction again.

  "What the..." I stopped dead.

  Even in this state, without memory or consciousness, his body continued to defend itself. His passive spatial mana simply wouldn't let aggression within a certain radius. A perfect, automatic barrier.

  I started walking forward slowly. Step by step. This time, space didn't resist. I stood right in front of him. Zenkhald sat in the dust, smeared in my blood, and looked me dead in the eye.

  There was no resentment, no fear, no malice in his gaze. He was just... observing. Mindlessly.

  "You annoy me so much," I exhaled, sitting down exhaustedly on the ground beside him. "I will find a way to kill you. Sooner or later, I'll do it. I promise."

  I carefully touched his shoulder. This time, the magic didn't trigger; I wasn't thrown back. It seemed the barrier reacted only to the intent to cause harm.

  I hoisted him onto my back again. My leg throbbed with pain, but regeneration had already begun its work. I walked on, feeling his breath on the back of my neck.