The Price of Obsession

The seawater was bone-chillingly cold, swiftly engulfing Saranya’s calves.

The oil lamp had extinguished. Saranya knelt in the pitch-black torrent, desperately searching the waters for a familiar face while expending her demonic energy to maintain the ice storm’s intensity.

A string of bubbles rose to the surface.

She quickly plunged into the water, pulling out a body.

“Talia…!”

The touch of beast fur met her hands, a clear sign this was not Talia.

Overcome with disappointment, Saranya let out an angry wail as she lifted the person’s head.

It was Westir.

Without hesitation, Saranya channeled more demonic energy. Using the seawater, she cast a spell to encase the dying Westir in ice, allowing him to float on the surface and be carried away by the swift current, out of her sight.

She could only gamble that Westir would drift out of the ship and be rescued by those outside.

Across from Saranya, Mejga retracted his ice blades. His body became covered in a thick layer of solid ice, adopting a completely passive defensive stance.

As the ship’s damage grew increasingly severe, Mejga’s emotions teetered on the brink of collapse.

“Come with big brother, Saranya. Big brother can free you from all of this!”

Mejga waded through the water, his steps unsteady, forcing his way through the sharp ice crystals suspended in the air as he inched closer to Saranya.

As if she had heard a chilling joke, Saranya’s lips twisted into a bitter smile.

‘Escape all this?’

‘That was truly… the most perfect fantasy.’

More than one person had told her such things, but the truth was, she had known it all along. Whether she accepted it or not, no matter how hard she tried, nothing would change in the end; she would only stray further down the path of depravity.

No one could save her; there was no escape. To sink, to fall into the abyss—that was her destiny.

Time and again, facts had proven this: those who approached her, who tried to hold onto her, would, without exception, be drawn into her nightmarish fate.

Her old legionnaires, the knight sisters who followed her: Paresha Greystone, Aquilis, Vireta…

‘Everyone… I’ve ruined everyone…’

Therefore, she should not be thinking about saving herself now. She needed to compensate everyone, to stop the victims she had influenced from suffering further, and to keep potential victims as far away from her as possible.

If possible, she wanted no new friends or lovers; her world should only contain her and her master.

Alas, now even that thought had become a luxury…

Talia shouldn’t have been dragged into her affairs. A bright future awaited that girl on shore, and the demonic disaster was nothing to her. Talia would navigate the dangerous times with her own abilities, earn enough money and renown, then retire and form a family with her beloved, living a happy life.

Talia would surely have that life.

‘If only… if only she tried a little harder…’

Saranya gritted her teeth, lowered her head, and stubbornly scooped at the water.

“Saranya… listen to big brother… Big brother will take you away from this cursed place. Big brother will stay with you—”

Above her, Mejga extended a pale hand towards her.

Her hairs stood on end. Saranya, filled with immense resentment, slowly raised her head.

After many years, the two faced each other at such a close distance for the first time. The siblings shared identical ice-blue eyes, lustrous black hair, and nearly identical facial features and jawlines—a resemblance made even more striking by Mejga’s women’s clothing.

These Kerfen family siblings were 99% alike.

Upon inadvertently noticing this, Saranya’s lips curled into a self-deprecating smile, her eyes reflecting scorn. With a single refusal, she extinguished Mejga’s hopes completely.

“I’m not going with you. You are not my big brother.”

This was the truth of her heart. She would rather believe her brother had died long ago, and that the one standing before her now was merely a demon wearing her brother’s skin.

“You are not my big brother. My Mejga would never be a perverted waste like you. Haven’t you realized? You’re already weaker than me in magic. Your presence only disgusts me. I’m saying it again: I don’t need you. You are worthless to me.”

As these words left her lips, she witnessed her brother’s incredibly eager, almost pleading expression instantly freeze, then be replaced by a deeper, more twisted horror.

“No… Don’t look at me like that! Saranya!!!”

Mejga shrieked, clutching his head. He crumpled before her, like an abandoned orphan.

She had struck Mejga’s most sensitive nerve. He abandoned all his spells, letting the ice crystals tear at his smooth skin, caring only to cling desperately to his sister’s legs.

“Big brother was wrong, big brother won’t seek revenge anymore… Big brother just wants to be with you. Family should be together. Big brother wants to be with you… Big brother became like this… Everything big brother did was for you! For us!!”

“Don’t touch me—!”

“Don’t leave me… Saranya… Big brother will try to become stronger… Just give big brother one more chance…”

“Stop pestering me, or I’ll kill you! I really… really will kill you…”

“Big brother loves you… Don’t abandon big brother…”

The ship’s hull capsized. Both of them, along with a mass of debris inside the cabin, were swept away by the surging waves, yet Mejga’s hands, as if glued, refused to release their grip on her legs.

There was little time left.

Saranya clung to a protruding plank and furiously kicked her legs, trying to dislodge Mejga.

Somehow, this scene suddenly reminded her of their childhood antics, rolling and wrestling in the snow, embracing each other. Yet, back then, her companion was her gentle big brother Mejga; now, in this claustrophobic, collapsing cabin, she saw only a desperate, pathetic madman.

“Stay! Stay with me—!!!”

Countless enormous, twisted ice spikes suddenly erupted around Mejga. This time, his magic had no specific target; he was simply unleashing his rage.

But in the next moment, the temperature of Saranya’s legs plummeted, and they instantly froze, losing all sensation.

“What are you doing?!”

Not only that, but the cold quickly spread from her legs to her chest. The extreme cold Mejga unleashed froze the two siblings together.

By now, the water level inside the cabin had risen to her abdomen. Swirls, waves, and raging seawater crashed down upon them, yet the connection between the siblings was so firm that no external force could tear them apart.

The wolf head on her shoulder suddenly flared with light, emitting a blast of grayish-black demonic energy.

Saranya heard Mejga chanting. The incantation was not common Elvish, but some more obscure, ancient language.

“W-what are you doing? Mejga! Stop it!!”

“Let’s be together, big brother, forever…”

Saranya’s legs briefly regained sensation, then a piercing pain assailed her. Her scream caught in her throat, and she could only gasp, trembling, for a breath of cold air.

The two collapsed onto the water, floating eerily.

Saranya twisted her body, struggling to look down at her own legs…

The sight before her made her mind go blank—

Mejga’s lower abdomen, pressed tightly against her legs, had suddenly become abnormally swollen, displaying a clearly sickly, vivid red hue. As if possessing a will of its own, a powerful pressure shattered her leg armor. Her brother’s abdominal flesh, seemingly liquefied, squeezed forcefully, sucking onto her skin…

She could distinctly see the skin on her legs being forcibly torn open. Beneath, pink muscles and blood vessels desperately adhered to Mejga’s lower abdomen. Their flesh first broke down, then re-fused, weaving together into tender, twisted tendrils of raw tissue.

She and her brother were merging.

“Forever… together…”

Mejga, curled beneath her, his voice faint as a dream, let out a sigh of contentment.

The vessel was sinking, the seawater already past her chest.

*Squish.*

*Squish…*

*Squish, squish, squish—*

Blood and flesh were intermingling. Two previously separate individuals would ultimately become a single ‘thing’ composed of blood and raw tissue.

As the process deepened, it seemed… as if Mejga’s original will, those twisted and insane obsessions, were beginning to poison and invade her perception like a toxin…

‘No… this cannot continue…’

‘Something will go wrong…’

“Ugh, ahhh—!!!”

Saranya’s belated scream finally tore from her throat, echoing through the gloomy cabin.

However, aside from endless cold and deathly silence, there was nothing there.