The Maiden’s Embrace

The Maiden and the Monster Gaze

Wawalde’s will wavered between darkness and madness, flickering like a candle in the wind.

Every blessing bestowed by the Four Gods naturally came with a price.

An internal hunger compelled him to continue absorbing energy.

It healed his wounds, yet simultaneously battered the dam of his sanity like an relentless tide.

He desperately tried to convince himself that Sovenia would accept him.

Surely, she would.

However, at this moment, her golden eyes regarded him with a bewildered gaze, as if she had just woken from a deep sleep.

For some reason, he recalled Sovenia telling him Jimi’s story in her chambers just days ago.

That moment was uncannily similar to this one.

‘Perhaps, back then, Jimi, before becoming Jimi the Cruel, had felt the same anxious trepidation.’

‘Would his own destiny mirror that of Jimi the Cruel, whom he so despised?’

Wawalde’s anxiety mounted, and his claws trembled.

Yet, Sovenia was so kind, so gentle.

She wouldn’t scream and flee like Haelana, nor would she label him a “monster.”

He repeated these assurances to himself, clinging to them like a drowning person grasping at the last straw.

The voice of the elder, Shuma, echoed in his mind: ‘Stop deceiving yourself. Look into her eyes.’

He lowered his gaze to Sovenia, to her eyes.

Those eyes were like two mirrors, reflecting his current horrifying form.

His face was a grotesque distortion, its left half utterly deformed. His mouth was ripped to his ear, fragments of flesh clinging to it.

The right half barely retained a human outline, but the skin was a sickly gray-black, veins bulging, and eye sockets sunken like a skull.

It was a monster.

An undeniable monster.

Wawalde’s breath hitched for a moment.

He saw Sovenia’s eyes — bewildered, empty, as if she had just awakened from a nightmare and hadn’t yet fully recovered.

Her pupils were unfocused, staring blankly at him, her lips slightly parted.

Her long silver hair clung haphazardly to her cheeks.

She was afraid.

She had to be afraid.

She just hadn’t reacted yet.

Once she did, she would scream, she would run, and she would look at him with those beautiful golden eyes and utter that word—

“Monster.”

The voice of the fallen elder, Shuma, declared: ‘You simply don’t understand. You are not a monster; you have merely ascended to a more powerful form.’

Wawalde’s inner fire of will was on the verge of extinguishing.

He felt the transformation within his body accelerate. A tearing pain erupted from his shoulder blades.

The remnants of wings on his back began to grow, his bone structure creaked and extended.

Membranous wings expanded outwards from their ragged edges.

His arm muscles swelled again, and black scales once more emerged from beneath his skin.

They spread, covering his skin like an insect’s carapace.

He wanted to resist.

But he found no strength to do so.

The power from the abyss was simply too overwhelming, like a flood bursting through the last dam.

It surged madly through his entire being.

Just then, heavy footsteps echoed from the entrance of the throne room.

Over a dozen demon soldiers, clad in damaged plate armor, burst in.

Their hands gripped blood-stained weapons, and their armor bore the emblem of the Blood Skull Legion—the private army once belonging to the First Heavenly King, Jimi the Cruel.

The Black Horn Centurion leading them scanned the surroundings. He saw the corpses of the demon dragon and Skullcrusher, the mysterious large pit before the throne, and Wawalde standing amidst the ruins.

His gaze swept over Wawalde’s entire form before he immediately dropped to one knee.

“Your Majesty, Demon King!”

The voice reverberated through the vast throne room.

The other soldiers swiftly followed suit, a dozen demons dropping to one knee in unison.

Their weapons thudded against the ground with a dull clang.

“Your Majesty, Demon King! We pledge our loyalty to you!”

“You defeated the Demon Queen! You are the new King of the Demon Race!”

“Please lead us to conquer this world!”

Wawalde froze in place.

His mind was a maelstrom of confusion.

‘Demon King?’

‘They were calling him Demon King?’

‘No—’

‘This isn’t right—’

‘He wasn’t the Demon King; he was the Hero, Wawalde, who had come to vanquish the Demon King. He—’

He looked at Sovenia.

She was still seated on the ground, her long silver hair fanned across her shoulders.

Her golden eyes stared at him with a lost expression, her lips slightly parted as if she wanted to speak, yet no sound emerged.

Wawalde’s heart pounded furiously.

A sliver of hope still lingered within him.

‘Perhaps… perhaps she wouldn’t be afraid.’

‘Perhaps she would understand.’

He extended a hand.

It was disproportionately massive, with five fingers as thick as tree trunks.

His fingernails had transformed into twenty-centimeter-long black talons, with remnants of blood and flesh clinging to their tips.

His hand trembled like a child who had done wrong and sought forgiveness.

“Sovenia… Miss…”

His voice was so hoarse it was almost unrecognizable, a sound like rusted bellows rubbing together.

“I… I…”

He took a step forward, his knees slightly bent, his body leaning forward.

He seemed to be trying to shrink his immense form, to appear less terrifying.

“What… what do you think of me?”

The moment those words left his lips, Wawalde felt his self-respect tear into shreds.

He had once been a knight, a hero, a respected figure.

Now, he was like a beggar, humbly asking a young maiden for her opinion of him.

All he wanted was the comforting assurance, “You are not a monster.”

Sovenia slowly came back to herself.

She blinked, and her golden pupils finally focused on Wawalde.

She saw him.

A three-meter-tall body, with incomplete black wings on its back, entirely covered in black scales.

His arms were disproportionately massive, his five fingers transformed into sharp talons.

Fragments of flesh still clung to their tips.

His face, a face too horrific to behold.

The right half of his face barely retained a human outline, but the skin had turned gray-black, veins bulging, and eye sockets deeply sunken.

The left half was utterly distorted, with protruding cheekbones and an elongated jaw.

His mouth was split to his ear, revealing two rows of jagged, sharp fangs.

Pieces of flesh hung from his teeth.

The air was thick with the heavy scent of blood, mingled with the pungent smell of sulfur and a decaying stench that drifted from Skullcrusher’s remains.

Sovenia should have screamed.

She should have, like Haelana, uttered “monster” with a trembling voice.

She should have stumbled and fled into the darkness.

But she did not.

Her gaze, fixed on Wawalde, shifted from fear to bewilderment, then to a complex, ineffable emotion.

In a daze, Wawalde’s blurred form vaguely overlapped with another.

She saw someone else, another monster.

The monster who had once been covered in blood in the mine, with black horns on their head, dragging the corpse of an overseer.

The one Haelana had pointed at, screaming “monster.”

That person was Jimi the Cruel.

That person was her.

Sovenia stood up.

Her movements were slow, as if her body hadn’t fully regained its strength.

She stumbled, nearly falling, but managed to steady herself.

She spread her arms and directly embraced Wawalde.

Wawalde was so tall now that Sovenia’s arms could only reach around his waist, her cheek pressing against the blood-stained scales of his abdomen.

Her slender body could only encompass half of his waist, her fingers barely meeting behind his back.

Wawalde’s body went rigid as stone.

He looked down at Sovenia, who was embracing him, his mind utterly blank.

“Thank you,” her voice was soft, “for saving me.”

Embracing her past self, her eyes welled up.

Crystalline tears slid from the corners of her eyes, tracing paths down her cheeks and dripping onto the scales of Wawalde’s abdomen.

A low whimper escaped Wawalde’s throat.

From the corner of his right eye, a drop of green liquid slid down, hissing as it corroded a tiny pit and released white smoke.

Suddenly, courage surged through his heart. The dying fire of his will roared back to life, burning fiercely.

The roaring subsided, then vanished.

Wawalde suppressed the internal changes.

The hunger receded like an ebbing tide. The black wings on his back ceased their growth.

His arm muscles no longer swelled, and the scales on his face stopped spreading.

A voice echoed: ‘This is impossible…’

“Your Majesty, Demon King!”

“Your Majesty, Demon King!”

“Your Majesty, Demon King!”

The soldiers of the Blood Skull Legion remained kneeling, loudly chanting his title.

Wawalde turned his head to face the kneeling demons.

“No.”

His voice was still hoarse, but noticeably clearer than before.

“I am not the Demon King.”

He raised one hand. It had shrunk somewhat, yet was still considerably larger than a normal human hand.

He gently wrapped it around Sovenia, who was clinging to his waist.

His movements were careful, as if he feared hurting her.

“I swear to safely rescue you from the Demon King’s Palace.”

He looked down at Sovenia in his arms, his voice laced with unwavering determination.

He bent down, slipping his other arm beneath her knees, and lifted her completely.

Sovenia offered no resistance.

She simply held him tighter.

Wawalde turned and bolted, his speed astonishing.

The flagstones beneath his feet shattered with each stride, sending debris flying.

Like a black bolt of lightning, he surged past collapsed stone pillars, over strewn corpses, and through the still-burning flames.

A moment before escaping the throne room, he heard voices from the sky.

They were four distinct voices, interwoven into a bizarre harmony.

The Blood God’s voice rumbled like thunder: “You have rejected great power…”

The Bird God’s voice was sharp as a bird’s cry: “You could have become the new Demon King, how fascinating this change is…”

The Corrosive God’s voice was murky as a swamp: “You could have obtained eternal strength…”

The Lust God’s voice was sweet as honey: “You could have possessed greater beauty…”

Then, silence.

Wawalde burst out of the throne room, carrying the maiden who clung tightly to him.

He sprinted down the long corridor, fleeing the Demon King’s Palace.

His scales peeled off one by one, revealing the human skin beneath.

His muscles shrank, his bones reorganized, and the distortion on his face slowly receded.

They escaped the Demon King’s Palace.

Sovenia, holding tightly to Wawalde throughout the shaking journey, gradually drifted into sleep like a baby in a cradle.

In her dream, she envisioned Haelana embracing Jimi and expressing gratitude.

Haelana’s embrace was warm, making her feel as though she was sinking into a pile of sun-warmed cotton, enveloped in softness and warmth.