Chapter 56: Chapter 56

The far shore was far indeed...

Rima stared at the horizon with tired eyes, focusing on what looked like a shore, golden sands, the exhaustion she was feeling didn’t help one bit, nor was the fact that she didn’t feed in the last two days since they escaped the hellish circle after offering the humans as scapegoats to the sea monsters.

One of the demons died of thirst, and the rest were going to face the same fate soon, including herself even though she was stronger and more resistant than the average demons.

her lips dry and cracked, her eyelids were heavy just like the rest of her body, her throat was burning, itching for few drops of warm blood, she hated to admit it but she was willing to even drink the animals’ blood which wasn’t just disgusting but also degrading.

it was still very tempting at that moment, Rima thought while paddling towards the far shore, wondering if it was really there, maybe it was but a mirage, they had been peddling nonstop for the last two days but didn’t get an inch closer to the shore, the happy news however was that the monsters didn’t change after them after they left the circle, the bad news was that she didn’t know for how long they could keep on puddling before losing all their strength.

But her demonic eyes were not the ones to be tricked by a mirage, Rima thought while barely able to swallow her own saliva, despair already creeping up her soul and extinguishing her determination, it was getting more and more hopeless each passing second.

They had no blood, no strength, no clear destination, and no idea what was happening, her group looked like corps with how exhausted they looked, it was all up to her.

The same way it was up to her to save the humans, a part of her whispered from the depths of er despair, and her heart clenched in pain, what she did was simply heartless and evil, those humans were her responsibility, and she, for the sake of the mission, or maybe survival, cut the men’s throats and left them to be devoured by the sea monsters, no matter how hard she tried to tell herself it was necessary, the voice kept on whispering to her with what she really was, a selfish, monstrous murderer.

That part of her slowly started getting bigger and louder, taking a very familiar shape with brown hair and strong built, it stared at her with cold blue eyes filled with accusations, rage, and disappointment.

Unable to say anything in her defense, Rima stared back with guilty eyes, her entire form flabby and defeated, she wanted to explain, wanted to make him understand the impossible situation she was in but nothing came out of her mouth, the words froze in her throat with the realization that her excuses were barely valid to herself.

The guilt in her heart only grew bigger and so did the form of the man she was beginning to have feelings for, his eyes were everywhere she looked, accusing, judging, and hating, and she felt smaller and smaller under his gaze.

She struggled to let anything out, a word, an excuse, a sob, but nothing was coming out for some reason, looking down, she noticed a hand wrapped around her neck, looking up in panic, she saw the cold blue eyes again, filled with loath this time.

He hated her! Rima thought dreadfully, he hated her to the point where he wanted to kill her! and he was probably right for the crime she had committed was far from being forgivable, however, she wanted him to at least know the kind of a situation she was in, words betrayed her so she tried to say it with her eyes, but he didn’t care, he kept on squeezing her neck tighter and tighter, squeezing the life out of her, he was strong, rough, and…

He was here? A small part of her questioned, the sanest part in her, the one that always stepped forward whenever her mind was too weak to take the pain, it was the one that spoke to her when her mother was killed in front of her eyes, it was the part that pulled her out of the sadness, and then out of the vengeance heist.

Why is he here? It asked again, more urgently this time for air was leaving her body and so was life, he was not supposed to be here, Rima told herself, the urgency waking up her sharp instincts, especially the one of survival.

The pain was real, the feeling of suffocation was real, but the man in front of her wasn’t, she was in the middle of the forbidden sea, while the human king was still waiting on the shore.

"You are not Henry, You are not Henry, YOU ARE NOT HENRY!!!!"

With that scream, Rima finally managed to break free from the tight grip around her neck, at first, she thought that she would be met with a new enemy, the one who disguised himself as the human king and tricked her with his illusion, but she was met by none other than one of her own demons, looking at him with skeptical eyes, she noticed the lost look in his eyes as if he was having a nightmare with his eyes slightly opened, he looked as if he was a prisoner inside his own mind while his body was moving according to what his mind was seeing, probably a similar illusion to the one she saw.

Looking at the rest of her group, she noticed that only three other demons were left, two shadow demons, one of them being the late lord’s granddaughter, and two ice demons, one of them being the one who just tried to strangle her, the other’s bodies were floating near the boat, face down, dead!

The ones who were still alive though all had the same lost, hypnotized look on their eyes, eyelids heavy and jaws dropped, they were all inside a similar illusion, one which was probably built around their fears, their pain, and their regrets.

It was all but another trap, Rima thought to herself as she slowly started to notice the dewy fog surrounding them, it was the very first time she noticed it, meaning it wasn’t there before she started hallucinating, the fog itself was the enemy, the second line of defense around the center which she didn’t know off.

While trying to come up with the best strategy to escape the situation before the rest of her group dies, Rima's sharp mind also rang with a thought,  if the fog was what caused their hallucinations, ones that dug out their fears and regrets and used it against them, then it must be controlled by someone, if that was the case, then the gods were already aware of their moves and her location, the question then was, why didn't they attack them directly? The Gods had the creation energy in their hands, they were literally able to set the sea on fire, but they didn’t, instead, they used fog and illusions, why? something was off and she couldn't point it out...

Rima was pulled out of her thoughts when two of her comrades nearly fell in the water while fighting each other, shaking her head to focus on the task in hand, saving what was left of her group and reaching the center, she gathered what was left of her energy, she wrapped the demons wither in a thin layer of ice, immobilizing them and preventing them from harming themselves or each other any further.

With the first step of her plan done, Rima carefully thought about the next one, deciding to safely take a risk, she spread her arms, creating her own fog that mixed itself with the gods' one while making sure it didn’t touch the seawater.

It was up to her, to save not just the ones with her in the boat, but the rest of the army, she was the ice queen, one of the strongest demons alive, it was the time to live up to it, own it, and prove it.