...

"That's it!"

The world fell silent once more, this time with a silence where not even the sound of the breeze and the rustling of leaves could be heard.

"You... You just killed them."

Sven's voice broke out, cracked and shrill, tearing through the shroud of quiet that covered the clearing. It was the pure sound of horror, laden with an incredulity that bordered on delirium.

Theo, who was contemplating the now-empty spot where Jonas and Shyun had stood seconds before, slowly raised his face. His eyes, for an instant, seemed distant, as if glimpsing something far beyond the horizon.

He stared at Sven, who held his trembling weapon in front of his body, his knuckles white from gripping it so tightly, the blade emitting a faint green aura.

"Ah, sorry. I got lost in thought for a moment."

Theo replied, his voice a surreal contrast of casualness, as if commenting on the weather and not a double homicide.

He completely ignored the aura that now enveloped Sven, strengthening his body and the blade he wielded, with a low sigh. Instead, his gaze turned to the sky, to the infinite and impassive blue that stretched above them.

"...You know, this is the first time I've killed someone. And, to be honest, it's strange..."

He paused, his eyes still lost in the celestial vault, searching for an answer, a sign, anything to justify the emptiness he felt.

"I imagined I would feel something. A weight on my conscience, perhaps. Or a surge of guilt. Maybe even a flash of satisfaction... or disgust."

His gaze then descended, meeting Sven's wide, terrified eyes again. An enigmatic and vague smile touched his lips, a mockery of an expression that didn't reach his eyes.

"But I feel absolutely nothing. Nothing. It's like crushing two ants. They were in the way, they were a nuisance, and I simply stepped on them."

Theo's glacial calm was more terrifying than any explosion of violence. The complete lack of emotion, the description of the act with the same importance as a household chore, all of it revealed a monstrous truth: the being before him was not just a cadet.

"What... what are you?"

The question escaped Sven's trembling lips like a breath of pure dread, an instinctive recognition that he was not facing a man, but something completely different.

Theo took a calm step forward. Sven instantly recoiled, almost tripping over his own feet in a reflex of pure animal fear.

"Heh!? You don't know?"

Theo's voice was laden with a venomous mockery.

"After all, I'm quite famous, aren't I? The strongest cadet in the academy. The one who dethroned the prodigy Kim Suho. Who humiliated the proud Shin Jonghak... I have so many titles, so many feats. Unlike you... who is, let's say, remarkably common. A nobody, right?"

Sven gritted his teeth so hard that the sound echoed in the silent clearing, a dry grinding of hatred and impotent frustration. Every word from Theo was a hammer striking the young man's fragile self-esteem, a cruel reminder of every failure, of every envy nurtured in the silence of his room.

Theo's smile widened, becoming something cruel and predatory. He saw Sven with the clarity of an anatomist dissecting a specimen. He knew he was a weak mind, a cracked vessel about to overflow. And now, with his soul stained and sold to a demon, Sven was little more than a powder keg eager for a spark.

Theo remembered the novel: a simple rejection from Nayun had been enough to corrupt him completely. He decided it would be fun to light the fuse...

Leaning in slightly, as if to share an intimate secret, he let the next sentence hang in the air...

"I'm Chae Nayun's boyfriend..."

"STOP!"

Sven's scream was a visceral thing, distorted by the fury and the dark energy that now poured from his pores, forming a dark and pestilent aura around him with a sinister energy.

"If you say one more word, I'll kill you!"

The threat sounded hollow and pathetic, but for Sven, it was the last bastion of his shattered sanity. Hearing her name, her name, from the mouth of the one who personified everything he despised and envied, was the final ordeal.

"Kill me? You?"

Theo laughed, a genuinely amused sound that was an outrage in that context.

"You're weak. I don't know where you got the presumption to think you'd succeed at anything... And this borrowed power, this demonic crutch, hasn't changed a thing. It just amplified what was already there: your pathetic weakness, your sick obsession, and your monumental failure."

Each word was a precise blow, a slow and methodical crushing of what remained of Sven's ego.

Then, something snapped.

Craaaack!

A violent, black energy exploded from Sven's core with a muffled sound. His eyes glowed with a sulfuric red, and from his back, tentacles of pure shadow and hatred materialized, snaking through the air like the appendages of a nightmare creature. Madness was no longer a metaphor; it was a physical state visible to all.

Sven had completely lost himself. His passion for Chae Nayun, transformed into pure obsession, and the venom of Theo's words, were the final combination. His soul, now the property of Asmodeus, the Demon of Lust, transformed his obsessive love into fuel for an uncontrollable fury.

"AAAARRRG!"

The roar that came from his throat was no longer human. It was the howl of a wounded and possessed beast. Sven launched himself forward in an explosion of uncontrolled movement.

Zwoooom!

The black tentacles shot out like spears.

Swiiish! Swiiish!

Not with the precision of a cadet, but with the blind fury of an animal, seeking to tear, pierce, and shatter the source of its agony.

Faced with the chaotic assault, Theo remained motionless. His mocking smile didn't waver; on the contrary, it seemed to deepen, as if he were watching the most predictable and, therefore, boring scene in the world.

The dark tentacles cut through the air, hungry, leaving a trail of corrupt energy that made the grass wither instantly with accelerated decomposition. For Sven, it was a devastating attack. For Theo, every movement seemed to be drawn in slow motion.

In the exact instant before impact, Theo was simply no longer there.

Fiuuu!

Sven stopped abruptly, unbalanced. His tentacles struck the vacuum, digging into the ground with brute force.

Stab! Thud!

He continued to dig up the earth and tear out chunks of grass. Confusion flashed in his red eyes for a microsecond: where did he go?

"How slow.

Theo's calm voice echoed, coming clearly from behind him.

Sven spun with the speed of a cornered predator.

Whiplash!

His tentacles whipped the air in a wide and violent arc.

Swish-Crack!

This time, Theo didn't dodge. With an unpretentious movement, his right hand rose and grabbed one of the black tentacles flying towards him.

The contact was like that of a master taming a wild animal.

For a brief instant, Sven thought he had hit him in the neck. But then, an irrepressible force pulled the tentacle.

Whoosh!

Sven was thrown like a toy, his body spinning uncontrollably in the air, before colliding violently with a row of sturdy trees at the edge of the clearing.

Crash! Splinter!

The boom of breaking wood echoed like a series of dry snaps.

Theo looked at his hand that had touched the corrupt energy, as if he had held something disgusting, and wiped it on his pants with a gesture of disdain.

"Let's go somewhere else. I don't want to hurt someone by accident."

And then, without hurry, he also disappeared, following the trail of destruction he himself had created.

...