Chapter 115: Doma’s Demise
"That's not a bad idea~!" Doma exclaimed, his voice dripping with a chilling mirth as he gazed upon the Ghost Rider. His eyes, gleaming with a perverse delight, betrayed his inhuman nature. "Everyone in the world is afraid of death, but I am different. I have never known what fear is?! Hahahaha~!"
His laughter echoed, a haunting sound that seemed to mock the very concept of mortality. With a flourish, he brandished his twin fans, the air around them crackling with a cold malevolence.
"Blood Demon Art: Barren Hanging Garden!"
The fans sliced through the air, and frost gathered upon their delicate frames. With a series of swift, elegant movements, Doma unleashed a barrage of ice shards, each one a frozen petal of death, hurtling towards the Ghost Rider with lethal intent.
However, the Ghost Rider stood undaunted, a spectral figure of vengeance. With a casual flick of his wrist, he swung his chain, a fiery serpent that devoured the frost with its infernal heat. The ice melted away into nothingness, and the chain, unrelenting and precise, struck Doma squarely in the chest.
Doma staggered backward, his eyes widening not in pain, but in fascination as he regarded the burn wound that marred his flesh. Unlike the wounds of mortals, it showed no sign of healing. Yet, his laughter only grew louder, more unhinged.
"So this fire is what you used to kill the Twelve Demon Moons, leaving wounds that not even demons can heal, How beautiful~!" Doma's voice was a twisted serenade as he covered his face, only to reveal a sickly smile that spoke of a mind far removed from sanity.
His excitement was palpable, a twisted echo in the still air. "Ah, being burned is so interesting~! It's so fascinating I'm almost addicted~! Do you think increasing the power will burn me to death? Let's try and see~!"
The Ghost Rider regarded him with a mixture of disgust and pity. "This guy... is he a masochist?!" he muttered.
With a sense of finality, the Ghost Rider sheathed his fiery chain. "But he reminded me, he has no emotions, he can't feel any fear, so if I kill him directly like this, I can't guarantee the quality of his soul, so I can't let him die so easily!"
Doma tilted his head, feigning innocence. "Ah, why are you putting your weapon away?" he mused aloud, his voice a sing-song of mock curiosity. "Ah~! I get it, you're going to use a different move, right? Great, I can't wait to try it~!"
The Ghost Rider's response was a low growl, a sound that seemed to come from the depths of the underworld itself. "Indeed, I'm going to use a different move, but you're probably not going to like it."
With a gesture that seemed to tear at the fabric of reality itself, the Ghost Rider summoned a portal, a gaping maw of darkness that hungered for the corrupted soul before him. With a mere wave of his skeletal hand, the portal pulsed with a life of its own, reaching out, enveloping Doma in its shadowy embrace.
***
After an indeterminate passage of time, Doma's consciousness clawed its way back from the abyss of oblivion. His eyes fluttered open, and he found himself ensconced upon a cold stone bed, his limbs ensnared by unyielding chains.
"So you're awake~"
The voice that broke the silence belonged to Jon, who emerged from the shadows with a presence that seemed to command the very air around him.
This was Jon's magical suitcase world, a realm of his own, and Doma's presence here was no accident. It was a carefully orchestrated move to allow Jon to proceed with his plans undisturbed by outside forces.
Yet, Doma's expression bore no trace of alarm or distress. "Ah, is this the new move you mentioned? Tying me up here? The Lord was also trapped by you with this method, right?" he inquired, his tone laced with a feigned curiosity.
"No, Muzan is in that." Jon retorted, gesturing towards a large box that sat ominously nearby.
It was a magical box, an artifact from the Harry Potter universe, deceptively ordinary in appearance but vast in its internal expanse. It was reminiscent of the chest that once held Mad-Eye Moody captive, a ploy crafted by Barty Crouch Jr.
Jon had ensnared Muzan within this box, employing a spell from the Darkhold to seal it shut, effectively severing any connection with the world beyond the suitcase's confines.
"As for you, I have other arrangements~" Jon declared, his voice resonating with a sense of finality.
With a casual flick of his wrist, an ancient book of unspeakable power, the Darkhold, materialized and opened before him.
"What are you going to do?" Doma inquired, his voice betraying a hint of interest for the first time.
Jon's response was measured, deliberate. "Of course, it's... to cure you."
"Cure?" The word hung in the air, foreign and strange in Doma's ears.
"Yes, cure," Jon reiterated. "The reason you can't feel fear, have no emotions, is because you were born as a psychopath."
"Ah, that's a bit harsh~!" Doma's laughter was a hollow sound, devoid of true mirth.
Jon, undeterred, pressed on. "The root of your malady lies within your soul. You came into this world with an incomplete soul, which is the source of your condition. If your soul is made whole, you will regain your emotions. And with them, the full spectrum of human experience will flood back to you—fear, despair, all of it."
As Jon spoke, he gestured with a subtle command, and the runes from the Darkhold ignited into ethereal flames, detaching from the pages and hovering in the air like a dance of fireflies.
"Alright, alright~! Even if what you say is true, why would you want to cure me?" Doma's question was tinged with genuine confusion, a crack in his otherwise indifferent facade.
Jon's smile held the enigma of a chess master moving his queen into place for a checkmate. "You'll know soon enough~!" he said, his voice a harbinger of the reckoning to come.
With a deft flick of his fingers, the flaming runes cascaded into Doma, infusing him with a warmth that was alien to his cold existence. Jon's snap was the catalyst, and in that moment, a deluge of sensation flooded Doma's being, a torrent that awakened his dormant heart to the symphony of human emotion.
Panic clawed at his throat, unease twisted his gut, and fear... fear seared through his veins like wildfire. For the first time, Doma was truly alive, and with life came the terror of its end.
"It seems... you've been cured~," Jon observed, his smile now a grim line. "Fair enough."
He conjured a ball of fire, not a conflagration to obliterate, but a flame to torment. The hellfire kissed Doma's flesh, feasting upon it incrementally, a cruel mimicry of the slow savagery Doma himself had once relished.
Aaaaaaagh! Aaaaah!
Doma's screams tore through the silence, a cacophony of agony that was music to the justice being served. "Please... please, don't kill me... it hurts... it hurts so much!" he pleaded, his voice a grotesque symphony of pain and desperation.
Jon, with a wave of his hand, unshackled Doma, not as an act of mercy, but to grant him the illusion of escape. Doma, driven by primal fear, scrambled across the ground, a pitiful creature undone by his newfound humanity.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahg!
The chain of hellfire lashed out, an extension of Jon's will, and impaled Doma, eliciting a cry so raw, so visceral, it could have been ripped from the very soul.
"Ah, your screaming is really unpleasant!" Jon remarked, a note of distaste in his voice as he shook his head.
Doma, reduced to the basest of creatures, groveled at Jon's feet, his pleas smeared with the snot of his abjection. "Please... please, spare me!"
Boom!
With a thunderous boom, Jon's boot connected with Doma, his voice dripping with revulsion. "When you were eating those girls, when they begged you, did you spare them?"
Transforming once more into the Ghost Rider, Jon hoisted Doma against the wall, his eyes blazing with righteous fury. "You should feel their pain, their despair!"
And then, the Ghost Rider unleashed the Penance Stare, a punishment reserved for the damned.
"Look into my eyes, you piece of shit..." The command was a death knell, the final judgment from which there was no appeal, no mercy, no escape.
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