Ch 22: Heart or Mind?

[Warning: Unstable mind detected.]

[Warning: Host is currently experiencing.]

He heard the warning sound from the Ego and tried to grasp what was wrong with him. Suddenly, Lucifer was hit by severe, raw, animalistic pain that cascaded through his mind, totally disorienting him. He tried to push Seraphina aside, frantically dropping to the ground, his body curling up from the pain, and a cry of agony started to echo in the small room.

"What in the hell is going on with me?" He felt disbelief as he repeated the question inside his mind. "How could I forget? How could I?"

Thus, he wrestled with the chaotic thoughts swirling in his mind… about his purpose and the journey that had led him to this hellish place. That was the clinching trouble. Why did he end up here? Did he care? Yes, indeed he did, though his beliefs and his desires seemed a little blur within his mind. He felt that by now it was as though something had gone awry in the very current of his life, unconnected with the very core of what he was really.

The world around him seemed to morph into some bizarre nightmare, as if everything he was looking at now wasn't real in itself, every detail twisting into something unrecognizable. The more this thought wandered, his heart seemed to drift further, especially when he caught a glimpse of Seraphina's lovely shocked face illuminated by weak light. She was his lifeline, but he fought furiously against this magnetic pull of his emotions, teeth clenched in defiance.

But how dare he love a woman such as her? For her beauty, no words could compare; yet questions swarmed all over his head like angry bees. What is her story? How did she end up in this bizarre place? And what was she doing in such a godforsaken place? He realized that he didn't understand even her true background and even her prowess…. He didn't know anything at all.

"I know nothing at all… Ah, wait… do I love her? Yes—no, no, I'm not sure…" The more he thought about this aspect, the more his mind and heart started to get diverted more from each other. Now, would he follow his heart or heed the cold logic of his mind?

"Who are you?" Lucifer directly spoke to her, yet his heart started to feel more pain, but he did not care.

Seraphina watched in horror as his eyes widened; her face changed to that of vulnerability—like some tender-hearted kitten, on the brink of abandonment. Was she acting, or was she being genuine? There was no way Lucifer would know.

"Lu-LuFu! What's the matter? Have I done something wrong?" she wept, voicing up with watery eyes, as the tears raced down her cheeks, glistening up into her eyes like gemstones against the skin. She looked at him accusingly, as if to say she knew a thing or two about his sudden change in behavior.

Lucifer winced his heart to see her face in distress, like some hundreds of daggers piercing through his heart. He couldn't probably get any word to say in that moment, so he looked into those eyes trying to understand what was wrong and right. In a fit of desperation, he banged his head against the wall to shatter the suffocating illusion of his surroundings.

Bang!

The wall cracked slightly, and something red flowed from his forehead, but he gave no damn about the pain.

No words were needed. He began to dress up, feeling something terrible things was not right in this mad world. Right now he felt like not want to believe in himself. Thus, he didn't follow the path guided by heart or mind; he simply acted on his raw instinct.

As he stretched his hand toward the doorknob, another hand shot out, gripping his wrist with desperate intensity.

"Are you really going to leave? After everything we've been through? Are you not going to take responsibility for me? Did I do something wrong?"

"Just tell me what to do!" she screamed to her lungs, trembling with emotion as tears streamed down her cheeks without respite.

Whenever Lucifer saw her, an unsettling sense of uneasiness always enveloped him. Yet, despite this nagging feeling, he felt an eternal love for Seraphina that was undeniable. Very often, his mind argued with conflicting thoughts, yet his heart remained steadfast. Thus, he was following his instincts as the emotions kept showing off, just like the unpredictable weather.

"Do what you will…if you wish to follow, then follow. If you wish to remain, then remain…" Lucifer had said, and he'd left her utterly confused with his words.

Still, though, she was confused at the sudden twist of his emotion, hearing she could follow, her smile bloomed again.

"Aye, aye, Captain!" she laughed lightly and dressed herself with a newfound sense of purpose as she fell into step behind him.

It was a strange yet wonderful situation indeed, but he pushed those thoughts aside. Now was not the time for distractions.

He held himself back, not wanting to grapple in this love-dobby moment. And the main question was, why he did not see Seraphina as an enemy? Well, she had never given him any hatred points, at least till now and he believed fully in the Ego much more than he himself right now as everything right now happening was quite eerie.

As he creaked open the door to leave, something changed fundamentally; the warm morning light faded, replaced by an eerie chill that seeped into his bones. The sky darkened ominously, casting long shadows over the world.

Reality bent in unnatural ways as the familiar inn walls writhed into something terribly. Seeing this Goosebumps prickled his skin as he instinctively turned to check on Seraphina, relief flooding through him when he saw that she appeared unchanged.

"Stick with me. Something's gone wrong here," he said, gently caressing her face. She nodded timidly, her trust unwavering.

Without another word, he ran on, and Seraphina kept pace beside him, but inside his mind, there was one thought only; he had to escape, while his heart was telling him to protect her.

Just as the two of them reached the inn's ground floor, suddenly something charged at him, unexpectedly.

Bang.

At that very moment, he barely managed to stop the punch, which had already been strong enough to blow him through the wall of the inn.

"Argh!" He groaned as his body began to throb with aching, the dust settling around him.

It was only then that he finally took in what it was that attacked him, but his heart sank. The shape that stood before him was the grotesque version of life—the body withered and rotted.

"Mother of the Unknown God, isn't he the innkeeper?" he gasped and saw recognition punching its blow into his guts.

Before he could make his mind accept the horror, the thing sprang at him with blinding speed—a raw strength disturbingly like that of a Dawnbringer of high level.

[Detecting entity in front of you: high-level Dawnbringer. For some reason, its power surpasses that of a Low-Level Earthbringer.]

"Seraphina… whatever the fuck comes of it, get yourself out, you hear me," Lucifer urged, his voice steady despite the horror in front of him.

When the ghoul came within a more reasonable range, he snatched a chair and hurled it.

The first fact working in his favor was that it was, apparently, not a higher cerebral function that the monster was in possession of—it was a mindless creature driven to kill, a creature of instinct.

"If you want to kill it, then chop its head off!" Seraphina's voice—it was sharp and clear, cutting across his mind.

And he instinctively listened to the follow-up advice from her: the surging adrenaline. The energy in the command spurred him along, forced him to do so much faster—the energy in that command to apply both the High-Level Steal Art and the Mid-Level Kickboxing Art he'd touched on. Except he knew deep down, buried in his heart of hearts: there was a twinge of regret in that he hadn't been equipped with any lethal skills, the skillsets that could have made this fight much easier.

The Happy Inn was a jumbled mess, and he saw a little table there with a knife, then he grabbed it tightly and prepared for battle.

He finally cut the head from the body of the ghoul after hard struggling and fighting so much that he couldn't even bear the stamina to hold on any longer. Finally, when he relaxed, he saw outside the window to find chills, more than a dozen ghouls were standing along with the INN entrance.

"Now I'm screwed," he mumbled, fear churning in his gut.