A taboo

Ha!

Eric gasped for breath immediately after regaining his senses.

After that vision, his emotions were scattered. However, as the gentle breeze touched his face and he noticed his cheeks were damp with tears, he slowly came to his senses.

Wiping his tears, he murmured, his gaze unfocused, "That woman… Aina Belthorn… She is my real mother?"

When the demon had told him that Elena wasn't his mother and that she had found him in a forest, despite denying his words, he deep down had believed him.

And just as he told the demon, he was grateful to Elena for raising him like he was her own child, but at the same time, even though he did his best not to think about it since he wasn't sure about her reasons for abandoning him, he had hated and felt angry at his real mother.

However, after seeing the vision, all of that hate and anger disappeared, replaced by sadness, concern, and longing for her. 

"I hope nothing happened to her." He whispered, his fists clenched tight. His emotions rapidly shifted before helpless rage overtook his being.

'I swear I will kill all of you.' He vowed, and as he did, the white sclera of his eyes momentarily turned a deep black.

Just then, the system's monotonous voice sounded in his mind.

[Host scan complete.]

[Alert! Not enough energy for manual system type selection. Auto system type selection initiated…]

[Devil's Chaos Refinement System selected.]

[Integration initiated…]

[Integration complete!]

[Congratulations! You are ready to begin your journey to the top.]

Phew!

Eric exhaled, feeling relieved.

Then his lips curled up in a smile. However, just as he was about to celebrate, his vision shifted again.

However, this time all he saw was absolute darkness. 

Sigh!

The vision lasted for just a split second. Just before he regained his senses, he seemed to have an ethereal sigh.

Then he suddenly found himself lying on the ground, violently trembling as though he was having a seizure, his clothes drenched in sweat.

He took several deep breaths to calm down, but it took him over ten minutes before he stopped trembling and was able to sit up.

"That was too horrifying." He gasped, feeling a feeling of intense dread just remembering it.

Therefore, he immediately suppressed the memory to the back of his mind, no longer wanting to remember it.

Then he shifted his attention to the floating rectangular light blue screen in front of him.

"No. It is not in front of me but in my mind." He muttered, thinking how it was possible. He then smiled wryly, "I should stop viewing the world with my previous mindset."

[Name: Eric Valtharion]

[Age: 18]

[Race: Half Devil]

[Bloodline: **** (Dormant)]

[Cultivation: None]

[Physical Attributes]

>Strength: 9

>Agility: 12

>Defense: 6

>Vitality: 7

>Dexterity: 7

>Stamina: 9

[Remark: Average among commoners.]

'Valtharion?' He raised his brows. 'Is this my father's family name?' He thought.

Since his real mother, Aina's family name was Belthron, and the family name he currently had—Riya's family name—was Rivervale, this surname could only be his father's family name, and he had to admit it sounded uncommon and powerful.

Suddenly, he had an urge to say it out loud.

"Val—" 

However, just as he opened his mouth, a feeling of dread filled his heart. He felt that if he said it out loud, something bad would happen. It was as though saying this name was forbidden.

So, he hurriedly clamped his mouth shut.

'Damn! What the fuck is going on?' He thought, his brows knitted together.

Just then, a voice, different from the system's monotonous voice but oddly familiar as though he had heard it somewhere, sounded in his head.

"Stop spacing out, kid; check out your system."

When he realized why he found it familiar, he almost jumped in fear, "You… You are that demon?"

"I am. You are too damn lucky, boy." The voice sounded almost dissatisfied.

"You can talk to me from so far away?" Eric asked. 

The forest he was in was closer to the Demon Mountain compared to the city, but it was still over thirty to forty miles away. He was having trouble understanding just how powerful one needed to be to communicate this far without any magic devices.

"Tsk! Don't mind small stuff and focus on what's important. Also, your little friends are going to wake up soon. Take them and leave the forest as soon as possible. Of course, if you are kind enough to become some beast's meal, ignore my words."

After this, the voice vanished. Eric tried to call out to him, but it did not respond. So, he focused on the floating screen in his mind.

…

Meanwhile, inside him, in a corner of his mindscape or mind sea, the small pup was pacing around, staring at emptiness in front of it with an eager and impatient look in its obsidian eyes.

"What's taking so long? Don't tell me that woman lied to make me his protector? No, this shouldn't be the case. Someone like her won't lie." It muttered. 

This pup was none other than the demon who was at the bottom of the abyss. He really wanted to kill Eric when he refused to submit, but before he could, the unassuming pendant Eric wore broke, and a supreme power immobilized him.

While he was horrified and Eric became unconscious, the energy gathered into a form of woman, who gazed at Eric with a deep look of affection and guilt before shifting her gaze to him.

At that moment, he had felt that he wasn't the fearsome demon who terrorized countless worlds but some insignificant ant. And seeing how she had looked at Eric, he had realized he had messed up big time.

But to his surprise, after giving him some light punishment, but heavens knew if it was light, she offered him a chance, an opportunity that he was waiting for thousands of years, sealed in the abyss.

She offered to free him from his restraint and give him a chance to reach his peak if he was willing to become Eric's protector beast, to which he reluctantly agreed.

Then, she stripped him of his faulty cultivation, which caused him to revert to his original form—Wolf Form—and gave him a better cultivation technique and told him what the opportunity was.

As he recalled the events, suddenly a small crack opened and a grayish energy wafted out. 

His eyes lit up, and he almost couldn't stop himself from drooling when he saw and sensed the gray energy, but remembering her instructions, he suppressed his desires and rushed into the crack, which then slowly closed while the gray energy permeated Eric's mind sea, merging into it.