Time Rewind (Volume II, Chapter 42)

"Cough, cough."

Blood crawls from Rafi’s lips like a dark river. Flan had hurled her back into the Underworld, and pain blooms like thorns under her skin, fatigue like wet sand.

That bastard—what did she do to my body?

Doubt stirs like smoke, but willpower crumbles like dry leaves. She can only accept it for now, like a leaf caught in a stream. At least the Underworld holds her like a cradle of fire—safe, for the moment.

"Rafi…"

Even with her body buckling like a broken bow, she hears that voice. Even on the brink, that voice is a rope thrown into storm water.

"Demon King… my lord… help… me…"

Her throat rasps like a rusted hinge. Dryness spreads like a desert wind.

The Demon King studies her ruin without a flicker, his gaze a sheet of black ice. His answer is cold rain.

"Did you mess with something you shouldn’t?"

Her heart jolts like a startled bird. She recalls what Remi and Flan said, their words echoing like iron bells. Suspicion hardens into truth like frost into glass. No doubt—she’s in trouble, a deer in a snare.

His words fall like stones. "Answer me. What did you do?"

Rafi forces sound through a trembling throat, tears bright as salt pearls. The Demon King understands and cuts a seam in the air, space parting like dark silk. A cup of blue, flashing liquid glides out of the black rent.

He hooks a finger under her chin, sets the rim to her mouth, and pours it in, rough as a winter gale.

The warmth slides down like sunlight on stone. Dryness eases, fatigue loosens like untied knots.

He finishes and lets his voice fall like a gavel. "Now tell me what you did."

Her strength knits like a spider web. She shifts from a prostrate sprawl to a kneel, a show of respect like incense smoke—and a stall to buy time.

He doesn’t wait, like a hawk diving. His hand grips and hauls her up, then tosses her into a steady sit, casual as throwing a pebble.

His threat coils like a cold vine. "Will you talk now? No more tricks. Or I’ll rip the memory out."

She knows she can’t hide, a moth before a flame. That blonde brat will sing every deed to the Demon King, like a lark at dawn. He’s waiting for her truth like a drawn blade.

Yet there’s another path, thin as a reed: if Flan keeps silent, the Demon King stays blind. Maybe he’s just checking boxes, like rain on an empty field. If she speaks, death strides closer like a shadow at noon.

Say it and die; don’t say it and maybe die—the choices line up like knives.

Heh… is there even a choice, a candle in the wind?

Rafi lifts her head like a weary reed. Her red pupils lock on his, embers to obsidian.

"I… attacked two people named Remi and Flan."

Of course… I still can’t lie to him, a tongue bound with thorns.

Silence pools, deep as a well. At last, the Demon King exhales, a long wind through dead pines.

"You know who they are now, don’t you?"

Rafi nods, mind numb like a frozen lake. She wonders about her end—tentacle pits or a clean execution, paths through fog. Either way, the sky looks iron.

Clang.

The sound of a blade striking the floor rings through the empty space, metal bright as lightning. Rafi stares at the short knife the Demon King tossed down, a snake on stone.

"What… does that mean?"

She knows, a name carved in bone. She just refuses the shape of it, like turning away from a mirror. She’s served him so long, a shadow at his heel. Is this her harvest, a field of salt?

The Demon King crouches to meet her gaze, like a hunter before the kill. Her eyes shake like a trapped doe’s. His remain flat, colder than winter stone—eyes that wouldn’t flinch if the world burned.

His voice is a glacier cracking. "Do you really not know what to do?"

Though the Underworld swelters like a furnace, Rafi shivers as if snow crawled under her skin.

"I… I…"

He moves like patience snapping. He lifts the knife and tests the air twice, cutting silk. Each swing tears the silence, a whisper like an angel at her ear, yet deadly as a scythe.

Her muscles lock as if frost welded every joint. She doesn’t know why a body too tired to twitch turns rigid now—maybe the thirst to live, maybe fear that dwarfs fatigue like a mountain over sand.

In short, she’s dead, a candle snuffed.

Black magic pours from the Demon King into the short blade, ink turning to bloodlight. The knife wakes like a hungry thing, sending its thirst and danger into Rafi’s bones. That’s the Demon King’s power—uniquely perilous, a storm in a blade.

His words fall like ashes. "Then… farewell… and… thank you for your work."

The knife falls in a vertical stroke, light shearing down. It cuts air. It cuts space. It cuts the thread of past and future alike.