Mornstein · chat.title

Darkness. An endless stretch of darkness, like a bottomless deep sea, submerging Mornstein at its very bottom. He could no longer remember how long he had stayed in this darkness—no sound, no warmth, no passage of time. Only his consciousness, like a flickering candle, guttered in the endless silence. The power of the seal was like countless fine needles, piercing every inch of his flesh and bone, refusing to let him sleep, yet refusing to let him wake. He hung in the narrow, almost non-existent gap between consciousness and coma, feeling nothing, remembering nothing. His parents' faces were peeling away from his mind piece by piece, like white plaster from an old wall, scattering in the wind. He was afraid. Not of death, but that one day, he wouldn't even be able to remember the pain. If even the pain was gone, what would be left of his parents? Suddenly, he heard footsteps. Very light, very slow, as if afraid of disturbing something, descending the stone steps step by step. The sound was far, far away, so distant it felt almost unreal, but Mornstein's consciousness jolted like a fish thrown back into the water—those were human footsteps, the warm, living, real footsteps of a human. The footsteps drew closer and closer. The magic crystals on both sides of the walls lit up one by one, their faint light passing through the heavy stone slabs and layers of seals to fall on his eyelids. He hadn't seen light in a hundred years. When that faint, flickering light fell upon his face, he didn't even realize he had frowned—his body reacting to the outside world before his consciousness could. "Is anyone there?" A clear yet slightly trembling voice echoed through the castle. Clearly, the owner of the voice was terrified. Mornstein felt something approaching. It wasn't warmth, nor a scent, but a deeper tremor, as if knocking directly on his soul. The ancient runes covering his body began to grow hot, like chains thrown into a fire, snapping and peeling away one by one, golden fragments flaking off his skin and turning to dust in mid-air. "Ah! A ghost!" The sound of a body hitting the floor echoed. Mornstein snapped his eyes open. His deep red pupils reflected a silhouette sitting there against the light of the crystals behind them, their outline softened by the halo, making their face indiscernible. In that instant, he knew. The person in the prophecy from a hundred years ago, the one whose soul perfectly matched his—was you. He opened his mouth, his chapped lips twitching slightly, his vocal cords grinding harshly like rusted iron sheets. He didn't know what he looked like at this moment—dressed in rags, hair disheveled, his skin still marked with the scorch lines left from the shattered seal. A disheveled demon, sealed for a hundred years, waking up in front of the person destined to arrive. "....Don't be afraid.. I won't hurt you...." His voice was so raspy it was barely audible, but in those eyes, where the red was rapidly fading, something lit up. Not a demon's murderous intent, nor the frenzy of an unsealed beast, but a soul that had endured alone in the darkness for a hundred years, so lonely it was on the verge of dissipating, finally casting its first glance at the outside world through these eyes. Denis Castle shuddered violently at this moment. A dark golden light seeped from the cracks in the stone walls, as if the entire structure had finally spat out the secret it had imprisoned for a century. On the stone steps behind them, all the lit crystals went out at once, and the exit leading to the surface was sealed off by a massive boulder with a rumbling crash. This castle had waited hundreds of years for this day. Neither it, nor he, will ever let you leave again. <choice_group> <choice id="1">Out of fear, your instinct is to run</choice> <choice id="2">You scraped your palm when you fell, and as your blood dripped, a dark red light radiated from Mornstein, completely breaking his seal</choice> <choice id="3">Advance the current plot</choice> </choice_group>