Survival Guide After Accidentally Kissing a Demon - Chapter 274

Chapter 274

The Morpho Butterflies were spirits formed from the Mana flowing through the veins of her body. They were almost perfectly in sync with her thoughts, moods, and ideas.

They simply did not possess her emotions.

Beili’s thoughts fell silent for a long while. Her gaze lowered to the silver-haired boy who had begun to panic, cutting open his own wrist, sucking down several mouthfuls of blood, then feeding it back to her.

“You’re right, but I…”

Her thought trailed off.

Slanting sunlight fell across the two of them.

Only then did she realize that the shadow the boy cast on the ground was shaped like a man with curved ram horns on his head.

Beili swallowed.

“It’s nothing. Let’s proceed according to plan, but the plan needs to change a little.”

She spoke slowly.

The Morpho Butterflies lightly fluttered their wings, signaling that they had received the order.

…

Ashera had originally thought it was only a brief spell of dizziness.

As long as Little Butterfly woke up, everything would return to normal.

So when he could no longer restrain the killing intent in his heart and used Mana to kill the dozen or so people surrounding them…

When he heard the screams and terrified cries of the people fleeing around him, not a ripple stirred in his heart.

His only worry was that Little Butterfly would blame him for doing such a thing after she woke up, then suggest sleeping separately from him.

-To him, that punishment was truly cruel.

His golden gaze swept lightly over the fleeing villagers. He tightened his arms around the girl in his embrace.

A rift like an abyss split open beneath his feet.

Amid a clattering crash of iron Chains, dark Chains reached out from the rift and wrapped around his limbs.

In the blink of an eye, they appeared inside the mud hut.

Within the binding of the Chains.

He gently placed her on the bed, then left.

A short while later, Ashera reappeared in the mud hut with a person clutched in his hand.

It was the village doctor.

After the doctor, bewitched by him, carefully examined the girl’s condition, he told Ashera in a dull, emotionless voice-

His Little Butterfly’s body was filled with a virus.

At some unknown point, she had been infected by the Pox Plague that had recently been ravaging the land, incurable and unstoppable.

Perhaps her Noble bloodline was taking effect, leaving not the slightest sign of pox on the surface of her skin.

Unfortunately, all of Tilisha was helpless against this plague. Even if they invited the finest physicians from the Imperial Palace to treat her, it would be futile.

…

Ashera’s brows drew together slightly, then soon relaxed again.

With a light wave of his hand, the doctor left the mud hut under his command.

His Little Butterfly was not an ordinary person.

Little Butterfly would be fine, because his heart was still inside her body.

As long as his heart remained there, nothing would happen to her.

But he did not want her to keep sleeping like this.

So every so often, Ashera would lift a fingertip, lightly slice open his wrist, suck up the blood, and feed it to her.

He would also expend Mana to help her clear the virus from her body.

In truth, the boy had stored up quite a lot of Mana. He simply had not shown it.

Because he could sense that Little Butterfly did not want him to retain too much Mana.

He had hidden his Mana very well.

Compared to his other form, Little Butterfly liked him more. Perhaps this was part of the reason.

Ashera was no longer in a hurry to go to Hell.

Compared to fulfilling Little Butterfly’s wish and letting the other form of him be with her forever in Hell…

He liked this place better.

…

Under the boy’s patient “treatment”…

One day passed.

Two days passed.

On the third day, the girl finally opened her eyes.

Little Butterfly had finally woken up, and the boy at last breathed a sigh of relief.

It was only then that he realized he had been tense the entire time.

The slightest disturbance would be magnified in his mind.

If it had nothing to do with Little Butterfly, it would make him very, very angry.

When he met those eyes, like fresh blood dissolving in water…

The first thing he felt was joy.

Then, he wanted to cry.

“Little Butterfly… you’re awake.”

He could not wait to reach out with both hands and hug her tightly. In the dim mud hut, it was as if a cluster of warm light had scattered in and illuminated the room.

“I was so w-worried about you.”

He gently stroked her hair, his fingers combing through the silvery-gray strands as he spoke, his voice a little choked.

He still cried.

He had wanted to hold it back.

He should have been happy, so why was he crying?

Tears flowed when they should not have appeared.

The girl in the boy’s arms was still pale.

Not long after she regained consciousness, her faint brows knitted together in pain.

“It hurts…”

That was what she said.

When Ashera heard her, he thought he was holding her too tightly and had hurt her.
He hurriedly let go, his heart aching with guilt as he stammered in panic, “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I didn’t… I didn’t take good care of you. Don’t… don’t be angry with me.”

As he spoke, he lowered his head and kissed the girl’s forehead with the gentlest pressure.

Then he helped her sit up, letting her lean against his chest on the bed.

A heavy reek of blood spread through the air.

He sliced open his wrist again with his fingertip.

Fresh blood welled out, dripping down with soft patters.

He pressed his wrist gently to the girl’s lips and fed the blood to her.

“Drink it. Drink it all. Then it… it won’t hurt anymore,” the boy said softly.

…

The virus of the Pox Plague was ravaging her body.

Although her Butterfly Bloodline continued to heal her, the most unbearable pain remained.

So after Beili returned to her body, the moment she woke, the pain nearly knocked her unconscious again.

The dream’s perfect realism made her suffer every waking second.

It was as if countless fine needles were flowing with her blood to every part of her body.

They burrowed madly into her skin, her flesh, her bones.

Even her brain seemed packed with needles, driving deeper with every breath she took.

A layer of cold sweat quickly broke out across Beili’s forehead.

She clenched her teeth, her shoulders trembling.

Someone gripped her jaw and pressed a cold, bleeding wrist into her mouth.

“Bite me, Little Butterfly… I-I’m not afraid of pain…”

Someone whispered that beside her ear.

Beili could feel the boy continuously pouring Mana into her body, clearing away the virus inside her.

But even that could not lessen the pain that had already built up.

Cold liquid dripped onto her cheek, only to be wiped away almost at once.

Beili lifted her gaze.

She saw a pair of reddened golden eyes brimming with mist.

The mist gathered into rain, falling drop by drop.

It landed on her face again.

When the boy heard her pained whimpers, his tears would not stop.

Cold, lightly trembling fingertips kept wiping away the tears that fell on her face. Then, in a hoarse voice thick with a stuffy nasal sound, he soothed her, “Little Butterfly, endure it a little longer. It’ll be… it’ll be over soon.”

…

Day after day of treatment passed.

The Mana the boy had secretly stored up inside his body was quickly exhausted.

But Little Butterfly still had not recovered.

He could only keep feeding her his own blood.

One day, Beili opened her eyes and saw that the boy holding her had become terribly thin again, just like when she had seen him at the closing Hunt Banquet.

The wrist resting on her shoulder was covered in scars.

There was no telling how many times it had been cut. New wounds overlapped old ones, a shocking sight.

His body seemed like nothing but skin wrapped around bone. His pale face was turned toward her.

His cold silver hair seemed to have grown a little longer, falling messily over his neck, shoulders, and collarbones.

From the inner corners of his eyes down toward the bridge of his nose, two shadowed lines extended.

Most of the gloomy air the boy gave off when expressionless came from those two shadowed lines.

His cool, thin lips were pressed tightly together in sleep.

His beautiful brows were drawn in as well.

His black-feather lashes trembled faintly.

Who knew what he was dreaming of in his deep sleep?

Oh, no. That wasn’t right. He could no longer dream. Beili remembered.

Because this place itself was a dream, what he was experiencing now was only some emotion in his psyche continuing to color him as he rested.

Beili reached out and gently touched the space between his furrowed brows.

Her fingers moved tenderly. Without waking the boy, she stroked the spot again and again, slowly smoothing his brow open bit by bit.

Then Beili carefully lifted the thin white blanket from her body and got up.

Her body was still weak. Her steps were unsteady, and she supported herself against the wall as she made her way slowly, step by step, to the door.

Outside the mud hut.

A cold rain was falling.

Huge chunks of hail were plummeting from the gray, heavy sky, smashing into the ground, the roof, and the pool with dull thuds.

This was the seventh disaster of the Tilisha Disaster Year: the Hail Disaster.

Enormous hailstones fell mercilessly from the sky, destroying almost all the crops people had planted during the rainy season.

Beili silently watched as hailstones larger than two fists pressed together struck the ground.

She knew that after the hailstorm ended, vast swarms of locusts would appear.

The locusts would surge in like a sandstorm, devouring every last remaining crop and plant in Tilisha. Not even the leaves on the trees would be spared.

They would also fly into people’s homes and eat their stored grain as well.

Soon, no one would have any food left.

Across the lands of Tilisha, famine would break out everywhere.

…

The gloomy sky hung low like a massive gray cloth.

Cold rain fell in dense sheets.
Huge chunks of hail slammed into the muddy puddles, sending up splashes of murky water.

Aside from the crackling roar of the rain and the dull, drumlike thuds of hailstones falling, the entire village had sunk into a deathly silence.

After all, quite a few people had seen the boy use Mana to blow more than a dozen people to pieces in an instant. Among them was the village chief.

Between being slowly tortured to death by the plague and being instantly blown apart by a Demon, those people had clearly chosen the former.

So Beili could figure out with her toes that almost no one would stay behind in the village.

They were all gone. Only she and Ashera remained.

But those people had all been created by the dream.

The Morpho Butterflies had told her that in the memories of the Tilisha Disaster Year, this group of people had not even survived long enough for the Pox Plague disaster to happen before they died.

It was only because she and the others had appeared in the dream that they had been able to live a little longer in this illusory Dream Domain.

As her thoughts wandered,

there was suddenly a flurry of panicked noise from the bedroom next door.

Beili had only just reacted and turned around when she saw the boy rush out of the bedroom, his golden eyes anxiously searching the room.

At last, his gaze fixed on her.

The boy’s chest heaved violently, as if he had just let out a huge breath of relief. Only then did he slowly walk toward her.

“How do you f-feel today? Does it still hurt?”

He gently wrapped his arms around her. His hoarse voice held a tender concern, but it could not hide the tremor left behind after his panic had loosened its grip.

Beili shook her head.

The boy let out another breath of relief, and the exhaustion in his eyes surged up all at once.

Only then did he bring up what had just happened.

“Why didn’t you c-call me when you got up? Do you know how scared I-I was just now?”

His arms tightened around her, holding her close.

Beili rested her head against the boy’s chest and slipped her arms around his thin waist.

“Ashera, you’ve gotten so thin.” Lowering her red eyes, her voice turned a little hoarse. “Did you feed me half the blood in your body?”

The boy did not answer. He only drew his arms in slightly, his sharp, thin chin gently brushing against the wisps of silver-gray hair beside her ear.

“As long as it can make you g-get better.” He forced his weak voice to sound light. “This much blood isn’t… isn’t anything.”

A wordless warmth surged through Beili’s heart, mingled with a trace of guilt.

She took a soft breath and forced herself to clear away the tangled thoughts in her mind.

Then she lifted her eyes and gazed at the boy tenderly. With a sigh, she said softly,

“Ashera… I’m willing…”

The boy lowered his lashes along with his golden eyes. A trace of confusion rose in them, and uncertainty crept into his voice.

“Little Butterfly, what are you w-willing to do?”

“I did say before that I would give you my heart, but back then, I only said it out of helplessness and compromise.”

Beili tilted her head up slightly, meeting his golden eyes, and said slowly and clearly,

“But now, Ashera, I’m willing to give you my heart.”

The air inside the room suddenly seemed to congeal.

The boy’s expression shifted.

Beili thought she saw delight in his eyes, and resistance too.

His golden eyes trembled lightly the instant her words fell. After a long while, he finally said,

“I… I don’t want it.”

Then he stared at her, his brows drawing together, as if he were trying to find the answer in her expression.

“Are you still… still not recovered?”

He thought her mind might still be muddled. Otherwise, why would she suddenly bring this up?

She calmly shook her head.

Then she gently placed a kiss on his cheek. In the same patient tone she had once used to explain the layout of the house to him, she said,

“The Pox Plague is stronger than you think. It has already invaded every inch of my body, my blood, and my flesh.”

“You only cleared out a small portion of the virus. There is still so, so much left.”

“And your Mana isn’t enough for you to keep doing this anymore, Ashera. I don’t want to drink your blood again either.”

At her words, the boy’s eyes reddened. He pressed his forehead against hers, his breathing turning rapid with rejection.

His arms tightened with force, pulling her even closer.

As if he wanted to crush her into his own body.

Enduring the pain in her body, she continued,

“You don’t have any Mana left. Neither do I. This place isn’t suitable for us to stay any longer either. Didn’t you say you would take me to Hell?”

“I’ll take out my heart, and then you take me to Hell, all right?”

The boy shook his head in refusal and stammered,

“Little Butterfly… I’m not l-like him… I-I… cough!… I want to s-stay here with you.”