634 Darkness, My Old Friend

As he fell into the endless darkness, Varian felt like someone called his name.

The voice was filled with desperation and fear.

'…Is it Sia?' He wondered in the darkness.

It couldn't be her. He knew her voice well enough to recognize her.

'Then…' Varian sighed as the other person appeared in his mind.

The girl with tri-color hair and eyes.

No matter how many times he saw her, she spoke as little as necessary and remained rather stoic.

'I didn't think she'd shout like that.' Varian smiled, then his expression turned a bit lost. 'I had no chance to record it.'

The comms didn't work here, after all.

As he continued to fall, Varian was lost in his thoughts.

Rather than feeling fear, he felt emptiness.

'If I die here…I think I'll go nuts in the afterlife, if that even exists.' Thinking so, Varian tried to see something. Anything.

He moved his body, flipped, turned his gaze here and there.

All he saw was darkness.

His senses couldn't perceive anything either.

Only darkness.

Unending, impenetrable and lonely darkness.

Varian forgot how long he had been falling.

Was it a minute? Ten minutes? Or an hour?

'Wait…it's already eight hours!'

When that thought occurred, his rather calm expression distorted.

'Fuck! If I keep falling for eternity, then I'd rather die.'

He wouldn't survive for eternity as a level 7 in the first place. But even for his lifespan of 100+ years to be filled with falling in darkness…

'I'll go crazy here.' Varian shook his head. 'I might die or I might not. But this uncertainty is making me crazy already.'

'Maybe I can train?' After that thought appeared, Varian channeled his powers to start his ridiculous action but—

'Heyyyyy!'

His powers weren't working!

'What the fuck is happening?' Varian's brows furrowed and his chest heaved up and down.

When the reality finally set in that he was perhaps fucked up, Varian clutched his hair.

'You idiot! You should've killed that son of a bitch right away!'

In fact, that was his original plan.

But as he kept beating Charles and kept hearing his cries of pain, Varian began to lose control.

He felt like he was getting revenge for Sia. He viewed Charles not as his personal enemy but as the nephew of Roxanna.

So, everytime he broke a bone in that bastard's body, Varian's glee that he was getting back at Roxanna grew.

In no time, he was thinking of Charles as Roxanna's surrogate and torturing him as if to torture that dead woman.

His mind was imagining things Sia went through and with each passing second, he grew more and more crazy.

In the end, he was ambushed and knocked down without a chance to fight back.

'If I was just a bit alert…just a bit.' Varian sighed in regret.

He didn't usually lose his control of emotions like this. Whenever it happened, it was too sudden.

'The last time it happened, I nearly destroyed ghost ship.'

This time, it happened because he was withholding a tonne of rage.

'I kept telling myself I can kill him later. I told myself the same thing in the valley. Even now, I wanted to kill him only after getting the treasure…'

As a result, his rage was suppressed until it eventually burst out.

Varian covered his face and closed his eyes. 'If only the fight didn't start…'

'Wait…'

Varian's eyes shot open abruptly and he muttered. "Why did my seven auras leak all of a sudden?"

Now that he thought about it, it was System's job to hide them.

'Oi, System?' Varian called out with a displeased expression. 'I know you can hear me. Just come out and answer, why did you have to fuck up everything?'

[…Devas.] The familiar voice said slowly, as if it had trouble speaking.

'What?'

[The Seal of devas…] It spoke slowly, like someone still learning the language. But it wasn't that.

If Varian had to give an analogy, those words were like leaked drops from a water pipe.

Drawn Out. Broken. Few.

[They sealed the system…the suppression from the seal…it affected the functioning of the system.]

Varian's brows furrowed.

'But didn't you break the seal already?'

[Only partially…Moreover, this is like a suppression measure. Just like how…ghost ship is suppressed.]

Varian's face darkened at the mention of Boo.

If ghost ship worked alright, then none of this would've happened. Of course, it wasn't Boo's fault.

But it was still frustrating. It's like going from VIP account to common account.

Going from poverty to richness was easy, but becoming poor after being rich was hard as hell.

'…Alright, alright.' Varian waved his hands. 'Now tell me, how the fuck do I get out of this place? I don't want to spend the rest of my life chatting with you here.'

[…One minute.]

'Huh?'

[It's…been one minute.]

Varian's jaw dropped. 'Really now? I didn't ask for this lame joke.'

[I...It's true. Your…sense of time is distorted here.]

Varian took a deep breath and calmed his rising frustration.

If a minute felt like this, how would an hour, a day, a month, a year and even a decade feel like?

'It might as well be an eternity!'

Varian shivered like he was standing naked in the arctic.

'Are you trying to help me or scare me?' Varian asked with a frustrated expression.

[Of course, it's to—]

'Tell me a solution already!' Varian cut it off from any further stupid jokes.