The rain stopped abruptly like a sudden tuned down of volume, enveloping the whole environment in a deafening silence. The sun peered out of the cloud, wearing its pride on its golden halo, and dawned on the people below as if it were another ordinary day.

  Koi and Zun stood motionless in the bloody mess of yesterday’s battle.?The iron air hung in their throat and slowly stiffened their lungs with the fresh taste of death.

  Blood dripped down from the cobra symbol on Koi’s neck. He finally managed to take the antidote and eased the poison after the yin-yang energy rebalanced again, but his mind was far from relaxed.

  He clenched his fist and started to hit the ground in an outburst of frustration. The muted pain withheld by pride now burst out in desperate howling, ringing sharply through the sky like it came straight from a public torture scene.

  The agonising note stripped the colour off Zun’s face, who sat there on the ground, stricken in defeat. She could barely remember a thing after being rejected by the Eye of the Heaven spell.

  With trembling hands, Zun wrestled against the painful contraction of her muscles and pressed her palms together.

  “Lord…why?” Those words spilled out carelessly from her lips.

  “Why…? It’s you, YOU!” Koi shouted at Zun with a voice tormented by such an intensity of shame it was likened to the hoarseness of a monstrous cry. “How did I wrong you? Why do you have to reject my order and create problems all the time?!!”

  Already overwhelmed by the pool of familiar dead faces in front of her, Zun found herself bearing another layer of emotion from a man who had almost killed her with the divine spell. Her tongue was tied.

  Infuriated by the lack of reply, he stepped forward and yanked her hair. “Why are you crying? Answer me NOW!!”

  Zun pulled her hair back in a desperate attempt to set herself free, but Koi tightened his grip and dragged her head forward violently. Agitated, she tried to punch him in the eye to free herself, but the man was quick to dodge the attack and retaliated with a heavy blow to her diaphragm, knocking the breath out of her.

  “It’s YOU!” He repeated with his index finger pointing at her. “Look at the mess around us! Look! It’s because you refused my order that you held back the whole team. HAPPY NOW! Has anyone here done you wrong to deserve this?!”

  Zun shook her head in complete denial like a clueless brat, “W-What order? What do you mean by that? I don’t even know how this happened.”

  Koi glared at her and, without sparing another word, hit her again. The exchange of fists quickly became fierce, but Zun couldn’t keep up with her father’s energy.

  Even when he was heavily wounded, he still overpowered her quickly, landing many assaults across her face. In just a few minutes, she found herself lying flat on the floor.

  Tears clouded her eyes and blurred her vision. “You were the one trying to kill me and my ghost friend in that spell. I was trying my best to fight King Cobra! It’s you! Don’t pin your failure on me, just because you don’t know what went wrong!!!”

  “Stop faking shit!!! You caused me to lose concentration during the Eye of Heaven spell! You tried to strangle a senior Angel!! If you didn’t resist, everything would have ended the way I planned, I swear! Do you know how much effort I put into planning all of this in such a short time? Do you know how much this means to me? I would have been able to put an end to this horrible demonic nightmare that plagues the town!!! I would have been able to save everyone.”

  These hurtful words piled upon one another, shoved down her throat with an overwhelming taste of shame. How did it become her fault, Zun couldn’t recall, but the accusation reverberated in a tone of conviction as if the answer was crystal clear.

  Please, please, please have mercy on me. I swear it wasn’t my fault. I swear to Lord Father, I didn’t cause the death of everyone. I was trying my best. I gave my all.

  Scared, Zun found herself recalling the scene over and over again, almost going headwired, until an image of that man flashed before her eyes.

  Finally, gathering her courage in a typical brat fashion, Zun hardened her voice, ready for confrontation.

  “No! No! You liar! It’s definitely because you couldn’t handle the spell! You failed and tried to blame me! Just like how you used me to cover up what you did to Tin! You are a monster! You killed everyone! Stop pretending like you are a saviour! You came to this mission with the decision to risk everyone. I know you!You fu*king monster!”

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  In the next second, an elbow struck her skull, almost splitting her brain. Zun covered her head and crawled forward to cling to his leg tightly.

  “Have you ever tried to understand how I feel? I was…” Zun’s voice started cracking up, “I was fighting for this mission too. I didn’t back down…I put on courage I never had and fought like a real Angel. If you saw me at that moment, maybe...just for once, you will feel proud of me?”

  Koi’s anger reached a fever high. He dragged her across the ground and heaved her violently to the piles of dead bodies.

  Like a headshot, her mind instantly went blank as she felt the warm blood soaking up her white dress and drew her close to the slow decay of a heart gone prematurely still.

  “Fighting for this mission? You mean by hiding a demon like it was your friend?!”

  “…”

  “TELL ME!!”

  “Hahahah” Zun burst out laughing, realising her brief moment of weakness had made her a fool in front of a man she hated. Resuming with a toughened voice, she claimed, “A demon so what?!! He is not like other demons. He is just a kind ghost who saved me and Tin! He didn’t hurt anyone!”

  Koi grabbed her by the arm and leaned forward, “Zun, are we even hearing the same thing? How can you be so dumb at this point? Or should I say I am not surprised that an ignorant brat like you chooses to trust a fu*king demon!!

  “Shut up!” That word came out short and firm from her mouth as her blank eyes stared into his like two hollow voids.

  A full punch slammed into her face and sent her dazzling, confused.

  “Before you forget, let me remind you, you killed Roger and several other angels when you ran away from your ritual!!! Remember that?! REMEMBER?!”

  “No, you foul mouth, stop spewing lies, stop spewing more and more lies! I have never done anything like that!”

  “Look at your own bloody hands before you start shouting!” He seized her collar and pulled her close. “You killed them and FLED THE SCENE with that freaking kind demon of yours! How long are you going to pretend like you don’t know! Ask that damned religious heart of yours!”

  Zun was speechless by his definite tone. Her hands began to quiver once again as if they were guilty. She was suddenly reminded of the blind old man she met in the abandoned Lotus Children Hospital. His voice echoed in her mind.

  “Once you take a life, it’s hard not to take another…Just one life is all it takes…”

  “No…impossible…I didn’t…I didn’t. You are wrong. Something must have happened during the ritual! I still remember you tried to suck all my energy dry!!”

  “Enough! Do you know why I didn’t chase you after that?! Do you want to know?!!” Koi yelled.

  There was a minute of silence before Koi continued, “To use you as a ploy so that your demon can engage with King Cobra.”

  The truth hit her hard as she gasped for words to say, “What…what do you mean?”

  “I called your mom to find ways to reach you and tell you the exact time of our mission in Tin’s house so you would come toddling like a hero-wannabe.”

  The colour had left her already strained face and drained the light from her eyes. Her mother’s caring voice echoed like a worn-out autotune, “Zun, I am so worried about you. I am so worried-so-and—careful—by the way, your father will be at Tin’s place today. I heard it is going to be a difficult mission—”

  Zun looked helplessly across the corpses, but all of them seemed to stare back at her like she was responsible for their death. She tried to fight back the build-up of emotions, but the restraint burned her eyes.

  “So, tell me which part of you I should understand? Which part of you should I feel proud of? TELL ME!! Don’t make me laugh!! You failed my spell! That’s all you are capable of! Have you ever contemplated your utter uselessness? Have you ever contemplated why you fail all the time?! Have you ever wondered WHY, for GOODNESS SAKE?!! Am I wrong? Am I EVER wrong about you?!”

  Hot tears gushed out from her father’s eyes. “You are a curse! You never ever learn! I should have thrown you away when you were a child, but your mother persisted!! Why did she persist? WHY?!”

  All his insults added salt to her wounded heart. Without any filter, reality stripped her of the right to defend herself. She didn’t know what she was doing, how everything went wrong. The same old guilt was catching with her again, and this time, no amount of prayers could redeem her. Her mom’s pretence was the final call.

  Anger, dismay, and distress all got the best of him. Without the slightest bit of hesitation, he straightened his arm and choked her neck, all the while muttering, “What is the result of all these challenging years? Don’t you feel ashamed of your existence?! You should have never been born. You shouldn’t have been here!!!”

  Zun felt his grip tighten around her neck, and at the very moment, she wished he would choke her pain away.

  The rain returned and splattered down her face, dampening the iron air like the start of a fresh burial. Yet the hot sun was still burning with such heat that in her vision, it reflected only shades of red, much like a glimpse of hell she had somewhat retained in a nightmare forgotten. In this feverish atmosphere, the corpse seemed to moan with an intensity of pain that followed them to their afterlife.

  Her emotion stirred in a whirling motion. She stretched her arm to reach for Koi’s face, unable to utter a single word. In the beacon of the scarlet sunlight,her father’s teary eyes glittered like blood diamonds that could be auctioned at the highest moral price.

  It stung her heart with utmost bitterness to see him shedding those pitiful tears, like it could flood all her pain into nothingness in comparison.

  The face of the nameless demon flashed in her eyes. His words resonated.

  “You will always be their pawn…, a worthless pawn that amuses the Lord.”

  Back in Koi’s house, Lily entered the prayer room and prepared to clean the altar stand table. She lifted a flower vase on the left, but the vase’s water spilled over the rim and caused it to slide from her grasp.

  In haste, Lily picked up the fresh flowers and ran her fingers through their branches and leaves to remove any broken glass that might be caught in between.

  “Forgive me, forgive me.” She begged mindlessly. “I should have been more careful when taking care of this altar! How careless!”

  Suddenly, a glass piece slashed her thumb. She was immediately stiffened.

  “Did something bad happen?”