288 The Shedding

'The whole pile of bodies disappeared…?'

Scanning through the battle scene that I was pretty sure of it being full of dead bodies, only left me astonished as I didn't really know what to say, it made it look like the battle didn't take place at all…

'Could it be that the corpses were used as some sort of a sacrifice to complete the 'Bloodline Burning Curse'...'

Remembering how the corpse of the Shaman turned into smithereens and disappeared after he stabbed himself with that dark dagger, it only made sense that the 'Cleaning' of the whole scene must be something associated with the curse's price or maybe a side effect of it.

'What about the trio…'

Taking a long look back at the location I left the three tied humans before I headed off to confront the demon army, I actually found them still in the same place…

'They didn't wake up after more than 3 days…?'

Dashing towards the spot, I started inspecting their bodies to make sure they weren't simply dead…

'It's faint… But they are breathing…'

The result of the inspection was as simple as it could be, the way their bodies functioned at this point was the same way one would do when sleeping, that would have been a normal occurrence any other day and no one would doubt something was wrong, unless… He knew that this has been their state for almost four days!

Could a normal person even sleep that much?

'Is it a hibernation of some sort…?'

It could be some sort of a reaction their bodies acted on due to having been brainwashed for a good while as their body rejected the thing that applied the mind confusion itself, or it could be…

'Why bother anyway, let's check the pinned subjects of mine, if they didn't escape during my sleep collapse then it would be easier to ask them how that thing operated…

Moving my head a bit to check as my perception was still somewhat drowsy due to everything that happened so far, I found the two demons were still pinned there, just like I left them also before heading for the battle with the demon army.

'Is this some sort of a deja vu…? Or am I still dreaming?'

Everything felt it has been reset to a certain point… Or, it was more like everything could be easily explained if you said that this current scene happened before my confrontation with the demon army…

However, that thought vanished from my head as I soon started to realize differences on the two demons once I inspected them closely…

The first one I looked at closely, being the retarded Overseer, he was in fact awake somehow, but he looked like he was half dead, the strange thing about him was that I could see purple glass fragments inside the crystal-like ice encasement he was currently in, which didn't really help much…

"Hey, Are you still alive?"

"hah… hah…"

'He seemed to be completely useless at this point…'

I had originally inflicted that much damage on him as I expected to come back soon within 1 day, yet thanks to the unexpected gift that the Shaman left me, I wasn't able to realize that target, so it seemed like 4 days of enduring all of that under ice might have been too much on this wimpy Overseer, not to mention that there seemed to be something else that influenced him…

Leaving him aside for now, I looked at the buff demon who was facing the ground who I was the most worried about him running once the weakening effect that the Overseer had applied on him disappeared but luckily he seemed to be still in place, though he also looked like he was in a very bad state, but at least it wasn't as bad as the Overseer's…

"Hey… you…"

Calling out to him, I tried to shake him a bit to make sure he was still sane with hope that he wouldn't have turned into a vegetable like the Overseer seemed to…

Yet, just as I shaked him, I felt like I was touching something detached… as something slid off my hand… it was actually a gross piece of purple skin attached to some purple muscle tissues…

'Huh?'

Even after I withdrew my hand, as if it was some sort of a chain reaction that couldn't be stopped since it already started, the buff demon's body looked as if it was legitimately shedding…

His horns fell off, his skin and muscles melted away as if they were just a suit instead of his real body tissues, only to reveal a slightly copperish skin of a…

'A human…?'

The body of a human youth appeared under the pile of purple bloody tissues of muscles and skin, this human was so small that the icicles that I used to pin the buff demon's limbs to the ground hadn't even reached his body, this whole strange happening kind of reminded me of the scene of a caterpillar that metamorphosed to a butterfly…

'Could he have possibly been a human seed that managed to succeed in full demonification…?'

There was no possible way that any normal demon could spout out a human body after being shaken a little bit, but just to make sure, I tried doing the same to the Overseer but the result was that nothing happened as expected.

"Cough… cough…"

The sprout human that just slid out from the place the icicles were pinned thanks to the slimy blood let out a few coughs as he seemed like he just came to…

"What just happened… Where's Nia… Oh… wait… Right… that was just another dream…" as the sprout human opened his eyes he started to mutter a few incomprehensible words mixed with normal words as it looked like he was very used to this happening, but that was probably only because he didn't look at himself in the mirror…

"Ahem… Excuse me…?"

"Eh… Woah… What happened…?!"