Shane took a step back, but Tess's movements didn't pause. She continued to walk forward with a dark expression on her face, not even identifying her brother.
He yelled, "Tess, wake up!"
"I told you, she won't." Dark chuckled. "She's never gonna wake up now. Say good buy to your sister."
"What did you do?" Shane's voice was laced with utter despair.
Dark shrugged. "I just made her one of those… what you say, a zombie. Technically, she died at my hands just now. What you're seeing is just a shell… oh, why am I explaining it to you?"
"Y-You're lying, right?" Shane's eyes filled with tears as he stared at the demon in disbelief.
Then he wiped his face and turned to look at his master. "M-Master… Help me. You can save her, right? You can kill this demon, right?"
The demon laughed even more at those words. "Ed, come on, enlighten your little disciple on how you'll kill me. Do it!"
Shane looked at his master and Tess, who continued to advance toward him. But the man didn't respond. He stood there, leaning against the wall with an expressionless face.
Just when he thought the man wouldn't say another word, he heard the man speak: "I can't kill him."
Here, the bald man used the term 'can't' instead of won't. If Shane were in his right mind, he would have noticed the difference, but emotions took the best of him at the moment. He instantly threw Ed's previous words out of the window when something happened to Tess.
Ed knew this was going to happen. That was why he had initially wanted to teach some words to his disciple. Even after saying everything he wanted, the young man still didn't understand the criticality of this situation.
But Ed wasn't frustrated. He knew it was better to deal with the current situation. He glanced at the young man whose expression was leading toward despair.
He sighed. He would have wanted to solve the misunderstanding right now, but it didn't matter anymore. No matter what he did, he had already turned into a puppet at the hands of Dark.
The latter could control anyone's fate with the use of his threads. He knew perfectly well that the man had controlled him; if he managed to do something out of hand, that person would force him to commit unthinkable. He had fought multiple times with this person, and he knew how to deal with him completely.
The only way to kill this man was by catching Dark off guard.
And the worse thing was that he couldn't even kill this person, even if he was powerful enough.
All thanks to his grandmother.
He sighed once again and refused to think of his past. He raised his head and stared at the sky.
His grandma would probably be watching from there. If he died, would he end up meeting her again?
He wasn't afraid of dying. Rather, he had waited for this day for a long time. This was perhaps his retribution. He took a deep breath and finally opened his mouth, "I can't. I'm sorry."
"You won't even bother explaining to me?!" Shane couldn't take it anymore as he gritted his teeth and ignored the bald man.
He turned toward his sister, who had started gathering power in her fist. Then she raised it and attacked him directly.
Shane dodged the attack quickly and stared at his sister with tear-filled eyes. "Tess, wake up." his voice had turned hoarse now.
"She won't. The only way to save the situation is to kill her and cut off that thread to stop Dark from controlling these people. The more you cut off those threads, the more power he will consume." Ed explained briefly and paused. "She has already died. So it's no use thinking about this."
"She's not dead, you hear me?!" Shane gritted his teeth as he muttered, "She is still alive."
He thought he had become immune to everything after coming to this world. But after seeing what was happening to his only family member, he couldn't control his emotions.
"Fine, you have left me with no choice." Ed finally walked over and raised his head. "I'm sorry, Shane. But I'm also doing this out of my selfishness. I have only wanted two things in this life: One is to repent for my past, and another is to leave this world peacefully. I think I have fulfilled all of my wishes at this point."
The words he muttered at the end were in such a low voice that only Dirt could hear. He quickly recorded it and stared at his boss for a long time. He had known this person's past well enough. He knew why this person had suddenly turned so eager to die.
Ed's mental and emotional situation wasn't good for a long time. The fallout from his brother had put a terrible toll on him. The only reason why Ed continued living on was to find a way to stop Dark. He knew perfectly well why this person even took Shane as his disciple in the first place.
It was basically to create a weapon powerful enough to kill Dark. Sure, Ed did that by taking Shane in as his disciple, but he wouldn't be alive to witness the unthinkable.
Now, the young man only needed a push to help him grow. Unless the master was present, the disciple couldn't become independent. Dirt knew it all but was still reluctant to separate from his boss. After all, he had been with that person for a long time.
Who would mend Dirt's program in times of emergency? Only Ed was able to do that. From now on, even Dirt was left on his own….
Ed suddenly looked toward his robot and nodded. He mouthed something to his robot before directly attacking a certain red-haired girl with his electrical skill.
Dirt was standing there, stunned. After that, he quickly initiated the order.
Things happened too fast after this. One attack from Ed's hands was enough to kill the girl so brutally that the parts of her body blew out. Blood scattered on everyone's faces. Since Shane was standing closest to the girl, his entire body was covered with it.
The young man stared at the scene with widened eyes. He was beyond shock at this point, not wanting to move his body. He stared at the place Tess was standing not too long ago as tears filled his eyes.
"NOOOOO!" He yelled at the top of his voice.
At the same time, a huge amount of energy got released from his body. It almost felt like a barrier inside his body broke apart, creating a tornado of dark energy swirling around him. Everyone standing closer to him walked away, including Dark and his minions. In the end, only Ed stood there with a smile on his face.
? The energy was so powerful that it entered deep into the man's bones, making him unable to breathe. He soon fell to the ground, staring at the young man n amazement. He had known this person was powerful, but this powerful? He sighed.
His entire body fell to the ground as his eyelids became heavy. His breathing was shallow as his consciousness hung on the verge of leaving his body. Soon enough, it almost looked like he was about to die.
Just then, somehow, Shane managed to control his overflowing energy. He yelled at the top of his voice because of the pain he felt while suppressing the overflowing power within his veins. Even though his body felt like it would blow apart because of what he was doing, he had no other choice.
Why was he doing this? Simple, because he realized that the main perpetrator wasn't Ed but the hooded people, especially their leader. He was overwhelmed by his emotions. After all, Tess was his only family member, and his mission was to protect her at all costs.
If she wasn't alive, what was he going to do now?
These emotions overwhelmed him so much that his powers leaked out of his body to create a tornado. Even then, he knew it was merely 50% that came out of his body. He felt like there was even more energy stored inside his body that channeled throughout his veins.
So now that his mind had calmed down, he started containing that energy inside his body even when it felt like he was breaking apart.
By the end, his entire body reeked of blood and sweat as he fell to the ground. He could vaguely see a figure lying on the ground a little distance away, but his vision was so blurring that he couldn't care less.
Still, as he continued lying there, he blinked and tried to clear his vision, but exhaustion took over his body. Now, he couldn't even have the energy to blink anymore as his eyes closed automatically, and he fell unconscious.
Dark, who was observing everything, sneered. It seemed his decision to take down Shane first was right. He would have to deal with a certain robot to get Shane.
Ah, what a headache! He didn't want to deal with that time bomb.