Chapter 8: A Demon That Does Not Sleep

  The next morning, they approached the ghostly forest, encircled by a cold, lifeless light.

  They looked at each other in silence, as if to test companion's resolve to complete the mission one last time.

  "L-let's go," Justinian said, gritting his teeth.

  Belisara, pale from the atmosphere, also nodded. She didn't look very convinced. But finally, they set off.

  'This forest stretches out like the maw of a monster...' the boy thought, involuntarily allowing terrifying scenarios to form in his mind.

  From the very first steps, it was clear that something was wrong. Hell usually presented raw, almost pristine landscapes with its vast fields and strange, twisted rocks.

  'It's different here somehow,' he concluded, sweating more and more.

  Above all, it was eerily quiet. No birdsong, no animal tracks, not even the buzzing of insects. The silence was absolute and unnatural, broken only by the crunch of their steps on a carpet of blackened, damp leaves.

  "Y-you have some strange f-forrests here, haha," he nervously said to the she-devil.

  "You don't have to tell me," her indignant gaze seemed to say.

  The trees, though ordinary at first glance, grew here in bizarre, unnatural formations. Their branches, leafless even at the base, reached out to each other, forming a dark canopy over the path that effectively blocked the last remnants of light.

  'Even the bark is pale here...' the boy noticed.

  It was pale, almost white, and smooth as bone. It seemed to Justinian that the gnarled trunks had shapes resembling human figures twisted in agony.

  "I don't like this place," Belisara muttered quietly.

  In her sleeve, she was preparing the knife hidden there in case of an intervention. Her eyes, usually calm and analytical, now nervously scanned the surroundings.

  "You're right," Justinian replied, trying to keep his voice from trembling. "I feel like we've walked into a cemetery."

  The deeper they went, the more their feeling of being watched grew. It was as strong as a physical pressure on the back of the neck, a cold shiver running down the spine.

  "What the hell is going on here?!" Belisara finally couldn't take it anymore.

  Even the path they were following behaved unpredictably. Sometimes it seemed clear and straight, only to disappear a moment later, forcing them to push through dense, thorny thickets that tore at their clothes.

  "This must be some kind of illusion," the she-devil whispered, drawing her knife.

  She made a small cut on the bark of one of the trees.

  "If we see this cut again, we'll know for sure."

  Justinian nodded. The idea was good, but the anxiety in his heart did not subside.

  What was worse... he began to notice small, macabre details. Here and there, stuck into the tree trunks, he saw small animal bones arranged in strange symbols.

  'Is that... the remains of a fox?!' he stared with wide-open eyes at a bush.

  Under one of the bushes lay a skeleton, perfectly white, as if boiled and carefully arranged, without a single trace of teeth or claws.

  Less than an hour had passed when they stood before the tree with the cut made by Belisara. Her face hardened.

  "Something is playing with us," she hissed, and for the first time since the beginning of their journey, Justinian heard a note of real fear in her voice.

  Despair began to creep more and more into their hearts, but the boy still tried to lead them forward. After all, they couldn't just stop here.

  They wandered like this for another fifteen minutes until finally, to their own disbelief, they reached the edge of a small, oval clearing.

  "This wasn't here before," the she-devil's gaze said as the boy, pale as a sheet, looked at her.

  In the center stood a small, dilapidated hut, built of blackened wood. No smoke rose from the chimney. The whole thing looked like it had been abandoned for decades.

  "What i—" Justinian started to ask, when Belisara quickly covered his mouth.

  In front of the hut, on a low stump, sat a figure.

  It was an old woman, so thin and withered that she looked as if she were made of sticks held together by dried skin.

  "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" the girl whispered quietly, disbelieving what she saw.

  The most disturbing thing about the old woman was her eye. She only had one.

  The other eye socket was an empty, gaping black hole. The one large, pale eye stared into the void before her, unblinking.

  "Quick, behind the tree!" Belisara pulled Justinian by the sleeve.

  Her bony hands methodically sorted small, smooth pebbles that lay on her lap. She arranged them in piles, then knocked them over and started again. These movements were so regular and mechanical that they were mesmerizing.

  "Who is that?" the boy asked in a whisper.

  "How should I know?" the she-devil shook her head. "Whatever it is, I don't feel any ki from it."

  For several long minutes, they watched her in silence. The woman didn't say a word, and the only sound was the quiet clatter of the pebbles.

  Justinian could feel his heart pounding in his chest. There was something fundamentally wrong with this scene. It was the calm before the storm.

  "We have to go around her," Belisara decided. "Quietly, along the edge of the clearing."

  They began to sneak, taking each step with the utmost caution. When they were halfway there, the old woman suddenly froze. Her hands stopped in mid-motion over the pebbles. Slowly, very slowly, she turned her head. Her single eye swept across the clearing, its gaze so cold that Justinian felt the blood freeze in his veins. Her gaze slid right past the spot where they stood, not stopping.

  They let out the breath they had been holding.

  But then the woman drew in a breath through her nose. Loudly, wheezingly. As if she were sniffing the wind.

  "...sweet," she whispered in a voice that creaked like unoiled hinges. "Something smells so... sweet. Like... a human!"

  Justinian and Belisara froze in place.

  They wanted to speed up, to run, but their legs felt rooted to the ground. Then, under the boy's foot, a dry twig snapped with a loud crack.

  In the unnatural silence, the sound rang out like a pistol shot.

  'Damn it...'

  The old woman's head swiveled with a speed that defied her age and fragile build. Her one pale eye locked directly onto Justinian.

  And in her eye, an inhuman, predatory hunger ignited.

  "Licho!" Belisara shouted, pushing Justinian away. "It's Licho*, the demon of misfortune! Don't look into her eye!"

  But it was too late. The old woman rose from the stump, her body emitting a series of cracks, as if dry branches were breaking within her. She smiled, revealing toothless gums.

  "Come here, little one," she rasped, extending a wrinkled, claw-like hand toward Justinian. "Share a little of your fate. I'll only take a tiny bit. Just as much as I can carry."

  She didn't move from her spot, but Justinian felt a powerful, invisible pull. It wasn't physical. It was a feeling as if someone were driving an icy hook into his soul and trying to rip something precious out of him. He felt dizzy, and the world around him began to lose its color.

  "No!" Belisara lunged forward, knowing well she couldn't be left alone on the battlefield. She swung her knife, aiming for the demon.

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  Her blow hit empty air. Licho, without moving, simply ceased to be where she struck, reappearing a meter away. Her smile grew wider.

  "A brave child... And with an interesting scent. But your cultivation is too weak to touch me."

  She focused on Justinian again. The pull became stronger. The boy fell to his knees, gasping for breath. He felt an emptiness spreading in his chest. It was worse than pain. It was nothingness.

  "A human, after so many years!" Licho muttered in ecstasy, her eye gleaming.

  "Your sweet, sweet luck is all mine!"

  She began to pull, to absorb his fate, like a thirsty traveler drinking water. Her emaciated figure seemed to gain color, as if Licho was awaiting a surge of youth and strength.

  And then... something changed.

  The ecstasy on the demon's face gave way to surprise. She pulled harder, and her brow furrowed in confusion.

  "What... what is this?" she whispered.

  The expected, wonderful taste of luck in her mouth was not sweet at all. It was bitter. Then sour. And finally... it tasted like rot and ash.

  Instead of a vision of a happy childhood, she was hit with the image of a burning orphanage and charred remains. She wanted to taste his best memories, but instead felt only the pain of rejection, betrayal, and loneliness. She reached for his success and received in return the taste of humiliation and failure.

  "WHAT IS THIS?!" she shrieked inhumanly.

  Instead of luck, what lay within Justinian was a bottomless ocean of misfortune. This wasn't the common, occasional absence of fortune. This was misery and pain concentrated in such quantities that it destroyed everything it touched.

  Licho, a demon who fed on happiness, was now devouring pure poison.

  "Aaaargh!" she screamed in genuine pain. She tried to break the connection, but it was too late. Justinian's bad luck, like a virus, began to infect her.

  At that very moment, above her head, a massive, rotten branch that had been hanging there for centuries suddenly snapped and came crashing down, hitting her on the shoulder with a deafening crack. Licho howled in pain. She took a step back, right into a badger hole hidden under the leaves, and her leg twisted at an unnatural angle. As she fell, she tried to catch herself with her hand but plunged it straight into a nest of exceptionally venomous, hellish hornets.

  A cloud of enraged insects swarmed out of the ground, covering the demon. Her screams echoed throughout the previously silent forest.

  "What are you?!" she shouted, looking at Justinian with a mixture of hatred and primal fear. There was no longer hunger in her eye, only terror. What she had taken for the most delicious meal in ages had turned out to be the deadliest trap.

  "Enough!"

  With superhuman willpower, she severed the invisible bond connecting her to Justinian. Then, stumbling, limping, and desperately swatting at the stinging insects, she gave him one last, horrified look.

  "Stay... stay... away from me!" she screeched, then melted into the shadows of the forest, disappearing as suddenly as she had appeared. All that remained was a swarm of angry hornets, which, having lost their target, also quickly dispersed.

  Justinian was still kneeling, trying to catch his breath. Belisara ran up to him, shocked by what she had just witnessed.

  "Are you all right?" she asked, helping him to his feet.

  "I think so," the boy replied, still dazed. "What... what was that?"

  "Licho. One of many hellish demons. I read that she sucks the luck out of people, but... I've never heard of her being harmed by it." Here she looked at the boy.

  Something new was painted in her eyes. Something like... excitement.

  "What did you do to her? Is it a special bloodline?!"

  Justinian shrugged, and a bitter, tired smile appeared on his face.

  "Let's go," she said, her voice lighter than it had been all day. "I have a feeling the road through this forest will be much safer now."

  By the afternoon of the same day, they had managed to get close to Wachowska's estate.

  "Do you think the matter with Licho earlier concludes the issue?"

  Belisara thought for a moment before answering.

  "It seems so? The demon explains why the previous matchmakers fled."

  Engaged in such considerations, they finally entered the grounds of Miss Wachowska's manor. It was a small farm, but fantastically well-kept. Cleanliness reigned everywhere, and the beautifully polished metal elements seemed to attract the sun's rays.

  "We come as envoys from Lord Seweryn," Belisara announced briefly to the servants, who ran without hesitation to fetch the mistress. Soon, a rather pretty—by human standards—she-devil appeared before them, approaching with her retinue, and greeted them formally.

  The blonde-haired adept from Greedius's mountain, of course, responded with a perfectly chosen answer.

  Seeing this, Justinian decided he couldn't look like a peasant. He decided he must greet her in an equally fine manner. He wasn't well-read, but he soon remembered a quote fitting for the situation.

  Extending his hands with the packaged expensive alcohol, he said proudly:

  "Seeing such a wonderful reception, I feel that it is better to give than to receive."

  Unfortunately, with the best of intentions, he did not expect his act to cause... a veritable cataclysm!

  Before Wachowska or Belisara could react, a gusty wind arose, and lightning flashed from the sky! It looked as if the entire dimension had suddenly become enraged and wanted to crush the boy!

  Terrified, Justinian saw this and remembered that it was a quote... from the Bible of Justice!

  "No! Stop... I really didn't mean to!"

  He could not have expected that his bad luck, which had plagued him in the human world, would also catch up to him in hell...

  Both the servants and Wachowska were fleeing in panic, and the horse he had arrived on threw him from its back! His companion watched all this with her mouth wide open, not even knowing what she should do in this situation.

  Fortunately, the boy was unharmed, but when he struggled to his feet, he discovered with horror that the precious wine they had brought as a gift... had shattered during the commotion!

  "Blasphemer!"

  "Drown him in the infernal river!"

  "Tear him to pieces and fry him!"

  Nearly every devil present had their own version of the tortures Justinian should die in to atone for the blasphemy he had committed. Of course, to the despair of the main person of interest.

  Surrounded by the increasingly enraged fiends, he finally decided he had no other option than to go all in.

  "Back away from me this instant, or you'll really see what the holy words mean!" he shouted in a threatening voice, even though he himself was terribly frightened.

  The devils hesitated for a moment. The truth was, these were simple hell-folk who feared the Great Order and the will of the heavens. They regularly paid homage to the Lord of Hell, the King of Names and Symbols, and Justinian's threat was a real problem for them.

  Fortunately, Miss Wachowska freed them from this dilemma.

  "You have 10 seconds to say who you are and why you've come. Otherwise, you'll both die before you can even squeak out a quote."

  The she-devil said dominantly, encouraging her servants. Justinian had no intention of ignoring this chance. So he answered conciliatorily.

  "This is all a misunderstanding. We come here in the name of Lord Seweryn."

  "Ha, and you just happened to cause a catastrophe by accident? You expect me to believe that?!" the hostess scoffed.

  Of course, the young boy found the situation very unfair; after all, he had been plagued by terrible bad luck for many years... But he couldn't invoke that without making himself and his patron look ridiculous. So he brought out the heavy artillery.

  "We are here with a marriage proposal!"

  His words clearly shook Wachowska, but she tried not to show it.

  "Whose, pray tell?"

  Justinian wanted to immediately point to the broken wine, but then he noticed that the spilled liquor... was black as pitch and had almost burned a hole where it had shattered!

  'What kind of alcohol is this?! It's definitely not supposed to look like that!'

  Seweryn's words flashed through his mind: "Just don't let her serve you the black liqueur!"

  He was now in a crisis situation, and aside from the nobleman, the specter of being torn to pieces and fried loomed before his eyes. He had to act fast.

  He ceremoniously knelt before the black ooze, covering it with his body, and declaimed pompously.

  "Our employer, Seweryn the Sarmatian XVI, wishes to ask for the hand of Miss Wachowska!" he began to gesture with his hands as if in a grand ceremony, to further divert attention from the hole gaping behind him.

  Belisara, seeing his theatrical behavior, hid her face in her hands, while the hostess stood as if rooted to the spot, and the devils held their breath.

  "You're not lying?"

  "Not at all."

  The she-devil was down-to-earth and under normal circumstances would not have believed such a situation. But the young man before her looked as if he had truly come here on an important life mission, and the solemnity of his expression and gestures showed that for him, it was a matter of life and death.

  'Since when does Seweryn have such devoted servants?' she thought, not knowing that for Justinian, it was indeed a matter of life and death, though for a slightly different reason.

  Finally, she nodded.

  "Then come inside, we have marriage conditions to discuss."

  "What? You really traveled through the ghostly forest? We informed Seweryn long ago that we raise Licho there to irritate humans," the hostess said in surprise inside.

  This made Justinian and Belisara just smile sadly. It was the first they had heard of such a thing. The boy was additionally troubled by the second sentence.

  "I-irritate humans?"

  "That's right!" someone from the staff roared. "As devils, we must cause mischief for humans and steal their unique fortune to live in accordance with the commandments of the Lord of Hell!"

  His declaration was met with cheers from the other servants, but Wachowska just frowned.

  "Instead of talking, get to work," she scolded her subordinate.

  Justinian and Belisara were internally very surprised at how clean the household was. Everyone was clearly working like ants, which undoubtedly added great virtue to the ruling she-devil.

  Although the manor was far from the richness of Seweryn's castle, guests were still greeted here with a serious elegance, giving the impression of being received with great respect.

  "Here is my list of conditions," Wachowska said, handing a letter with beautifully calligraphed writing to the human. "If something doesn't suit, we can negotiate, but believe me, you don't want to test my patience."

  Justinian glanced over the list, and it seemed completely acceptable to him, though of course, he couldn't speak for Seweryn. He passed it to Belisara, who studied it very carefully and also nodded in approval.

  They didn't want to abuse the hostess's hospitality, so they soon concluded their visit. At their departure, they were escorted to the door by the she-devil herself.

  The moment Justinian was about to leave, however, he hesitated. Throughout the visit, a certain issue had been troubling his thoughts, which he finally had to address.

  "Does anyone wish you ill?" he asked, after an ostentatious hesitation.

  The woman frowned.

  "Who could wish me ill? At most, perhaps, some loafer and slacker who goes into a frenzy at the mere thought of hard work, but I don't know any such people."

  The boy nodded, ending the topic. He soon joined Belisara outside, and they set off on their return journey to Seweryn, but the events of the day still haunted him.

  When they were at a suitable distance from the manor, Justinian brought up the subject.

  "What are your impressions after talking with Wachowska?"

  Belisara thought for a moment. She hadn't seen the effect of the wine, but the ease with which the whole matter was settled was surprising.

  "She seems like a decent woman. It's clear she's less wealthy than Seweryn, but her farm is indeed very well-kept."

  The boy nodded.

  "It also seems she has feelings for Sarmatian and isn't after his money," he said with some satisfaction, which amused his companion.

  "Oh? And how would you recognize if she were after his money?" she asked, smiling broadly.

  As she was very pretty, this flustered Justinian a bit. He was about to talk about how he saw typical witches, but then he remembered that many of those traits overlapped with the image of she-devils from the Bible of Justice.

  So he just cleared his throat, muttering that it wasn't important.

  They continued their journey, both lost in their own thoughts. For Justinian, this commission was very important—after all, it wasn't just about obtaining the necessary means to live, but also the cultivation knowledge essential for his revenge.

  'What's worse... if the alcohol I was carrying had been delivered, I could have caused a complete breakdown of relations.'

  The topic seemed quite strange to him, as both Wachowska and Seweryn were clearly interested. So why was he sent here with that black liqueur, and why was the hostess surprised by the proposal?

  Pondering the matter, they slowly made their way to their employer, and at a certain point, a glint appeared in the boy's eyes.

  *From Slavic folklore.