As expected, with the burst of black light, Deathbane Aura surged around me—violent currents swirling chaotically with each powerful strike.
I could feel it—I had struck something.
"Ethan, get away..."
Yuna Ji had just shouted, when suddenly my body buzzed and my mind started spinning. I had no idea what was happening—my consciousness was slipping away, bit by bit.
I'm dying. That was my first thought. My vision spun; all I could see was my right hand still clutching the Deathbane Aura Blade, half my chest, and below that—my left hand and legs had already dissolved into blood, spraying through the air.
A hand grabbed my back. I had lost all sensation, my eyes glazed over. Rufina Howard charged toward me as if her life depended on it, tears scattering in the air.
I felt as if I couldn't hear anything anymore. Even Yuna Ji's cries faded to nothing—only her sorrowful expression remained.
What's happening to me?
I slowly closed my eyes, my consciousness drifting away. My whole body felt weightless as I wandered in endless darkness, sinking deeper and deeper.
This must be death. I could no longer think—only endless darkness, falling further and further. I didn't care what lay below. All I felt was comfort, a lightness throughout my body.
Gradually, I began to hear the gentle sound of flowing river water. At first, I thought it was a hallucination, but the murmuring of the stream grew clearer and clearer, until my vision sharpened completely.
Who am I? Why am I here? I felt the river flowing beneath my feet and saw the riverbank lined with lush Red Spider Lilies. As the sun set, the only sounds were the soft rustling of the lilies in the breeze and the river’s gentle flow—nothing else disturbed the silence.
I started wading slowly toward the opposite shore. Suddenly, a new sound broke the stillness—a raspy scraping, as if someone was scrubbing clothes.
Confused, I turned my head. In the corner of my eye, I noticed my own eyes had turned a lifeless gray, my face numb and expressionless.
An old woman with snow-white hair crouched at the riverbank, holding a washboard and a small wooden basin, scrubbing a black garment. She wore coarse gray-white cloth, her cheeks deeply lined, her nose large and tinged with red. Her round face revealed nothing—her gaze was utterly focused on washing the clothes.
Strands of blackness drifted across the river, swirling around my heels. I felt drawn toward the old woman, wading through the water to approach her.
I watched as the old woman kept scrubbing the black garment. The river’s surface was now entirely covered in darkness; as the current carried the blackness away, new stains kept falling from the clothes she washed.
No matter how much she washed, the garment in her hands never became clean—it remained black, always.
"Granny, why won’t this garment come clean?"
Suddenly, the old woman stopped scrubbing, lifted her head, and smiled kindly, her face gentle as she spoke.