Chapter 70 Chapter 70
The next demon that had the audacity to hiss at her was met with a smoldering glare. She clenched her hands into fists, breathing out and focusing on keeping calm. The rage in her heart burned like lava. It destroyed every reasonable thought in her mind and shrouded it in a haze.
The flickering of the street lamps went on her nerves and added to her ever-growing annoyance. For a second, she thought Maxwell had followed her, but a glance at her wrist told her otherwise. The bastard probably sat on the sofa and played some dumb video game, not caring about her in the slightest.
Why the fuck was the light always reacting this way when he wasn’t near her lately? This wasn’t normal. She clenched her jaw, ripping her eyes from the strange sight and concentrating on the dimly lit street. It led her through an industrial area that was quite a bit away from her home.
She hadn’t even noticed how far she had walked. The area was deserted and quiet since the people who worked in the nearby buildings had already gone home.
Her anger faded gradually, and when it was gone, she felt empty and also somewhat guilty. “Why the heck are you feeling guilty? He’s the one at fault,” she grumbled to herself, kicking a pebble. “He never understands… and when he yells at me, he’s scary.”
Her brown eyes moved over her surroundings, taking in the dark company buildings and the empty parking lots. She hadn’t been here in a long time and hardly recognized the place. The longer she walked, the weirder she felt, and then she suddenly realized that the dull ache in her chest wasn’t her own.
She stopped and closed her eyes, focusing on her bond with the demon, trying to find out what this emotion was that seeped into her heart. Was it anguish? Guilt? She had trouble deciphering it, but it surprised her that he felt anything of the sort after he had been so mad at her. Maybe she had judged him wrongly. Perhaps his anger earlier had a different cause altogether.
She was distracted from her thoughts when the mark on her wrist pulsed, prompting her to look up. There was a demon standing not far from her under the flickering light of a streetlamp. It appeared like a hyena, its body radiating a strange white mist, and Valerie soon came to realize that it was a frost demon.
Its mere presence cooled the air down more than ten degrees. Gleaming white eyes focused on her, watching her. She knew what it was planning. It wasn’t hard to tell.
Cursing, she took a reluctant step back. This was bad. She watched it come closer and closer, the fear within her spiking. However, it soon turned to frustration. She was sick of being the weaker one all the time. It had to stop. Frustration changed to anger, consuming her very being until every fiber of her wished for that damn demon to vanish.
A powerful sensation she had never felt before took over, causing her body to shudder. She inhaled, exhaled, but it never went away. If anything, it surged, getting stronger by the second. The streetlamp nearby went out, shrouding the area in darkness. Valerie’s eyes widened since she couldn’t see the demon anymore, could only hear its snarls and growls as it crept closer.
Pain washed over her, stinging and aching, pooling in her stomach. She gasped, and suddenly she was blinded by an insanely bright light that forced her to close her eyes. When she reopened them, she saw that it originated from her own hands.
They were radiating light uncontrollably, conjuring more and more of it. Unable to understand how this was possible, Valerie panicked. Her pulse accelerated, and the strange light reacted to the change within her, spreading until not only her hands were glowing, but her entire body. She lit up the whole street, drawing all the light in the vicinity to her.
The demon that had been snarling at her now looked a lot less confident, taking cautious steps backward. “That’s right, better run away.” she yelled at it angrily, beams of light shooting at it, striking it hard. It was thrown back, hit a fence, and landed on the ground. To her surprise, it didn’t retaliate and fled into the night, not coming near her again.
She couldn’t believe it. “How? How am I able to do this?” she whispered. Her body kept glowing brightly—it must have looked extremely weird since she was the only source of light in the area. Valerie tried to make the light disappear, but she found she was unable to control it. It kept reacting to her emotions, and since they were a mess right now, there was no way she could get the strange phenomenon under control.
Her panic worsened, eyes blurring with tears when she felt something else. The longer this state held on, the weaker she got. Her energy was drained, taken away by a force she could not stop.
She leaned against the building wall behind her, closed her eyes, and calmed her breathing, but it didn’t do any good. Her body was beginning to burn from the strain, the light getting hotter the longer it enveloped her. It was as if it was turning against her. Her human body could not handle it.
“Damn, if this goes on for much longer, I’m done for,” she cursed, hand reaching for her phone. She stared at it for a moment, hesitating.
Did she really want to do this?
Sighing, she dialed her landline number and let it ring for a long time, not surprised that he wasn’t picking up. Maybe he had already destroyed the phone in one of his fits, especially since he saw her number on the screen.
When he took the call, she was surprised. “What?” a familiar voice hissed at her, causing her to cringe. Did she want to ask him for help? Not like she had another choice, though. Her situation was starting to get painful, and he probably felt it too.
“I have a problem,” she began.
“What is it now? Can you, for once, not get in trouble? What did you idiot do? Break a leg, fall down a stair, get mugged…” he ranted, but she cut him off.
“I’m glowing,” she breathed, staring down at her body fearfully. He fell silent for a few seconds.
“What the fuck?”