Chapter 25

The moment Isaac spoke, all three beasts snapped their attention to him as if they had been anticipating the exact cue, and they bounded over to sit in a semi-circle beside him.

Isaac’s fingers tightened and released around the flint he clutched in his palm, and he exhaled a breath laden with sudden, cold foreboding. It was the new moon. The hour of reckoning had finally arrived. He had to reach the prince now. What weight did this shamanic spectacle truly hold compared to the desperate, soul-binding bargain he had struck?

“Tell me,” Isaac commanded, his voice finding its footing despite the terror clawing at his chest. “What fate awaits one who fails to honor a promise sworn by the River of the Moon?”

「They are dragged beneath the freezing surface and consumed by the River of the Moon,」 the lead beast replied with chilling indifference.

「But why ask? Are you contemplating reneging on your sacred oath? I would strongly advise against such suicidal folly, little witch.」

Isaac turned his gaze toward the window. The final, bruised trace of sunset over the mountain peaks had finally bled away. Evening had fully surrendered to the void. It was true night, and the appointed time had arrived. To be swallowed by the River of the Moon. What would that sensation even feel like? Would it be a stifling, watery grave, or would he simply cease to exist? Surely, facing the prince was a far more palatable prospect than dying—was it not?

He reached for the flint, but his hand refused to obey his command. He stared transfixed at the horizon until the last faint, bloody streak of light vanished, leaving only the oppressive weight of deep, absolute night. Then—

…!

CLANK

CLANK

The phantom vibration of a heavy lock tumbling within the cage of his heart echoed with bone-shaking clarity. It was the resonance of the oath he had sworn, now serving as a relentless, rhythmic summons.

CLANK

A dark, ominous cadence thrumming against his very life force. Somewhere in the periphery, the sound of water began to surge—a torrential, majestic current rushing toward him with impossible speed. The roar of the tide filled his ears, and then, the icy sensation of water crept up his legs. Isaac flinched, glancing down at the floor, though his eyes saw only the dusty wooden boards. The sensation was terrifyingly tactile.

SPLASH

SPLASH

The invisible tide climbed with rapacious hunger, swallowing his feet, his shins, his knees, and his thighs. Yet, more horrifying than the act of drowning was the realization of what waited beneath the surface: countless grasping hands, frantic and endless, latching onto his legs with the desperate, slimy grip of the damned. He needed no explanation. His instincts screamed the truth—these were the wretched, vengeful spirits, long since claimed by the River of the Moon, bound for eternity as punishment for broken oaths. They were clawing at him, the next soul marked for their watery abyss.

—Come here. Join us in this eternal suffering.

Would he soon be reduced to this? A shell filled only with festering resentment and hollow malice?

“Take me to where Lord Kaiyan is.”

Isaac whispered the command as he rolled the flint between his trembling fingers. A tiny, brilliant spark erupted in his palm, and the tiger with teacup-sized eyes lunged from the ground as if it had been waiting for that exact signal. As the beast’s cavernous jaws yawned wide before him, Isaac squeezed his eyes shut. The ghastly, sticky grip on his legs tore away. That fleeting relief was momentary, replaced instantly by the sensation of being seized by a howling gale. The air battered his body with a violence that made his vision swim and pressed him down with crushing gravity.

“I can’t… breathe…”

「That is impossible. I have never heard of a witch who could not traverse the Witch’s Road,」 came the reply, smooth and maddeningly calm.

Isaac gasped, struggling against the slashing wind, and forced his eyes open. He saw enormous, round eyes looming directly above him, flanked by the two other beasts on either side. Only then did the landscape of their journey reveal itself. They were racing through an infinite, abyssal void, strewn with countless glittering beads of light. They were scattered everywhere—large and small, brilliant and faint, pulsing with vibrant colors. The tiger wove through these glass-marble-like constellations with terrifying grace. Isaac realized with a jolt that this was the heart of the new-moon sky, a place devoid of any moon.

The Witch’s Road… He recalled his mother’s stories from childhood. Within the new-moon sky lay the paths of the witches—roads that could carry one anywhere in the world.

「There are many other Witch’s Road routes, but if we are to deliver you to that man as per your initial wish, this path is the swiftest.」

Isaac had been staring blankly at the brilliant, bead-like stars, but those words snapped him back to his senses. This road led to a nightmare. He could not afford to drop his guard.

“Wait. I did not finish my instructions. Only for tonight. Just for tonight! Once this night ends, I must return to my room!”

He had already learned the hard way that this cursed magic required absolute precision. A single misinterpretation could invite untold catastrophe.

「Oh, very well, very well.」

The response was dismissive, lacking even a shred of genuine reassurance. The atmospheric pressure began to dissipate, and realizing they were nearing their destination, Isaac’s thoughts spiraled in panic. He needed to be certain. Was there anything else he had forgotten?

“Correct. My second wish! Ensure that the way I appear tonight does not linger in Lord Kaiyan’s memory. And… let it not be remembered by anyone else I encounter this night!”

Isaac frantically struck the flint, adding the final clause to account for the royal attendants and palace guards. The tiger running to his right rolled its immense, windmill-sized eyes.

「I grant your second wish.」

The third wish. What should he demand with his final boon? As he desperately scavenged his memory for missed pitfalls, the crushing pressure faded completely, and the floating, glass-like lights blurred and lost their luster. Suddenly, the fragments of light distorted, coalescing into a single, massive weight of energy.

Then, they detonated in a blinding, silent burst of brilliance.

“…”

Silence reigned.

After blinking into the quiet for several seconds, Isaac realized he was sprawled on the floor; the suffocating pressure and the void had vanished entirely. Beneath his palms, he felt the short, plush texture of a deep greenish-gray carpet. Slowly, he lifted his head.

The royal crest, carved in elegant relief, stood centered on the wall before him. Beneath it rested a bed so cavernous that half a dozen men could have lounged upon it without disturbing one another. A bedroom. But a bedroom bearing the mark of the throne. Isaac had seen this crest while guarding the palace, knowing it was reserved strictly for the royal family, yet he had never possessed the clearance to enter such a private sanctuary.

He blinked at the jarring combination of the royal crest and the bed, then scanned the room. The walls were surprisingly minimalist, devoid of the opulent ornamentation he had expected.

At the far end of the vast chamber stood a massive wooden door, and beside it, an attendant stood, pale as death and trembling with suppressed terror.

“…? …!”

The attendant appeared strangely blurred, as if a spectral mist obscured Isaac’s vision. The room had been sealed by high-level magic. The attendant stared directly at Isaac, yet showed no flicker of recognition. Yes, the new-moon magic had taken hold perfectly. That meant the owner of this chamber—the one Isaac now shared this space with—was…

“…”

A thick, iron-heavy scent of blood flooded the air from behind him. Isaac’s body locked, frozen like prey under the gaze of an apex predator. He was behind him. The prince. Only steps away. The stench of blood was suffocating. Isaac heard a low, raspy, and laboriously suppressed growl—the ragged breathing of a man in agony. The heat radiating from that feverish body washed over him.

With immense effort, Isaac forced his rigid limbs to turn. Inch by agonizing inch, he pivoted his head, and a figure finally came into focus.

A man sat on a large sofa near the window with a languid air.

At first glance, Isaac believed the man was drenched head-to-toe in crimson, but he soon realized it was a slick, suffocating sheen of blood-mixed sweat. It was the same horrific sight he had witnessed before. Capillaries beneath the man’s translucent skin had ruptured from the sheer intensity of his agony; his veins pulsed with a violent, dark blue, and sweat erupted from his pores, stained by the blood of his internal trauma. Isaac could not pull his eyes away from the chilling figure—a man who looked more like a tortured monster than a human being.

Soon, the monster’s eyes locked onto his own.

I should have arrived sooner. Even with the terrifying spectacle before him, even as primal fear shivered down his spine, the thought burned through Isaac’s mind. He is in such profound pain. I should have come earlier.

But the moment was short-lived.

The monster lunged from the sofa. His movement seemed impossibly sluggish and yet faster than a lightning strike. Even though Isaac clearly registered the figure hurtling toward him, he possessed neither the speed nor the nerves to evade the strike. His heart dropped into his stomach, and in a heartbeat, he was sprawled on the floor, pinned beneath a weight that felt like a collapsing mountain.

Right. This was it. This.

A non-human growl rumbled against his ear, followed immediately by a searing, invasive agony radiating from his neck.

Pinned to the spot and unable to twitch a single finger, Isaac found himself paralyzed, incapable of even a scream. His body could do nothing but flinch under the assault. Isaac struggled to determine which was more unbearable: the visceral torture of his flesh being ravaged while still conscious, or the bone-chilling terror of feeling his life force drain away like a torrent of water. Although every drop of blood erupted from his throat only to vanish down the man’s gullet, the scent of copper overwhelmed his senses.

Immediately, his vision began to swim.

I cannot die. Even if I lose consciousness, I will wake again. Surely Kaiyan wouldn’t waste such a rare, expensive painkiller on a disposable toy. I will not die.

Isaac repeated these desperate refrains internally, yet he could not suppress the primal, suffocating fear of death constricting his chest. His surroundings warped and bled into gray. As his consciousness frayed and the thought I might actually die flickered through his mind, the aggressive suction at his neck finally began to subside. Even so, the mouth clamped against him did not retract; instead, it lingered, savoring the remaining blood welling from the wound. It was no longer a matter of satiating hunger. It was gluttonous indulgence.

The sensation of a tongue gliding slowly over the raw skin felt uncomfortably vivid. Isaac realized the prince draped over him had shifted from a state of rigid agony to one of lazy, languid relaxation. It seemed the painkiller had performed its duty perfectly.

Well then, he could stop now, surely? Doesn’t it just taste like bitter metal?

「I don’t think he ate dinner. He looks like he intends to fill his stomach with nothing but blood.」

「Right? One sip should have sufficed, but he’s acting like a child who has starved for three days. He is a prince, after all—why skip his meal?」

「Well, nothing is as sweet or fragrant to a cursed child as witch blood, but a prince should be dining on delicacies, shouldn’t he?」

「The kingdom must be dreadfully impoverished. Tsk, tsk.」