GRASP!
He clutched her neck hard. Surprisingly, all this happened within just two seconds.
"How?!" Clementine Eyth Lifeblood looked into his cold crimson eyes, for the first time feeling shocked. 'Have I truly become so weak...'
"You don't even have a soul anymore," he answered in a tone devoid of emotion, his voice sounding entirely cold.
Afterwards, the subsequent events unfolded naturally. All of a sudden, a translucent energy with black and white strands came out of his palm grasping her neck, rushing forth in waves.
"Release me, mortal!" Clementine demanded in a loud, frantic voice. She felt an existential dread unlike ever before. She was left completely powerless, sapped of all her strength when the new and peculiar energy, one which she had never seen before, encompassed her whole form.
"You shouldn't have attacked me, woman from outside," he countered. He actually smiled, mimicking Clementine's previous expression. It wasn't a mocking smile, though, but a smile of final farewell and also a relieved smile—relieved from the agonizing pain, of course.
"You..."
Before Clementine could say anything more, her body trembled violently. With a speechless gaze, she watched how her form disintegrated and deconstructed itself into small, quantum red-colored energy particles. This crimson haze spread in the surrounding tens of meters along with the translucent energy with the black-white strands, yet the red particles never moved out of the new energy, merely staying within its confines.
SWOOSH!
It was a process done within a full second, moving from the metaphysical body's disintegration to the condensation of the new energy and red particles, and finally to their crystallization into a small, centimeter-wide red dot-shaped translucent ball. This object silently hovered before him while the raging energies started calming down, dissipating into the morning air.
His eyes narrowed and his hand moved down, his chest heaving as he felt quite nervous after what he had just gone through. However, before he could think of anything or come down from his emotional high, the ball of energy suddenly shot towards him and entered his chest the next second. He saw it coming, but could not react in time.
Moreover, before he could ponder further on what had just happened to him, something else occurred. Starting from his chest, right from his heart, all his blood vessels started to glow in an eerie red light. He looked at his forearms and his body as the veins became visible all over.
BURST! BURST! BURST! BURST! ...
The next second, they burst apart completely. His body felt entirely numb and he fell on his back with a loud thud, bathing the green grass ground with his fresh red blood and many small pieces of his flesh. The blood pooled around his motionless figure in another second. He couldn't even scream through all of this, considering the veins in his neck also weren't there anymore to produce a sound.
COUGH! COUGH! ...
He coughed blood. His eyes turned entirely red. The subsequent moment, his eyes exploded, followed by his skin getting ruptured, and even the cracks of breaking bones could be heard in this silence, along with the faint gurgling sound coming from the groans of the suffering Calamity.
One shouldn't forget that he wasn't even a day old right now. The simple thought of imagining some other day-old baby going through this same experience should tell that he would die immediately. It was horrible, but about thirty seconds into the torture, he mercifully went unconscious.
The world of darkness finally embraced him. A world without pain and suffering.
Meanwhile, if one were to look from above, they would be able to see a tremendous amount of Energy rushing into his body. It was enough that in a three-meters diameter with him in the center, everything turned a deep dark blue, with a blue mist of Energy spreading for another seventeen meters, becoming quite hazy as one traveled towards the end from the center.
Silence reigned. The storm of Energy churned continuously. The sun vanished with time as night came and the moon shone beautifully. Hours went by as the time continued to pass.
... ... ... ... ...
The morning came, and lying in a pool of his own blood, the Calamity opened his eyes. Nonetheless, the second they opened, he closed them shut. His brow furrowed as he felt the piercing light of the morning sun directly hit his pupils. His hands moved quickly, covering his eyes.
He groaned, in time using his other hand to sit up. Remembering what had happened yesterday, he trembled. That pain was really something—first the soul pain and then the pain from his own body falling apart and destroying itself in such a barbaric and violent manner. Truly a horrendous experience to have on the first day of his life, no less. Certainly, he would never forget this.
"I'm actually alive..." he muttered with a weak smile. He smiled while swearing inwardly to never lower his guard against anyone unfamiliar. "Or better yet, I should never lower my guard at all, whether before someone unfamiliar or one familiar, it doesn't matter," he voiced with determination.
He stood up, turned, and looked towards his own blood, frowning immediately at the sight. "So much blood... just what happened to me after I defeated that crimson-haired woman?"
He tried to look into his mind for some answers and even understand why his ability led him to her in the first place if all of this was going to happen. Not to mention, the strange disturbance that had been preventing this meeting from happening earlier.
[Ah. You're finally awake. How awesome~] a very familiar, sensual, and feminine voice echoed clearly in his head. [Now quickly summon me, I want to talk with you—]
"WHAT THE WHAT. Y-Y-YOU ARE ALIVE...!!" he practically screamed at the top of his lungs, nearly falling on his bare ass because of this sudden, overly-friendly voice. His eyes went wide open.
"And wait, where are you? And why are you speaking in my head? What is this? Answer me, outsider woman! Just so you know, I'm not afraid of you anymore," he demanded in a panicked shout, his head turning from one direction to another, trying to find the source of the damned voice.
[HuH!]
[I don't understand, why are you freaking out, Calamity? Aren't you the one who forcefully formed this contract with me? Furthermore, if someone has to get angry, then by all right it should be me. Just who do you think I am? Summon me right this instance and explain to me what this contract is, and what it is about.]
[Even though I have many enemies I want to eliminate, if the price of my vengeance is me becoming an eternal slave, then I'd much rather embrace true death than sacrifice my pride and dignity!] Clementine Eyth Lifeblood answered in an utterly cold tone.
Fully conveying that behind that overly-friendly tone of hers was hidden a strong anger—one which she controlled masterfully, all because of the bits of Information she had gained the moment the contract was established. She understood that this contract wasn't like the ones she had imagined in her head or seen before. Therefore, she waited to hear the explanation directly from the master himself before coming to any conclusion or making any definitive decision.
"Eh..." he blinked, his mind getting even more confused on hearing her words.
His head already had a lot to ponder regarding all that had happened to him since his birth, and now with this new problem, he was actually slowly getting overwhelmed. Nevertheless, even though he failed to understand her words, he could perfectly sense her volatile emotions, through which he also understood what she wanted to know. But again, he had no answers, yet he still replied.
"What... are you saying, outsider woman? When did I contract you? Never mind, you simply tell me, what do you mean by this 'summon you' that you keep mentioning?" he questioned back, his voice filled with exhaustion.