The Demon King's Paladin Part 1 Vol 2.

Chapter 251. Rescue Operation 2. Giving In

                                                                    Franz Fracks's Point Of View

I'm dying... I can feel my life leaving me through my chest. Maybe I can just drift away, I can meet my lovely Cindra on the other side. All of this pain, this hole in my heart, it could go away. I can be free. We can finally be together again.

" Is that really what you feel?"

" Who is that!?"

A voice came to me, it sounded so close, yet so far from me.

" I am what you seek. Now answer my question, Franz, is that what you truly wish for? To fade away into the nothing? Hoping to rejoin your hands with your wife's hands? Do you think it can be that easy?"

" Then what am I to do? It has to be that easy, there's nothing left for me. I feel my life ending, she'll be there, she's always been there for me. What caliber of stranger are you to impose your opinion of where my wife will be!? You know nothing of us!"

" Hmhmmhm."

The voice chuckles to itself. A cruel mockery meant to shame me for the dying embers of what strength I had left to yell at the voice in my mind.

" Sure, I may not know your wife personally, but I know quite a great amount about what awaits on the other side, Franz. Your wife has lived well, despite the hatred she held towards certain peoples in this life, she was accepted above. But what about you, Franz? So much innocent blood on your hands? Do you think grief induced insanity doesn't weigh on your soul during judgement? The fact of the matter, Franz, is that the last time you'd have seen your wife was on her deathbed. Unless you do as I tell you, then you can meet her again, you can hold her again, you both can love each other again."

His words burrowed deeply into my mind. The faces of my victims started to return to me from the precipices of my mind. Why did I do all of that? Why didn't I stop before it went too far?

" Because you wished to see her. Don't you want to see her again? All you need to do is listen to me, Franz. Then all will be well."

Yes... My Cindra... My sweet sweet Cindra... To see her smile again... I'd give anything...

" What do I have to do?"

While I can't see what this voice belongs to, I can feel it's smile as I asked what it would have me do.

" Just take that dagger and pierce your heart. Then just don't resist me. Then I'll solve all of your problems, I promise, Franz. You've searched for me for so long, let me reward your service. It needs to mean something after all. All of the lives, the lies, the sleepless nights filled with your tears, just surrender it all with the thrust of my dagger."

I feel myself grip the dagger... I feel.... Peaceful as I feel the dagger pierce my chest. The tip reaches my heart... That's when I heard the laughing.

" Hehehehe! Yes! Franz! Let me IN!"

I do as I'm commanded. I feel it's embrace. I'm... Changing... I'm... No longer me....

.

.

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Cindra... I... Love.... You....

                                                                              John Ericsson's Point Of View

" What the hell?"

" HAHAHAHA!"

My surprise led me to have a slip of the tongue. Fracks has transformed. Well, transformed is an understatement. What I was looking at was no longer what looked like a frail old man, with red eyes that filled me with a strange feeling I never felt before. Now, he was... At the top of what looked like a pile of black vines that were erupting out of his lower body. It was like watching an octopus have more and more tentacles tearing out of it. He's laughing hysterically right now. What the hell is going on with him? I thought he died?