I’m Trying to End This Possession Chapter 172

In that frozen moment, Ignis moved. He scooped Dana up in his arms as if to snatch her away. Without realizing it, Dana wrapped her arms around his neck. And at that moment, Ignis felt it. Darkness descended on his head, brief but unmistakable. But he didn’t care and continued running with Dana in his arms.

 

“Lord Ignis!” Dana cried out in fright. “Lord Ignis, stop!”

 

Ignis stepped on the rotten land and severed Raios’s arm. But that wasn’t all. Dana saw it clearly.

 

“Lord Ignis, please stop!”

 

Raios’s remaining hand touched Ignis’s head. In that moment, Dana saw with her own eyes something black and sinister ripple out. Ignis’s head had become tainted. She remembered hearing that the Windsor family’s weakness was their head, though she didn’t remember where or who had told her this…

 

“Is that b*stard your stalker?” Ignis didn’t stop. Instead, he ran faster and teased her. “You sure have a lot of stalkers. Carl Windsor, and now some demon who rots the land.” Then he laughed and added, “I was thinking of following you around too, but if I did, your life would’ve become a real hassle.”

 

Dana felt as if she couldn’t breathe. It was because Ignis was rotting rapidly from his head. His red hair turned black, his forehead blackened, and his eyebrows too. Soon, the rot began to spread down the back of his neck.

 

She didn’t try to persuade him further. She didn’t say anything more. She just reached her hand toward his head and poured out her power of purification. But… I can’t.

 

Dana bit her lip until it bled. She had never seen such vicious corruption before. It had never spread this fast. This was on a whole different level from any corruption she’d seen before.  Especially his head—it was already completely rotten…

 

“Stop. It’s too bright.” Ignis knew too. Instinctively, he could tell. From the spot where Raios’s hand had touched, he was rotting from the inside out.

 

Am I going to die? If so, then it can’t be helped. That was really all he felt. It didn’t bother him at all. He had nothing precious enough to treasure his life for.

 

Ignis had nothing. He was penniless, with nothing he wanted to do, nothing he had to do. Nothing precious, nothing valuable, nothing he wanted to protect. Really, nothing at all. If there was a single thing in his life that sparkled, it was only the woman in his arms. And the memory of that night. The only precious thing he had was the memory of the one night he spent with Dana. So, he thought, my life will be spent protecting this.

 

Ignis thought lightly of it. Not a bad ending. Better than dying as a cheap sideshow, as the ‘red dog’ for someone’s amusement.

 

All Ignis wanted was for Dana to accomplish her goal. For her to escape to where she wanted, to live well. To stay beautiful and graceful, just like now. It wouldn’t be so bad if he became the foundation for the life this precious lady would live.

 

“Lord Ignis.”

 

But why… why was he becoming useless so quickly?

 

“Lord Ignis, please stop now!”

 

He was losing his usefulness too quickly.

 

Ignis didn’t want to stop, but his legs gave out on their own, and he had no choice but to stop. He collapsed as if falling apart.

 

“Get a hold of yourself!” Dana hastily placed her hand on Ignis’s chest and poured her power of purification into him. “Stay with me, Lord Ignis.”

 

As she looked at him bathed in pure white light, Dana whispered, “It’s going to be all right.”

 

No, it’s not.

 

“Everything will be okay.”

 

It can’t be all right.

 

A harsh truth struck Dana. The corruption had already reached his toes. Once it reached this stage, recovery was impossible. The fact that he was even alive now was a miracle…

 

“Enough.”

 

Did he know his own state? Ignis took Dana’s hand and pulled it away.

 

“The light’s too strong… I can’t see your face.”

 

At his words, Dana let go. Before she knew it, tears streamed down her face, and her breath came in short gasps. Ignis was now pitch-black, like a corpse burned to a crisp. Even his breaths began to release ashen dust.

 

Dana couldn’t hold back anymore and sobbed. “I’m sorry.” Her chest felt like it was being crushed. Dana’s tears fell on Ignis’s black cheek. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, truly…”

 

“Where to?” Ignis asked with difficulty, looking up at her with eyes blackened by rot. “Where will you go now?” He seemed genuinely curious.

 

So Dana swallowed her sobs and held Ignis’s blackened hand. “I’m going home. My real home.” She wanted to tell him everything—all of it. “This is a secret, but… actually, this isn’t my real body.”

 

She whispered into his ear, making sure Ignis, who was losing his senses, could hear her clearly. “My real body is somewhere else. Now I’m going to return to my own body, to the world where I belong.”

 

“Is it far?”

 

“Yes. Very far.”

 

“Then hurry and go.” Perhaps it would be his last breath, so Ignis breathed deeply. “Your name…” His lips, blackened with corruption, barely moved. “What’s your real name?”

 

Ignis’s voice was even quieter than her breath—so faint it was almost inaudible. But Dana, who was listening with all her might, heard him clearly. So she answered, “Yeon Dana.”

 

Did he hear it? Or not?

 

“My name is Yeon Dana.”

 

Dana couldn’t tell. Because Ignis had already stopped breathing. His lips parted silently, and even the tongue inside was blackened with corruption.

 

At last, Ignis’s body began to crumble. A gust of wind blew, and his corpse scattered like ashes, drifting away like dust. Only a few blackened bone fragments remained, and Dana sobbed.

 

“I’m sorry…” Her heart hurt so much she could hardly breathe. But she couldn’t stop here. She had to go—just as Ignis had told her. Hurry. This was the chance that Ignis had given his life to create for her.

 

Dana slowly got to her feet. Perhaps because she still had the holy relic, she didn’t feel tired at all. She then looked up at the sky. Now the sky was colored a soft orange. At last, it was the sun’s domain.

 

With her tear-streaked face, Dana took out the holy relic. It was finally time to leave.

 

No… This wasn’t right. She couldn’t just disappear so easily. She needed to give him a gift. A farewell gift he would never forget for the rest of his life.

 

* * *

Raios tightly tied off the stump of his severed arm with his necktie to stop the bleeding. Then he walked.

 

“Dana.”

 

With every step he took, the land beneath him rotted. Raios walked, contaminating all the ground he touched as if to show off.

 

“Dana. Where are you? Come out, now.” Raios muttered as he walked. “If you’re not by my side, I’ll contaminate all this land…”

 

Don’t act like a child. He thought he could hear Dana’s scolding like an auditory hallucination, but it didn’t matter.

 

“Dana.”

 

This power was terrifying and extremely useful. The rotten land might seem like a natural disaster, but some areas of contamination were actually created by Raios himself.  Whenever he wanted to spend time alone with Dana, each time, he deliberately contaminated the land.

 

As a member of the imperial Geranze family blessed by the sun god, Raios was unaffected by the corruption. That’s why he always accompanied Dana on purification journeys.

 

Ah, those were really good times… The time spent traveling alone with Dana. Those days were heavenly. It was thanks to those purification journeys, just the two of them, that they became lovers. Because Raios created more contaminated areas just to spend time with Dana. Yes, that’s how they finally became lovers. That’s why he could never give her up, not after coming this far.

 

Dana didn’t know how Raios had gotten her. How he became her lover. If she knew the effort, she’d never be able to give him up so easily.

 

Originally, Dana was a woman he could never have. It was like that at first.

 

Raios muttered her name with bloodshot eyes. “Danae Geranze…”

 

Her first name. When Raios first met her, she was Danae Geranze, not Danae Windsor.

 

Yes, that’s right. The day they first met, in the first meeting he remembered, she was Princess Danae Geranze. Everyone knew her as his older sister. Back then, he from long ago had to endure the humiliation of calling her his sister.

 

“If you put down your bangs, you look like a baby, Raios. So cute.”

 

“Sister, don’t tease me.”

 

“How can you be so cute?”

 

It was a painful past. Now that time had long passed, it was almost a relief that Dana didn’t even remember it.

 

In the end, things turned out this way. Dana became Danae Windsor, not Danae Geranze, and started her life here. The days when she was Danae Geranze had disappeared, and now almost no one remembered it.

 

It’s fate. Raios muttered. “Fate. Yes, fate. This is what fate is, sister. I seized this fate, Dana.”

 

“Dana!”

 

At last, Raios found her. Was it because of the blinding sun? She looked dazzling, as if enveloped in light. But Raios soon realized.

 

“Dana.”

 

No, that’s not it. It wasn’t because of the sunlight. Behind Dana’s body, a giant gate of light had opened.

 

At that moment, Raios felt as if the world had turned upside down. He knew what that was. That was—a dimensional gate. One that opened only once every hundred years. He’d believed he’d never see it open in his lifetime…

 

“Dana!” A scream tore out of him as if being vomited up. “Dana!”

 

Standing before the blazing gate, Dana looked at him and smiled. That radiant smile sent chills down Raios’s spine.

 

How? Why? How come?

 

“Don’t go!” Raios didn’t know. But one thing was clear. “Don’t go, Dana!”

 

Dana was trying to leave him. Again, again, again!

 

Raios ran toward Dana, but froze in terror when he saw her turn her body.

 

“Stop!” He shouted, almost in a fit. “I won’t come any closer, just stop, Dana!”

 

Then Dana stopped. She even kindly turned back to look at him, as if showing mercy. Their eyes met.

 

Ah, those eyes. The eyes she had on the day the dimensional gate opened years ago. The eyes she had when she decided to leave him. The eyes she had when she chose another man over him. Those cruel eyes of hers that could throw him away like garbage at any time. It was always those eyes. This time too, at the end of their relationship, those knife-like eyes were waiting for him.

 

“Oh, is that so? You’re leaving this world?” But he would never be abandoned again. Forcing a villainous grin, Raios shouted. “Fine! Go ahead and try!”

 

Ahahaha! He deliberately laughed like a villain.

 

“If you go, I’ll contaminate all this land. Even that secretary you’re so fond of, I’ll make him rot to the bone!”

 

At that, Dana tilted her head. The coldness revealed on her pure face made Raios shudder.

 

“Don’t you understand? I’ll contaminate everything. Not just the empire, but every piece of land in this world, until there’s not a living thing left!”

 

So what? That was the look on Dana’s face. It was as if she no longer cared about this world, just like telling him to do as he pleased. She gave off the vibe of a complete outsider.

 

Raios then realized threats wouldn’t work. Dana really had made up her mind to leave everything behind and go.

 

“Don’t go.” His knees buckled of their own accord. With his only remaining hand on the ground, Raios cried out, “Don’t go, Dana! I was wrong!”

 

Just one more step and Dana would cross the dimensional gate. Then, it would be another farewell. He was seized with terror, his whole body trembling. No, he couldn’t let her cross the gate. It couldn’t end like this, not after all that had happened.

 

Then, Dana smiled brightly. She raised her slender arm and waved it from side to side. Like a joke, like a prank. But Dana knew that her radiant, smiling face and that gesture of farewell would wound Raios deeply. Just like the face of a demon who knew everything and kept doing it anyway…

 

“Don’t go!”

 

What a wretched woman.

 

“Don’t go!”

 

I knew you’d leave me someday. I knew you’d throw me away like this. But this damn woman. I’m nothing to you! But you’re everything to me…

 

“Don’t go, don’t go, Dana!” He screamed as if going mad. Like a lost beast, terrified, howling. “Don’t go. Please don’t leave me. Please…”

 

That day, Raios cried a lot. Even after Dana crossed the dimensional gate and left this world, for a long, long time. He wailed for a very long time.

 

* * *

It had been six years and eleven months since Dana possessed the body of Danae Windsor. At last, the possession had ended.

 

End of Season 1