"Keke. At last, Reva Rain, I have found you."
Eren's voice dripped with a malevolence that sent shivers down Reva's spine.
There was a subtle demonic essence woven into his words, as if they reverberated in the air, creating an echo that went unnoticed.
Stunned into silence, Reva locked eyes with Eren, her mind struggling to comprehend the reality before her. Her gaze shifted to the tip of the dagger protruding from Eren's chest, a chilling confirmation that her lethal strike had not been a mere illusion but a tangible act.
"How? How the hell are you not injured?" Reva's voice trembled with anger and disbelief. She couldn't help but curse the unfairness of the situation, as if the world owed her a favor, expecting Eren to be gasping for his last breath after she had successfully pierced his heart.
"Oh! This little thing?"
Eren glanced down at the dagger lodged in his chest for a brief moment before meeting Reva's gaze again. With a touch of melancholy drama in his tone, he replied, "You should have aimed for the head, Miss Paladin of Pain. Not that it would have made much of a difference." He spoke calmly, as if fatigue weighed heavily upon him.
With a flick of his hand, the dagger that had impaled him materialized in his grasp. Strangely, it bore little blood, and Eren's wound seemed void of bleeding. It was as if having a dagger plunged into his heart was a normal state of affairs for his body.
Reva sensed a shift in Eren's mana signature, an illusory presence coursing through his veins with the effects of foreign mana.
Eren remained unaffected by the Wrath mana, his mind shielded from its influence. He manually deactivated his Ability, preventing the release of a Wrath Domain. It was unnecessary to use it on the terrified Reva before him.
Eren's movements appeared deliberate and unhurried, yet Reva soon realized she was unable to escape his grasp. She felt the vice-like grip of his right hand around her throat, preventing her from creating any distance between them.
Reverse Rain!
Reva unleashed her demonic Ability with all her might, summoning a torrential rain of pain-inducing droplets that enveloped Eren. However, to her astonishment, he showed no signs of pain, even as he was drenched in her demonic onslaught that surged from the ground and reached for the sky.
Struggling to speak through Eren's grip on her throat, Reva managed to rasp out her question, "How... cough cough cough... How is this possible? Is... is my Ability ineffective against you?"
Reva's voice was feeble, and her body refused to obey her commands. Her mind was a jumble, unable to comprehend how one man could possess such an overwhelming and soul-numbing presence that reduced her to this state. She could sense that her Reverse Rain had indeed started inflicting pain upon Eren, but why was he unresponsive to the torment she had unleashed upon him?
Eren responded to Reva's question with an assured voice, "Oh, it's working, alright. Just not to the extent that it would elicit a response from me. Were you always this weak, or have I grown considerably stronger than you?" He tilted his head, a look of puzzlement on his face as he regarded Reva. "Hmm, perhaps a bit of both," he mused, answering his own question.
Eren vividly remembered the impact of Reva's Ability during their previous encounter, yet now it seemed almost trivial to endure. He chuckled to himself, realizing that he had truly broken Reva, inflicting irreparable damage to her psyche.
"You know, Reva, I would have granted you a swift and painless death after ensuring that you had a 'great time' during these past 9 years. But unfortunately for you, I can't do that. At least not right away," Eren said, his voice laced with sarcastic lament.
"You truly believed that I was unaware of your connection with Isen? Did you think I wouldn't anticipate your interference in my battles? How lowly you must think of me, Miss Paladin of Pain," Eren addressed Reva, disappointment evident in his gaze.
He made it clear that he had been well aware of Reva's intentions to disrupt his fight against Isen's forces. After all, he had placed Sylphie as an intelligence gatherer in the kingdom of Layos, establishing his own network that operated independently from Edinburgh. While he couldn't obtain every minute detail of Layos' forces, he could focus his attention on select individuals. And that's exactly what he had done with Isen.
"You... Demonmir... Demonmir will never let you live if you..." Reva's voice trembled as she tried to intimidate Eren by invoking Demonmir's name. However, her words only elicited more laughter from him.
"Haha. I hate to break it to you, Reva, but your ex-lover couldn't care less about you. And who in the world would be afraid of Demonmir anyway? I'll dig a hole for him soon," Eren replied, chuckling, before tightening his grip around Reva's neck.
He hadn't engaged in conversation with Reva to only prolong her suffering, although it was indeed one of the reasons. It seemed he was inspecting her soul with his Soul Sense, maintaining close proximity to her as if searching for something.
"Keke. Found it," Eren declared, his expression filled with jubilation as he bit the thumb of his other hand and drew a drop of blood, smearing it on Reva's chest. "Come out, come out, wherever you are, little demon," he taunted, his voice tinged with amusement.
In an instant, a runic circle manifested over Reva's chest, emitting a blood-red hue. The runic symbols bore the mark of demonic origins and pulsated with energy upon appearing on her skin.
This runic circle represented the Faustian Contract. Eren had compelled the dormant consciousness of the demon within Reva to awaken.
In the next moment, Reva's mana signatures underwent a transformation, her mana core becoming more volatile. Due to her gradual assimilation with demonic energy throughout her life, her body didn't immediately implode like the Creatures of Wrath.
Reva had been turned into an awakened demonic ranker by Eren.
