My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

Chapter 1223: Chapter 1224: Can’t Share It

Damon wasn’t sure why they would tell him all of this, but he also knew that the fact that they had told him meant they had accepted that they could no longer hide anything.

Kadelas glanced at Damon. The tea in front of him had long since gone cold, forgotten while they spoke.

"I did not want this, and I do not like you. After all, you hurt my daughter when she opened her heart to you. You were the first man to do something like that."

Damon had almost forgotten about it.

A long time ago, when they were younger and still in the academy, Sylvia had been somewhat drawn to him.

It had started when they met in the library and he asked her about poison.

She had been a naturally curious young girl at the time, while Damon had been headstrong and mysterious. To her, he didn’t fit in with the world around him.

So she had become curious about him.

That had been the beginning of their friendship.

Before Damon eventually stabbed her in the back by calling her a sheltered little princess.

"You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?" Damon groaned, rubbing his forehead.

"I will not. I refuse to forget such a thing. After all, you were the one who hurt her."

There was no anger in Kadelas’s voice this time, only a cold certainty.

This was the source of Kadelas’s grudge against Damon. It went beyond the fact that Damon was the human his daughter had fallen in love with or that he had once been a nameless commoner.

No.

Damon had hurt Kadelas’s only daughter.

And the Elf King could not forgive him for that.

"I did not intend for what happened next to happen. I never imagined she would be possessed by a dark spirit because of my words and actions."

Damon’s voice became quieter.

Now that he was older, he felt a little ashamed when he thought about it.

The Great Spirit Rashi Ignath had taken over Sylvia because of what he had done.

Daphne let out a deep, long breath.

"It’s fine now. I think we all need to let the past rest. After all, you were the one who caused it, but you were also the one who rescued Sylvia."

She gave Damon a small smile.

"I can see why she is so smitten with you. After all, what kind of woman doesn’t want a Prince Charming to come sweep her off her feet?"

"Not just the women. I like a Princess Charming myself," Damon added, taking a sip of tea.

Daphne couldn’t help but chuckle at his words.

"Then what I’m about to tell you should be taken seriously."

Her smile faded.

"We have reason to believe Sylvia is in danger, and we want you to save her. After all, you are technically her fiancé," Kadelas said with a flat expression.

The entire fiancé situation was against his will, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had made a promise.

"Not technically. I sort of am her fiancé, but sure."

"No ceremony was held, so it is technically correct," Kadelas argued, leaning forward slightly as though this distinction actually mattered.

Damon stared at him for a moment.

He was not about to back down.

After seven years of not seeing her, he knew Sylvia must have grown into a nice, mature woman.

Just his type.

By the Goddess and the madness of the Unknown God, he’d be damned if he let her slip through his fingers when she could probably look like her mother in a few years.

"Don’t even say whatever it is you’re planning."

Daphne stepped between them before the argument could go any further.

She was an Oracle.

But honestly, you didn’t need to be an Oracle to know what would happen if she let these two argue.

"Do you remember I told you earlier that when I hugged Sylvia, she cried?"

Her eyes lowered, and her hands began trembling again.

"Yes. I imagine there’s a reason for that," Damon whispered.

A bad feeling had already begun forming in his chest.

"That’s not all."

Daphne’s fingers tightened around the edge of the table.

"Sylvia has changed. Now that she’s in the Seventh Class, it’s almost like she’s bound by certain rules and conditions that we..."

"Wait."

Damon suddenly straightened.

"Seventh Class? Sylvia reached the Seventh Class since when?"

Reaching the Seventh Class was no easy feat.

And yet she had reached it just like that.

Didn’t that mean she was the first person of their generation to reach it?

How?

"Yes. Sylvia has reached the Seventh Class. She reached it six years ago," Kadelas said.

There was no pride in his voice.

Instead, he looked even more somber.

Damon’s expression slowly changed.

"Her reaching the Seventh Class changed her, though she changed before that," Kadelas continued.

He lowered his gaze.

"We noticed that she seemed less and less like herself."

He paused.

"For one, Sylvia found no comfort in anything. She could sit and rest as if she were sitting on stone. She can’t distinguish between certain tastes. We tested it."

Damon’s brows slowly furrowed.

"They had made her dinner and filled it with sugar, but she ate it and said it was salt. We thought perhaps she had made a mistake, but when we asked her again, she insisted it was salt."

Kadelas’s fingers slowly curled into a fist.

"But it wasn’t. We had actually added sugar."

Damon remained quiet.

What did that mean?

"She feels no warmth upon her skin."

Daphne’s voice trembled.

"When she sleeps, she only has haunting nightmares. Ones that make her wake with terror in her eyes."

Her hand moved unconsciously toward her chest.

"But she can’t scream. She never screams."

She swallowed.

"It’s not because she doesn’t want to. It’s just..."

Her voice stopped.

She remembered Sylvia waking from a nightmare, her mouth open as terror filled her eyes, yet not a single sound had come from her.

"She just can’t."

Damon’s expression darkened.

"But we noticed that if asked to, she can scream. We soon realized that it’s only when she’s in pain that she’s incapable of screaming."

Damon’s eyes narrowed.

Kadelas continued.

"Those are just what we discovered. There’s more. Things like how she can’t scratch an itch or hear the sound of music, how she holds her jaw whenever it rains..."

His voice began to crack.

"There’s so much more. Things people wouldn’t easily notice."

His hands moved up to his head, his fingers gripping his hair.

"But this is our daughter."

The mighty Elf King lowered his head.

"I swear by the Goddess, we aren’t crazy."

His shoulders trembled slightly.

"Something... something horrible is happening to Sylvia."

He covered his face with one hand.

"She is in pain, but she can’t show it."

His voice became almost a whisper.

"She can’t share it."