Since entering this dream, Eugene had harbored the same question.
The first dream: a cozy, peaceful family home, a warm kitchen with gentle heat.
That dream had been Hamel’s ideal future, envisioned during his time in the Devildom. After killing all the Demon Kings and ending the war, if he returned home intact — this was how he wanted to live.
He had thought it a provocation, a deception, and a mockery. If that were the case, Noir’s stratagem had been brilliant. What she presented as dreams were the futures Hamel, Sienna, and Anise had envisioned.
But was it merely a provocation? He couldn’t help but question his assumption.
Noir’s fabricated dreams always starred her and Eugene as the main characters. Sienna, Anise, Kristina, or anyone else barely mattered in the dreams crafted by Noir. They did not exist.
It was always a dream shared by just Eugene and Noir. Even when Eugene shattered the dream in denial, Noir quickly recreated another, similar in content, if not in form.
And she asked him. She asked him if he liked the current dream. She even pleaded. All of this intensified the doubts Eugene harbored.
Noir Giabella seemed as if… she did not wish for death.
It almost seemed she hoped for a different ending.Eugene did not want to entertain such thoughts. Thinking this could shake his resolve.
He remembered the kiss Noir had forced upon him in Hauria, as well as the conversations they had shared under the curtain-like wings.
At that time, Noir had been in despair. Her emotions, her love, had been tainted with those of Aria and could no longer be called just Noir Giabella’s.
At that time, Eugene had despaired as well. Noir’s awakening to her past life made it feel as if it was impossible for him to treat her as before. He feared that he might hesitate to kill her at the very end.
Their mutual confusion and agitation had then reached a conclusion. Both had awakened from the brief illusion they had succumbed to.
For Eugene Lionheart, Noir Giabella was an enemy that had to be killed. Not to kill her would mean denying the very foundation of Hamel and Eugene’s lives. The life he lived under these two names would be devoured by the distant past life of Agaroth.
Noir Giabella could not consider Eugene Lionheart as her enemy. Noir loved Eugene, and she loved Hamel, though for irrational reasons.
That emotion, if it must be expressed in a word other than love, could only be described as madness.
Noir desired the reality of death. She craved loss, regrets, and mourning. She wanted the passionate destruction that would make her clumsy, and break and ruin herself.
Yet, the current Noir was acting in contradiction to what she herself had wanted. She acted as if she did not want to face the end, as if she did not want to kill Eugene, as if she did not want to die.
She was repeatedly showing the future they could share together through the dreams. She was begging Eugene for it, even now.
“Why?” Eugene spoke in a hoarse voice, his lips crushed and bitten. Like the scent of blood and corpses that filled his nostrils, the pain from biting his lips felt just as real.
Despite the bloodied lips, the voice that emerged carried no sense of reality. It was undoubtedly Eugene's voice, yet it seemed as though someone else was speaking.
"Why are you taking that form?” he asked.
Noir was currently assuming the appearance of Aria.
Just as Agaroth and Eugene did not resemble each other, Noir did not resemble Aria either. Yet, Noir had deliberately chosen to take on Aria's appearance — her voice and her attire were those from Agaroth’s memories.
Assuming such a guise was a great contradiction for Noir. Back in Hauria, her despair had stemmed from her emotions not being entirely her own.
Thus, Noir had vehemently denied Aria.
She had seized Eugene by the neck and then kissed him abruptly. Their lips had locked, their lips had parted, and their tongues had entwined. The kiss, devoid of sweetness, romance, or innocence, was far removed from Aria's last.
"Why, I wonder,” she responded.
Aria's expression had not changed from the start of this nightmare. It was lonely, even sorrowful. She wore a smile that seemed on the verge of tears.
Eugene recognized her expression. It was the smile Aria had worn while embracing Agaroth, with her face half-torn. Everything about Noir now reminded him of Aria. She was stirring his emotions and his mind, consciously and deliberately.
But was that really true?
His stream of thoughts concluded with a question. He could not allow this to happen. He could not be conscious of it. He should think no further.
Yet, he couldn't control it as he intended. His emotions churned. His cheeks twitched. He couldn't even discern what expression he was making at the moment.
Noir had invited Eugene to her city. As soon as he crossed the city gate, he was sucked into a dream — a dream that could be happy, that had the potential to be happy. Depending on how one accepted it, it was not a nightmare at all.
If he had just relented, if he had just discarded his murderous intent toward Noir, if he had just given up on himself. Doing so would, in fact, have smoothed things over much more than now.
Noir was formidable. Even the Demon King of Incarceration might struggle to confront the current Noir. If Eugene did not kill Noir, but instead, they came to an understanding and accepted the emotions of their past lives, then….
"We ended in tragedy,” said Noir in her Aria form.
It was just as Aria said. The deaths of Agaroth and Aria — it was all a tragedy.
It had been their first and last kiss. Even knowing their feelings for each other, he had no choice but to break her neck. He had no choice but to order everyone to advance, already knowing everyone would die. In the end, even Agaroth died. So many lives were sacrificed, and all it did was delay the Demon King of Destruction for a few days.
"We don't need to repeat the tragedy,” Noir continued.
Agaroth had loved that voice.
After the battle, upon his return, he would hear her voice.
— Congratulations on your victory, my lord.
Agaroth had loved that whisper, which was always accompanied by her thin, delicately drawn smile. It looked as if it had been drawn by a fine pen.
When he returned to his room after the banquet with the intention to drink a few more glasses of wine alone, the door would open without a knock. He always anticipated it.
Watching Aria enter, cradling a bottle of mediocre wine, Agaroth wondered if today, the wine might contain a poison or a curse lethal even to a god.
— Are you not going to drink?
— My lord, such a request is too burdensome and cruel for me. How can a saint contend to drink with a god?
— So you won’t drink because it's poisoned, I take it.
— Yes, I have indeed added a lethal poison. Thus, I shall never touch the wine. My lord, if the poison in this insignificant concoction frightens you, please put the cup away.
Her attire was too flimsy to be considered that of the Saint's. Agaroth had liked the languid voice under the flickering light, the coquettish smile mixed with flirtation. Ultimately, he had loved the taste of the wine, which was never poisoned or cursed, just plain.
— My lord, the sun has long since risen. Please, open your eyes and rise.
He never showed it. He always recoiled and pushed it away, for if he did not, that bewitching creature would tease and tempt him with a mischievous smile.
But he liked the whispering voice by his ear, as well as the sweet and hot breath that tickled his cheek.
"Hamel."
Aria took another step towards Eugene.
Behind her, the twilight trembled. Aria's smile and her ruby-like eyes quivered. Tears welled up and rolled down her moist eyes.
"Please hold me,” she asked.
Aria spread her arms.
"Hold me, kiss me. Whisper my name in my ear,” she begged.
Eugene could not move. He still couldn’t tell what expression he was making. A torrent of emotions churned through his torn heart. The despair and regret Agaroth had felt at the end, the hope that they might now face a different ending, shook Eugene’s mind and emotions.
"Hamel,” she called out.
Aria took another step closer. Eugene couldn't move. No, in truth, he wanted to move. He wanted to give the response Aria desired. Even he himself wished for it. Not wanting it was impossible.
This dream was…
…Too deep.
With a crunch, he drove the glass blade into his neck. No spark was ignited. The blade, cutting diagonally, caught at his collarbone.
"Gurk."
His throat, choked with emotion, made no sound. The boiling, gurgling blood inside became a sound and parted Eugene's lips.
The tumult of emotions washed away from him. All the thoughts cluttering his mind ceased abruptly due to an intuitive brush with death.
Aria stopped in her tracks and looked at Eugene.
Crunch, crunch...
The glass blade, still emitting no sparks, advanced slowly, ever so slowly, slicing through Eugene's body. A diagonal cut across the neck would completely sever it with a mere touch. The blade, having passed the collarbone, was now cutting the edge of the heart and slicing through the lungs.
The movement of the blade was slow, but nevertheless, Eugene was unhurriedly and deliberately cutting through his own body. Were sparks to fly, his body would incinerate in an instant.
No, there was no need for flames. The beautiful glass blade was sharp enough to slice through anything it touched. Yet still, he pushed it forward slowly, almost with no force, little by little.
Aria wiped the tears streaming down her cheeks. With the tears, her smile disappeared too. She looked at Eugene with cold, settled eyes and reached out her hand.
Boom.
The dream trembled. The sky distorted. This disturbance was not intended by Noir. She stopped her hand and clicked her tongue.
"It’s too deep for me as well," Noir muttered.
There was a dream encompassing the entire city. She could accept humans, whether millions or tens of millions. A single world could spawn dreams for millions, fulfilling all their desires and fantasies instantly and perpetually.
But Eugene was no ordinary human. Trapping him in a dream and creating dreams for him was way harder than doing the same for tens of millions of humans. Noir herself was expending a great deal of mental energy, having delved deep into the dream herself to assimilate Eugene’s mind as much as possible. She had embraced memories and emotions deeply.
"However,” Noir murmured as she caressed her cheek, "It wasn't a lie."
Eugene didn’t hear her. He was listening to a different sound — the sound of the blade cutting flesh and bone, the blood bursting upon the blade. And then….
A prayer. A calling of names. The voice he heard now was not that of Aria, which Agaroth had loved. It wasn't the sound of her calling her god.
The blade stopped.
"I feel refreshed,” said Eugene. His lips foamed with blood, and his eyes were bloodshot as he looked at Aria.
The nightmare was too deep. Even with his divinity, with his sanctuary, resisting such a deep nightmare was not easy. Had his decision to sever his throat and kill his mind been delayed, had he succumbed to Aria’s pleas and embraced her….
"Noir Giabella," Eugene called out a name, but it wasn’t Aria's.
Thus, he distinguished what was and what wasn’t. The figure before Eugene was not the Twilight Witch, Aria, nor was it the God of War, Agaroth’s Saint. It was the Queen of the Night Demons, Noir Giabella.
"Are you wearing that skin to confuse me?" Eugene asked as he pulled out Levantein from his body.
No blood spurted out; instead, flames surged and filled the wound.
"Do you repeat these tragedies, say these things to completely engulf me in this nightmare?" he questioned.
He hoped that would be the case. He hoped that Noir had concocted this farce solely with deceit and mockery. If so, Noir would remain utterly incomprehensible to him, an entity incapable of harboring any emotion other than murderous rage and anger.
Without waiting for Noir’s answer, Eugene continued, "And if it's not….”
He listened to prayers coming from afar — Anise and Kristina's voices, not as Saints of Agaroth, but as the Saints of Eugene Lionheart.
"Why would you say such things?" he questioned.
He felt the dream tremble. He could not hear Sienna, but she was the only one outside the dream who could cause such a disturbance.
"What name do you wish to be embraced under, and by whom?" Eugene asked.
"Either way, it’s me, and either way, it’s you," Noir responded without a smile.
However, Eugene only perceived her answer as a play on words. To others, it might not matter, but for Eugene and Noir, names were of profound significance.
"I have something I want to ask, too," Noir spoke first, breaking the short silence. "Do you really want this dream to end?"
The twilight trembled.
"Do you really want to go out into reality?" she questioned.
The redness in the sky deepened.
"Do you truly wish to face the real me?" she asked.
From that question, Eugene couldn't help but feel that since entering this dream, Noir had always been sincere. Every appearance she had shown, every contradiction, had been Noir's true feelings.
That was why Noir was hesitating.
"I'll be honest with you, Hamel,” she said, not waiting for Eugene’s answer.
The nightmare was quivering.
"I wish this dream could last forever,” she admitted.
Eugene looked at her silently.
"I want to continue to be in this dream with you,” Noir confessed.