The Price of Betrayal Cannot Be Forgiven by Death Alone 3
"M-my wife...? Arnold?"
Jack could only stare, murmuring in a daze, as if his soul had fled his body at the sight of his own wife and son brandishing kitchen knives and spitting curses at him.
Everyone around him already knew it, but Jack cherished and loved his wife and son more than anything. His wife, a full ten years younger than he was, had never once complained as she devoted herself to supporting him. Their late-born son—a child who had come to them so late in life—was all the more precious for it.
But loving one's family was no measure of a good man, and it was certainly no reason for forgiveness.
Even Andrei Chikatilo, that vile Soviet serial killer—the worst in the history of the USSR, a man who butchered more than fifty people, mostly women and children, and even ate their flesh, with some estimates placing his victims at over a hundred—had supposedly been a gentle grandfather to his own grandchildren.
"Heh heh."
Jae-hyun was trying to hold back his laughter, yet the sound kept slipping free as if he simply could not contain it. Had he simply burst out laughing, it might have been one thing—but that half-smothered amusement only enraged the traitors who heard it all the more.
"Y-you cruel demon! Just kill me already! Why the hell are you making my family do this?!"
Jack roared at Jae-hyun, his voice cracking with fury.
If a monster or some magical beast had come to kill him, he would not have felt half so wronged, half so tormented. But the ones he had to face were his own family.
His grateful wife, who had always taken care of him. His young son, born late and loved more dearly than anyone else in the world.
As a former Holy Knight, he had never wanted for money. A monthly stipend had always been paid out under the name of "living expenses." Holy Knights belonged to the temple; their calling was service to the gods rather than ordinary employment, so they received no formal salary.
Even so, Holy Knights with families to support still needed money to live. What they received each month was not a salary but a living allowance—though in truth it was a salary with the name scrubbed off, little more than a transparent pretense.
That monthly payment was what allowed Holy Knights to serve without fretting over their livelihoods. And because enormous compensation was paid to their families upon a knight's death, they could at least ease the burden of worrying about those they would leave behind.
Ten years ago, by taking part in the betrayal of the Hero Jae-hyun, Jack had received a considerable reward. Thanks to that money, his family had lived in comfort.
Jae-hyun had once saved Jack's life in the middle of a war. And still Jack had betrayed him—all so that he could claim that generous bounty and live a prosperous life with his family.
And now that same family was trying to kill him. The only way for him to survive was to kill them first.
Raging at Jae-hyun, the architect of it all, felt only natural by Jack's own standards. Jae-hyun answered with nothing but a cold sneer.
"Kill only you, and that would be enough? Don't make me laugh. The price of betrayal cannot be forgiven by mere death. Despair. Wail. Suffer. I will shatter everything you hold dear, starting with the people you love."
The killing intent laced through Jae-hyun's words silenced even Jack, who had been screaming in rage. In truth, it was Jack and the other traitors who had struck first, who had tried to kill Jae-hyun. His outrage was nothing but the pot calling the kettle black.
"Do you think you're the only ones with families? I have a family too. You dragged me into this world against my will—but I still had a family! And when I tried to return to Earth to see them again, you tried to kill me. You meant to keep me from my family forever. My family nearly lost one of their own for good. Because of you, the boy named Kim Jae-hyun that my family once knew can never come home. My family lost the person they remembered. So isn't it only fair that you lose your families as well?"
As he spoke, Jae-hyun smiled. He was smiling as if he were truly, deeply happy.
He still thought of himself as the Hero Kim Jae-hyun he had once been—but in his family's eyes, the Demon King he had become and the boy he used to be would never be the same person.
Worse still, human blood no longer ran through his veins. Demon blood did. His family had, for all practical purposes, already lost the person they once knew.
His own family had lost the flesh and blood that once belonged to them. For the traitors' families to remain whole was simply too unfair.
"Now things will finally be even."
Once they, too, had lost their families, the scales would be balanced. And only after that balance was restored would the real revenge begin.
This was not even revenge yet.
His hatred and his thirst for vengeance ran far deeper than anything so small.
Beneath him, as he gazed down at the Colosseum with open pleasure, Lin continued to work—his cock buried in her mouth, her tongue swirling and her lips moving with tireless devotion. Looking up at him, she found herself remembering her own past as she listened to his words.
Her father, murdered by Andrew, the second son of House Grey. Her mother, violated. And the people who had betrayed her father and mother. Because of that, Lin understood Jae-hyun's heart better than anyone.
Yes. They deserve to lose their families too.
While Lin silently agreed with him, up on the stage Bridget and Arnold had begun swinging their kitchen knives at Jack in earnest.
"Die! You filthy traitor!"
"Just die already, you piece of garbage!"
Eyes blazing with madness, fully claimed by the forces of darkness, Bridget and Arnold hacked at Jack with wild abandon. Their attacks were clumsy.
Of course they were. Jack may not have been one of Pantheon's absolute elite, but he was still a Holy Knight skilled enough to have fought in the final war.
To a man tempered by countless battles, Bridget and Arnold's strikes were hopelessly crude. But it was not some stranger swinging those knives. It was the family he loved, cursing him, trying to kill him—and that truth was tearing his heart into a thousand pieces.
He wished desperately that none of this were real. He wanted to believe it was only a nightmare.
But it was reality, stark and undeniable. The price of the betrayal he had chosen ten years ago was coming due in the most horrific way imaginable.
"Aaaargh!"
Jack screamed. He despaired. He grieved. He suffered. And so he howled.
And still he could not bring himself to cut down his wife and son. They had already contracted with the Demon King and become part of the dark host—but they were still his wife. Still his son.
So Jack tried somehow to subdue them instead.
Knock the knives away, then break their arms and legs just enough. That should do it, he told himself. The thought of breaking his own wife and son's limbs already felt monstrous—but it was still better than killing them or dealing them grievous wounds.
Broken limbs hurt, yes, but Holy Power could heal them.
Bridget and Arnold, however, were not contracted to some ordinary demon. They were contracted to the Demon King himself.
"Hyaaah!"
"Uwaaah!"
They suddenly roared with effort, and a vast surge of Demonic Energy erupted from their bodies. Their physical abilities transformed in an instant, nothing like the clumsy flailing of moments before.
Their form with the knives was still awkward—but the speed and power behind every swing had become incomparably greater.
"Kh—!"
Caught off guard by the sudden acceleration, Jack was driven onto the defensive, barely managing to block. With his beloved wife and son pouring Demonic Energy and hacking at him at terrifying speed, all he could do was focus on staying alive.
Moments earlier he had been calmly parrying, planning how to restrain them. Now a single mistake would cost him his life.
Pinned to pure defense, Jack desperately tried to break free of their combined assault. Spotting an opening in Bridget's guard, he kicked her almost on instinct.
"Aaaah!"
He had just driven his boot into his own wife without mercy, but he had no time to register what he had done. Arnold, left alone, redoubled his frenzy, slashing even harder.
Jack shifted the sword he had been using only to block into an attack, desperate to put Arnold down before Bridget could get back up. Under that crushing pressure, he swung in haste.
Thrust.
"Ah...?"
"Uh...?"
Arnold and Jack both made the same stunned sound. Jack's blade was buried in the chest of the eleven-year-old boy—right through the heart. Arnold, run through, and Jack, the one who had done it, both seemed unable to comprehend what had just happened.
"Dad... why...?"
Freed from Jae-hyun's control and restored to his right mind, Arnold had no memory at all of swinging a kitchen knife to kill his father. Dying, he could only look up and ask.
"Aaaah! Arnold!"
Bridget, likewise returned to herself, saw her young son impaled on her husband's sword and screamed as if her throat would tear apart.
Only then did Jack understand what Jae-hyun had truly wanted. Bridget and Arnold remembered nothing of the mad frenzy in which they had tried to butcher him.
Jae-hyun had deliberately erased that memory from mother and son.
They were already his thralls. Awakening their original wills and blotting out selected memories was no difficulty at all.
"You—how could you?!"
Bridget sobbed and shrieked at Jack. Remembering nothing of her own knife attacks, all she could see was her husband's sword suddenly piercing their son.
Of course she screamed at him. And Jack, already shattered by the sight of his own blade in his son's heart, was driven to the brink of madness by his dying child and his wife's raw hatred.
But he was not even allowed to break.
Jae-hyun did not want the traitors to go mad. He wanted them clear-headed, fully conscious, suffering without end. That was his revenge.
"D...ad."
At last Arnold went limp. The light of life drained completely from his eyes.
"Aaaaaaargh!"
Jack's sword clattered to the ground as he howled in pure despair. Forced to kill his own son with his own hands, he rejected reality and drowned in anguish.
Then a thought struck him. Jae-hyun might be able to bring Arnold back. A man who held the power of both Hero and Demon King—surely it was possible!
"Hero! No—Demon King! Please... please bring my son back. If you save my son, I'll do anything. I'll even accept the annihilation of my soul! Please, just bring my son back!"
Jack dropped to his knees facing Jae-hyun, bowing so low his forehead ground into the dirt, begging with everything he had. It was the desperate face of a father who wanted only to have his child returned.
Even the other traitors watching felt a grim, solemn weight settle over them.
"Lin. That's enough."
Jae-hyun stopped Lin's oral service, straightened his lower clothes, and rose from his seat. In an instant he stood before Jack and looked down at Arnold's corpse sprawled on the ground.
"You want your son brought back to life?"
"Y-yes! Please, I beg you..."
Jack pleaded with desperate urgency. Jae-hyun gave a single nod.
"Very well. On one condition. You will carry out one command from me without question. Once that is done, I will allow you to remain with your son."
"Th-thank you. I'll obey any order!"
Tasting hope, Jack bowed his head in gratitude. And the moment the contract bound him, Jae-hyun—right before Jack's eyes—stomped down on the head of the eleven-year-old boy's corpse and crushed it.
Squelch.
Arnold's skull burst. Brains and blood sprayed in every direction.
"Huh?"
Jack stared blankly at the sight. Jae-hyun chuckled under his breath.
"Yes. I'll bring him back. As a Dullahan."