First Demonic Dragon - Chapter 1202: Grit Your Teeth

Chapter 1202: Grit Your Teeth

Gabbrielle lay in her bed, unmoving.

She held on to an old stuffed animal in a white-knuckled grip, her attention never leaving the ceiling fan spinning above her head.

Every four or five minutes, her phone would go off.

Texts from her sisters would cry out for some, or any form of communication, but Gabbrielle would never answer.

Rather, she mentally switched off her ringer so that she wouldn’t be disturbed.

Every so often, they would come and knock on the door, hoping she would answer it. She wouldn’t. No part of her felt like moving or talking.

However, there were some people who weren’t so easily deterred by the wall she was putting up.

There was another knock at the door after just a few hours. This one was subtle, sweet, and familiar.

Gabbrielle’s ear twitched, but she didn’t get up to answer the door. Instead, she closed her eyes for a much-needed rest.

But unlike the others who had left when they were given no answer, this guest was not so easily deterred.

The door opened despite her ignoring it, and a red-robed figure stepped inside.

Gabbrielle opened her eyes, expecting her mother to strike up a conversation with her, or make an attempt to pull her from her bed back into the world of the living.

However, Seras went with neither action.

Instead, she pulled herself into her daughter’s bed and pulled her into her arms without making so much as a sound.

Just like when she was a babe, Gabbrielle rested her head on her mother’s chest. The familiar soothing scent that emanated from her bloodless white skin was all too comforting.

There was a warmth in both Seras’ actions and her body that made Gabbrielle’s dreams of falling asleep even easier than if she had been alone.

She felt her mother play in the boundless curls of her hair with a loving touch. There truly were no greater expressions of familial bond than this.

Seras took one of Gabbrielle’s soft, pretty hands into her larger, more calloused ones.

She unfurled her fingers and imprinted sign language into her palm.

’Do you know that we love you?’

Gabbrielle nodded weakly. So much so that it barely qualified as such.

But it was enough for Seras.

She kissed her daughter’s cheek and cradled her head to her chest.

’Just making sure.’ She signed again.

Gabbrielle fell asleep among the quiet warmth. In her dreams, she saw a replay of her very first meeting with the man who changed her life, and who she was now avoiding.

–

“I’m going downstairs for a bit… do you want anything?”

Abaddon looked up from his book and shook his head.

“No, I’m alright, love. Don’t worry about me.”

Bekka didn’t seem very satisfied with her husband’s answer. As Abaddon turned back to his book, she began to strategize a way to coax him out of their room.

“…I feel like I really need some adult supervision this time. Otherwise, I might eat all your barbecue chips if you’re not there to stop me!”

Abaddon chuckled half-heartedly. “And how exactly would that be different from any other day..?”

“I-I won’t even leave crumbs this time!”

“It would probably be a little less insulting if you didn’t.”

Abaddon turned the page in his book without looking up, and Bekka was beginning to realize that her plans of getting her husband out of the room might not see fruition.

“I’m fine, you know.” He suddenly said. “I’m not going to wilt away while you make a ten-minute kitchen trip.”

Bekka unconsciously bit her lip as she looked down the hall.

“…Alright then. Do you want me to bring you anything back?”

“No, I’m fine. You don’t need to worry.”

“As if that’ll actually stop me from worrying…”

Bekka closed the door behind her, and Abaddon remained in his same position until he felt her move further down the hallway.

Once she was downstairs, he put his book down on the coffee table in front of him.

A deep sigh was released from his lungs.

This sigh turned into a strange, unnatural cough that he tried desperately to hold in so that the figure sleeping in the bed wouldn’t hear.

Abaddon stood up once he put his book down.

He stared out the balcony window into the far-distant horizon.

Thea and her sisters had apparently completed the new timeline construction and relocation with the help of their mothers. It all seemed to have happened while he was asleep.

He could barely tell that anything was different at all. Their work was something to be marveled at.

He wished he could have been there to see them do it.

Another sigh escaped his lips. Flashes of emotion shone in his eyes.

His expression eventually hardened into something unrecognizable.

Abaddon pointed at the floor, and an ominous black gate appeared without warning.

He wrenched open the door and jumped inside without making so much as a sound.

The door shut after he entered, and vanished from reality soon afterwards.

The room was still for a moment.

Gradually, there was a rustling in the bed as Tatiana sat up in her uncovered form.

She frowned sadly at the spot where her husband had gone missing. In the back of her mind, she wondered if maybe she should have made some attempt to follow him.

Suddenly, the bedroom door was kicked open once again, and Erica walked in holding Bekka by the scruff of her neck.

“Someone watch her so she doesn’t keep using all of my whole-grain bread to make Scooby-Doo-sized sandwiches!”

“I asked if you wanted a bite!”

“Not the point, Bekka!”

Erica tossed her wife onto the bed and into Tatiana’s lap.

As she flew through the air, Bekka noticed that her husband was missing from his spot.

“Where’d he go??”

Tatiana sighed as she caught her wife in her arms. Her lack of an answer was enough of an answer.

“Again…?”

Tatiana nodded.

Together, the three of them let out one, worried sigh.

–

Being inside Oblivion was not as disorienting as others would believe.

At least, not for Abaddon.

His realm was the single quietest place he had ever been inside of. Simultaneously, it was also the loudest.

He was surrounded by not only the things that he had placed in here. He was surrounded by an uncountable number of forgotten things, as well as ideas and races that had yet to even exist.

But Abaddon didn’t really come into his realm to sightsee.

With a thought, Abaddon found himself in an isolated plane of his realm.

There, he found a figure chained up within the domain.

Bayach’al lifted his head slowly. His eyes were filled with fog, and an odd colored blood dripped from his beady nostrils.

Abaddon’s leisure attire vanished and was replaced with a black dougi.

He slowly stretched his knuckles and the bones in his fingers.

“…I want to know everything that you can tell me about Worldjoiner. Her armies, their powers, her abilities, her weaknesses…”

Bayach’al nodded his head desperately.

The realm of oblivion wasn’t as tranquil for anyone else as it was for Abaddon.

It was so loud that he could feel his brain turning to mush, but he could never die. It was so quiet that he could hear the blood rushing through his veins and the sound of his bones scraping against each other.

Being placed inside Oblivion and being sent there naturally were two entirely different things.

One was a direct result of living. The other was an intended punishment.

Bayach’al was experiencing the latter.

The bold bravado that he had attacked Abaddon with was no longer present; replaced by a meek timidity.

“Yes, yes, I can tell you everythi-”

Abaddon suddenly grabbed Bayach’al’s jaw and held it closed. His eyes were twin-colored pools of boiling emotion.

“No, no, no… that’s not how this is supposed to go. You have to struggle a bit. I’ve told you that. How else can I be assured that the information you give is valid, if I don’t have to break you to get it?”

Abaddon released Bayach’al’s jaw and drew back his fist.

“Now…. clench your teeth.”

Abaddon threw his fist with enough force to destroy ten timelines, ten times over.

The rock-like structure of Bayach’al’s jaw shattered instantly. His head was completely blown off, only to grow back a few seconds later.

Nothing could die in Oblivion. Everything here had already transcended death and entered the final Ending.

Abaddon was absolute here. This was his place of power.

In here, he could have easily ripped into Bayach’al’s mind and taken all the information that he wanted without even a flutter of his eyelashes.

Similarly, Bayach’al was broken enough that he would have spilled all of the information Abaddon wanted if he had only been allowed to speak.

But the cruelty was the point.

Bayach’al’s greatest crime was being too closely related to the incident.

And Abaddon, filling with an inner rage and resentment for himself, was in desperate need of something that he could hit.

But since time had no bearing here, he could literally do this forever, and not even a second would have gone by in the outside world.

Abaddon grabbed Bayach’al by the jaw again.

“It seems you didn’t hear me… I said…”