Chapter 349 — Despair

SNAP

The sound echoed across the battlefield like reality breaking.

Darkness exploded outward from Damian’s position, spreading in all directions with unstoppable force. It didn’t just cover the ground, it replaced it.

The burning orange earth vanished beneath pitch-black void that absorbed all light. The crimson sky above darkened to match, pulsing like a massive beating heart. And everywhere, scattered across the dark ground, hanging in the air, pressed against the boundaries, corpses appeared.

Bodies from Damian’s life.

All of them visible, all of them manifested within the Domain’s boundaries.

But this wasn’t the Domain’s original form.

This was evolution.

The range had expanded from 100 meters to 500, encompassing the entire area where the hundreds of Awakeners were fighting.

Every masked enemy, every Murdock family member, every combatant found themselves suddenly standing in a void beneath a blood-red sky with corpses floating around them.

And the emotions...

Every negative emotion Damian had ever felt across two lifetimes, concentrated and amplified and made manifest, attacking minds with force that bypassed all physical defenses.

The Mental Domain user screamed.

His own chains materialized around him, wrapping tight, constricting and choking. His Domain of Hopelessness turned inward, attacking its creator with feedback amplified by Damian’s superior understanding of despair itself.

’Can’t breathe can’t think can’t–’

He fell to his knees, hands clawing at invisible chains, his Aura shattering as his concentration broke completely.

Around the battlefield, the B rank awakeners began to break.

****

A woman in her thirties, veteran of dozens of missions, suddenly found herself standing in her childhood home.

But it wasn’t empty.

Her mother sat at the kitchen table, exactly as she’d looked the day she died. The day this woman had chosen a mission over visiting her in the hospital.

"You weren’t there," her mother said, and the voice was perfect and identical, the exact tone and pitch she remembered. "I called for you... I waited. You never came."

The woman’s hands trembled, her blade falling from nerveless fingers.

"N-no... This isn’t... You’re not–"

But her mother stood, and the disappointment in those familiar eyes was so real it made her chest ache.

Every detail was perfect, the way her mother’s hands shook slightly from illness, the particular way she tilted her head when hurt, even the smell of the kitchen, that specific mix of old wood and her mother’s lavender soap.

"I raised you... Gave you everything. Loved you when no one else would." Her mother’s voice cracked exactly the way it had during their last phone call. "And when I needed you most, when I was dying alone in that hospital room, you chose strangers over your own blood."

The kitchen dissolved, replaced by the hospital room, and the transition felt seamless and natural, like walking through a door.

Her mother’s corpse lay on the bed, alone, the heart monitor flatlined.

And she could see herself reflected in the window, absent, miles away, killing people she didn’t even know for money that meant nothing compared to this.

The regret wasn’t just emotional anymore, it was physical.

Like hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing, making each breath harder than the last.

"I waited," her mother’s voice whispered, though the lips didn’t move anymore. "I kept telling the nurses you’d come. That my daughter would come. They pitied me! Do you understand? They pitied me because everyone knew you wouldn’t."

’I’m the worst daughter... I’m a monster... She sacrificed all her life for me... gave me everything I wanted... I was never satisfied... I craved more and more and more!’

The guilt crashed down like an avalanche, every suppressed emotion she’d locked away flooding back at once, amplified a hundredfold.

’Mother... I wish I could turn back time... I wish I could tell myself... Your value...your love... no amount of money ever bought the time I could have spent with you.’

’I deserve to die!’

She drew a knife from her belt, the movement mechanical, and pressed it against her throat.

’This is justice!’

SLASH

Blood sprayed and her body dropped.

****

Across the battlefield, similar horrors played out, but the Domain affected each person differently, pulling from their own minds, their own memories, their own deepest regrets.

Men and women who’d killed without remorse suddenly saw things they’d spent years trying to forget, things they never wanted to see again, things so personal, so painful, that facing them felt worse than any physical torture.

Some saw the faces of people they’d betrayed, others relived moments of cowardice that had cost innocent lives. Some others confronted choices that had destroyed everything they’d once cared about.

The visions were built from their own guilt and shame, made real enough that they couldn’t distinguish illusion from memory. And the Domain fed on their attempts to rationalize, to justify, to explain away what they’d done, making the assault more personal, more cruel with every moment they resisted.

They preferred death to reliving what they’d done. Preferred oblivion to facing the weight of their own choices made manifest and undeniable.

****

Damian’s Mental Domain was operating in External Mode.

This meant everyone could still move, still fight and still act in the physical world while simultaneously being assaulted mentally.

It was less concentrated than Internal Mode would be, less overwhelming on a single target, but it allowed Damian to affect hundreds of enemies at once.

The trade-off was simple: spread across so many targets, the Domain’s effects weakened significantly.

What would completely shatter a single person’s mind in Internal Mode became a pressure that could be resisted by those with sufficient Willpower when spread across an entire battlefield.

B ranks, with their lower Will stats and weaker mental defenses, broke immediately under even the diluted assault.

A ranks, with their higher Willpower and trained defensive skills, could push through the worst of it, though every action they took came slower, every decision questioned, every movement compromised by visions that felt real enough to distract.

Damian wasn’t trying to break them completely. He was creating openings, slowing reactions, forcing them to fight on two fronts simultaneously, the physical battle and the mental assault.

It was enough.

****

One by one, the B rank awakeners caught in Damian’s Domain broke under mental pressure their Will couldn’t withstand.

Some slit their throats.

Some crushed their own windpipes.

Some simply stopped their hearts through Aura manipulation, choosing death over continuing to exist with the knowledge of what they’d become.

’I’m worthless I’m nothing I deserve this I deserve to die everyone I love is gone everything I’ve done is meaningless fighting is futile existence is pain why am I still alive why won’t it stop make it stop MAKE IT STOP–’

The thoughts cycloned through their minds, amplified and weaponized, turning their own consciousness against them.

More blades found throats. More heads smashed against the ground. More hearts simply stopped.

"..."

The carnage was silent except for the wet sounds of blades cutting flesh, of bones breaking, of bodies hitting ground.

Damian stood in the center of it all, his Domain radiating outward with absolute authority, his crimson eyes blazing as he directed the mental assault with surgical precision.

He focused the Domain’s full weight on B rank enemies exclusively, sparing the A ranks for now, sparing the Murdock family members entirely.

His control was absolute.

Within moments, over a hundred B rank awakeners had died.

Not from physical wounds.

From their own hands.

From despair made weapon.