Chapter 190

Chapter 190

Nix did his best to fend off the puppets, but the shackle that was still on his ankle was designed to react to the slightest aggressive maneuver he made. Thus, he was left almost completely immobilized by them.

“What the hell is the meaning of this?!” The attackers pinned him to the ground with little to no effort. “Let go of me! Noooel!”

Nix glared up at the orange-haired leader as his cheek was crushed into the cold glass floor by the combatant dolls.

Although the eccentric young man flinched for a moment, Noel was quick to rebuke the blond. “You’re in the wrong here! You’ve been avoiding me!”

In that moment, the golden-haired doll’s survival instincts surged through him like bolts of lightning. Yet at the same time, an ominous sensation crept down his spine which caused him to shudder. He growled dryly through squashed lips, “You... You aren’t here to rescue me, are you?!”

The Gold Master’s emerald eyes quivered slightly as he considered the question.

“I...”

His heated voice had suddenly cooled to a stammer as it squeaked out of his parched lips. What Nix’s creator was bracing to say would leave the puppet utterly speechless for they were words that were not only unbelievable but plainly incomprehensible for any living person to hear.

“I need your heart.”

“You... what?” Wait... What did he just say? My... heart? Did he just say he needs my heart?! No... No, that can’t be.

When their eyes met again, he detected yet another new emotion had come over Noel’s face. The orange-haired man stepped in closer to lean down toward Nix. He in turn flinched at the sudden proximity, but by then his master wasn’t paying any mind to his overt repulsion.

“Nix, Dante is...” The Gold Master’s actions gave the impression that he had already forgotten that he was the one who had ordered the warrior puppets to pin the blond to the ground. “Dante is... He’s... d-dead.”

“How is that even poss—?”

“When I found him, his neck was completely misaligned and he wasn’t breathing. He felt so cold, and...”

Noel spoke as though he had been waiting to vent at length to a fellow clan member or a close friend. In truth, it was the first time he had found the opportunity to tell anyone else just how shocked and sad he was about Dante’s death. After all, the only two people he had ever divulged his feelings to were the dead man and the very puppet he was planning to sacrifice in order to save his white-haired steward.

“I tried and tried to make him move again, but nothing seemed to work!”

The Vertium leader seemed comforted by the chance to ramble on about the tale of his heroic efforts. However, the longer he did so, the louder his voice became until he had finally begun to sob uncontrollably. His normally almost boyish face told of just how much he had suffered emotionally up until that very moment.

With every word he said to his puppet, the tumultuous battle between his emotions and reason further distorted his features. By then, Nix had already fully understood what the young Vertium was trying to say.

Dante’s death was indeed shocking for him to learn about as well. It suddenly became as clear as the sunlight above them as to why Noel had behaved so irrationally at the hearing. It also finally made sense as to why the steward who had always made sure to stay within close proximity of his master hadn’t shown his face once even as the young man stood trial. Nevertheless, as Nix continued to listen to Noel’s fragmented speech, the new emotion he had noticed coming from the Vertium began to take root in himself as well.

“B-But it’s okay now.”

Whether he had fully understood what was in store for him or not, the manner with which his creator had begun to whisper with unflinching determination in his green eyes sent a tremor down the puppet’s spine.

“Now that I’ve found you, everything’s going to be okay!”

Yet again, the same maniacal look from the previous day took over the carrot top’s otherwise endearing face. The green in his eyes also seemed to glisten with an alarmingly bright brilliance. The blond couldn’t stifle the quiver that rippled through his body as the horror at last set in as to just what the young clan leader had been implying all along.

So basically...

“As long as I have your heart, I can bring Dante back!”

Wait... He actually plans to take my heart out and give it to that four-eyed old man?! He wants to make a puppet out of him to replace me?! So won’t that mean I’ll... die?

“Nix, you’re my puppet, so I’m sure you understand, right?” Noel looked down at him with clear desperation in his gaze. His voice was filled with an unnecessary level of sincerity, but the puppet knew that his master hadn’t come all the way to Yggdrasil in hopes of hearing his opinion on the matter. Even as he felt every fiber of his being aching to escape, he still recognized that the young man’s face inspired some level of pity in himself even for a split second.

The blond gnashed his rattling teeth together to steady his nerves. In truth, he had never truly considered nor genuinely served the Gold Master as his master from the moment he opened he awoke in puppet form. But the most pressing issue at that moment was steadying his uncontrollable trembling.

In the end... is this my true fate?

Despite how much he had been looked after and pampered at the Gold manor, the affection Noel had shown him was still no better than what he would give to a mere pet. All the times he had watched the eccentric, young leader destroy one of his countless puppets in one of his fits of rage, Nix had always comforted himself by telling himself that he was nothing like them despite knowing deep down that he was. Perhaps that was also the reason that whenever he set eyes on the Vertium leader he always felt unspeakable displeasure.

“What rubbish.” Nix managed to squeeze his voice out from between his lips after having bitten down on the lower one to the point of making it bleed. The bitterness of his own life fluid had shocked his tongue back to life and allowed him to speak. Even so, he still spoke as if he were chewing on the words, but glared straight up at Noel to assure the listener that they carried considerable weight. “This is utter horse sh*t, you freak!”

Now that he’s bored of me, does he actually think he can just dispose of me again?! I’m not some plaything for others to kill or give life to on a whim!

His thoughts contained an unspoken truth since Nix had never asked to be reborn as an accursed puppet. The same heart his creator was so desperate to strip him of suddenly burned as if someone had placed a hot coal on top of it. His blue eye quivered as the rage growing within his fifteen-year-old body felt as if it would burst through the golden crown of his skull.

“So you wanna take my heart?”

Even if Noel Vertium had facilitated the start of his life as Nix, that didn’t mean his second life had to end with the fool of a man as well.

“Just who the hell do you think you are to ask that of me?!”

The audacity of the matter was the very reason he hated humans. It was precisely why he flat-out despised them. Ever since he could remember they had always treated him like something lower than dirt, only to later manipulate him to bend to their wills. Then once they had enjoyed their fun at his expense, they would refer to him as trash.

“Father, I... I don’t want to die.”

A mysterious illusion flashed before his blue eye. By then he had grown tired of seeing it since it had played out on multiple occasions as he slept.

“Save me. Please save me, Father. Please... I beg you. Save me...!”

He had clung to life so desperately without a hint of shame while knowing that such an appeal would have no effect on the listener. In fact, the man standing over him simply kicked him away with a look of unfiltered irritation rather than any hint of remorse or mercy. His left eye socket suddenly began to ache as if the mere memory of the injury he had suffered back then was manifesting into a burning sensation.

Then without warning a dark shadow appeared between the streaks of blood within his memory, then spread across his vision. There was no question in his mind that it was the grim reaper. By then, the dreary figure always seemed to make its entrance at the end of every nightmare to finish him off for good. But this time when Nix blinked, the face of the grim reaper was replaced by Noel Vertium’s.

“What makes you think you have the right to take my life?” His body felt as if it was blistering from being licked by flames trying to consume him from head to toe.

That’s right, you little punk. Enough is enough.

“Answer me! Just who gave you that right?!”

He was certain that this time he would decide his own ending. He had experienced more than enough of...

“Tell me who the hell gave it to you!”

...allowing others to decide his fate in one lifetime already. Using all the might he could muster, Nix freed himself from the warrior dolls’ clutches, then charged at his green-eyed oppressor.

Clink!

His restraints activated almost immediately, but since he wasn’t a true living being to begin with the effects were considerably dulled. On top of that, his current state of mind made it so that he could hardly even feel the pain coursing through his body from the shackles. And since the final command the puppets had received was to capture their former compatriot, they were simply focusing their efforts on keeping him in place rather than attacking him with more lethal force.

The clan leader wasn’t able to react right away to guard against his masterpiece’s unexpected outburst, but before the puppet could reach for his throat, the warriors succeeded in grabbing hold of him once again. Nix of course had no intention of going down without fighting back with every last ounce of his being.

He sprang up from the floor by wrapping the chain still dangling from his shackle around one of the puppets in front of him. Doing so caused the doll to stumble until it toppled forward and served as an unwitting stepping stool for the blond.

He then kicked at the glass wall while twisting his body to and fro. As soon as he freed himself from those who had only moments prior had him pinned down on all sides, he proceeded to walk behind the one he had successfully entangled in his own restraints. Then he lowered one of his hands in order to grab his captive’s metallic limb. With his hand still on the doll’s weapon, Nix lunged toward Noel.

“Wh-What are you all standing around for?! Stop him!”

Crack!

A thunderous sound echoed from above them, which had alerted the Gold Master just in time to allow him to dodge the attack. A small crack was left on the glass wall since it had taken the brunt of the blow in the Vertium leader’s stead.

Once again, the dolls began to swarm the prized puppet. Meanwhile, the one he was still clinging to could not seem to work out which direction it should move toward since its target was strangling it from behind.

The blond took advantage of the creature’s confusion to make use of it as a shield against the others. However, he failed to get any closer to their master since the warrior dolls had formed a formidable defensive line around him.

Noel continued to stare blankly at Nix in utter disbelief that one of his own puppets could act in such a way. It was rather ironic considering he had been the one trying to kill his creation in the first place. It was the first betrayal the blue-eyed youth had ever actually committed against the young man, but it had come as the result of him realizing that he had been abandoned by that same childish leader.

Then again, he had already decided to abandon his creator as well.