Deroville lowered his eyes and took Celoia’s hand into his palm, holding it gently. Just as Caesar had said, it was ice-cold to the touch.
“Does it hurt, you poor little thing?” he sighed with pity.
Celoia shook his head and leaned back against the chair. As the cool liquid was infused into his body, it seemed to draw away his internal heat, yet his body felt strangely light—floaty and airy. He had a dizzy sensation, as if he were drunk, and he began to mumble incoherently.
“I think I see flying jellyfish.”
“They’re multicolored… and glowing.”
He murmured to himself randomly, not really caring what he was saying. He told Deroville whatever popped into his head, completely unaware of the thoughts racing through the man’s mind.
Deroville gently squeezed Celoia’s slender fingers, his brow furrowed as he wondered where in the Demon Realm he could procure such things—ideally, ones that wouldn’t sting.
After all, a jellyfish that came with its own beautiful colors was ten to one likely to be highly venomous.
He let out a hesitant “Mm,” then asked as if casually, “And besides the jellyfish, do you see anything else?” Perhaps if the boy mentioned more things, he could find a better companion toy for him.
Celoia blinked. Having sat for so long, sleepiness was washing over him. He raised his other hand to rub his face, responding sluggishly in a sticky, muddled voice: “Mm, there are… there are so many suns, strung together one by one.”
As he spoke, he let out a little slurp of saliva, seemingly craving the very things he was describing. His voice rose slightly as he fell into a beautiful fantasy.
“They feel… like giant candies. Orange-flavored, but the very center is strawberry. Fragrant and sweet… one bite for each one.”
Deroville’s eyebrow twitched. He glanced silently at the blood-red sun hanging in the sky and quickly abandoned that particular idea.
There was truly only one sun in the Demon Realm; he certainly had no way to fetch a string of them for Celoia. He compared the two requests and suddenly let out a sigh of relief, secretly glad—actually, jellyfish weren’t impossible.
Thus, when Celoia woke up again, the air around him was filled with floating, drifting jellyfish.
He dithered for a moment, wondering for a split second if he had been moved to a different place, but the familiar furniture told him otherwise.
“Dero,” Celoia pursed his lips, his eyes full of pure confusion. He poked a jellyfish; beneath his finger was a soft, spongy, ice-cold texture. He asked, “Why did the jellyfish become real? And they don’t sting.”
Caesar, squeezing through the gap in the door, rolled his eyes unhappily. His body still felt a tingling, numbing sensation—heaven only knew how many times he had been stung just to coat all these jellyfish in a special ointment. A single bottle of that ointment was worth its weight in gold.
And Deroville had simply wasted it just to amuse a child.
Deroville coughed lightly and shot Caesar a warning glare. The words Caesar was about to say immediately got stuck in his throat. He let out a muffled huff, walked two steps to Celoia’s side, and pulled out the needle from his hand. With a flick of his wrist, the slightly bleeding wound vanished instantly.
Deroville picked Celoia up, letting him sit on his shoulder while he reached out to play with the jellyfish.
Caesar, meanwhile, took Celoia’s other hand to investigate his physical condition. The icy mana made another round through Celoia’s body, and Caesar’s brow furrowed once more. He shook his head at Deroville.
Deroville let out a long, heavy breath, his brow knitting together as his voice turned flat: “Is it completely useless?”
Caesar shook his head again, finding it exceptionally strange. He said, “It’s not that it was entirely useless. For a very short time, the demonic energy in his body was indeed expelled. However, the potion failed to successfully modify his meridians. Once the potion is fully metabolized, his body will fill up with demonic energy again, and he will fall back into weakness.”
“I imagine you wouldn’t want him to take medicine and get injections every day, unable to leave magic potions for the rest of his life.”
His gaze was burning, his tone cold: “That is no different from making a person a useless invalid. You know better than I do how grueling such a life is.”
Deroville ruffled Celoia’s hair.
“Inject all the doses first and see the effect.”
“If it really doesn’t work, I will find another way.”
Celoia spent three extremely boring days in the small hut. His greatest entertainment was tangling the tentacles of the jellyfish that circled him and watching them slowly untie themselves.
Of course, most of the time the jellyfish failed, and in the end, Celoia had to use his hands to help them unbind their messily tangled tentacles one by one.
Caesar would occasionally come to check on Celoia’s latest condition, but his face remained cold. Celoia couldn’t read any information from his expression and assumed his body was just fine, radiating a sense of lighthearted, mindless happiness.
This behavior soothed Deroville’s irritable and anxious heart.
Over these two days, he had rarely been by Celoia’s side, instead racing around to find rare medicinal ingredients to give to Caesar for specialized potions. Among them were materials that were overly stimulating. Caesar had delayed using them on Celoia, saying in his own words:
“When this stuff is injected, the pain is ten times the usual. I don’t know how to coax a child. You should be by his side to comfort him when he cries, otherwise, your heart will ache when you see it.”
So, on the night of the third day, Deroville rushed back to the remote and gloomy hut.
Celoia had fallen asleep waiting for him. When he struggled to wake up, his eyes were full of weariness. His hand was covered in needle marks; even with healing spells, a few traces remained.
Deroville touched his hand with extreme lightness, his voice sounding dissatisfied: “You’ve grown thin.”
Caesar’s lip twitched. He couldn’t be bothered to argue with a man wearing a hundred and eighty layers of “protective filter.” The magic potions the boy had been drinking lately were all tonics; he could bet that Celoia hadn’t grown thin, but had actually gained several pounds.
He handed over a deep-black potion, his expression solemn and laced with a tension he hadn’t noticed himself. He said:
“This is the latest potion. If this one doesn’t work either, you can give up on the idea of solving the problem with potions.”
Deroville remained silent, though the hand taking the potion shook slightly. He pressed Celoia’s face against his chest and told him in a very low, gentle voice: “Celoia, this potion has to be injected into your body all at once, so it might hurt very, very much. Are you willing to try this new medicine?”
He moved the potion a little further away, his grip loose, as if he would throw it away the moment Celoia refused.
Celoia squinted his eyes, as if thinking seriously, or perhaps just dazing off. He rubbed his warm cheek against Deroville’s face, trying to pass his warmth to the other. His voice was sweet and soft as he turned it around to gently comfort Deroville: “Dero, don’t be sad. Getting a shot doesn’t hurt at all.”
He proactively offered his hand, revealing his fair skin.
“I only need Dero’s hug.”
Deroville pulled him into a tight embrace and covered his eyes, whispering, “It will only hurt for a tiny bit.”
With his other hand, he completed the injection with swift, lethal accuracy.
The black liquid surged into the flesh. The empty vial was tossed carelessly onto the floor. Deroville gently squeezed the back of Celoia’s neck—much like a wild beast providing security to its cub.
Celoia’s body began to shake slightly. His face turned somewhat pale, his eyes were squeezed shut, and his teeth were clenched tight. Yet, a soft whimper still escaped his lips—a sound that leaked out only because he truly couldn’t restrain it, fragile and soft.
Deroville stroked his hair over and over, trying to bring him comfort this way. But his gaze was exceptionally heavy, for he knew clearly that this soothing provided only psychological relief and could not alleviate even a fraction of the physical agony.
And this agony was something he had brought upon Celoia. If he were willing to let go and send Celoia to the human world, none of this would be happening.
But, as it happened, he was unwilling to be the one to send Celoia away.
He wanted to keep Celoia.
He hugged Celoia tightly, his hand never stopping its motion, but the aura around him was growing colder bit by bit.
After an unknown amount of time, a faint black mist seeped out of Celoia, emitting a slight fishy smell. Celoia’s complexion improved significantly, and his breathing leveled out.
Deroville pulled off his cloak and used the fabric to gently wipe away the stains from the boy’s face. The mana in his body surged out, making a circuit through Celoia’s body.
The originally blocked meridians had been completely cleared; not a trace of demonic energy remained. Deroville tentatively left a bit of his own mana inside Celoia. He waited for a moment and watched with his own eyes as the mana vanished into the meridians. He looked up and asked Caesar, who was waiting nearby: “Does this count as a success?”
Caesar stood up quickly and walked over to Deroville, wanting to take Celoia for an examination, but he was blocked by Deroville.
Deroville held up one of Celoia’s hands and placed it in front of Caesar, saying flatly: “Examine him like this.”
He was unwilling to let go of Celoia for even a second.
Caesar grumbled internally but said nothing, helping with the check-up in that awkward position.
The demonic energy indeed wasn’t blocking the meridians. It seemed he was cured.
He withdrew his hand and was about to congratulate Deroville when he suddenly saw Celoia’s brow furrow. The boy bit his lip hard and began to tremble.
Deroville immediately turned Celoia around to face him, calling out carefully and urgently: “Celoia, Celoia, how are you? Do you have any strength?”
Celoia struggled to open his eyes. His blue eyes were clear and bright, sweat was on the tip of his nose, and his whole being radiated a sense of weakness.
He raised his hand and touched Deroville’s cheek comfortingly, trying to force a smile.
“It’s just… it seems to hurt a little bit.”
The mana within Deroville’s body surged frantically into Celoia’s, forcibly shielding the boy’s pain receptors.
No one spoke, but Deroville understood.
This treatment had failed.