TBR CH56

When kissed by a human, a god ought to feel offended.

Through the eyes of a low-ranking demon, the god’s deep crimson gaze silently fell on the audacious and arrogant human before him.

Most of the time the bishop appeared steady and restrained. Tal had also seen him on the verge of breaking. But until now, the god had never seen the emotion Edwin displayed in this moment.

He was deeply trapped in contradiction.

So arrogant as to believe he could grasp everything in the palm of his hand, yet trembling silently within the forcibly initiated kiss. Black-and-white flames burned in the bishop’s gray eyes, a desire growing madly that made him fragile, an irresistible temptation shattering all the defenses of an ascetic.

He needed him. Tal realized this with surprise. And it wasn’t a demand for a kiss, but a plea, a request.

The Archbishop of the Church of Light needing a powerless low-ranking demon—what an utterly absurd notion.

The god didn’t resist, even though Edwin only guided him with a slight force, and tge human’s strength, in the midst of a kiss, gradually faded—easily shaken off.

Even so.

Tarksius thought: What is this, Edwin?

The beginning of a love story about to blossom?

There were no such stories in this world; all tragic endings began with an identical tone of positivity. The human before him had hopelessly fallen in love with the only demon who could accompany him.

Because he shared the same despicable thoughts as the bishop, the god knew this well.

The gray in Edwin’s eyes lightened a little, as if melting during the kiss.

He looked so special, so young—awkward and inexperienced when kissing someone else, as expected. Tal had no right to resent it, because he himself was equally at a loss.

Due to the positioning, a kiss initiated by the subordinate took extra effort. Fortunately, the demon obediently allowed himself to be kissed.

Would this have a good ending?

This thought passed through Tarksius’s mind. The answer wasn’t optimistic, yet he didn’t push him away, nor did he withdraw.

In the bishop’s eyes, the beautiful demon was like a rose within reach. The soul contract between them grew brighter as they drew closer. Edwin thought, how foolish he had been to once regard this gift of fate as something terrible.

Like.

There was no other word that could describe it—what the bishop finally realized was the emotion that had ignited in his blood just now.

It was the uncontrollable heartbeat when finally holding what one liked in hand, pounding clearly against a human’s chest.

At the end of every dreamless sleep, behind every occasional glance up from a book—even the smallest fragments of daily life could be lit up by those pomegranate-red pupils.

He wasn’t obedient, yet Edwin always couldn’t help but find the demon very well-behaved.

The most desperate plea was gently held at the trembling fingertips, the most hopeless yearning brought into reality by an unreserved embrace. The demon lived in a world he could not see, but merely listening to those strange adventures filled Edwin’s world with brilliant colors.

I want to keep him. Edwin told himself clearly. Whatever the demon wants, he would give him.

The god didn’t mind being liked by a human.

The bishop with gray eyes was very special. He appreciated Edwin, helped Edwin, and so naturally blended into his life. Sometimes, as Tal, he could even empathize with humans. The dazzling brilliance humans showed under extreme circumstances was enough to attract a god’s gaze.

Because of that, he was not stingy in responding to Edwin’s affection.

The kissed soul belonged to a little demon from ten thousand years ago. If it were Tal, the Tal who had never experienced anything, liking Edwin would be entirely reasonable.

As a demon who had once died alone, he couldn’t resist the feeling of being alive again.

The bishop was contradictory to the point of charm. He would surely keep his promises, powerful yet willing to bow his head, flawless from soul to body.

If Edwin achieved success, then Tal would get whatever he wanted, whether it be protection or the most precious treasure. Those things, Edwin could easily obtain. Compared to a demon he liked very much, they were naturally meaningless.

The cost of taming a demon sounded entirely acceptable.

Because of this, Tarksius clearly knew this was not a proper transaction.

As a god, he should not be deceived by such tricks.

The kiss ended. Edwin breathed slightly, and for the first time, his gray eyes looked at another being filled with hope. Tal gently responded to the bishop’s kiss, indulging him to an unbelievable degree—when he greedily sought all emotional comfort, he became the one presence in Edwin’s gray life who would never leave, not even asking for a price.

Moreover, the term was forever.

So good—how could anyone not be moved?

In exchange for the demon, the bishop said: Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you—just stay forever.

Without warning, the human’s wish was so mundane it made the god of darkness feel bored and disappointed.

The god’s soul, which had slightly trembled during the kiss as if about to crack, was now colder than ash after a flame. It was the moment Tarkhsius realized he had expectations.

You are that kind of human too, he thought indifferently—exchanging things you don’t care about for others. It’s utterly meaningless?.

The “whatever he wanted” Edwin offered was nothing more than a portion of the power, fame, and status he was bound to gain in the future. It didn’t count as a loss—just throwing away a few scraps as chips for amusement.

The god suddenly grew curious—if at this very moment, he were to decisively pull away, how would things unfold?

A malicious, twisted, purely Tarksius-style thought.

Don’t do this, a part of him cried out. He needs you, he likes you, it’s only a few decades. He promised to give you everything. He’s so much like you, and he found the contract—this isn’t too much to ask.

Tarksius lowered his eyes.

He too was only exchanging things insignificant to him with the other.

For instance, Edwin gave him the feeling of interest—that was very important to a god. And decades would pass in a flash, requiring no real cost. So, this deal was sure profit.

It was precisely because he was too familiar with such thoughts—

That he couldn’t suppress the disappointment.

For being so distracted during the kiss. For having developed unrealistic hopes while getting along. This dream had gone on too long—long enough that the god truly believed, for one brief moment, he could be found.

But this was not a beautiful fairy tale.

It was time to wake up.

They had only just exchanged their first kiss, and everything was so beautiful. It felt like a dream.

Edwin reached out, wanting to touch the demon’s hair again. He was a bit confused as to why Tal suddenly stopped speaking. The demon’s dark hair hung over his chest, and the thought gave him a sense of intimate satisfaction.

Like. Edwin understood this feeling for the first time. The usually mature and composed bishop had a bit of childishness in his thought—Tal was just so good, every part of him made Edwin unwilling to let go.

And suddenly the demon smiled sweetly, the rose fragrance on him growing stronger.

“Alright,”

Tal said, “Is it only liking? Edwin, if that’s all it is, I don’t mind. If you want it, I’ll go along with it. But remember to pay me compensation.”

As he spoke, he leaned in again, gently giving him a hug.

This hug—it felt the same as before. The demon reached out to wrap around the bishop’s waist affectionately, his breath brushing faintly against the bishop’s neck. Edwin, slightly overwhelmed, reached for his hand. The words earlier hadn’t even had time to be properly considered before being washed away by the demon’s closeness.

“I like you too, dear bishop.”

And that line nearly made Edwin dizzy. So, proposing the deal had been the right thing—Tal was willing to stay by his side willingly. And Tal said he liked him—an unexpected joy beyond the agreement.

I own him, Edwin thought.

He had had a chance to notice something was wrong.

But in the end, he still didn’t see the coldness hiding in the demon’s eyes, nor how they suddenly lost their color—like solidified blood. That was the detached gaze of a god from on high, devoid of emotion.

Gods could never be owned, never be one side of a deal. That was the mistake Edwin made. He was moved by something that asked for no reward, yet rushed to pay a price. What he wanted had already been labeled with a value, causing him to blindly start estimating.

Edwin sighed in satisfaction, softly and joyfully calling the name over and over:

“Tal, Tal, Tal…”

A thousand years ago, Tal had already heard such words.

His moment of wavering had come because Edwin clearly told him, “What I want is Tal.” But the effect of that line was no more than drinking poison to quench thirst. For that one sentence, the god was momentarily distracted, and thus came the kiss and the verbal promises. Edwin could not have foreseen that this line also came with fatal side effects.

Things the demon never told him.

The shadow that always loomed behind his wandering journey—escape, pursuit, betrayal, execution. The Church had rebuilt the White Tower and plaza. In all of history, the plaza had been used to burn demons. Evil beings were judged there—like Tal, at the end of his road.

The pomegranate-red pupils lost their luster, like glass beads no longer shining. He lifted his now slightly clouded eyes toward the White Tower. Up there, the bigwigs of the Church stood nearly all together, staffs in hand, whispering about him.

At the center of the crowd, the Church’s Saintess wore a silver crown, not missing the occasion.

As if it wasn’t her who, earlier, sent word wanting to “secretly meet you once.”

Or earlier still—now the demon’s mind was a mess. His raven-black hair fell over his shoulders, just like the noble and unmatched Saintess. It could be said this was the inheritance of blood. He had also inherited the red eyes of his father’s family.

Tal thought he was probably going to die. Thinking that, he felt strangely relieved.

He looked up at the White Tower. His mother stood tall above. Clearly, the plan to capture the demon back to the Church had succeeded thanks to the Saintess’s cooperation. It somewhat made up for the reputation she lost in her youth. At this moment, she gazed down upon her child—a mistaken seed. But the power within him was extraordinary.

At such a moment, the demon inexplicably found it absurd. He lowered his eyes, for the Holy Knights at his side would not allow him to gaze directly at those great figures—he was merely to act as a product waiting to be handled.

He lowered his eyes and recalled a time before everything had collapsed. His mother had once been gentle and kind. Back then, her love hadn’t turned into a tangled mess. Tal had been born almost with hope and love. At that time, both his noble mother and his powerful father had said these words to the young demon:

“We love you very much? much, dear child. You will have everything you want. You are a treasure of utmost importance to us. We will protect you from harm.”

Tal found it ridiculous, and so in the end, he still curved his lips and smiled in the pure white plaza of the Church.

These memories were so blurry, they were almost like a past life. His father and mother had lived out the most textbook love story in the world—coming from two opposing camps, they had ultimately come together for the sake of love. The Church’s saintess was a dove in pure white, while the Demon King, first among the seven archdemons, was a crow from the abyss.

They fell in love and promised each other “to give up everything for one another.”

Then that love completely collapsed. The two questioned each other, hysterically. The Demon King believed the saintess should abandon her bright future in the Church to be his queen at his side. The saintess demanded the Demon King give up all his power and willingly come to the Church to become her reformed lover.

They were both selfish, and neither was willing to give up what was in their hands.

After the fallout came mutual attempts to destroy each other. But they hadn’t forgotten that this unbearable love had produced a child who was never meant to exist in this world.

When they returned to the love nest they had once built, intending to kill this irrational evidence of their union, Tal had already begun his escape.

Hunted by demonic forces, pursued as a wanted fugitive by the Church his mother belonged to.

And yet he survived. Somehow, he kept running for decades—an absolute miracle. Until the saintess wrote a gentle-sounding letter and had someone show it to the demon, secretly arranging a meeting to lure him into a trap.

Tal thought he was foolish to believe such a clumsy, hypocritical letter. If he died, it wouldn’t be unjust.

But he truly had tried to chase after the fleeting phantom of gentleness that once briefly existed in his life.

The temple knight tried to suppress the demon’s laughter, using the dull pain of a blade stabbing into his skin. But the demon still couldn’t stop mocking himself—he staggered forward, nearly laughing to the point of tears. On the high platform, his mother frowned as she looked at the demon, reached for a golden bottle that had long been prepared, and turned her head to give the order:

“Just do what we agreed. Go ahead.”

Her child… of course, she no longer saw him that way. He was merely a pure mistake. And she was glad to correct such a mistake for the Church. She certainly knew what the bottle in her hand was—something far worse than death.

The golden bottle wasn’t made of gold, but from the bones of a time-space dragon hunted by the Church, with the power to twist time and imprison all life.

At that thought, the saintess finally felt a trace of pity for Tal. No more than for a stranger demon—purely because she knew he would suffer forever, unable to escape, drowning at the endless end of time.

Tal’s escape hadn’t been by chance—he had a very unique ability.

The demon’s red eyes were that vivid. Just like that person she deeply hated.

Tal understood the saintess’s gaze. He felt pain all over his body, then finally curled his lips in a silent smile.

No one would come to save him.

Not his parents, not the many people he had encountered along the way, not even himself.

The demon let his gaze wander aimlessly past everyone, toward the distant places he had been or had never set foot in. The name “Tal” had once been spoken by his parents with seemingly eternal affection, just like how they once promised in their passion to do anything for each other. But in the end, they couldn’t do it.

Everyone was selfish.

The bishop was even more so. One only needed to look at his desires to understand—his pursuit of power and fame lifted him ever higher. Even if he truly liked a demon now, what did that count for?

The Dark god was not Tal, and could not be moved.

Incomplete salvation was no salvation at all. Love that could not give its all might as well have never existed. Tarksius had said he had no intention of forming close bonds with any being in the world.

The demon let Edwin hold him, gently stroking along his spine, feeling the slight tremors of his skin under the man’s fingers. Even after thinking so much on his own, the disguised god’s actions remained unchanged—so subtle as to be nearly undetectable.

The Dark God would not leave so soon—he still had reasons to remain in the Church.

Edwin believed the demon would never leave. This assurance softened him, leaving him completely unguarded. Humans were always easily deceived by beautiful expectations. The bishop’s ash-gray eyes lowered, as gentle as freshly fallen snow in winter, landing on the demon.

He had never felt life so full of hope.

And Tal curled his lips, sweet like soaked-in honey, thinking about the possibility of withdrawing altogether.

Sensing someone trying to spy on him was effortless for a demon.

Being watched was something Edwin was used to. During the period when Prince Angelo temporarily held power, countless eyes tried to track his every move. So it wasn’t surprising that he didn’t react immediately.

But the spies weren’t after the bishop—they were targeting the demon behind him.

Tal wasn’t easy to find. Edwin believed he could make the demon obediently stay in the room, and that even if someone broke in, he could handle it easily. But in truth, the demon often wandered about the Church. Roses from the Vatican garden mysteriously went missing, but with so many flowers, a single bouquet missing went unnoticed.

That was yet another lie Tal casually told.

His magic was entirely different from Edwin’s system. As a low-ranked demon, Tal clearly specialized in less orthodox tricks—sleep charms, disguises, ways to hide himself… He actually changed the room’s roses frequently but boldly tricked Edwin into believing they were the same ones, magically preserved forever.

In short, Tal realized someone was spying on him—or rather, spying on the presence behind the bishop.

It was a typical political struggle targeting Edwin.

That was what the demon originally thought. His disguises made him completely unseen. But when he noticed the stalkers could still vaguely find his direction—though they only stared blankly at empty shadows—something felt off.

It didn’t take much thought for Tal to guess who was behind this.

The Holy Son, Noah.

The only human in the world who could pinpoint his location.

Unfortunately, the helpers Noah found were a bit lacking. The holy knights volunteered to assist the Holy Son, young and powerful men blushing as they vowed to solve Noah’s worries—only to return at dusk, faces dejected and downcast.

“I swear I did what you said,” they’d shout. “But really, there was nothing. Nothing at all!”

Noah was grinding his teeth. Though he had information on the Dark God from the system, he couldn’t imagine just how cunning the former low-ranked demon had been—enough to evade even the most elite holy knights of the Church.

This affected the execution of his capture strategy. As the chosen child of fate, Noah knew he had to proceed with caution.

And Tal once again slipped past the knights’ vision like a shadow in the dusk, his figure leaving no trace in their eyes. It was not yet the right time.

The demon turned, closed Edwin’s door, crushed the old rose in his hand, and replaced it with a new one.

He now knew the timing well—Edwin would return in about fifteen minutes.

When Edwin came back, he carried exhaustion, affection, and a gift. The bishop stepped into the room from outside, and the demon he loved spun his chair around, tilting his head to look at him. The scent of roses in the room was almost cozy. With no time to take off his silver-buttoned coat, Tal opened his arms without hesitation, and Edwin held his breath, giving him a quick and gentle hug.

The hug ended quickly—Edwin worried the chill outside might discomfort Tal.

“I brought you something.”

From the moment he saw the gemstone, Edwin thought it suited Tal. It was a tribute from a merchant to the Church—in other words, it belonged to the bishop personally. The agate-red gem gleamed with a bright, rich luster, exactly like the demon’s eyes. Edwin had spent some time finding a suitable ribbon, and now it was a proper gift.

Tal smiled faintly. “You remembered I like red.”

“And roses,” Edwin added silently. His demon allowed him to move freely, so he stood behind Tal, gently gathering the demon’s soft, flowing hair and tying it up with the expensive ribbon.

The gem was carved into the shape of a rose, set against his crow-black hair—so fitting it was startling.

“It’s… very pretty.”

The demon, with his hair tied up, looked clean and sharp, like a quick and nimble little animal. Edwin had fully embraced his duty of taming the demon—he wanted to give him every good thing he found.

“Do you want to look in the mirror?”

“No need. I’m guessing it looks quite nice.”

Tal could tell from the bishop’s expression that the ribbon suited him. The bishop deeply enjoyed the process of giving him fitting gifts, his love growing unrestrained. Edwin’s gaze became more open with each passing day. The poor cleric had been seduced by a demon, and the deeper he fell, the less he looked back. He smiled and stepped forward, unwilling to turn away.

Love was such a frightening thing.

Sometimes, the god wondered if he had judged humans too harshly.

There were few lovers in this world who could do better than Edwin, and the dark god had indeed seen something stirring in Edwin’s soul—something that could move him. To love a human recklessly for a few decades—it was only a brief episode in his endless life. He didn’t need to agonize over true love and eternal loyalty.

Sometimes, the god didn’t know how he became so lenient.

He had wanted to leave many times. Tarksius knew he wasn’t yet moved. Perhaps leaving now would still be in time. But the demon in the Church, after plucking that rose, inexplicably wanted to return to Edwin’s room again—and so, time passed once more.

The god began to feel confused by himself.

This was Edwin’s fault. The soul who couldn’t let go of him was Tal. The soul who resisted everything was also Tal. And it was Edwin’s persistence that revived the demon from sealed memories. He had to take full responsibility.

Maybe he should leave today—

That was Tal’s thought. But then, Edwin’s door was unexpectedly knocked.

Very few people visited during Edwin’s rest hours, as the bishop always arranged everything in advance.

The demon hid in the corner, and the bishop opened the door. Outside stood a Church cleric—his name didn’t matter. He was only here to deliver a message, but he looked so anxious he was nearly in tears:

“B-Bishop, sir,” he stammered, “the situation is unusual… Prince Angelo is here, along with others. The Pope hasn’t allowed them to enter the Vatican, but they’re already at the gates—spreading… spreading incurable rumors. Please go quickly. There’s still time if you hurry.”

Edwin’s expression instantly turned cold, his pupils like emotionless whirlpools. He sharpened himself in a moment—dangerous and precise—and asked softly:

“Others?”

The bishop knew how to find the key point in a sentence.

The cleric choked on his words in fear, clearly terrified of what he had to say, but he still obeyed Edwin’s question:

“That man…” he said, trembling, “he claims to be your father. Of course, that’s impossible, but—but… he says he can prove his ridiculous accusations…”

“I’m going now.”

Edwin said calmly. He didn’t appear flustered at all—at least, not in front of others.

Tal sat behind him, hearing everything loud and clear.

Edwin needed him.

The god sighed helplessly, once again finding himself a reason to stay, pretending that each decision to remain wasn’t just inexplicable indulgence.