My Wives are Beautiful Demons

The lake consumed him, enveloping him entirely; the cold, dense water felt like a chilling embrace. He felt himself being pulled down, the cold seeping into him more than just physically—his very soul turned icy.

When he opened his eyes underwater, he no longer saw anything resembling before; of course, he was no longer in that lake. He was standing in an open field, the sky above stained a bloody red, but the landscape... it resembled his previous dream.

A flowery field, now replaced by Red Spider Lilies...

He could sense a huge, overwhelming presence in the air, an imminent tension, a negative feeling. The wind was strong, sweeping across a landscape that seemed more desolate, and the distant sound of crackling flames caught his attention, pulling him toward this strangely curious and malevolent scene.

"Vergil..." a familiar voice called.

He quickly looked in front of him, to his left, to his right, and finally turned around. The sight made his heart stop for a moment.

The voice belonged to her, the woman he had first encountered, the one who had cared for him, the first kiss he had shared with her—so memorable it would never leave his mind...

"Ada..." he murmured.

Ada stood there, her expression serene, but something was wrong with her; clearly, this was not the Ada he knew. The wedding dress she wore, the same from his previous dream, was completely stained with blood, but what really drew his attention...

Her eyes... they seemed distant, almost unrecognizable... Just... empty... Before he could say anything, a horrible scream sliced through the air.

He spun around and saw Katharina and Roxanne. Both were lying on the ground, their expressions frozen in pain and agony. Blood flowed from deep wounds on their bodies, and their eyes were filled with fear.

Katharina had been cut in half, while Roxanne had been brutally dismembered... all four of her limbs severed and torn away.

"No... NO!" Vergil ran to them, his heart pounding, but as soon as he knelt beside them, their bodies began to disintegrate into ashes. He tried to touch them, to hold them, but his hands passed through their forms as if they were ghosts.

"S-Sorry..." he stammered, his mind in a panic. He looked at Ada, who merely observed everything with a disturbing calm.

"You failed, Vergil," she said softly. "You couldn't protect us." She spoke with no emotion, a gentle smile spreading across her face as her blood-stained body began to burn.

"You lost all of us... We were all stolen, killed, and dismembered because of your weakness..." Ada said, still smiling...

"You are weak."

He felt an overwhelming pain in his chest, as if his heart were being torn to pieces.

He tried to speak, but his words caught in his throat. It was a nightmare... no, something worse than that.

It was a distorted, cruel reality devoid of mercy, where he settled for the unsatisfied feeling of becoming stronger, for having no reason... It was the end of some timeline where he had chosen to remain an Ordinary Demon...

He closed his eyes as the worst possible scenario engulfed him... His eyes couldn't remain open, and he almost fell into the abyss... but...

Suddenly, everything changed again. He was back in the lake, gasping for breath as he struggled to comprehend what had just happened. But before he could process it, he was pulled back down into the dark waters.

This time, he found himself in the midst of a dark forest.

The moon faintly illuminated the scene before him. The trees around him seemed to be moving, whispering unintelligible words.

Vergil heard the sound of light footsteps behind him.

"Vergil?" It was Katharina's voice, soft and gentle, but laced with a hint of pain.

He turned around, and there she was. Katharina was smiling, but her body was marked with scars and open wounds. "You... why did you leave me?" she asked, her voice broken by suffering.

"I... didn't leave you..." Vergil tried to respond, but his body froze in fear. Each time he tried to approach, she seemed to drift further away, her eyes filled with a silent accusation. "Katharina, I swear, I never..."

The words died on his lips as an immense shadow emerged behind her. A monstrous figure, with glowing eyes and sharp claws, rose from nothingness. Without warning, the creature plunged its claws into Katharina, lifting her fragile body off the ground.

"No!" Vergil shouted, but it was too late. The figure vanished into the darkness, taking Katharina with it. He ran toward the void, desperate to save her, but there was nothing there. Just darkness.

He felt his throat tighten, and despair washed over him. He had failed again.

The cycle repeated.

Vergil was killed, sliced apart, strangled, impaled, burned alive. Each time he died, the deaths of his wives haunted him more deeply. Ada, Katharina, and Roxanne died in horrific ways, always out of his reach, always leaving him powerless. Each death was more brutal than the last, and each time he returned, his despair grew.

But with every new life and death, Vergil began to realize something. Each time he faced the deaths of Ada, Katharina, and Roxanne, he blamed himself. He felt the weight of failure crushing him, but the lake was not just showing him their deaths; it was revealing something about him. It was his own guilt that kept him trapped in this cycle.

Vergil stopped, finally understanding that no matter how hard he tried to avoid or change the situation, he was always reliving the same nightmare. The deaths were inevitable, just like his suffering.

The question echoed in his mind: Why do I want to be stronger?

The answer came when he once again faced his wives dying before him, but this time, he did not run in panic. He knelt beside them, accepting that at some point, he could not protect them from everything.

'Breaking the cycle of death... accepting death and... to hell with it.' Vergil finally understood that his desire to become stronger wasn't just to protect the people he loved. It was to fill the void inside him, the insecurity, the fear of not being enough. He wanted to be stronger to redeem himself from his own failures, from his guilt.

He wanted to control the uncontrollable.

He realized that deep down, he was fighting against himself.

With this realization, the scene around him changed once more. This time, he was not taken to a battlefield or a dark forest. He was in a shapeless, empty place. In the midst of this void stood a figure—himself.

Vergil stared at his own image. The reflection was covered in scars, a serious and weary expression. It was him, but at the same time, it wasn't. This version of him was a manifestation of his guilt, of his obsessive need to be stronger, to be invincible.

"Do you think getting stronger will solve your problems?" the image spoke in a cold tone.

Vergil didn't respond immediately. He knew that this figure was an extension of his own feelings. For so long, he believed that strength would solve everything. That being powerful enough would make his fears, insecurities, and guilt disappear.

"I... I thought it would," Vergil said, his voice hoarse, almost a whisper.

"But that's not it, is it?" the figure replied. "You're afraid. Afraid of failing. Afraid of losing. And that strength you seek so desperately... it won't change that."

Vergil closed his eyes, letting the words penetrate his mind. He was tired of fighting himself. Tired of reliving the deaths of his wives, of reliving his failures.

"I want to be stronger," he murmured. "But... not to escape these fears. I want to be stronger to face them. To accept that I can't control everything, that failures happen, and that's part of being human..."

"You're not human anymore, boy." Viviane's voice whispered within him, and he opened his eyes.

"What you're experiencing now is merely a reflection of something that comes from within you. Some remnant of an ancestor or something like that, this 'waste of time' in battles you find tedious is just a reflection of someone who came before you and considered the weak... weak."

"The contradiction that runs through your mind is an Ancestral Spirit that remained trapped in your lineage; that's why you're here. To cleanse your spirit." Viviane said as that version of him slowly disappeared.

"You want to be strong, but your first battles were dull, uninteresting... You were born strong but fought against the weak. That's why there's a contradiction in your essence." She said, appearing in front of him.

"It's time to erase that weak human trait." She said with a mischievous smile.

Vergil felt a wave of frustration rising within him as Viviane's words echoed in his mind.

"Erase my human trait?" he repeated, his voice tense.

"And what is your purpose?" Viviane asked, with a teasing smile. "You say you want to face your fears, but when was the last time you did that? When was the last time you didn't run from your failures, but confronted them head-on?"

"The problem with mortals is this: you think too much, and while you change over time, you develop complexes that affect your existence."

"Want to save your wife, Ada? Then it's better to start shedding that weak side and become a God of War to do so." Viviane said as a light appeared in her hand.

"Being a Spiritual Ferreira tires me, you know? Take it already." She handed him something... Something that he...

"Cut everything you see until you're free."

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<Author's Note>

Hey, remember to use your Golden Tickets and Power Stones to help the work reach new heights!