> Perspective: Celia & Eve (Mixed Perspective)
> Date: February 6, 2018 — 11:35 AM
> Location: Sylvaris — 3rd-Floor Apartment Hallway → The Abandoned Stone Aqueducts (East Canal District)
The wooden apartment door clicked shut behind Lily, leaving the 3rd-floor hallway dead silent.
"Then... you too?" Celia whispered, staring straight into Eve's wide pastel-pink eyes.
"Me too..." Eve whispered back.
For 3 seconds, neither of them breathed.
Then, almost at the exact same moment, both girls stiffened and took a sharp step backward.
They did not hug. They did not smile. And they sure as hell did not suddenly become best friends.
Celia's blood-red eyes narrowed as she crossed her arms tightly over her black dress, her guard slamming right back up 2 times as high as before. Across the narrow hallway, Eve's fingers curled around the skirt of her warm yellow dress, her jaw setting with quiet, stubborn tension.
They were still competitors who wanted the exact same man's heart. They were still fiercely jealous of every 2nd the other had spent by his side.
Only now, a sharp, burning curiosity dug straight into Celia's chest—outweighing even her anger.
[Celia]: Wait a minute. Think, Celia, think. Why the hell would Kaiser tell Eve they should be strangers right after dumping me?! When he walked out on me, I thought at least it made twisted sense if he was running to someone sweet and gentle. If he cut BOTH of us off in the same week... what the hell is that bastard doing?!
[Eve]: He pushed Celia away just as coldly as he pushed me away... I knew it. Kai wasn't choosing 1 of us over the other. He's trying to lock everyone out while he carries something terrible all by himself.
"Why...?" Celia muttered out loud, her brow furrowing as her curiosity bit deeper. "Why the hell would he do that to both of us at the same time? It makes 0 sense."
"That's what I want to find out," Eve said quietly, looking up at Celia with steady, earnest eyes. "I've been trying to piece together what Kai is hiding behind his back. I already found part of it... and I feel like very soon, I'll have enough evidence to confront him directly."
Celia blinked, staring at Eve in complete disbelief.
[Celia]: ...Confront him? Wait, did she just say she's gathering evidence to go confront him?! How can she even fathom walking back up to the guy who dumped her just to ask him questions?!
"Confront him?" Celia scoffed, looking at Eve in genuine, baffled disbelief.
"Are you out of your mind?! He's the 1 who abandoned you! Why the hell should YOU go chasing after him to confront him?!"
Celia took half a step forward, gesturing sharply at Eve's chest.
"He's the 1 who threw you away and told you to be strangers—so why on earth would you still try to confront him?!"
Eve didn't flinch or look at the floor.
"To understand him," Eve replied simply, her voice soft and matter-of-fact.
"Understand him?!" Celia threw her hands up, her voice echoing down the empty stairwell.
"There is 0 point in trying to understand someone who doesn't even want you! When someone tells you to get lost, you don't write a research paper on their feelings—you walk away! Why would you do that to yourself?!"
[Celia]: I genuinely don't get how her brain works! Does she have 0 pride?! When a guy looks you in the eyes and says you mean nothing to him, demanding answers from him only lets him step on your heart a 2nd time!
"Just because Kai says 1 thing with his mouth doesn't mean it's the truth," Eve explained calmly, starting to walk down the apartment stairs toward the quiet street below.
"It's precisely because he says 1 thing and does the exact opposite behind closed doors that I want to understand him."
Refusing to let the conversation end when her head was still spinning with unanswered questions, Celia clicked her red heels down the stone steps right behind Eve.
"Come on, let's get away from the kids' building before they hear us arguing through the floorboards," Celia muttered, marching past the front gate and turning down the stone path toward the East Canal Aqueducts—a secluded, overgrown stretch of old stone arches and empty water basins on the quiet edge of Sylvaris where no afternoon shoppers ever walked.
As the 2 girls walked side by side beneath the high, shadowy stone arches of the old aqueduct, the sound of city carriages faded completely, leaving only the click of their shoes against the damp flagstones.
With every step they took, Celia's frustration only boiled hotter in her chest.
[Celia]: "Says 1 thing and does the opposite"? Stop sounding like you know him better than I do! Wait... hold on. Look at her. Look at her pastel-pink hair, her soft voice, and how gentle she is.
[Celia]: Even after everything I learned on the mountain ridge—even knowing I have to stand on my own 2 feet now—any idiot with eyes can see Eve is the safer, cleaner option for him! I'm the girl who screamed at him, threw tantrums, and crushed his jaw with my heel in that tavern! Why the fuck would Kaiser care enough to protect me when she's standing right here?!
[Celia]: ...Wait. What if she's lying to my face right now?!
Celia stopped dead in the middle of the secluded stone archway, spinning around to face Eve with her blood-red eyes blazing.
"Hold on. Stop walking," Celia snapped, pointing an accusing finger straight at Eve's face.
"He had 0 reason to push you away! Why the fuck would he care about someone like me when you're clearly the better option?!"
"C-Celia?" Eve stopped and turned around, blinking in surprise.
"Don't give me that innocent look! You're lying to me, aren't you?!" Celia's voice sharpened, her new, cynical instincts screaming that she was being played.
"Why the hell would Kaiser ever reject you when there's a girl standing right in front of him who looks and sounds just like Elfie?!"
Eve's breath hitched slightly, her fingers tightening against her yellow skirt.
"Lily literally called you 'Mommy Elfie' 20 minutes ago, didn't she?!" Celia stepped closer, her red eyes locking onto Eve's face as she pressed the attack.
"Don't tell me that was a coincidence! You already know who Elfie is, don't you?! So stop playing innocent games with me!"
Under the cold shadow of the stone arch, Eve looked at Celia's furious, guarded face. For a brief moment, the memory of the faded Asura Academy photograph sitting inside her velvet trinket box flashed through Eve's mind—along with the strange, aching pull she felt whenever she heard that name.
"I'm not playing games with you, Celia," Eve said softly, meeting Celia's glare without backing down.
"Yes... I know who Elfie is. I saw her photograph from Asura Academy. And I know how much she meant to Kai."
Eve placed a small hand over her own chest, her voice completely sincere and vulnerable.
"But I swear to you, I really don't know why Lily called me that name earlier. I didn't tell her to say it, and Kai would never bring her up. And I'm not lying about what happened between us—he really did tell me to stay away from him."
Celia stared at Eve's earnest face for 3 long seconds, then let out a bitter, humorless laugh, shaking her head as she paced across the flagstones.
"Unbelievable. I can't believe this shit," Celia spat, running a hand through her stark-white hair.
"Listen to me, Eve: Kaiser is irredeemable. Do you hear me? You can try to 'understand' him as much as you want, you can dig through his trash and follow him around all day, and you still won't find the truth or 1 sliver of reason!"
"Celia—"
"He is a pathological liar!" Celia shouted, her voice echoing off the high stone walls of the empty canal.
"He will hide the truth from you, from me, and from the entire world until the day he dies!"
Eve didn't flinch. She simply looked straight into Celia's blood-red eyes, her quiet voice ringing clear across the stone basin:
"Then he doesn't have to answer me."
Celia froze mid-step.
"If Kai refuses to tell me the truth with his own mouth," Eve said firmly, "then I'll just find it myself."
Thump.
Celia's heart skipped a beat, her red eyes widening in shock as Eve's words hit her straight in the chest.
[Celia]: ..."Then he doesn't have to answer me. I'll find it myself."
In 1 flash, the memory of their catastrophic breakup in Chapter 325 crashed back into Celia's head—how she had screamed at Kaiser, grabbed his collar, demanded that he explain himself, and begged him to give her answers while throwing a helpless tantrum.
[Celia]: During our breakup, all I did was scream at him to give me answers. I waited for him to tell me what was real and what was fake... and when he didn't, I fell apart.
The contrast stung Celia's pride so violently that her blood boiled over in a split 2nd.
SNAP!
Before Eve could react, Celia lunged forward across the flagstones, her linen-wrapped right hand shooting out and grabbing Eve straight by the throat!
"Ghk—!"
Celia slammed Eve backward against the cold stone pillar of the secluded aqueduct, pinning her there as dark cursed energy crackled around her knuckles and her blood-red eyes burned 4 inches from Eve's face.
"You think you're going to find some noble, romantic truth if you go digging into his past?!" Celia hissed straight into Eve's face, her voice shaking with raw, jagged venom.
"Then let me save you the trouble and tell you who Kaiser Everhart really is!"
Eve gasped for air, her small hands grabbing onto Celia's wrist as her shoes scraped against the stone wall.
"Kaiser is the monster who butchered my village and killed my father just so he could turn me into his weapon and use me!" Celia snarled, her grip tightening for a fraction of a 2nd before she violently hurled Eve sideways across the flagstones!
THUD!
Eve crashed hard onto the cold stone ground, coughing and gasping heavily for breath as her palms scraped against the rough gravel.
"Kah—cough, cough!—h-haa..."
Standing over her under the dark archway, Celia glared down with her chest heaving, pointing a trembling finger at Eve on the ground.
"He is NOT a good person!" Celia shouted down at her.
"He used me for months until I wasn't convenient anymore, and he did the exact same thing to you! You're no longer useful to his plans—that's why he abandoned you! There is nothing deeper to it, and your delusional little fantasy about 'understanding' him is nothing more than pathetic obsession!"
On the stone floor, Eve pressed 1 hand against her bruised throat, her chest rising and falling in ragged, breathless gasps as she stared up at Celia in utter shock.
[Eve]: ...Killed her father? Kai... killed Celia's father?! No... no, that can't be the whole story...!
"Stay out of his business, and stay the hell out of my way," Celia warned coldly, dark chains beginning to slither out of her shadow across the flagstones.
"If you keep running around trying to save him, you're only going to get yourself crushed."
Slowly, with her knees shaking and her throat still burning, Eve pushed herself up off the dirty flagstones.
"Haa... haa... y-you're wrong..." Eve rasped out between heavy breaths, wiping a smudge of dust off her cheek as she looked straight back up at Celia.
"I told you to stay down—"
"You're wrong, Celia!" Eve's voice gained strength as she stood back up on her own 2 feet, refusing to back down an inch.
"Kai HAS to have a reason for what happened! I saw what he sacrificed when nobody was watching—and I won't just blindly believe what you or anyone else says about him! Until I hear and see the whole truth with my own eyes... I'll find it for myself!"
Seeing Eve stand right back up with that unshakeable, pure stubbornness in her eyes snapped the last thread of Celia's patience.
"You stubborn little bitch—stop looking at me with those naive eyes!"
CLANG—WHIP!
A heavy black chain of cursed iron erupted from Celia's shadow and lashed across the archway, slapping straight across Eve's cheek with a sharp metallic crack!
SMACK—CRASH!
The force of the chain-slap whipped Eve's head sideways and sent her flying into the stone aqueduct wall, a bright drop of red blood spilling from the corner of her lip as she slid down against the bricks.
"Fucking hell, why won't you just listen?!" Celia swore under her breath, dark cursed thorns curling up her forearms as she stepped forward, her blood-red eyes flashing.
"Look at yourself! You're a weak, frail girl who can barely even take 1 hit! What the hell do you think someone as fragile as you is going to do by sticking your nose into his dark side?! You stand 0 chance out here!"
Slumped against the stone wall, Eve didn't answer right away.
Instead—
THROB!!
A sudden, blinding, catastrophic headache slammed straight through the center of Eve's skull!
"Agh—u-ughh...!"
Eve groaned in agony, dropping to her knees and grabbing 2 handfuls of her own pastel-pink hair, pulling at her locks as her vision fractured into violent flashes of blinding light and static.
Celia stopped in her tracks 10 feet away, her brow furrowing in sudden confusion as she watched Eve clutch her head.
[Celia]: ...Wait. What the hell is she doing? Why is she pulling her own hair like that? I barely put 2% of my strength into that chain slap—I hit her cheek, not her skull!
"Hey... what are you doing?" Celia asked warily, taking half a step back as a bizarre, freezing chill suddenly crawled up her spine.
Beneath her disheveled pastel-pink bangs, Eve's trembling stopped dead.
Slowly, Eve let go of her hair and lifted her head.
The shy, polite, apologetic girl who baked cookies and stuttered when people looked at her was completely gone.
In the dark shadow of the stone arch, Eve's large pastel-pink eyes had bled into a chilling, bottomless sapphire-blue tint—cold, ancient, and terrifyingly sharp—staring down at Celia with utter disdain.
"Weak? Frail?"
When Eve opened her mouth, her voice didn't tremble 1 bit. It came out velvet-smooth, ice-cold, and dripping with raw, suffocating venom:
"Shut your fucking mouth, you pathetic, loud-mouthed little leftover."
Celia's breath caught in her throat, her eyes widening in shock.
[Celia]: ...What did she just call me?! Wait—what happened to her voice?! And why are her eyes turning blue?!
"You stand there screaming and barking after getting kicked out, feeding me pathetic half-truths and crying about your dead daddy just because you're terrified I won't leave Kai alone," Eve said coldly, rising smoothly to her feet without using her hands as she looked Celia up and down with pure, blistering contempt.
"Don't flatter yourself, you insecure, whiny little bitch. You think you're warning me? You're just a discarded, tantrum-throwing leech who couldn't even hold onto the man who raised you—and I'm not chasing the truth for your sake or even just for his. I am doing this for myself, because unlike a coward who runs away crying when she gets dumped, I actually take what belongs to me."
Every word cut straight into Celia's deepest nerve, turning her face white with sheer, explosive fury!
"Why, you—SAY THAT AGAIN, YOU 2-FACED BITCH!"
ROAR—CLANG!
Furious beyond reason, Celia whipped her right arm forward, launching a full-powered, jagged black chain of concentrated Cursed Mana straight at Eve's chest!
Eve didn't dodge.
She didn't even blink.
CLANG—GRAB!
Eve simply raised her bare left hand and caught the razor-sharp cursed chain straight out of mid-air with her naked palm!
"What?!" Celia gasped.
FZZZZZZT—BURN!
Blinding, pure white-gold Celestial Mana erupted straight out of Eve's palm, surging backward down the length of the iron links!
The holy astral heat instantly scorched through the shadow-link connection, burning the skin right across the back of Celia's hand with a searing hiss of white smoke!
"Ghk—?!" Celia hissed in shock, jerking her burned hand back as the smell of singed curse-energy filled the tunnel.
[Celia]: She grabbed my cursed chain barehanded?! And what is that mana—it literally just burned my skin through my own shadow link?!
Before Celia could retract the chain, Eve's right hand flashed across the air coated in compressed starlight—
SLASH—CLANG!
—and sliced Celia's black cursed chain clean in half, sending the severed iron links clattering dead onto the flagstones between them!
Standing over the broken chain with her eyes glowing a sharp, icy blue-pink tint, Eve glared straight at Celia with 0 fear.
"If you really 'don't care' about him anymore," Eve said, her voice freezing cold, "then stop fantasizing about being his wife and get the fuck out of my face."
Without waiting for a reply, Eve turned her back on Celia to walk away.
"You...!"
Being roasted, burned, and dismissed by the girl she had just called weak snapped every limiter in Celia's head.
[Celia]: Nobody talks to me like that and walks away! I'll fucking kill her right here!
Pure, lethal black necrosis exploded from Celia's body, cracking the flagstones beneath her red heels as 12 spears of living black thorns erupted from the walls to impale Eve on the spot!
"Don't you DARE turn your back on me—"
Celia blinked 1 time as she lunged forward.
BLINK.
And in the span of 0.1 seconds—the dark stone aqueduct, the canal walls, and the city of Sylvaris vanished completely.
"—huh?!"
Celia skidded to a halt on soft, wet grass, her 12 black thorn spears stabbing into empty dirt.
She spun around wildly, her white ponytail whipping across her face.
There were no stone arches. There were no buildings. She was standing all by herself in the middle of a wind-swept, grassy hillside 3 miles outside the northern city walls of Sylvaris—and Eve was nowhere in sight!
"W-Where the hell am I?!" Celia gasped, staring down at her boots in the grass before her blood-red eyes widened in stunned realization.
"Wait... she didn't teleport herself away—she used high-tier spatial teleportation magic to throw ME out of the city without even chanting?!" Celia slammed her fist against a tree trunk, cursing out loud.
"God damn it! I didn't even know she could use magic like that!"
[Celia]: ...Wait a minute. Stop yelling and use your brain, Celia.
Standing alone on the windy hillside, the adrenaline slowly drained from Celia's veins, leaving behind a cold, sharp clarity that settled deep into her chest.
She looked down at the burn mark on the back of her hand, and then at the Ring of Empty Chaos sitting on her middle finger.
[Celia]: Earlier, when Eve said "If he refuses to answer me, I'll find it myself"... why did that piss me off so much?
[Celia]: Because she was right. And Roy told me the exact same thing in my dream.
[Celia]: When I found out in Aloria that Kaiser was the 1 who attacked my village and killed my father... the 1st thing I did was run straight to Kaiser, crying and screaming at him to explain himself. Asking HIM the questions was the biggest mistake I ever made.
Celia's fingers closed slowly into a steady, unshakeable fist.
[Celia]: Even if Kaiser really is the 1 who killed my father... he's never going to hand me the truth out of pity. Asking him for answers was pathetic.
[Celia]: If that bastard won't tell me why he attacked Aloria, why he spared me years ago, and why he cut both me and Eve off at the exact same time... then I don't need his mouth anymore. I'll tear every secret open and find the truth myself.
*
Meanwhile, 2 miles away in the South Botanical Park of Sylvaris.
RUSTLE—THUMP!
Inside a thick, leafy bush of decorative winter hedges, a pair of small legs in white stockings poked out from the branches.
"U-Ughh... ouch..."
Sitting inside the bush with 3 twigs and a yellow leaf stuck in her wavy pastel-pink hair, Eve rubbed her forehead with both hands and blinked her eyes open.
The cold, terrifying sapphire-blue tint was completely gone—her eyes were back to their normal, wide, innocent pastel-pink.
"H-Huh...?" Eve looked left at a bush of hydrangeas, looked right at a squirrel staring at her from a branch, and looked down at herself sitting inside a hedge.
"W-What happened?! Where am I?! Why am I sitting inside a bush?!"
She scrambled out of the hedge, brushing leaves off her yellow frilly dress while touching her sore cheek in total bewilderment.
[Eve]: Wait a 2nd... wasn't I just talking to Celia under the old stone canal arches?! She got super mad and threw a scary black chain at me, and then my head hurt really, really badly, and... and then everything went blurry!
[Eve]: Did I run away and jump into a bush?! How did I get all the way to the South Park in 2 seconds?!
Even though she couldn't remember 1 word of the vicious roast she had just delivered—or the fact that she had sliced Celia's chain in half and teleported her rival across the map—1 memory from their confrontation rang crystal clear inside Eve's mind.
[Eve]: Celia said... Kai killed her father. And she said Kai pushed me away just like he pushed her away.
Eve's small hands balled into determined fists at her sides, her gentle eyes hardening with quiet, unyielding resolve as she looked toward the northern hills where Varethiel Manor Estate stood.
[Eve]: I don't know what happened to my head just now, and I don't believe for 1st or last that Kai is a heartless monster. There is a reason behind everything he's doing—and I have to do something right now.
[Eve]: Tonight, while Elder Master Naelor is still tired from his trip to the Demon Continent, I'm going back into that 3rd-floor archive. I'm going to open that 2nd locked file cabinet and discover what Naelor and Kai's other secret deal really is!
---
> Perspective: Christiana & Jaelis (Mixed / 3rd-Person)
> Date: February 6, 2018 — Late Night
> Location: The Demon Continent — Royal Palace of Pandemonium (Christiana's Candlelit Chamber)
Far across the ocean, inside the windowless, bricked-up bedchamber of the Royal Palace of Pandemonium, 100 white wax candles flickered warmly against the stone walls.
Tucked beneath 3 thick velvet blankets on the 4-poster bed, the 9th Sin Heir of Despair, Princess Christiana, sat propped up against her pillows, looking pale and exhausted after another long day of keeping her eyes open so the dark wouldn't swallow her.
Standing beside her bed was her personal attendant and quiet caretaker—a tall, graceful demon woman with long, silky raven-black hair, small curved obsidian horns, and calm, luminous golden eyes named Jaelis.
Unlike the loud, bloodthirsty servants who served Mariabell or Liliath, Jaelis moved without making 1 sound, her gentle hands smoothing the warm blanket up to Christiana's chin.
"Your medicine is already working, Princess Christiana," Jaelis said softly, her voice warm and steady in the candlelight.
"You should close your eyes and take a nap now. Sleep—it is already far too late in the night for you to stay awake."
Christiana's small hands clung weakly to the edge of the blanket, her haunted blood-red eyes watching Jaelis step back toward the small wooden altar table in the corner of the room.
"Jaelis... are you going to pray again?" Christiana asked quietly, her eyelids drooping.
"Just a short prayer before I sit by your chair, Your Highness," Jaelis replied with a serene smile.
Christiana tilted her head against the pillow, staring curiously at the black-haired maid.
"I still can't believe it..." Christiana murmured softly. "Every demon in Pandemonium either worships our ancestor Lillieth or bows to my father... You're the only demon on the entire Demon Continent who worships a completely different God."
Christiana blinked her tired red eyes, her voice dropping to a curious whisper:
"Who is he, Jaelis? Who is your Lord, then?"
Standing before the small candlelit table, Jaelis reached into the collar of her dark maid dress and lifted a delicate silver chain hanging around her neck.
Resting at the end of the chain was her sacred symbol of worship—not a demon crest or a cross, but a finely carved silver pendant of a radiant Sun with 2 spread wings on each side around the sun.
Jaelis looked down at the Winged Sun resting in her palm, her golden eyes glowing with a devotion so deep and absolute it bordered on awe.
3 years ago, during a brutal purge in the outer craters, Jaelis had died—her heart pierced, her blood frozen in the ash, her soul already slipping into the abyss. By every law of nature and magic, she should have been rotting in a grave right now.
Yet she had been resurrected straight from the dead by the hand of 1 impossible being.
Holding the Winged Sun pendant gently against the center of her chest, and then lifting it to press reverently against her forehead, Jaelis spoke the name aloud:
"Sevrain."
"Sevrain...?" Christiana repeated softly from the bed, pulling her blanket up to her chin with an innocent, curious look.
"I've never heard that name in any of Father's history books... Can you tell me about your Lord, Jaelis? What is He like?"
Jaelis lowered the Winged Sun pendant from her forehead back to her heart, a soft, humble smile touching her lips as she looked toward the candle flames.
"My own words are far too small to ever capture what He truly is, Princess," Jaelis said quietly,
"so I can only recite the sacred verses passed down to those of us whose lives He returned from the ash."
Closing her golden eyes, Jaelis pressed the Sun with Wings against her heartbeat, and her calm, melodious voice filled the quiet chamber:
"Lord Sevrain, the Creator of All Things; the All-Powerful and All-Knowing Lord Sevrain;
The 1 who reigns behind the curtain of shadows, the Sovereign of the Mind and Soul, the true measure of all living things.
The Omnipotent and Omniscient, the source of every miracle, the Beginning and the End, the Lord of Lords.
Lord Sevrain, Master of Forbidden Truths, King of Space and Time, Beacon of Fate, Architect of the White Crown, Dominator of the Unseen World.
Lord Sevrain of the Eternal Dawn stands higher than the stars and more eternal than eternity itself.
The Lord of the Eclipse, the Father of Secrets, the Sovereign of Trial and Mercy, Master of Quiet Repose and Final Silence.
Praise the Father of Secrets, praise the Sovereign of Trial and Mercy, praise the Lord of Quiet Repose and Silence—
Lord Sevrain of the Eternal Dawn, the Sovereign Above All."
When the final whispered verse faded into the warm candlelight, the entire bedroom felt strangely still, safe, and untouched by the freezing terror of the night sky outside.
Sitting on her bed under the blankets, Christiana stared at Jaelis with wide, shining eyes, her trembling hands coming together to clap softly.
"Wow..." Christiana breathed, a rare, genuine little smile warming her pale face as the fear in her chest eased away.
"Just hearing you pray makes the room feel so warm, Jaelis... I wish I could meet your Lord Sevrain 1 day. When you talk about Him, it truly sounds like He isn't just a made-up mythology or a false god."
Jaelis opened her golden eyes, tucked the silver Winged Sun pendant safely back beneath her dress over her beating, resurrected heart, and looked back at the young princess with unshakeable certainty.
"Yes, Your Highness," Jaelis whispered softly.
"Lord Sevrain is real... and He is the answer to everything."