Evelyn, with a hand over her belly as if protecting something precious, steps down from the train.
Behind her, her cousin Cassie and their bodyguards follow quietly.
Cassie glances at her. "Are you not going to inform Adam about your return?"
Evelyn smiles softly and shakes her head. "I'm going to surprise him."
Cassie nods, and they all step into the waiting car.
The ride is quiet as the city passes by.
They stop in front of Evelyn and Merin's house.
Evelyn unlocks the door with her key.
The house is empty.
She's not surprised—Merin must be at the research institute.
Time passes.
Evening comes.
Night deepens into midnight.
Still, Adam doesn't return.
His phone remains switched off.
The next morning, they head to the research institute.
They ask about Adam.
The staff look hesitant before revealing he has left on a secret mission.
Evelyn freezes.
Why was she told nothing?
He should have said something.
They return home.
Evelyn sits silently, her hands trembling.
How could he leave like this?
They were close to marriage.
She tries to make sense of it, rewinding every phone call she has made she has made over the past month.
He did seem distant.
But she never imagined this.
Nothing explained this.
Then Cassie speaks up. "Check your mail. Maybe he sent something. We were on the train, and your phone's still not fully set up."
Evelyn nods slowly.
Her old phone was destroyed during the ordeal a month ago—she hadn't logged into her email since.
She opens the browser and checks her inbox.
Adam's name appears.
She exhales, part relief, part dread.
He didn't leave without a word.
She clicks it open.
In the next second, the phone slips from her hand and hits the floor.
Cassie jumps up. "What happened?"
She picks up the phone, reads the message, and then looks at Evelyn in disbelief.
"A breakup mail?" Cassie mutters.
Evelyn stares at nothing as tears roll down her cheeks.
Then her chest tightens, and she begins to cry.
Cassie kneels beside her.
"Maybe Adam knew the mission would be long… Maybe he thought giving you freedom was kinder—"
"I don't want to be free!" Evelyn screams, voice cracking.
Cassie sighs and pulls her close.
Evelyn sobs uncontrollably in her cousin's arms.
------
A week has passed since Adam—now Merin—stepped into the new dimension.
He spent the past seven days learning about this world.
In that time, many martial artists gathered around him, asking about the stone body realm.
Merin didn't keep the knowledge to himself.
He explained everything he knew.
Now came the choice that every outsider faced—whether to become a blood race or a werewolf.
In this dimension, his strength was forcefully suppressed at the Unification Realm.
Every time he used energy, it drained his reserves, and recovery without Karst energy was impossible.
He knew that that for the next forty years in this dimension's time, he would not remain still.
So the only option left was to bond with the world—use its magic energy.
He chose to become a vampire.
One of the vampires stepped forward and bit him.
He felt a foreign substance surge through him.
Before his body could instinctively destroy it, Merin seized control.
He allowed the substance to transform him.
His cells began to shift.
His skin turned pale.
Sharp fangs emerged in his mouth.
He quickly retracted them.
His strength didn't increase, but something fundamental had changed.
He could sense the magic energy of this world.
It flowed through his blood.
Magic and blood had become one.
Two days later, Merin left the base camp.
He had no destination.
He began to wander.
The dimension was smaller than his origin world, but not by much.
It contained four continents:
The largest was the Holy Cross Continent, named after the ancient Holy Cross Church, where human civilisation first rose.
Next came the Axis Continent, Palus, and the Icedic Continent.
Merin had arrived on the Axis Continent.
Now it stood as the centre of the entire dimension.
He wandered from city to city.
As he moved, he trained himself in blood magic.
Their group—outsiders—had only managed to gather low and some middle-tier blood spells.
But for Merin, that was enough—for now.
In one of the cities he passed through, he encountered a blood family and chose to stay for a while.
The city was called Rivian, nestled beside a wide, flowing river, serene and beautiful.
A year passed, and Merin quietly rose in status to become a blood baron.
During his stay, he noticed the young son of the blood family—eighteen years old—fall in love with a human girl of the same age.
What surprised him was that the boy's parents didn't stop him.
They allowed their son to date the girl, even though it put the family at risk.
If their true nature as vampires became known, hunters would surely come.
It was then that Merin heard about something called a bonded mate.
All supernatural races in this world had them—one destined partner in life.
A bonded mate could not betray their pair.
Their love was unconditional, etched into their soul.
A gift from the world itself.
Learning this, Merin's curiosity deepened.
He returned to the base camp and asked if outsiders like him could also have bonded mates.
The answer was yes—but with a catch.
The bond could be broken if they ever returned to being human.
Merin's interest ignited.
Who would his bonded mate be?
He decided he would find out, since he held the power to break the bond at will.
For the rest of his stay in Rivian, he observed the young couple.
At first, the human girl felt no connection.
She merely liked the boy.
But everything changed the day she was turned into a blood race.
That same day, she began to feel the bond.
She understood what the boy meant to her, truly.
Merin watched with quiet fascination.
When his blood magic cultivation rose to the level of a viscount, he left Rivian City.
His raw strength did not rise, but his control over this world's magic had grown sharper.
Merin left the city and resumed his roaming, focusing on the magnetic field of the dimension.
He quickly noticed how different it was from the origin world's field—its flow, rhythm, and polarity were unfamiliar.
He began to comprehend its nature slowly, adjusting his senses and refining his perception.
While exploring, he stumbled upon a hidden werewolf clan residing in a nature reserve.
The clan lived in isolation, following tribal customs and cut off from civilisation.
Upon seeing him—a vampire—they attacked without hesitation.
A brief but intense fight broke out.
Merin defeated them quickly without using killing moves, knowing that bloodshed would draw unwanted attention.
He left the reserve quietly, letting the werewolves retreat into the shadows.
Later, in a quiet town tucked between hills, he encountered a witch coven.
Intrigued, he stayed for six months and made contact.
He seduced one of the witches, drawing closer to her to gain access to their spells.
He wanted to study the nature of witchcraft and compare it to blood magic.
After months of experimentation, he discovered something crucial—there was no fundamental difference between witch spells and blood spells.
Only the energy source differed.
By switching the source, a blood race could cast witch spells, and a witch could use blood magic.
Satisfied with his findings, Merin left the town and continued to roam.
Deep in a vast forest, he discovered a hidden village of banshees.
Banshees bore no animosity toward the blood race, so he stayed for a few months.
When his understanding deepened, he left again.
Eventually, he departed the Axis continent and crossed over to the Palus continent—the nearest landmass.
Palus was covered in sprawling rainforests, wild and untouched.
There, Merin came across even more hidden races—dryads cloaked in bark and leaves, playful nymphs dancing in rivers, and towering giants who watched from afar.
In this world, six years passed, and Merin's cultivation of blood magic reached the count level.
But back in the origin world, only three months had gone by.
Cassie walked down the stairs of Adam and Evelyn's house, calling out, "Evelyn, it's time. Come down."
After a few moments, Evelyn descended slowly.
Cassie's worry deepened—Evelyn looked thinner than ever, her cheeks sunken, dark circles under her eyes, but her belly was visibly swollen.
Evelyn was pregnant with Adam's child.
Cassie had found out three months ago, right after Evelyn read the breakup email from Adam.
She had brought wine, thinking Evelyn would want to drown her sorrow.
But Evelyn hadn't touched it—instead, she said she was pregnant.
Cassie had advised her to abort the baby, but Evelyn refused.
She was determined to keep the child.
She still believed Adam would come back and they'd reunite.
But three months had passed, and there was still no word from Adam.
Cassie could see Evelyn's hope dimming day by day.
Now, Cassie was taking her to see the doctor.
Later that day, they returned from the hospital.
Evelyn stepped out of the car and walked ahead slowly.
Cassie watched her from behind, her heart heavy.
Inside the house, Cassie said, "Sister, you heard the doctor. Start taking care of yourself, or both you and the baby will be in danger."
Evelyn said nothing and quietly walked up the stairs.
Cassie added, "If something happens to the baby and Adam finds out when he returns—do you think the two of you will ever get back together?"
Evelyn froze mid-step but continued up without a word.
Half an hour later, Evelyn came down freshly washed, her face calmer.
She went straight to the kitchen and began eating her food without being asked.
Seeing that, Cassie let out a quiet sigh of relief.
Evelyn's lack of care had already caused her cultivation to regress, and her emotional state was making her demon blood unstable, putting both her and the baby at risk.
And it was all because of Adam.
Cassie clenched her fists.
When Adam returned, she would make sure he paid for what he had done.