— The Sovereign Awakens —
For days, a suffocating gloom had lingered over the Vale estate.
Damien paced the courtyard like a trapped beast, nerves stretched to the limit.
The curse eating at his soul felt like insects gnawing his bones—constant, torturous, maddening.
Finally, he snapped.
He bolted toward the sealed rear mountains, hair disheveled, eyes wild.
"Elder Liam! When is the Ancestor coming out?!" Damien slammed his fists against the stone gate, voice cracking. "If Eren isn't killed—I might as well die first!"
Elder Liam's brows knit tightly.
"Compose yourself. The Ancestor is attempting a breakthrough to the Sovereign Warrior realm. One disturbance could ruin everything." His tone dropped low and solemn. "Once he succeeds... Eren's life will be forfeit."
But before he finished—
BOOM!!
The mountain trembled.
A terrifying aura burst forth like a volcanic eruption, sweeping across the estate like a shockwave.
Damien was blasted off his feet, rolling across the ground with a strangled scream. Even Liam—already a Great Grandmaster—staggered several steps before his feet rooted firmly again.
Far below the estate, in his dim underground chamber, the Onmyōji Kurobane opened his eyes.
A faint gold gleam flickered within them.
"...So the old monster Vortigern is advancing again," he whispered, lips curling slightly.
Above them—
"Hahahahaha! At last—Sovereign!"
A thunderous laugh shook the valley as the stone gate rumbled open.
An aged figure floated out, stepping into the air as though the sky itself supported him. His silver hair danced like starlight, yet his face held a strange youthful sharpness—his gaze slicing through the world like a blade.
Vortigern, Ancestor of the Vale family, had awakened.
"Ancestor!"
Damien scrambled forward on his knees, tears and snot everywhere. "Please—you must avenge me!"
He poured out his story, adding drama, tears, and a generous amount of exaggeration.
Vortigern listened, his expression growing darker with every word.
"Eren..." A cold, crushing killing intent rippled from the old Sovereign. "He dares humiliate my Vale family to this extent?"
His eyes narrowed, glowing with fury.
"This debt will be repaid. This disgrace—washed clean in blood."
He flicked his sleeve, the air trembling.
"Liam. Damien.
We move—now."
The sky above the Vale estate darkened as the Ancestor rose higher, his presence sweeping outward like an approaching storm.
The hunt for Eren... had officially begun.
---
— The Burial Gale —
Damien strutted at the front of the group, chest puffed out as if he could already picture Eren kneeling before him, begging for mercy.
But the second they stepped through the Vale estate gates, his smug grin froze.
Eren was walking toward them—calm, steady—carrying a blood-stained cloth sack in one hand.
"Eren!" Damien's eyes reddened instantly, voice twisting into hysterical delight. "Perfect timing! I was just about to drag you out—yet you dare walk in yourself?!"
Before he could finish, Eren casually flicked his wrist.
The sack shot forward like a tossed stone.
"A trap?" Damien didn't dare block it. He blasted it apart with a palm strike.
The shredded cloth fluttered.
A severed head rolled to Damien's feet—Quillon's twisted, corpse-pale face staring right up at him.
"You... you killed Quillon?!" Damien's voice cracked.
"Not just him." Eren's gaze was ice. "Today, your entire Vale clan will accompany Seraphine into the ground."
A shiver crept up Damien's spine, but he forced out three harsh laughs.
"Open your eyes, fool! This is my family's Ancestor—Sovereign-tier! Killing you will be easier than butchering a stray dog!"
Vortigern stepped forward. His aura descended like a mountain collapsing, the heat trembling in the air.
"Boy," he said coldly, "today I'll show you what it means to beg for death—and be denied."
"Old fossil," Eren replied, unimpressed. "Sovereign? I've killed worse."
"Impudent brat!"
Vortigern flicked a finger.
A razor-thin wind blade screamed across the air, space rippling in its wake.
Eren countered with a palm strike—but the wind blade sliced through his force, grazing his sleeve before blasting apart the stone wall behind him.
BOOM—!
Debris rained down like a collapsing ruin.
Damien cackled. "Did you see that?! That is the Sovereign Realm!"
A glint sparked in Eren's eyes.
Three blades of sword-light burst toward Damien's heart, throat, and skull.
"Ancestor, save me!" Damien shrieked, collapsing to the ground.
Vortigern swept his sleeve. Fierce winds surged upward, deflecting all three strikes.
Damien scrambled behind him, trembling, not daring to speak again.
"Cyclone Scatters the Clouds!"
Vortigern raised both hands.
A tornado roared into existence, towering into the sky as if ripping heaven and earth apart. Stone and soil peeled off the ground, the world drowning in sand and debris.
Eren retreated swiftly—but the tornado chased him like a vengeful spirit.
Seeing no way out, he suddenly veered sideways and charged deeper into the estate.
He darted between buildings like a shadow—every structure he passed was swallowed by the raging storm.
"Not good!" Vortigern's expression shifted.
But it was too late.
Pavilions, towers, ancestral halls—everything turned to dust. In seconds, the once-grand Vale courtyard became a wasteland of rubble.
"You damned brat! Come out!" Vortigern roared, beard bristling. He didn't dare unleash the tornado any further.
"Ancestor! Forget the houses—we can rebuild! But if we let him run, we'll never sleep again!" Damien screeched.
Enraged, Vortigern pushed the winds again.
Under Eren's subtle guidance, the roaring gale tore through the rest of the estate, reducing every last structure into ashes and ruins.
"The mighty Vale Ancestor, destroying his own home with his own hands. Quite the talent," Eren's taunting voice rang out like thunder.
Realizing he'd been toyed with, Vortigern's fury exploded.
"Cataclysmic Wind Calamity!"
The sky darkened.
A storm of pure annihilation swallowed Eren whole. His protective aura shattered instantly, pain ripping through him like thousands of blades.
But instead of fear, Eren felt... excitement.
This violent wind energy—
Exactly what he needed.
The Obsidian Sigil flared to life.
It devoured the storm's core like a starving beast.
Vortigern's face drained of color. His energy sputtered wildly.
"My power—why isn't it responding?!"
Damien, completely oblivious, stared at the massive black cyclone and burst into wild laughter.
"Eren must be shredded by now!"
"Damien," a cold voice echoed from within the storm, "aren't you celebrating a little early, you useless eunuch?"
Damien's smile froze.
The storm dispersed.
Eren stood there—unmovable, undamaged—holding a small, swirling tornado in his palm like a toy.
"You... you absorbed the Wind Calamity?!" Vortigern's voice broke.
"Not just that."
Eren thrust both hands forward.
Wind, fire, and lightning intertwined into a roaring, three-colored torrent that erased everything in front of it.
Faces pale, Vortigern grabbed Damien and fled a full hundred meters before daring to stop.
Clutching his thundering heart, Vortigern muttered in disbelief:
"Just... what is that boy?"
---
— The Debt Paid in Blood —
"Heaven may forgive its mistakes... but mortals must pay for the sins they forge with their own hands."
Eren stood amid the scorched wasteland that had once been the Vale estate. His voice was cold, polished like a blade drawn in winter.
"This is the retribution your clan earned."
A thunderous boom tore through the ruins—Eren's fist crashed into Vortigern's hastily gathered aura, shattering it like brittle glass.
The Sovereign was hurled through the air and slammed into a pile of broken stone.
"Impossible... how..."
Blood gushed from Vortigern's lips. His vitality drained like water from a cracked jug.
"A Sovereign... brought low like this..."
His disbelief never found an ending. The light in his eyes dimmed, leaving only frozen fury behind.
"Ancestor!" Damien scrambled to the corpse, shaking it with trembling hands. "Don't die! You can't die—what about me?!"
"Afraid now?"
Eren's voice drifted in from behind him—quiet, cold, and absolute.
"Did you ever feel fear when you tormented Seraphine?"
A suffocating chill swallowed Damien whole. He spun around and collapsed, slamming his forehead into the ground again and again.
"Spare me! Please—spare me! It was Kurobane! He's the one who covets Seraphine's constitution! He ordered everything! If you want revenge, go after him—he is the mastermind!"
"Kurobane?"
A faint gleam passed through Eren's eyes.
"Where is he?"
"In... in the underground chamber! I'll take you—" Damien froze as his eyes darted around.
The entire Vale estate was nothing but a crater of rubble.
"There... there's no chamber left..."
"Describe him."
"H-He's always covered in mist... you can't see his face. Black robes... and his hair—white, past his waist..."
Eren nodded.
"Good. I'll find him myself."
He raised his hand.
"And as for you... your debt ends here."
The Grand Curse descended like an invisible storm.
Damien's screams tore through the sky for half an hour—raw, ragged, eaten alive by agony no mortal should endure. When his final cry broke, silence reclaimed the ruins.
Eren turned away without a backward glance and walked off, his silhouette swallowed by dust and fading sunlight.
---
Time passed.
A lone figure stumbled into the devastated grounds—William, having escaped disaster by pure luck.
His legs gave out beneath him as his eyes fixed on the monstrous crater.
"Gone... everything... gone..."
He fell to his knees, hollow and shaking.
Then, a spark of madness lit his gaze. His fists clenched until blood seeped between his fingers.
"Kurobane... yes... Kurobane!"
His voice cracked into a hysterical whisper.
"I'll find him... I must find him! Even if it costs my life—I'll make Eren pay!"
"The Vale bloodline will not end here...!
I swear it!"