Len looked up at the changing sky and comfortably sat up, supporting himself with his hands on the ground. His voice was calm as the evening set in:
"You're right."
Saying this, he took a deep breath, stood up from the ground, and stretched slightly. A bit of sleepiness was still lingering in his movement:
"Maybe we slept for a bit too long."
After taking a few steps forward, she glanced back over her shoulder. Looking at Len's face and his heavy eyes, the post-sleep lethargy was completely visible on him. Keeping a steady pace, she asked in a soft voice:
"Are you still feeling way too bad about what happened with her?"
The moment those words left her lips, a brilliant and dazzling light scattered all around her, just as it always did whenever she transformed.
In the center of that radiant glow, her human form began to gently dissolve, and within a split second, she shifted herself into a beautiful, tiny little butterfly, fluttering softly through the air.
Len walked right behind the small, hovering butterfly. As he followed, he looked down at his shirt and noticed some dry grass and dust stuck to it. Brushing them off with his hand, he said:
"Maybe not. I admit I over-reacted a bit back then... but honestly, the whole thing wasn't entirely my fault either."
Len released a long, heavy breath into the evening air while maintaining his steady pace. His right hand instinctively rose, his fingertips lightly tracing the contours of his own cheek.
The moment his skin registered the touch, the memory of the day's premiere hours flashed vividly across his mind—a timeline when the raw, newborn solar rays had just pierced through the window glass, scattering over the chamber floor.
He remembered being inside those walls with Queen Astriya amidst that fresh morning illumination, and how, without a single warning, a hand had cut through the air, delivering a sharp slap across his face.
Immediately following that bitter strike, he had walked straight out of the room, yet his intellect remained entirely perplexed, unable to decode the event.
His boots kept moving forward over the ground, but the tangled threads of thought inside his head refused to quiet down. Narrowing his gaze, Len silently questioned the anomaly of that fraction.
It wasn't as if he had addressed the Queen in that particular cadence for the absolute premiere time today under that waking sun; they had encountered each other in this exact manner multiple times before.
Then what had suddenly shifted across those early hours of the day? Exactly what logic had driven her to execute that sudden slap without a word?
Glancing slightly toward the tiny being hovering near him as he walked, the internal friction inside his system intensified. His intellect firmly rejected the notion that the accountability rested on his shoulders.
After all, when the morning's fresh light had enveloped the horizon, his independent steps had navigated toward her coordinates with the exclusive intention of offering an apology.
The friction, the forced escalation, and the initial confrontation within that room had been entirely initiated by Astriya herself. Why then was his system subjected to the impact of her rage?
The exact fraction Len decelerated his steps to close the distance toward Liyana, the tiny, beautiful butterfly hovering through the air descended smoothly. With one final, gentle flutter of her wings, she anchored herself effortlessly over his broad shoulder.
Their advancing steps navigated straight toward the majestic main gateway of the empire.
At the outermost boundary of this vampire Queen's realm, two immensely tall and beautifully carved pillars stood ground, framing a colossal, elegant gate forged from a blend of iron and silver.
The surface of this grand gate was intricately etched with maps of the night sky and stellar constellations, projecting the regal and prosperous elegance of this flourishing vampire kingdom.
The sentries stationed at the perimeter immediately intercepted Len's commanding presence and the distinct imperial emblem catching the light on his attire. A look of absolute discipline and respect rewrote their features instantly.
Since a vampire's physical form is inherently gifted with immense, unmatched strength, the guards did not require any gears or machinery;
using exclusively their bare hands, they smoothly and effortlessly pushed the heavy, massive iron and silver gate wide open.
With absolute silence, the grand structural barrier parted smoothly under their touch.
The moment the gate opened, a breathtakingly beautiful vista unfolded outside, where the velvety hues of dusk were settling over the lush, green landscapes.
Len extended his stride, crossing the immense threshold and stepping past the palace boundaries.
Far across the human realm, completely removed past the regal boundaries of the palace, an entirely contrasting reality was materializing amidst the urban landscape.
Within a desolate, silent alley framed by concrete structures, a sharp, lethal friction suddenly cut through the air. In a single fraction of a second, a pointed metallic weapon sliced forward with absolute velocity, piercing directly through the chest of a vampire.
Absorbing the fatal strike, the vampire's imposing framework lost its equilibrium entirely, collapsing heavily onto the concrete earth below. A dense cloud of dust erupted across the perimeter upon the impact.
This specific coordinate had once registered as a flourishing, vibrant sector of the city, but the soaring architecture now lay thoroughly decimated.
The scattered debris and fractured walls delivered an absolute definition of a landscape reduced to an abandoned, haunting ruin by a wave of destruction.
Zero signs of its historical prosperity remained—exclusively silence and devastation guarded the spot.
Amidst the faint sound of crimson droplets meeting the dust, a heavy, resonant cadence fractured the silence of the perimeter. The vocabulary infused a distinct layer of frustration and rigid authority through the space:
"Luka... exactly why does your system refuse to monitor my instructions?"
A distinct silhouette materialized through the dense cloud of dust.
The breadth of his chest, the alignment of his shoulders, and the absolute agility of his movement delivered the clear definition of an entity who had just crossed into the threshold of early manhood, where youth interfaces with maximum physical vitality.
His deep cadence preserved that exact frequency of newborn strength and sharp focus.
Advancing his steps toward the frame positioned directly ahead, he closed the distance and infused a transparent layer of reprimand through his vocabulary:
"If your system intended to initiate a strike, a preliminary signal should have been delivered to my coordinates first. Exactly what advantage is calculated by executing such an isolated leap directly into the friction?"
Luka, whose spine had remained oriented toward the desolate path until this fraction, concealing his features entirely, executed a slow pivot to face the speaker.
Regardless of the high tension scoring the perimeter, an immensely relaxed, carefree curve surfaced across his lips. Softening his gaze with teenage innocence, his simple cadence split the space:
"Alright, accept my apologies! But if I hadn't rushed forward at that exact moment to strike that vampire, he would have ended up hurting that tiny little kid really badly!"