Lusian arrived at the Duchy—and opened his eyes.
His world shattered.
The corpses of Lord and Magister soldiers lay scattered among heaps of rubble. Dead riders remained beside their beasts, some of which still breathed weakly.
Mountains had been split apart. Trees were torn to pieces. Dimensional cracks scarred the sky.
"No…" Lusian whispered, his voice breaking with helplessness.
Emily covered her mouth, unable to contain her horror at the devastation. A chill ran down her spine.
"Lusian…" she murmured, her eyes filled with anguish.
For the first time in his life, Lusian felt powerless. The magnitude of the battle reduced him to nothing more than an ant before the demonic maelstrom.
Thunder nudged him with his head, urging him to move. With Emily at his side, Lusian dismounted, and the moment they could, they moved away from the epicenter of the disaster.
The celestial steed channeled his unique power:
"Celestial Gallop — Lethal Discharge."
Each time Thunder ran, the air crackled around him. Everything that touched the steed—or came too close—was struck by a brutal surge of lightning. Lesser monsters and even high-level creatures convulsed violently, unable to continue their attack.
Umber, the dark wolf, unleashed his own ability. His claws sliced through the air like blades of mana. His fangs crushed flesh and bone from any enemy that dared to stand in his path.
His howl echoed through the ruins, amplifying his strength as if the very mana of the battlefield aligned with his fury.
Thunder reared with a violent neigh.Umber released a piercing howl.
Instinctively, both beasts rushed toward Sofía, who still stood at the heart of the battlefield—unbowed, defiant, a beacon of will amid the chaos.
Lusian moved forward almost desperately, tears spilling without restraint. It had been a long time since he had felt such helplessness—and such fierce determination at the same time.
Emily followed beside him. She had never seen this side of Lusian before, and it reminded her painfully of herself in her own homeland.
She knew exactly how he felt.
Toward the woman who had protected the Duchy with every fiber of her being.
At last, Thunder and Umber reached Sofía's side.
The Duchess could barely remain standing. Her armor was shredded. Her arms bled endlessly. The spear in her grasp trembled like an extension of her exhaustion.
And yet her eyes still burned with a determination that knew no surrender.
Larriet, covered in deep wounds, released a roar that shook the air itself. With a brutal swipe of his claws, he unleashed a shockwave that thundered across the ground and seemed to tear a cry from the earth.
The demon—a formless mass of darkness and void—staggered.
The space around it warped, reality twisting under the strain. Its core trembled as if the very essence of its power were about to shatter.
The three magical beasts struck as one.
Thunder descended like lightning, ripping through the air with a thunderclap that made the ground quake.
Umber lunged in a deadly leap, jaws wide and filled with dark mana that seemed to swallow the light around him.
Larriet unleashed his most powerful roar—a roar capable of shaking entire mountains, reverberating deep within the bones of the world.
The demon buckled beneath their combined force.
Its form cracked, fissures spreading across it as an unnatural light bled through the fractures—cold, piercing, alien.
And then… it exploded.
A burst of energy illuminated the darkness, making the air itself seem to burn and the ground tremble under the impact of its final release.
Larriet—already on the verge of collapse—leapt forward and placed himself between Sofía and the blast.
The impact hurled him dozens of meters away, his body tumbling through dust and blood.
The shockwave struck the Duchess.
The ground splintered beneath her.
Her body fell to one knee.
Thunder and Umber surrounded their leader, trembling, trying to protect her—even though there was little they could do now.
It was at that moment that Lusian arrived.
He ran through the smoking ruins, stumbling, unaware of the tears streaming from his eyes. Emily caught up with him, breathing hard, her face soaked with sweat and dust and ash clinging to her clothes.
When Lusian saw his mother, the world seemed to stop.
"Mother…" he whispered, his voice trembling—barely more than a thread of sound in the heavy silence.
Sofía lifted her face.
And smiled.
A gentle smile.A smile that held years of love, fear, and relief.A mother's smile.
"Lusian…"
The young man fell to his knees before her, clutching her hand desperately, as if the contact alone could hold the entire world together.
"Emily can help you… she… she can…" His voice shook so badly it nearly vanished among the rubble and smoke.
Emily rushed to his side and began channeling divine light. Her hands glowed like small suns, pouring out healing and purification magic.
But every spell that touched Sofía…
Faded.
The light unraveled in the air.Something invisible absorbed it.
Nothing remained.
"No…" Emily whispered in horror. "Her soul… her soul is damaged… something… something is consuming it from within…"
Lusian felt the air leave his lungs. His heart pounded violently, as though it might burst from his chest.
"Mother… please… don't go… please…"
Sofía raised a trembling hand.
And with a tenderness that tore his heart apart, she gently pinched his cheek—just as she had when he was a child.
"My little one… you've grown so much…" Her voice was warm, filled with love and quiet melancholy.
Lusian gripped her hand tightly, as if he could hold onto her forever.
"No… don't leave me… I can't… I can't without you…" His voice broke into a choked sob.
She looked at him with a calm that seemed to illuminate the devastation around them.
"You must go on, Lusian…" she whispered. "I can't walk beside you anymore… but you… live. Live for me… and be happy…"
Thunder lowered his head, trembling, unable to fully understand the loss.
Umber released a long, heartbreaking howl.
Emily collapsed to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably as Sofía's light faded in her arms.
The silence that followed was absolute.
A heavy void that filled every stone, every breath of air.
In the distance, Larriet tried to rise.
His golden eyes burned with fierce light, ignited by pain. He looked at his leader—the woman who had raised him—and unleashed a roar so devastating it seemed to split the sky itself.
Sofía leaned toward her son, a gesture filled with tenderness and sacrifice.
Her final farewell.
"I love you… my son…" she whispered weakly, her voice carrying all the love she had held for years.
Her hand lost its strength.
It fell slowly.
And the chest of Sofía Douglas of Mondring stopped moving.
Lusian pulled her into his arms as if he could keep her from slipping away.
At first, he did not scream.
He did not speak.
He simply broke, letting the pain consume him.
Then the cry came.
Fierce. Uncontrollable.
A scream that tore across the entire battlefield, shaking soldiers and beasts alike—so powerful that Thunder and Umber answered with anguished cries of their own.
Emily knelt beside him, covering her face with her hands, unable to stop the tears that poured endlessly.
In the distance, the Douglas army finally arrived…
Only to find their Duke kneeling in the ashes, holding the lifeless body of the woman who had protected the Duchy all her life.
And there, in the silence that followed…
Something was born within Lusian that did not belong to the original line of fate.
Something cold.
Something dark.
Something absolute.
A vow.
A war.
A new path.
And Larriet, a few meters away…
Stopped breathing as well.
His chest stilled with a final tremor.
His golden eyes—once full of fury and loyalty—dimmed slowly, like dying embers.
His life had been bound to his mistress.
And when Sofía fell…
He followed her.
The wind stopped.
Dust hung suspended in the air.
The sounds of battle faded, as though someone had cast a heavy veil over the battlefield.
The remaining monsters retreated in confusion.
Some fled.
Others simply collapsed as the demon's cursed energy vanished entirely from the mortal plane.
Dimensional rifts began to close, folding into themselves with a deep, echoing crack.
The sky slowly regained its color.
Though it seemed grayer now.
Emptier.
Thunder lowered his head.
An electric sob coursed through his body, sparks falling like liquid tears.
Umber lifted his muzzle to the sky and howled.
It was not an animal's cry.
It was a scream that carried loss, loneliness, and fury.
One that pierced the hearts of every soldier arriving on the battlefield, driving many of them to their knees.
Emily fell to the ground, her bloodied hands braced against the earth.
Her eyes were swollen with grief.
Her divine light trembled, unstable, as if it might shatter at any moment.
But Lusian…
Lusian made no sound.
He did not cry.
He did not tremble.
For several seconds, he did not even breathe.
He simply stared at the place where his mother had died.
His gaze emptied completely—like a lake losing its reflection.
The warmth that had always lived within him vanished, devoured by a silent abyss no one had known existed.
And something inside him…
Something fragile.
Something human.
Something that made him young…
Died alongside Sofía.
Thunder stepped toward him.
Umber approached slowly, silently, sensing that nothing would ever be the same again.
The army, finally assembled, halted behind Lusian.
No one spoke.
No one dared approach.
Because in that silence—within that newborn abyss—
Something was forming.
Something the world would soon come to know.
Something inevitable.