Victoria and Damian stood facing one another across a modest stretch of ruined earth. The fallen princess's face remained devoid of emotion, wrapped in serene indifference, while the Patriarch regarded her with fervent curiosity.
"Do we know each other?" he asked, his gaze fixed upon her.
She did not answer. It was as though his words had been cast against stone.
Realising conversation would yield nothing, Damian chose another approach. He would discern the nature of the strange being standing before him with his own eyes.
From within his cloak, he drew a monocle of exquisite craftsmanship, its silver frame etched with intricate runic markings. Victoria did not react. She sensed no hostility from the gesture, nor any reason to concern herself with it.
Damian placed the lens over his right eye and studied her carefully, examining the three layers of her existence with meticulous precision.
And what he saw was beyond even his expectations.
"If I had not witnessed it myself, I would never have believed it," he said, thoroughly impressed. "Though still incomplete, your soul and that of the goddess are merging. In time, the two of you shall become one."
He paused briefly, his smile widening.
"I could ask how such a thing came to pass, but that would be pointless. In this world, only results hold value. The process matters solely to idealists."
A laugh escaped him, born from the exhilaration of discovery. It echoed through the silent forest before gradually fading into a satisfied sigh.
"For twenty years, I have stained my hands in pursuit of the goddess' power… and you achieved in a single night what I could not. Truly, I was right about you. Your potential is extraordinary."
Damian exhaled quietly and lowered himself onto a broken tree trunk, drawing a pipe from within his cloak before lighting it with practised ease.
Smoke curled upward as he breathed out slowly, some of the tension finally leaving his posture. The stem rested between his teeth while his gaze wandered across the battered forest with patient calm.
He took another measured draw and allowed the silence to settle around them.
"You have my gratitude, Victoria Ave Strassfey," Damian confessed calmly, exhaling a thin trail of smoke into the cold air.
Something stirred faintly within the fallen princess.
"I do not recall giving you my full name," she said, her attention sharpening upon him. "What is the meaning of this?"
"This," Damian replied, gesturing toward the monocle resting upon his eye, "is a replica of the Eyes of Horus. Far inferior to the original, naturally, yet still quite useful. Soul states, mana reserves, physical conditions, age… even names. When supplied with sufficient mana, it reveals them all."
Such knowledge would have fascinated most sorcerers.
Victoria, however, could not have cared less.
Perhaps because the explanation came from him.
"Why this masquerade?" she asked coldly.
"What do you mean?" Damian turned toward her, his expression urging further clarification.
"Why orchestrate all this?" she continued. "Why toy with our lives?"
"For the greater good," he answered without hesitation. "What else could it possibly be?"
Victoria's gaze darkened.
"I am among the few born under the weight of their own kind," Damian said, resting a hand upon his chest. "People speak of the world as though it were made only of light. Yet darkness is just as necessary."
Smoke drifted from his lips as he spoke.
"Men like me are the ones who make the difficult choices—the choices that truly shape history. Yet we are condemned for the methods we employ. What the masses fail to understand, out of fear and weakness, is that no world has ever been built without blood beneath its foundations."
He paused briefly, refilling his pipe with fresh tobacco.
The ember flared once more as he lit it again, continuing while smoke curled lazily through the ruined forest air.
"After her defeat, the goddess descended into madness," Damian continued. "Though she could no longer save this world, she remained a divine existence of immeasurable power. Yet weakened as she was, restoration became necessary."
Smoke drifted from his lips as his gaze wandered toward the dark canopy overhead.
"That was how the Ritual of Affliction came to be. For years, I nourished her in secret, preparing the moment when I would finally subjugate her and reshape Utopia after the fall of the Triad."
"And all of this… without her knowledge."
"Do human lives hold no value to you?" Victoria asked, disdain evident in her voice.
"It depends."
Damian caught a dead leaf drifting through the night air and turned it between his fingers.
"In a world ruled by magic, the ungifted are anomalies. Flaws within the natural order. This is not an assumption—it is reality. Even they understand it."
He released the leaf and watched the wind carry it away.
"They despise their limitations. That is why they seek me out, begging for power. Yet the gift they desire demands sacrifices that violate the balance of the world and threaten those born with true magic. What I offered them… was mercy."
"What mercy?" Victoria asked, tilting her head slightly.
"They were never meant to wield magic. Not in this life, nor the next. Many are already persecuted simply for existing." His voice remained calm, almost passionate in its conviction. "To offer them to the goddess was to grant their deaths meaning. Better to perish with purpose than to spend a lifetime drowning in humiliation and suffering."
He lifted his gaze toward the full moon hanging above the forest.
"Through sacrifice, they become useful to the world that rejected them."
A brief silence followed before Damian rose from the broken trunk.
"I seek to create a Utopia without the ungifted," he declared. "A realm where magic flourishes without impurity. A perfect world under my guidance—one that shall never again fall to invasion."
Then he extended a hand toward Victoria.
"Join me. With the goddess's power dwelling within you, we could reshape this world as we please."
"Together, we would become unstoppable." A faint smile formed upon his lips.
Victoria exhaled softly, then drove her sword into the earth before beginning to stretch her limbs with calm composure.
Damian was no fool.
Actions spoke louder than words, and without her uttering a single word, he already understood her decision.
"It would be unfortunate to refuse such an offer," he said casually. "With or without you, my plan shall come to fruition. I merely offered you the chance to stand among the victors… and survive."
"Are those your final words?" the fallen princess asked, still stretching, utterly unbothered by his threats.
"At the very least, I tried…" Damian muttered.
He took one final draw from his pipe, exhaled slowly, then extinguished the ember.
Victoria, meanwhile, ceased her stretching and pulled her sword free from the ground, her body settling into readiness. The Patriarch wasted no time.
"Underworld Fair."
The chant left his lips like a curse.
Crimson mana erupted from his body, spreading through the ruined forest in violent waves.
In answer to his call, the earth trembled.
Countless corpses clawed their way out from beneath the soil—humans, beasts, and creatures long stripped of proper form. Each bore weapons of war, whether forged by hand or gifted by nature itself through fang, claw, and bone.
Yet Victoria remained unimpressed.
She stood before the advancing army without the slightest hint of fear, gazing upon the dead with cold disdain, as though they were beneath even insects.
Their master included.
Such arrogance soured Damian's expression.
"I will not underestimate you," the Patriarch declared darkly. "You bear the goddess' power. That alone makes you dangerous. But I am not like my subordinates. Once I capture you, you will beg me to sto—"
"Hey."
Victoria cut him off, her glare sharpening.
"Are you a man or a parrot? Stop babbling and bring it on."
Silence fell for a brief instant.
When was the last time someone had dared address him in such a manner?
Even Damian himself could no longer remember.
Not because the memory had faded, but because he had spent years burying the miserable wretch he once was.
Yet her words tore through that illusion.
Fragments of the past resurfaced against his will—days of hunger, filth, mockery, and helplessness. The years he had wandered like a vagabond, with poverty and humiliation as his only companions.
Victoria's insult scraped against the deepest corners of his ego, peeling away the serene mask he so proudly wore.
And beneath it remained the same man he had always been—
A slave to rage and violence.
"Do not mistake yourself for something special!" Damian barked, fury boiling through his voice as he pointed at her. "You were merely chosen by the goddess!"
The calm composure he once wore had all but crumbled.
"Do as you please with her," he roared toward the undead horde. "I only require her alive—even in pieces! The goddess' power is all that matters! Attack!"
At his command, the dead surged toward Victoria from every direction, swallowing the battlefield in a tide of rotting flesh and rusted steel. Their numbers closed every path of escape, leaving no room to evade.
And yet—
For a fleeting instant, brief as the blink of an eye, a narrow opening formed amidst the horde.
Their gazes met.
What Damian found within Victoria's eyes was not fear nor hesitation.
It was the bloodlust of a predator staring down prey too foolish to recognise its fate.
Eighty-two.
That was the number of enemies the fallen princess had already counted with a single sweep of her sharpened gaze.
The muscles in her arm tightened. Veins surfaced beneath her skin as her grip around the sword hardened with terrifying authority.
Then the atmosphere changed.
Damian felt it immediately.
"What… is this?" he thought, sweat beginning to stream down his face. Goosebumps crawled across his skin as the air itself trembled around her.
And then she moved.
With speed and violence befitting a calamity, Victoria tore through the undead legion as though it were nothing more than brittle straw before a storm.
Not a single corpse escaped her blade—
Limbs, heads, shattered torsos, blood and decay scattering through the night air in a grotesque spectacle that was both horrifying and strangely beautiful.
Damian froze.
Not from shock alone— But from sheer admiration.
By the time his senses returned, the remains of his servants had not even finished collapsing to the ground.
There she stood. Right before him, at point-blank range.
Victoria swung her blade with lethal precision. Instinct alone saved Damian's life.
He hurled himself backwards at the final moment, narrowly escaping death. Yet the sword still claimed its due.
Three of his fingers spun through the air alongside the falling remains of his undead army, blood spilling across the ruined earth beneath the moonlight.
Focusing mana into the mangled remains of his hand, Damian sealed the bleeding almost instantly.
"By the looks of it, their souls are merging far faster than expected," he thought, a twisted smile creeping across his face as he licked the remaining blood from his fingers. "Could they truly be compatible? And this is only the beginning… how fascinating. Let us see what else you hide within you."
Before him, Victoria swung her blade once, the blood upon it scattering across the ruined earth as she advanced with an overwhelming aura.
"We are the only two souls upon this stage," Damian called out calmly. "There is no need for haste. Should we not take the time to understand one another?"
His smile turned increasingly sinister.
The severed remains scattered behind Victoria suddenly stirred.
Limbs twitched. Heads rolled upright. Torsos convulsed.
Then, from every severed fragment, new bodies began to form.
The undead multiplied grotesquely until their numbers swelled to two hundred and forty-six—nearly triple what they had been before.
Yet the fallen princess showed no concern.
To her, it was nothing more than a shadow cast upon a wall. A cheap illusion of numbers.
"They are merely puppets," she thought. "Cut down the puppeteer, and the corpses lose meaning."
Without hesitation, she dashed toward Damian.
But the Patriarch had already foreseen her intention.
A torrent of undead hurled themselves before her, forming a living barricade of rotting flesh and rusted weapons.
"You cannot simply strike the king, young woman," Damian mocked from beyond the horde. "There are rules to everything!"
Mana exploded through Victoria's muscles.
With monstrous force, she tore through the wall of corpses, shattering bodies apart and hurling undead into the trees like discarded refuse.
Yet when she broke through, Damian was gone.
Only his faint laughter lingered within the wind, mocking her from the darkness.
Behind her, the dead rose once more.
Broken bones reformed. Severed limbs stitched themselves together. One by one, the corpses staggered back to their feet and encircled her again.
Such was the nature of their existence.
So long as their master endured, they too would continue rising without end.
Victoria remained perfectly still amidst the tightening circle.
Calm. Focused.
She slowly closed her eyes and surrendered herself to her senses.
Ever since her awakening, they had changed. The world no longer moved beyond her perception. She could feel every disturbance in the air, every vibration beneath the soil, every subtle movement within the forest around her.
The undead meant nothing to her. Damian alone was the prey she sought.
And soon, she found him.
Three hundred meters behind her. Southward.
Victoria did not hesitate. She resumed the hunt.
The undead horde rushed after her at once, throwing themselves into her path to prevent her from reaching their king.
Again and again, she clashed against them.
Yet no matter how violently she cut them down, the dead continued to rise. Severed limbs birthed new forms, shattered torsos stitched themselves together, and with every exchange, their numbers only increased.
Victoria soon noticed something else. Damian never remained still.
The Patriarch continuously repositioned himself through the forest, always maintaining a calculated distance while his lifeless servants fought in his stead.
"He's trying to wear me down," she realised.
The fallen princess abruptly halted her advance and withdrew from the clash, settling within an opening amidst the rotting forest.
Then—Mana erupted from her body.
Her entire form became engulfed in overwhelming power, the aura around her sword growing so dense that even the surrounding air seemed to distort beneath it.
Her strategy was simple. Lock onto Damian's position.
Break through everything standing between them. Kill him in a single strike.
Unfortunately for her, the plan was so straightforward that Damian understood it immediately the moment he sensed her mana gathering.
With a snap of his fingers, he cast another spell.
"Dead Hearts Devourer—Rotting Duke, Akban."
The hundreds of undead surrounding Victoria suddenly convulsed and rushed toward one another, their flesh merging into a single grotesque mass.
Bones twisted. Limbs fused.
Countless eyes opened across swollen flesh.
Before her rose an abominable giant standing nearly twelve feet tall, its monstrous body covered in writhing arms and distorted faces. The mana pouring from it was nauseatingly sinister.
Akban roared, its foul breath spilling through the forest like poison upon the wind.
Victoria, however, remained calm.
Reducing the endless horde to a single target suited her just fine, even if the creature's strength had increased dramatically in exchange.
Damian, however, had no intention of allowing her to complete her charge.
Akban attacked first.
The monstrous duke hurled a devastating punch toward her, the sheer atmospheric pressure behind the blow tearing through the forest like a storm unleashed.
Powerful. But slow.
Victoria evaded effortlessly.
Akban's fist crashed into the earth with catastrophic force, shattering the ground beneath it.
And in that opening, Victoria retaliated.
Her blade flashed once through the darkness.
A lethal slash cleaved straight through Akban's enormous body, splitting the creature cleanly in half as though it were made of softened wax.
The strike had been so effortless that she had not even needed to release the full extent of her concentrated mana.
"That was easy," she thought, disappointment flickering through her gaze.
It was not that Akban had been weak.
Rather, Victoria herself was simply far too strong in comparison.
Yet Damian had not played his final hand.
Before Akban's severed body could collapse, a thick liquid suddenly burst from the creature's wounds, splashing across Victoria.
For the first time since the battle began, she showed faint surprise.
She had cut down countless undead already, yet none had possessed blood—only dry, lifeless flesh. But this…This was different.
A purple fluid clung to her body, releasing a strange vapour into the night air.
Moments later, her vision blurred. Her limbs grew heavy.
A crushing drowsiness spread through her body, forcing her down onto one knee.
"What… is happening to me?" she thought as dizziness overtook her senses.
Seeing her weakened at last, Damian finally emerged from hiding.
"This is a soporific concoction potent enough to put even a dragon into slumber," he declared proudly. "When it comes to magic, you are scarcely a day old. Divine essence may dwell within you, but power alone is meaningless without mastery." He smiled coldly.
"You are nothing compared to me."
Then he brought his palms together into the Anjali mudra.
"Gate of Tartarus. Fading Labyrinths. Underworld Ring."
At the sound of his incantation, a vast magic circle ignited beneath Victoria, ancient runes spiralling outward across the forest floor while she remained trapped at its centre.
Her body slowly rose into the air as sleep steadily devoured her consciousness.
Damian had not hidden himself out of fear.
He had been preparing for victory.
While Victoria remained occupied with the undead, he had secretly inscribed the spell circle throughout the battlefield, constructing the perfect snare without ever engaging her directly.
From within the glowing formation, strange flesh-like tissues began emerging. They writhed unnaturally across her body, wrapping around her layer by layer until a massive cocoon suspended itself above the ground.
"Perfect… sleep," Damian whispered in delight. "Sleep deeply. In three days, your power shall belong to me."
Relaxing atop the remaining half of Akban's corpse, he admired the fruit of his efforts with satisfied eyes.
He could already picture it—Himself seated upon the throne of a reborn Utopia.
The mere thought drew a smile across his lips.
But as the old saying goes—Good things never last forever.
And in that moment, the saying revealed itself as an undeniable truth.
The cocoon suddenly began to swell.
Damian's smile vanished instantly.
He leapt away from it at once, alarm flashing across his face.
"What is the meaning of this?" he muttered in confusion.
The answer Damian received did not come in words—But in power.
The cocoon exploded apart.
A violent torrent of mana burst across the forest, crushing the surrounding space beneath its overwhelming presence as the fallen princess descended slowly from within, her entire body engulfed in dark radiance.
"Wait… the potion failed?" Damian whispered in utter disbelief.
Victoria landed soundlessly upon the ruined earth while the excess mana surrounding her faded like dying embers drifting through the night.
"So that potion of yours was meant to put me to sleep?" she asked coldly.
Her gaze settled upon him.
"Pathetic."
Damian stood frozen, his carefully woven plans crumbling before his eyes. Frustration and confusion surged through him all at once.
"Without the potion to immobilise her, the subjugation ritual is worthless," he thought rapidly. "And I have already exhausted most of my mana maintaining the Ritual of Affliction, controlling the undead, and activating the spell itself."
Cold sweat rolled down his face.
"I cannot even flee. She would catch me instantly… she is far faster than I am."
For the first time since the battle began, true panic crept into his mind.
"This is bad… what do I do?"
Then pride answered him.
"What am I thinking?" he snapped inwardly. "I am Damian Rannickvol—one of the Six Patriarchs of the Agape Cult! I will not fall before some wretched girl who awakened magic only today!"
His trembling ceased.
"I am better than this."
With renewed resolve, Damian summoned a sword into his grasp and settled into a battle stance.
Victoria watched him silently for a moment. Then she accepted his challenge.
"As you wish." Her voice was cold as she lowered herself into a deadly stance of her own.
The two sorcerers stood locked in silence, studying one another with measured intent.
This was the decisive moment.
One misstep would not lead to simple defeat—it would lead to death. A truth they both understood without needing to speak it aloud.
The wind swept through the ruined forest, carrying with it the stench of blood and decay. The woods had long since become a graveyard, where even time seemed reluctant to linger. Somewhere in the distance, a raven struggled weakly, its cries fading as life slowly left its body—an unwitting witness to their confrontation.
Then, at last, silence settled.
The raven's final breath sealed it completely.
With that final trace of life extinguished, silence became absolute.
And within that absolute stillness—the battle began.
Damian moved first.
Wary of Victoria's speed, he surged forward without hesitation, pouring the last reserves of his mana into his blade. He spun as he advanced, turning his body into a storm of rotational force.
Victoria answered immediately.
She mirrored his movement—but in reverse.
Left-handed, she inverted the rotation, her motion countering his like a reflection turned against its origin.
The air screamed between them.
Their movements tore at the wind, compressing it into a violent spiral that briefly resembled a forming tornado.
And then they collided.
The impact shattered the ground beneath them, sending shockwaves rippling through the forest. Yet neither momentum broke.
Steel met steel, and the force rebounded through both bodies.
For an instant, they passed one another—and struck back-to-back.
A sickening crack echoed through the clearing.
Damian's spine snapped under the recoil.
Yet he did not fall.
He bit down on the pain, teeth stained with blood, and forced out a ragged war cry as he twisted back toward her.
With desperate resolve, he unleashed a final slash.
But Victoria had already seen it.
Too slow.
She shifted aside with lethal precision.
And in that opening—she struck.
The world seemed to invert in Damian's vision, sky and earth exchanging places in a violent blur.
But it was not the world that had turned.
It was his head.
It struck the ground a heartbeat later, blood scattering across the rotting earth and staining Victoria's face and chest.
Silence returned to the forest.
With Damian's death, the subterranean caverns he had painstakingly carved and sustained through sorcery began to collapse upon themselves.
Deprived of the will that had held their structure in place, the intricate lattice of magic that reinforced the underground chambers unravelled at once.
Stone lost its unnatural stability. Tunnels crumbled. Hollow passages gave way in chains of destruction that spread through the depths like a dying breath.
Above the surface, the land itself reacted.
The ground shook violently as the vast cave system beneath it imploded, sending a catastrophic earthquake rippling across the region—splitting soil, toppling ruins, and reverberating through the rotting forest in a final echo of Damian's fall.