Twilight fell over the walls of the Duchy. The sky still held glowing fractures, reflecting the battle that had shattered everything around them. Lusian walked with heavy steps through the gardens surrounding his mother's tomb. His gaze was fixed on the distance, lost between memories and unspoken vows.
Elizabeth appeared in silence, moving softly along the stone corridor. Her eyes—so used to seeing Lusian as an unbreakable pillar—faltered the moment she found him like this: bent beneath grief, the shadow of exhaustion clinging to his skin.
"Lusian…" her voice trembled faintly. "I've been looking for you all over the castle."
He lifted his gaze.
And in that instant, a new fear awakened in his chest.
Elizabeth.
The only one he had left.The only one he could not bear to lose.
Fragments of his other life resurfaced in his mind.He remembered the demonic cult.He remembered the Demon Queen and the perfect body they had sought as a vessel.
The thought of seeing Elizabeth trapped… possessed… destroyed from within…
Made him tremble.And burn with fury.
"Elizabeth…" His voice came out rough, broken, heavy with a fear he did not know how to express. "I don't know what I would do if… if I lost you."
She frowned softly, not understanding the depth of his anguish, and gently took his hand.
"Lose me?" she whispered. "Lusian, my love… nothing will happen. Everything is fine."
But it wasn't.
Nothing was fine.
Lusian closed his eyes, and his breathing became a restrained murmur. His mother was gone—ripped from the world in the cruelest way imaginable.
And now Elizabeth…?
Would she be taken too?
No.
Not again.
Not while he could still breathe.
His muscles tightened, a dark current surging through his chest. He pulled her into a tight embrace, almost desperate.
As his face rested against her neck, a vow burned through his mind.
If anyone… anyone tries to touch you… if they hurt you… I will erase them.
Every damned member of that cult… every one of those monsters… nothing will remain.
I will not allow anyone—no one—to touch you, Elizabeth.
His voice finally escaped him, trembling not with fear but with pure determination, sharp as newly forged steel.
"I won't let anything happen to you."
Elizabeth did not fully understand the weight those words carried, but she rested her forehead against his, gentle and trusting, as if trying to hold him together from within.
"Lusian… whatever happens, I'm with you. No one can take me away."
He looked at her.
And in her eyes, he saw something that anchored him to the world.
Something he could never allow to be taken from him.
In that moment, his heart sealed a vow as clear as the edge of his sword:
To protect her.
Or die destroying anyone who dared harm her.
Her calmness soothed his outward expression, but deep within him something vast and dark continued to grow. A deep fire, a boundless hatred for those who had pushed him into this abyss… and for those who might try to do it again.
"I will always come back to you," she murmured with a smile, unaware of how heavy that always truly was.
Lusian held her tighter against his chest, silently sealing something far greater than a promise.
He would never allow the demonic cult—or the gods themselves—to touch her.
Never.
And that decision carved itself into his soul, stronger than any fear.Stronger than any destiny.Stronger than death itself.
That night, the moon witnessed something no god dared to observe: the birth of the scourge of the cults.