“Luise…!”

He rushed over to her at once, gathering her limp body into his arms. There were countless wounds on her chest, as though she had been repeatedly stabbed. Wherever their bodies touched, his skin was stained a deep shade of crimson.

The blood had not yet clotted — proof that she had been bleeding only moments earlier. The ghastly sight made him feel nauseous.

With trembling hands, he brushed aside the blood-clotted strands of hair clinging to her cheek. A pale, colorless face was revealed. Her eyes were barely open, staring into nothingness — unfocused and vacant.

“Luise.”

Her name slipped through his choked throat, little more than a whisper.

He pressed his fingers to her neck and felt it—faint, fragile, but still there: a pulse. And against his cheek, the ghost of her breath.

Luise was not dead.

“Are you… a demon?”

“Yes, Shed.”

Her reply, an admission of guilt she had once confessed, was proven again in this moment: she did not die.

But could this truly be called living?

Those once-bright eyes of translucent green were now clouded like those of the dead. Her soul had already been shattered into pieces.

She was trapped somewhere between life and death—bearing the weight of both. To live endlessly, to die endlessly.

Shed clenched his jaw so tightly it felt as though it might break.

All this time, knowing nothing, he had resented her. He had blamed her. And at times, he had even deceived himself that perhaps things were fine as they were. That maybe, if he could forgive her, the long-standing wound between them might finally heal.

But what had he ever truly done for her? Nothing.

What she had been forced to endure had never once changed.

Shed Lester could alter nothing of Luise Ideana’s life.

So what arrogance, what blind conceit, had led him to believe otherwise?

To believe he could ever change the course of her life as he pleased?

He pulled the broken woman tighter into his arms.

And then—

“…”

Her slack, motionless lips stirred faintly. No sound emerged, only the slightest movement as her mouth struggled to open and close.

He etched that fragile effort into his memory, as though it were her last. Her pale lips parted widely, then pressed together weakly before parting again.

“…Eve?”

With a body too broken to give voice, she was calling for her daughter.

It was the most desperate cry of all.

“Eve… was she here?”

Luise did not answer.

No—she could not.

In silence, she traced her daughter’s name again and again, her lips forming the word without sound.

Then, very slowly, her clouded green eyes shifted.

Her gaze landed on the desk in the laboratory.

It was the strongest signal she could give with the little willpower she had left.

She gave a sharp nod and immediately turned to search the indicated desk.

Stacks of research materials were piled high across its surface.

The walls were covered with sheets covered in tangled formulas, runes and grotesque diagrams.

But one thing was unmistakable: every line had been written in Dietrich Lester’s own handwriting.

‘There must be a clue about Eve hidden here.’

But as he leafed through the documents, a chill ran down his spine.

‘All of this… are you telling me it was his research as a priest?’

The idea that it was intended to combat heresy was absurd. The depth and obsession with which it was written made it seem as though it had been written for the express purpose of practising black magic.

Among the materials, he found an old, weathered notebook.

Dietrich’s experiment journal.

Perhaps his next plan lay within it.

This thought drove Shed to open it at once.

But what he discovered inside was not the future. It was the past.

Page after page recorded the experiments carried out years ago in the House of Ideana. On the yellowed sheets, faded with time, were accounts of countless sacrifices and procedures. And among them—her name.

‘Luise Ideana.’

“Dietrich Lester… was part of this?”

For an instant, Shed recalled the words Pamen had gasped before his death.

“It can’t be. Lucifer said it himself. I was nearly perfect!”

That Lucifer—the other who had joined Felix Ideana in these experiments.

‘Was it Dietrich Lester…?’

Dietrich and Felix ran countless trials together in order to perfect Luise, committing unspeakable horrors in the name of perfection.

Shed’s hand shook violently as he turned the pages.

And then he froze.

There, on one page, was a drawing.

Not a drawing—an anatomical diagram.

Luise.

They placed the child who could not die on the table, forced her to swallow drugs and dissected her, all in an attempt to uncover the secret of her power.

How quickly did she regenerate? Which parts healed first? Under what conditions did her recovery falter?

They had cut, torn and broken a living human being. To them, it was all nothing more than objective, rational observation and study.

Luise had quite literally been the perfect, undying experiment.

“Ugh…!”

Shed gagged, unable to read further.

Words blurred in his mind alongside memories of her as a child: the pale smile of the girl who always told him she was fine in an attempt to soothe his fears. But what was really happening behind that fragile smile?

How foolish the boy had been!

What wounds had his cruel ignorance carved into her?

How had she endured it all alone?

With what heart did she look at him, at other people, at the world?

The hand clutching the journal trembled violently. Gradually, the terror subsided to be replaced by an overwhelming, consuming rage.

“Dietrich…”

The name left his teeth laced with fury.

Driven by hatred, Shed tore through the high priest’s laboratory. Finally, he found a map in the last few pages of the journal. It was a diagram of the underground area.

Fresh X-marks had been drawn on the faded parchment. Perhaps they indicated collapsed sections — places swallowed by the years.

‘If he took Eve with him…’

It was impossible to know what experiments the child might be subjected to.

Judging by Luise’s condition, the child must have been taken away recently.

‘If he is not in the temple… then he…’

Shed bent over the map, tracing the maze of tunnels with his eyes.

There was only one other exit.

As he lowered his lantern to the ground, he saw what he had feared: bloody footprints leading away from the laboratory in the opposite direction.

“… Eve.”

Then, from where she lay collapsed, Luise stirred faintly, her voice thin as a thread.

“Luise!”

“…He… took her.”

Her lips moved sluggishly. Her body would not obey her.

Perhaps this was because she had spent too much time at the brink of death.

Even her ability to regenerate had slowed.

Or maybe she had simply suffered for so long that time itself had dulled within her.

Her mind was shattered and broken beyond coherence, yet she clung to one desperate thought and one unyielding plea.

“…Save… Eve.”

Eve had to be saved. Saved from Dietrich’s hands.

That thought alone sustained her—through countless deaths, through a body torn and broken again and again. The horrifying, relentless regeneration of a demon dragged her back to life, even after a night filled with nothing but dying.

At last, a faint trace of focus flickered in her clouded eyes. Her fingers twitched, just barely, but it was enough.

Shed rushed to her side, gathering her into his arms and wrapping her in his jacket.

Then came the sound of footsteps from the passage leading to the temple—the priests, finally arriving in his wake.

‘No.’

Shed’s eyes fell on Dietrich’s records. Within them lay the proof—every shred of evidence that Luise had been reduced to an experimental subject of heresy.

His thoughts splintered into chaos.

Should he abandon the chase and burn the documents now, for her sake? Or pursue Dietrich at once, even if it meant leaving her here?

If he set this place to flame, the fire would consume her as well. And with her, the only record of Dietrich’s crimes.

To destroy the research now was unthinkable.

At that moment, Luise’s frail hand caught his sleeve.

“Eve…”

Finally, a clear will shone through her dull, emotionless eyes.

He could do nothing but obey.

Lowering him gently, she strode towards the priests at the entrance. He drew his sword.

“Lord Lester!”

The priests, weary from the long struggle with the wards, brightened with relief at the sight of him.

Shed’s grip tightened on the hilt as he looked at them.

Then—

There was a thunderous crack.

He swung his sword with brutal force against the wall leading into the laboratory. The Hongyeom blade of steel struck, sending a deafening boom rolling through the underground chamber.

“L–Lord Lester, what are you doing?”

Startled, the priests faltered, edging backward.

Again he struck, harder still.

The earth shook, the sound enough to shatter eardrums. Fissures split wide across the stone wall.

“Lord Lester!”

“Back—get back!”

Just as the entryway collapsed, sending an avalanche of rocks and earth pouring down and completely sealing off the passage, the priests’ shouts echoed through the air.

“Lord Lester!”

They cried out from the other side, but Shed stood impassively, watching the unstable tunnel.

The temple would never reach this chamber again.

He turned and ran back to Luise.

Her eyes were clearer now, widening in alarm at his recklessness.

He pulled her into his arms once more and held her tightly.

“Shed…”

Her cracked lips whispered his name.

“I’ll find Eve. You needn’t worry.”

His arms tightened around her. Her body was still cold, and he pulled her closer, fiercely protective.

With her held fast against him, he followed the paths marked on the map.

And then—

Rumble.

The cavern shuddered violently once again.

Shed instinctively shielded Luise, raising his head as dirt rained down from the ceiling.

Was this the aftershock of the collapse he had caused?

‘No… this sound is different.’

It wasn’t from below.

It was coming from above, from the surface.