Dietrich laughed, reveling in the newfound power filling him. It surpassed all his expectations, granting him a strength unlike anything he had ever experienced before. After years of endurance, he had finally proven himself to the world. His long pursuit had been justified all along.

Infinite regeneration. Immortality without end.

At last, he had succeeded in making humanity equal to God.

“You should count yourself lucky. You’ve entered heaven early.”

Dietrich turned his gaze. Behind him stood Eve, staring vacantly. The mind-controlling spell that he had once cast on young Luise seemed to work just as easily on her daughter. In fact, her youth made her even easier to control.

“The fact that black magic can be inherited… that’s a remarkable discovery. Immortality passed on to the next generation. But that poses a problem, doesn’t it? If you keep having children like this, the world will be so crowded with immortals that there won’t be any room left for mortals.”

He murmured this as he walked through the rain.

When he first discovered this great secret, he intended to share it with everyone and gift the world with immortality and happiness. However, upon reflection, he realized how foolish that would be. If everyone became immortal, the world would be overcrowded. Even worse, eternity itself would lose its meaning.

Immortality was beautiful precisely because everything else perished.

“No… there must be criteria. A standard of selection.”

Now that he had seized such overwhelming power, he understood. Bestowing it upon everyone would be foolish. Only the chosen and the worthy should be permitted to ascend to the realm of eternity. He would establish this standard through careful study and rigorous thought.

Dietrich believed that it was a stroke of cosmic fortune that this power had fallen into his hands. Had it been granted to someone base and worldly, driven by greed rather than pure devotion to inquiry, the result would have been monstrous. A tyrant with such power would rule with selfish cruelty.

“Perhaps it was providence. Perhaps God Himself arranged it so that I alone might know the truth of this world.”

His mission was to save the world with eternity.

Dietrich laughed aloud at the weight of his sacred calling. It felt as though the entire order of the world had been remade around him.

A chill ran through his rain-soaked body as the cold autumn wind brushed past. The scent of wet earth and grass filled the moist, heavy air on the lonely path.

Even these simple sensations felt new.

He folded his arms to shield himself from the chill in the air and hugged himself to keep warm. A prudent and clever researcher must observe everything carefully.

“Immortality doesn’t mean you stop feeling the cold. If only pain could be erased as well, then perfection would be complete.”

Dietrich muttered, fighting off the bite of the wind. Study and progress truly had no end. Even after attaining immortality, it was astonishing that there were still new things he longed to discover and achieve.

“But I can take my time. I have all the time I need.”

Through continued refinement of his research, he would one day learn to create a being that felt no pain.

He soon came upon a watchtower overlooking the expanse of Faradel. It had been left untended for years and stood in the rain like a weathered grey tombstone.

Glancing up at its crumbling peak, he broke off a rain-soaked branch. Water scattered at the break, cascading like a sudden downpour.

He sat Eve on the steps of the tower and began to draw a huge sigil in the mud around its base.

“There are plenty of dead here. A decade ago, I buried Faradel’s sacrifices beneath this very ground.”

Now, at last, it was time to bring new life to those who had died for his great work. They had been buried without graves or rites, but this injustice would soon be rectified.

Using a broken branch, he traced an enormous figure in the wet soil. Then he returned to Eve, who sat with a vacant gaze.

“Your mother never knew much about black magic—not about spells or rites. She never used things like this.”

Dietrich smiled as he brushed his hand over Eve’s damp hair.

“But you’ll learn. You’ll have to. The language of the ancients always gives you a headache at first. But study is vital. Knowledge is power.”

Dietrich flashed a grin of white teeth as he ascended the tower’s broken stairs. Rain seeped in and mist cloaked Faradel as he climbed, draping him in a pale shroud. At the top, the wind lashed his face and cold droplets streaked down his cheeks.

When he reached the summit, a bleary world stretched out below him as if he were standing above the clouds themselves.

The great warding barrier, designed to repel heresy, shimmered faintly across the grey sky. But Dietrich smiled, for he had introduced flaws into the design a long time ago.

Minute errors in the incantation’s equations that the other priests had been too foolish to notice.

‘A shield that cannot detect true heresy, and they never even realized.’

The barrier had always been inadequate. This is why Luise and Eve could move freely within Faradel without being discovered. Now immortal, he passed through it untouched.

Everything had gone exactly as planned.

“It’s time to examine the fruits of a successful experiment. Watch closely — you must learn.”

He lifted Eve onto the crumbling railing of the tower and smiled broadly at her.

Then words spilled from his lips, harsh and indecipherable like an iron chain rattling through the air.

Dark energy flowed from his body, streaming down the tower and seeping into Faradel’s rain-drenched soil.

The ground, saturated with black energy, shuddered with a deep rumble.

Moments later, the wet earth stirred, and with a brittle crack—

A skeletal hand broke through the mud.

Grotesquely bent bones clattered and twisted as they emerged from the ground, shaking off clumps of wet earth. The skeletal figures rose, shaking off clumps of wet earth, taking on grotesque shapes as they slowly assembled into an army. Their numbers grew — first to dozens, then to hundreds and finally to thousands.

“As expected. This is different. Far stronger than the half-measures used to summon them.”

He knew many forbidden incantations, but had always needed to borrow the power of test subjects to verify them, as he lacked black magic. Now, however, he could see, feel and test them directly with his own body.

As he looked upon the resurrected dead returning from the underworld, a tear slid down Dietrich’s cheek.

Death—humanity’s eternal adversary, never once conquered. Yet now, it bent beneath his hand. The fallen of this land rose from their graves, and for the living, the promise of eternal life had been born.

It was the revelation he longed to proclaim—
To the blind church that branded black magic as heresy.
To the fools who had mocked and denied his vision.
To the mortals too feeble to revere eternity.

Dietrich turned to Eve with a radiant smile and flicked his finger. Immediately, the child standing on the stone wall of the tower leapt into the void.

With a sickening thud, her body struck the mud below, only to rise again, unharmed.

“Come. Let us show the church how the world has changed.”

🌺⟡───⟡🌺 🌺⟡───⟡🌺

Beneath the earth, the long passage stretched all the way to the edges of Faradel. Its entrance, buried in the thickets, lay hidden beneath the tangle of overgrown grass.

When they emerged into the storm and pushed against the rain seeping into the tunnels, a tide of screams split the air.

Shed turned his gaze towards the heart of Faradel, holding Luise in his arms. The ground still quivered with faint aftershocks.

Black energy spread across the sky before him like a festering stain. Rising out of the ruined watchtower in the northeast, it fanned outwards like a creeping shadow, spreading into every corner of Faradel.

Throughout this, the clash of steel could be heard — an eerie collision of blades that cracked the air like thunder. This sound jolted Shed, bringing back memories of his battle with the heretic Pamen. In the storm’s echo, recognition twisted his gut.

“Dietrich…!”

Sensing danger, Shed lay Luise down under a rocky overhang to keep her out of the rain. It was hidden in the shadows, far from the center of the commotion, where no one would find her.

“Stay here and wait.”

He pulled her jacket tighter around her frail frame, then pressed the silver dagger back into her hand. But Luise shook her head.

“I… must go, Shed.”

Her voice, torn from shallow breaths, grew clear with sudden resolve. She braced herself against the ground, trying to rise.

Yet her body, still far from healed, would not obey her will—it swayed like a reed in the wind.

“With that body, you can do nothing.”

Shed’s hands rested firmly on her small shoulders as he spoke with cold finality. Yet behind the steel of his words, his eyes held a quiet warmth. He understood the depth of her desperation—but with her body broken as it was, she could do nothing. And if she were taken hostage, the leverage would shackle him completely. For Eve’s sake as well, it was better for Luise to remain here.

Biting down on her lip, Luise lowered her gaze. The thought of Eve’s suffering flickered before her eyes, but Shed’s words struck true. Even now, standing on her own two feet was nearly impossible. She could not bear the thought of becoming a burden.

Shed met her eyes—clear now, as if rinsed clean by tears that had not yet fallen. He bent forward and pressed a gentle kiss to her blood-stained brow.

A fleeting warmth seared through her. For that brief moment, senses dulled by countless brushes with death blazed back to life. The sensation of living surged within her—and at the very heart of it was Shed himself.

At last, Luise loosened her grip on his sleeve. Slowly, her strength gave way, and through the blur of rain, Shed offered her a faint, tender smile.

“I will bring Eve back.”

He promised her, meeting the tremulous light of her pale green eyes.