When Luise slowly settled onto the sofa opposite, Giselle drew a glass toward her and placed it in front of her.

“Have you forgotten that I’m the High Priestess?”

Giselle spoke as she poured wine into the glass.

“And haven’t you forgotten that I’m a demon?”

Luise smiled, watching the High Priestess pour wine for a heretic seated across from her.

The stream of dark, glistening wine halted for a moment—then soon resumed.

“Perhaps I should just lock you up.”

Setting the half-filled bottle down, Giselle muttered curtly.

Luise gave a small chuckle and took a sip of the wine that had been poured for her. It was bitter and strong. However, the warmth it produced spread through her body, chasing away the chill.

“Thank you—for everything.”

The words slipped softly from Luise’s lips as she set the glass down. Not to the High Priestess, but to Giselle.

Giselle narrowed her eyes, propped her chin in her hand, and lazily picked up her own glass. She downed half of it in steady gulps before setting it back down.

“I’ll be checking in on Eve from time to time.”

“Eve…?”

“Of course. She’s a child who must be watched.”

Giselle nodded loosely, chin still resting on her hand. At that, Luise’s gaze sank, and she lowered her eyes to the wine pooled in her glass.

“No one has ever held both holy power and black magic. That child might turn into a monster.”

“If Eve does become a monster, then surely it will be because someone made her so.”

“What?”

“Because monsters are not born of themselves.”

Luise’s hand brushed the small dagger at her waist.

The dagger Shed had once pressed into her hand.

Her eyes lingered on the blade steeped in history.

Once, this dagger had belonged to Felix Ideana. Her father may well have used it to torment the innocent. Thinking of the t*rture chamber where Shed had been confined… most likely, he had.

The crest of Ideana engraved upon the sheath would carry that guilt still. And yet, this blade had also played a crucial role in sealing Dietrich.

A demon’s dagger—but also a dagger used to restrain a demon.

Eve was no different to this dagger. Had she been shown warmth and care, she might have grown into a powerful guardian capable of protecting the world, rather than becoming a demon.

“…Are you talking about yourself?”

Giselle, who had been listening in silence, asked.

Luise gave a bitter smile.

“Did it sound that way…?”

“…Because I’ve read Dietrich’s journals.”

A monster is not made on its own. It is made by someone.

Those words applied to Luise as well.

She had not chosen it, yet through experimentation she had been given the fate of a demon. A person doomed to be called a monster.

“That’s not what I meant…”

Luise shook her head and took another sip of wine. The bitter taste stung the tip of her tongue.

The strange peace of conversation between the High Priestess and the heretic soon gave way to silence.

Outside, night had already fallen.

The carriage carrying Eve must by now have passed beyond the outskirts of Faradel, bound for the distant port of Hellingen.

In the silence that engulfed the world, deeper than the night itself, Luise forced herself to picture her daughter’s face again and again, terrified that she might forget what she looked like.

Then, as the two women sat gazing into the shapeless darkness, they put down their glasses simultaneously. Their eyes were drawn to the same place.

White fragments were falling through the shadows.

“…!”

Luise shot to her feet and ran to the window. When she flung it open, wind colder than usual rushed inside.

“Giselle…!”

Snow was drifting slowly down outside.

When Luise turned her head, Giselle was also rising, throwing on a white coat.

Snow falling on ground where rain would not freeze. Its meaning was unmistakable.

“Prepare the barrier.”

The master of Prunig was coming.

Giselle moved swiftly, readying herself for the dragon’s emergence.

Then Luise called out to stop her as she hastened away.

“Giselle, I want to help.”

Luise met the High Priestess’s eyes with unwavering resolve.

The great calamity was near, and she wanted to lend her strength to resist it.

But Giselle’s face hardened.

“I will not borrow the power of black magic.”

At that sharp reply, Luise was forced to face the reality she had almost forgotten.

She had forgotten in the heat of battle with Dietrich. Her power was a taboo, a sin. Even if that ability could become a mighty weapon, it was a power that must never be used.

“Don’t add to your sins with foolishness.”

Giselle gave her warning to the heretic and moved on again.

Luise was left alone before the window, where snow swept in. As always, she had to become, more than anyone, an active yet powerless bystander.

🌺⟡───⟡🌺 🌺⟡───⟡🌺

The snowflakes thickened in an instant. The heavy drone of the wind roared through the ashen sky.

A chill never before known in Ideana layered frost upon branches and windowpanes.

‘At this rate, we’ll all freeze to death before the dragon ever reaches us…!’

On the fortress wall where the cutting wind howled, Carlisle kept his body in constant motion, thinking grimly. The breath rising from his lips froze white, crystalizing upon his eyelashes.

Though provisions of winter gear and firewood had been amply prepared, the skin-splitting cold was worse than anyone had imagined.

The world was buried in white. Snow whipped so fiercely through the air it clouded vision like mist.

Then, the wind shifted.

“Everyone, prepare!”

Carlisle fixed his eyes on the sky, bleached white. There was only one reason for such a sudden change in the wind’s direction. A dragon’s wings were bending the currents.

As the ballistae and catapults were made ready, at last a vast shadow appeared above the heavens.

A darkness cast like the storm clouds of a typhoon.

Those who had never seen a dragon froze at its sheer, impossible size. And then a roar erupted, a sound so great it seemed to tear the eardrums, shaking the heavens and the earth.

Kwa-gwa-gwang!

The colossal shadow scraped violently across the barrier surrounding Faradel.

The tremendous impact sent objects tumbling from tables and shelves to the floor.

“Aaaah!”

“Kyaaah!”

Like an earthquake, the tremors drove the people in the underground shelters into paralyzing fear.

And at last, through the blizzard, a dragon gleamed into view, radiant in silver-white.

“Th-that’s Gelevan…!”

The soldiers drew in the icy air at the sight, their lungs freezing solid. The overwhelming size left them unable to move.

Its red eyes were as large as a human head, and its long fangs seemed taller than a man.

Its entire body was armored in hard, silver-white scales, and its tail stretched out long as the current of the Reche River.

From within the snowstorm, those blazing scarlet eyes swept across Faradel Castle. At the same moment, the massive wings unfurled to either side.

When the dragon spread its silver wings, Faradel was drowned in the complete darkness of its shadow.

Once it had fixed its prey, Gelevan beat its vast wings in a sudden sweep and soared high into the sky.
With a single stroke of its wings, a storm roared forth, and the colossal body pierced through the snowclouds, vanishing into the distant heights.

“High Priestess Giselle! Ready the defenses!”

Carlisle, who had faced dragons before, shouted toward Giselle, who oversaw the barrier. At the same moment, something vast plummeted from the heavens like a bolt of lightning.

Jjeong—!

With a shriek sharp as shattering metal, the dragon’s claws struck the protective barrier. With a single blow, a deep fissure split across its thick surface.

“Repair it!”

Together with the priests, Giselle swiftly restored the barrier that seemed on the verge of collapse.

Meanwhile, the soldiers loosed the bolts of their ballistae and hurled stones from their catapults. Great arrows and rocks struck the body of Gelevan, which had descended low enough to reach.

Yet the dragon’s hard scales repelled the attacks without so much as a scratch.

“Aim for the wings!”

Hedrick gave his order anew.

Arrows and stones could not pierce those scales. Only aura could breach them—and to strike with aura, they first had to bring the dragon within reach of blade or spear.

The first task, then, was to target the unarmored wings and drag the beast down to the ground.

But—

“I-it’s not hitting…!”

Gelevan’s movements were far swifter than they had imagined. That such speed could come from so massive a body was astonishing.

Worse still, the storms its wingbeats stirred sent arrows and stones tumbling uselessly to the ground. Now and then, a strike would land upon its wings, but they were far too feeble to bring the dragon crashing down.

Struggling to keep its aim, the Gelevan twisted its enormous body and swung its tail at the barrier.

Kwaang—!

Once more the earth shook, and cracks spread through the barrier.

Confirming its damage, the dragon struck again and again with its tail.

Boom, boom, boom!

“Ugh! D*mn it…!”

Giselle struggled under the tremendous shock, muttering a silent prayer as she worked to mend the barrier. For a moment, she earnestly prayed to Eclace.

‘If that bastard had only managed to bring the High Priests here on time…then I wouldn’t be breaking my back like this alone!’

Though she was sustained by the other priests, it was not enough.

Worse still, she had already expended much of her holy power in recent days with Shed’s absolution and Dietrich’s sealing. Before she had recovered from the exhaustion and its aftershocks, she was facing a dragon once more.

The knights and soldiers were no different — worn down and fighting at their limits.

‘In the end, it’s all that bastard Dietrich’s fault.’

If not for him, it wouldn’t be this unbearable.

‘And Shed Lester, that bastard too.’

Her former fiancé is never around when she needs him most.

Had he regained his aura, things would have been far easier—subduing the dragon, lifting the soldiers’ morale.

‘That bastard’s unshaken, indifferent expression always inspires confidence on the battlefield.’

But what did it matter? Shed was not here.

At least she felt certain of one thing: breaking off the engagement with that useless man had been the right choice.

Just then, the dragon ceased its *ssault and soared again into the sky.

‘Does it mean to strike down with its body once more?’

Giselle gripped her staff tightly, tense.

But seconds passed, and the dragon did not descend. Instead, a crimson light began to swell above the white, snow-lashed heavens, rising like a second sun.

“Breath!”

Dragon Breath—the superheated fire a dragon unleashed.

As soldiers and knights defenseless against it ducked down, the priests hurriedly reinforced the barrier.

The red glow at the center of the sky swelled ever greater, until it erupted like a massive cannon, spewing flames.

Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwang!

A torrent like molten lava streaked across the sky, tearing toward Faradel.

The reinforced barrier barely held, shuddering under the strike.

Snow piled outside the barrier evaporated in an instant, and the twisted currents surged into a raging gale.

Then—

“High Priestess, the barrier…!”

“D*mn it, I know!”

The relentless heat pressed against it, melting its strength away.

Even as holy power was poured in, it was not enough to withstand the dragon’s might.

Gradually, the scorching heat began seeping past the barrier into Faradel.

‘D*mn it, the holy power is running out…!’

It was all because they had exhausted themselves beforehand with Dietrich.

“Everyone, fall back!”

At Giselle’s cry, a vast hole burst open in the flaming barrier. The searing heat rushed in, ready to burn flesh to ash—

Kwaang—!

With a deafening crash, the burning torrent shattered.

The shockwave sent people flying across the floor.

Lowering herself against the heat, Giselle raised her head through the rushing wind.

Before her, blackness spread like a mist, cloaking the air.

Within that darkness, brown hair streamed wildly in the wind.

“Luise…!”

The woman at the heart of the dark haze turned towards the priests huddled together.

Her calm green eyes swept over them as though counting the survivors.

Then, in a steady, composed voice, she spoke.

“Come to think of it, the punishment I’ll face will be the same either way, so there’s no reason for me to just sit by and watch.”

Luise’s blackened hand closed lightly into a fist.