‘D*mn it…!’

Shed’s wet hand tightened on his sword—

Slash!

A flashing stroke cleaved through hardened scales, severing the dragon’s tail.

“Are you all right, my lord?”

Lifting his head, Shed saw Carlisle, sword in hand, turning back to him.

And it wasn’t only Carlisle. Hedrick and the other knights, even the soldiers, had surrounded the fallen dragon, fighting it back.

Hedrick, able to muster even a faint aura, shattered scales, while the ordinary knights and soldiers struck into the gaps, driving their blades into the beast.

“My lord…!”

Carlisle reached out to steady him, seeing the pain written on Shed’s face.

But Shed shook his head.

“I’m fine now.”

The pain that had strangled his heart was slowly easing.

“I worried you.”

He adjusted his stance, his expression becoming cold and composed once again.

Carlisle nodded firmly.

“Let’s finish this.”

The blue light flared back to life on Shed’s sword.

This battle had to end.

There was only one way to kill a dragon.

Gripping the azure blade, Shed charged straight for Gelevan’s head.

Sensing the threat, the beast opened its mouth wide and fire gathered in its throat once again.

But Shed knew. The breath was slow to cast.

He leapt willingly into the dragon’s heat-laden jaws.

From above came the brilliant blue slash.

Crack—!

The hard scales shattered, fragments scattering.

“Kuwaaaah!”

With a roar, the enormous head tore itself free from the body.

Gelevan’s enormous body thrashed around for several minutes before finally collapsing to the ground.

The earth quaked with a booming thud, and shockwaves rippled outwards until only the sound of the wind could be heard.

The cold silence lasted but a moment.

“Waaaaaah!”

At last, a cheer erupted.

Gelevan had fallen.

The calamity that had threatened to destroy Faradel had passed.

People embraced one another with joy and some dared to touch the dragon’s corpse, as if to confirm its death.

But Shed did not rejoice in victory. Instead, he ran back to where he had been standing earlier.

“Luise!”

She was still apart from the others, standing alone.

She—only she—was all he needed.

But then—

“Don’t come any closer, Shed…!”

Luise drew back, halting him with her desperate cry.

“Luise…?”

He stopped short at her voice, and then he saw it—the black power coiling around her body like a swarm of insects.

All around her, grass and trees withered into lifeless black husks.

She looked at him as though she were staring at a monster.

‘Please…!’

Clenching her eyes shut, Luise curled into herself.

Was it because she had overused her strength in the battle with the dragon? Once released, her power now burst forth as if through gaping holes, unstoppable.

Her wrist—the one branded by Dietrich—burned as though seared by fire.

The nightmares she thought had faded came alive before her eyes.

The day her father forced the drug down her throat. The day the unwanted power slaughtered those she loved and destroyed everything.

The nightmare repeated.

The dream she feared most.

‘No. This can’t happen…’

Luise swallowed the rampaging power again and again, fighting to contain it.

“Khff—!”

Blood spilled from her lips, bright against the snow-blanketed earth.

“Luise!”

As Shed stepped forward toward her staggering form, she shook her head urgently, locking eyes with him.

Her gaze was like fragile glass, ready to shatter at the slightest touch. Tears, streaked with blood, slid down her pale face.

Please! Don’t come any closer. I don’t want to hurt you.

The fear that she might harm him terrified her more than the pain tearing her body apart.

Clinging desperately to her fading consciousness, Luise staggered backwards.

Shed could do nothing before such a sight.

The grind of his clenched teeth escaped through his tightly set jaw.

He could only watch.

Watch the dark violet bruises spread through her veins and burst beneath her skin. Watch her body writhe in agony as she is gripped by convulsions.

The bloodshot whites of her eyes, ruptured with broken vessels.
The cold sweat drenching her body.
The crusted blood on her lips, bitten through to smother her m*ans.
Her nails digging into her own flesh.

The sight tore Shed’s heart apart, shredded by helplessness. It hurt more than the agony gnawing away at his own life.

If only he could take that suffering into himself.
If only he could bear her fate in her stead…

He clenched his fists. He could not stand by and do nothing any longer.

“Giselle Marlhein!”

His voice rang with stark resolve as he called for the High Priestess.

Giselle, who had already been keeping an eye on Luise, turned towards him.

He drew a worn book out of his br*ast pocket.

“I’m going to purify her.”

He pressed the book into her hands almost roughly.

“This…!”

The cover was blank, weathered brown, old and battered. Yet when she opened it, she knew at once what it was.

The missing latter half of the Desidera Scripture.

‘You can’t mean… he actually recovered this? In only a few days?’

Still clutching the book, Giselle stood frozen, her face stricken with disbelief. But Shed flipped open to a page near the end and thr*st it before her.

“You can do this.”

The page displayed a barrier, drawn in dense, intricate formulae.

“W-wait! This requires study. You mean to attempt it now?”

“Just raise the barrier.”

He turned on his heel without another word, striding forward.

“Carlisle! Hedrick!”

“My lord!”

He halted at the place where Gelevan’s body had fallen.

“Cut out the dragon’s heart.”

Once more, Shed lifted his sword.

But from behind, priests who had been watching stepped forward and seized him.

“You mean to use the dragon’s heart?”

Their faces creased with deep frowns.

The heart of a dragon carried divine power and was treated by the Empire as a sacred treasure. No dragonslayer had ever dared to use one recklessly.

By law, the heart was always yielded to the Empire, to be fashioned into protective relics or royal treasures.

Anyone who sought to use it for themselves required sanction from both the throne and the temple, granted only as a reward.

“Lord Lester, your achievements are beyond question. However, using a dragon’s heart without permission constitutes a defiance of both the Crown and the Temple.”

As they tried to restrain him, Shed wrenched free from the priests’ grip with ruthless force.

He did not ask the priests for permission. He did not attempt to negotiate, nor did he rage or threaten.

He simply strode forward to the dragon’s corpse and drove his sword in.

“Lord Lester!”

There was no time to waste arguing with noisy priests.

Channeling aura into his blade, he plunged it into the dragon’s chest and carved. Shards of hard, scale-like armor split beneath the strike, and thick hide tore open as hot blood spilled forth.

Hotter than a human’s body heat, the dragon’s blood had not yet cooled—it seared as though it would burn his skin.

But Shed pressed on, cleaving through massive ribs with his aura. He cut away cords of sinew and muscle until, at last, something glimmered deep within.

A jewel-like core, glowing crimson—the dragon’s heart. Unlike humans or beasts, a dragon’s heart shone like a ruby carved by the gods themselves.

He wrenched the blazing organ free from its cavity.

Under the light, the dragon’s heart glimmered with a brilliance more alluring than any diamond. A cold wind brushed across it, sending up clouds of white steam.

“Lord Lester, I warn you again—even for you, that heart—”

“D*mn it, will you shut your mouth!”

At last Shed’s patience snapped, his voice cracking like a whip as he rounded on the priest.

The man swallowed hard and fell silent.

For he had seen it—the body drenched in dragon’s blood, those violet eyes burning with a murderous light.

Eyes that promised to cut down any who stood in his way. Eyes edged with madness.

“If the Emperor or the Pontiff has complaints, let them come. I’ll face them gladly…!”

Clutching the dragon’s heart, Shed strode past the priests and ran toward Luise.

Mud churned under his boots, half-frozen and half-thawed. Ahead, her figure was blackened, dark power bleeding out around her like ink into water.

“Luise!”

“Shed—Luise’s condition…!”

Giselle, watching over her, gestured toward the girl.

The darkness around Luise was spreading thicker, her body curled on the ground as she tried to contain the raging power inside herself.

And still, she endured. Imprisoning herself in endless pain, struggling to cage the violence within.

Shed’s face twisted at the sight.

“The barrier.”

“You truly mean to do this now?”

Giselle’s eyes fixed on him, incredulous, even as he clutched the dragon’s heart.

Short though the time was, she was second to none when it came to barriers and wards. If it was the formula recorded in the Desidera Scripture, she could raise it—not swiftly, but surely.

The problem was Shed.

Her barrier would only serve to establish a complete space for purification.

And what was needed to cleanse a demon was…

“If you push your aura any further, your body won’t withstand it.”

The missing latter portion of the Desidera Scripture.

There, in the Desidera Scripture, was written the record of how Desidera had purified the demon Mephisto.

To fully cleanse black magic required a special force.

And in this world, only three powers surpassed the limits of humankind: the holy power bestowed by the gods, aura, and its corrupted mutation—black magic.

Of these, holy power could not be used directly, for it would harm Luise’s body, now branded as demonic.

Thus, the only energy that could purify black magic was aura.

It was for this reason that the great holy knight Desidera, who had commanded both holy power and aura, had succeeded in purifying Mephisto.

And so Shed had resolved: he would use his aura to purify Luise.

“That’s impossible! Your body—it’s not sound!”

Giselle’s voice shook as she recalled how, during the battle with Gelevan, his body had faltered, if only for a moment.

Though he had hidden it well, she knew his strength was failing.

It was inevitable.

After the fight with Dietrich, he had barely taken up his new post as Lord Protector before departing Faradel. Then, within only a few days, he had returned with the lost half of the Desidera Scripture.

She did not know what had happened in that time, but it was unthinkable that he had spent it in rest.

“At least receive treatment first—”

“Raise the barrier.”

Shed cut her protest short, pointing at the scripture.

At his unyielding command, Giselle’s eyes widened, her gaze snapping to him in anger.

“You could die.”

Her eyes brimmed with red.

But Shed only answered with a cold smile.

“If someone must die, let it be me. Not her.”