Reason was at the heart of Shed Lester’s legendary record. No matter how extreme the circumstances, he never lost his cool-headed rationality. In times of crisis, he always made the most sensible decisions.

He was a leader you could trust with your life. You could trust him to make better judgements than you could yourself.

But—

Boom!

“Kyah!”

“Ugh!”

Eclace crouched low as a fierce wind swept through the darkness.

‘D*mn it, what the hell is going on!’

The razor-sharp gusts sliced through like blades, tearing across the group. Screams and cries of anguish mingled together. It was the moment everyone regretted ever coming to Ideana.

“Where is Lord Shed Lester?”

Eclace shouted toward the vague figures of the knights he could barely sense in the dark.

But no answer came. In ordinary times, Shed would have given orders even in pitch blackness, telling everyone to get down, organizing the formation in the dark, calming the people so they could assess the situation with clarity.

Yet after the single command to gather around the carriage, he had said nothing more.

Then came another enormous shockwave. The earlier ones had been powerful enough, but this one was different.

A streak of blue light tore through the darkness, like a meteor crashing down from the sky.

‘What in the world was that just now…’

The roar of an overturned wagon and the cracking of collapsing trees echoed all around, accompanied by screams and groans.

Some must have been crushed beneath the wagon, while others must have been injured. But with the night utterly dark, not a single star in the sky, it was impossible to see clearly.

Trembling with fear, the people clung to each other in the suffocating shadows.

“Our lord… is in no condition to issue commands.”

Beside him, the voice of the knight Carlisle rang out.

“That shockwave just now—there’s no mistaking it.”

Carlisle gritted his teeth.

It was a relief to know that Shed was alive and only a short distance away. However, the fact that he had drawn upon his aura was a grave misfortune.

Carlisle had followed Shed for many years and had only ever seen him summon his aura when facing another Swordmaster or slaying a colossal magical beast.

And now he was using it.

This alone was enough for the knights to realise just how dangerous this darkness was. Though their eyes slowly adjusted and their vision began to clear, not a single one of them dared to approach Shed. Rushing in recklessly could mean being dragged into the fray and losing a limb.

Carlisle and the others knew it was the wise choice. Even if they joined the battle, Shed Lester showed no mercy. If it meant killing the man holding Liana, he would cut down anything in his way.

Shed’s gaze fixed sharply on the enemy beyond the darkness. In his presence, even the heaviest of shadows were meaningless.

“Kh…!”

The heretic staggered back from the last attack, blood splattering onto the ground with a wet thud. One of his arms was gone.

“D*mn it…”

He glared at Shed. By then, Liana Serpens was already in his embrace. Shed’s eyes gleamed with frenzied madness, burning as though he were on the verge of a rampage.

The heretic clutched his severed arm, but Shed swung his blade again with overwhelming force, giving him no time to recover.

“D*mn…!”

Cursing through clenched teeth, the one-armed heretic barely clung to life.

Bang, bang!

Pressed beneath the crushing weight of Shed’s strikes, his knees buckled, forcing him down.

‘The timing… couldn’t be worse.’

He knew the truth, if he lingered any longer, the battle would turn even more against him.

“Regrettable… but we’ll meet again.”

The faintly clearing darkness thickened once more, swallowing all light until the world was pitch black again.

Instinctively, Shed tightened his hold around Liana, guarding her with his entire body. Every sense sharpened in the suffocating dark.

But soon, the shadows dispersed and a dazzling brightness flooded everything. The heretic had vanished without a trace.

In Shed’s arms, Liana’s figure came into sharp relief. At that moment, a chilling clarity pierced his mind.

“Liana…!”

Her face was deathly pale and drained of colour. The wound that had pierced her was still bleeding.

There was no time to think about chasing the heretic. He pulled her onto his lap, holding her close and pressing against her stomach to staunch the flow of blood. Yet blood seeped relentlessly between his fingers.

The hand that had shone with blue light moments earlier was now stained a deep, merciless red.

Liana’s breathing grew fainter and fainter.

‘No. I didn’t come here to let you die like this.’
‘I didn’t find you just to lose you again so meaninglessly.’

It had been a moment of carelessness. He had never encountered black magic before, and this brief hesitation had cost him dearly.

“Why did you have to get in the way…!”

He couldn’t begin to fathom her actions. She hadn’t needed to intervene. She hadn’t had to sacrifice herself for him.

It felt as if the whole world were mocking him. Eight years ago, she had been taken from him and presumed dead. Now, she had finally given him a reason to live again by returning to stand before him, only to be torn away so soon and in such a cruel manner.

D*mn Ideana!

This land had never given him a single good memory since his childhood. And now it was welcoming his return with the same ruthless cruelty.

“My lord!”

Knights came running from afar. Shed held Liana’s ever-colder body close against him.

“The priest.”

Nothing else mattered.

“Bring me a priest—now!”

He had to save Liana Serpens.

🌺⟡───⟡🌺 🌺⟡───⟡🌺

The former estate of Count Ideana in Faradel.

Though part of it lay in ruins, the mansion of white stone still held its ceiling and walls intact.

Shed had made it his temporary base, moving Liana into the best of the usable rooms. On the makeshift bed, she lay limp and pale, and his eyes would not leave her face.

“How much longer am I supposed to wait?”

His voice was low, flat as always, but colder than it had ever been. The priest, drenched in cold sweat, stammered as he spoke.

“S-something’s strange. My holy power… it isn’t working on her.”

From the moment she was moved, the priest tried to heal her without pause. But no matter how hard he tried, the wound would not mend. At best, he could temporarily stem the bleeding.

Even now, the bleeding had not fully stopped. The sheets beneath her were completely soaked in blood.

“D*mn it. Has the temple sent me nothing but a useless novice? You can’t even heal a single wound…!”

Shed muttered in a low, biting tone, and the priest bowed his head deeply.

“This wound… it isn’t ordinary…”

“Then find another way—save her!”

Bang!

Shed slammed his hand down on the table beside him. One of the old legs splintered, and the table collapsed sideways.

The priest’s lips trembled, as though he might burst into tears. Yet he threw everything he had into a healing that would not take effect.

If he failed to save Liana, Lester looked as though he might slit the priest’s throat, holy man or not.

Drenched in sweat and on the verge of collapse, the priest began pouring his strength into healing Liana once more.

Unable to watch any longer, Eclace finally stepped forward.

“Lord Lester. It seems this wound cannot be healed with holy power.”

At his words, Shed’s eyes turned toward him. The bloodshot gaze made Eclace’s spine run cold.

“I’m not saying that there’s no hope for Lady Liana…”

He quickly raised both hands, trying to calm him down.

‘D*mn it! How much has he lost his reason if a simple remark like this makes his eyes flash so wildly?’

One wrong move, and he might lose his own head on the spot.

‘He’s not in his right mind.’

Eclace glanced at Shed’s trembling hands. His eyes looked as though they could shatter anything, yet his fingers shook like those of a frightened lamb.

Could the great Shed Lester truly be so fearful, so desperate?

‘What on earth happened out there…’

No one knew what had happened in the darkness. Why had shadows fallen over Faradel? What had happened to him? Why had Liana been injured?

She had offered no explanation. His mind was fixed entirely on Liana Serpens.

As the man who should have been issuing orders was in such a state, the others had fallen into confusion and unease. There were no instructions, not even simple ones, such as where to put their luggage or how the knights should prepare their defences.

‘He has to regain his reason, at least for now.’

Summoning courage in the heavy silence, Eclace spoke again, taking the risk no one else dared.

“I may be mistaken, but wasn’t that darkness the work of black magic?”

Eclace was quick-witted and sharp in judgment. Even without Shed telling him, he could piece together the general flow of events.

In this world, there were only three mysterious forces that defied physical explanation: the holy power wielded by priests, the aura of a Swordmaster, and the dark magic of heretics.

The shadows that had consumed Faradel were neither holy power nor aura. Naturally, it wasn’t difficult to conclude they had been wrought by black magic.

The problem was that it would be too difficult to accept the presence of such a force in a land where heretics had been purged years ago.

Undoubtedly, the others had sensed the same. They simply did not wish to believe it. It was Eclace who regained his rationality first among them.

“Black magic is the opposite of holy power. It’s possible that wounds caused by it simply cannot be healed by the sacred. There may even be a curse mixed in.”

He spoke as calmly as he could, trying to steady Shed. The priest nodded vigorously, keen to prove that he was not incompetent.

Shed pressed his lips tightly shut. Thankfully, he still had enough sense to listen.