The agony seemed endless, as though she were condemned to spend eternity in hell. Each second stretched on for centuries. Her mind, unable to withstand the torment, shut down; but it was forced awake again by the pain.

It felt as if her head were burning to ash. She had no idea how much time had passed like this.

“Look. See? It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Her father’s voice broke through the prison of her suffering. Felix gazed tenderly at his limp daughter, who was lying in a pool of blood as though she were a puppet with its strings cut.

Stepping closer to Luise, whose convulsions had finally ceased, he gently brushed a hand over the torn fabric of her dress and caressed the soft skin beneath.

Although her body was covered in blood, the wound that had pierced her heart had disappeared without a trace.

A radiant smile spread across Felix’s lips.

“Rejoice, my dear! You will live forever.”

Through the haze of her returning senses, Luise heard her father’s voice, gentle and tender as always,
yet more merciless than it had ever been.

Beyond her fading vision, she caught sight of Shed, collapsed on the floor.

And in that moment, Luise understood.

Ah… nothing can ever be undone.

Before the flawless face of despair, even her tears had dried, leaving none to fall.

🌺⟡───⟡🌺 🌺⟡───⟡🌺

Traitor. Criminal. Demon. Heretic.

She knew well the weight of those brilliant accusations. And yet Luise Ideana still lived, not because she was shameless, but because she could not die.

She had become a monster, condemned to live forever. Therefore, she had no choice but to keep living.

“Why do you hide your power?”

The heretic’s gaze fell upon the wound on Liana’s abdomen, which had not yet fully healed.

She had taken the blade for Shed because she knew she could not die.

Yet she chose to hide her strength anyway.

Even with the damage caused by holy power aside, such a wound should have healed within moments. Instead, she deliberately suppressed her regeneration, all to appear as an ordinary woman.

It only prolonged her pain for no reason, since she could not die anyway.

A foolish stubbornness.

“If I were you, I’d never live so stupidly.”

The heretic’s tone was laced with disdain as he condemned the foolish young lady.

His eyes brimmed with resentment and despair.

Then, her father’s words echoed in her mind.

“Do not resent me for using you as a subject of sorcery. I had to be certain before granting you that power.”

Felix had told her that he had failed before creating Luise. He was not a heartless father who would sacrifice his only daughter without hesitation. He wanted Ideana’s bloodline to possess the greatest and most complete power.

He wanted someone bound to him by blood who would never betray him and would obey him and raise the name of Ideana high.

So, before using ancient sorcery on her, he made many sacrifices. As far as she knew, all of those offerings had died.

But—

“I’m only a half-made thing, forced to live each day in agony. And you, even with that power, choose to waste your life like this…”

The heretic who remained in Ideana. He was clearly one of the “offerings” her father had experimented on—likely the last subject, just before perfecting Luise.

That was why Liana could not help but feel a chilling sense of kinship with him.

“Aren’t you afraid… of a power that harms people?”

Her voice shook as she asked. The heretic laughed, incredulous.

“Harm people?”

He shook his head.

“To harm, you need malice. I don’t harm. I only live. The way a man kills a chicken to eat, so he may survive.”

His teeth ground together with a harsh sound.

“To survive, I need offerings. Human offerings. Lupus are best.”

Unlike Luise, he was left incomplete. His body was unstable. If he did not sustain his power, his mind and body would crumble.

In order to maintain the black magic within him, he had to keep taking lives. It was like trying to fill a cracked vessel with water — an endless task.

“So don’t hate me too much. Least of all you.”

The heretic’s eyes burned as they fixed on Liana.

It was Ideana who had made him this way. Her goal had been to perfect Luise Ideana.

She had no right to call him a criminal when she had gained flawless power at the cost of countless sacrifices, yet he remained nothing but a failed experiment.

“You gained this power by turning me into this. Then you discarded the others with your own hands.”

At his words, Liana’s fingers clutched the blanket so tightly her knuckles turned white.

“P-please… spare me!”

She shut her eyes, haunted by the memory of her blood-soaked hands.

Then the sound of hurried footsteps came from outside.

The heretic turned his head sharply toward the door.

“So… the intruders have arrived.”

At that moment, the door burst open.

“You returned sooner than I thought.”

The heretic took a step back when he saw the man standing at the entrance. He had collapsed one wing of the manor in an attempt to divert attention, but Shed had already dealt with that and returned. In fact, perhaps he hadn’t even finished restoring it before coming back.

The intruder’s eyes narrowed as they fixed on Shed.

“Heretic…!”

Shed drew his sword. Without hesitation, a blue light flared along its blade.

“Don’t be so hasty. I only came to talk.”

The heretic raised his remaining hand slowly as he took a step back. He needed to kill, yes, but he was no fool to charge in blindly. With only one arm and in such a state, he knew he could not hope to defeat Shed Lester.

“We’ll meet again.”

Darkness welled up from his body once more and, in an instant, he vanished like smoke.

She moved as if to give chase, but Liana clutched at his sleeve.

“Your Grace…!”

Her pleading green eyes lifted to meet his, stopping him in his tracks. Usually closed in weakness, they were now wide and brimming with fear. The blue light surrounding his blade died out.

The fiery heat that had burned in his eyes cooled instantly, leaving only cold stillness.

“…Wait.”

He spoke in an icy tone, then turned and left the room to call for a doctor.

Liana shrank beneath the chill in his voice, her body curling with the pain that still lingered.

‘What happened in Faradel after I lost consciousness?’

Her memory stopped at her encounter with the heretic.

Only then did she take a proper look around.

The place felt achingly familiar, suffused with the scent of old memories.

‘This is…’

Though the years had left the room faded and worn, she recognized it at once. The old bedroom of Luise Ideana, in the Ideana manor at Faradel.

The furniture she once used was long gone, broken and cleared away. Yet through the crooked window,
she could still see the lemon tree and stone wall outside, just as she remembered.

Then the doctor Shed had summoned entered the room.

“You’re truly awake…!”

A deep and inexplicable sense of relief spread across the middle-aged man’s face.

Behind him came Shed Lester, his brow furrowed and his lips silent.

The silence pressed down heavily on her. The old Ideana manor. The room where Luise had once only had nightmares. The heretic had vanished without a trace.

The fever burning her head, the sharp pain of her wound, and the crushing guilt swelling inside her all festered like untreated wounds.

The room was still. Only the doctor moved, quietly tending to Liana’s injuries.

Meanwhile, Shed stood with his arms crossed, his gaze fixed on Liana as she received treatment.

Her trembling fingers fidgeted restlessly as she searched his face for a reaction. The cold, wordless stare he gave her added to the unease in her chest.

He never once questioned her about her conversation with the heretic.

Why not?

The silence only deepened her dread.

While the doctor tended her wounds, every touch sent sharp pain through her body. Yet all her nerves were turned toward Shed.

‘If he finds out…’
‘If he learns that I can wield black magic…’
‘If he realizes that the one who slaughtered his brother, and countless Lupus, was none other than Luise Ideana…’

Her dry lips trembled as she bit down on them.

“Lady Liana, do you feel any headache or discomfort?”

The doctor’s voice broke the suffocating stillness as he unwrapped her bandages.

Her thoughts, fixed entirely on Shed, finally scattered.

“…It’s bearable.”

With every breath, she felt as though she were being stabbed, yet she could endure it. After all, she had long since become accustomed to pain.

She had endured so much that screaming and struggling now seemed utterly meaningless. She would not trouble anyone by showing weakness over pain of this degree.

Only the overlapping memories of this all-too-familiar place weighed heavily on her. Her head throbbed, her vision blurred, her chest tightened and her stomach churned with nausea.

“You must describe your symptoms precisely.”

The doctor’s expression was grave as he examined her.

Her fever was obvious; her skin burned to the touch. Her unfocused eyes drifted, as though she could not hold onto the present moment. Her wound, which was still not fully healed, had started to bleed again. She had eaten or drunk nothing while she was unconscious, leaving her frail body utterly depleted of strength.

Frankly, it was nothing short of a miracle that this fragile young woman was still alive. It seemed as though she had dragged the doctor back from the brink of death with her own frail body, saving the man Sheldon Lester had almost killed.

Meeting the doctor’s earnest gaze, Liana gave a small nod.

“…Just a bit of a headache, and I feel weak. That’s all.”

She forced her lips into the faintest smile.