“Turn the imperial palace into a sea of flames!”

The peaceful atmosphere of the farewell ceremony shattered into chaos in an instant. The terrorists setting the banquet hall ablaze swept their gazes around the room, searching for someone.

“Find the Aedis! Kill the Aedis first!”

Norman cowered in a corner of the banquet hall, trembling as he tried to stay out of the terrorists’ sight. Mecato moved to bring the Emperor over to his side. But the red-haired man cast a paralysis spell on Mecato and foiled his plan.

“Do not move a single step! The moment you do, the Emperor dies!”

“Aaah!”

The noblewomen grabbed their cumbersome dresses and fled through other exits. The noblemen each tried to make a run for it as well, but breaking through the already raging flames was beyond them.

‘There was no terrorist attack at the farewell ceremony in the past. What is going on?’

I had sensed something was off from the moment Father and Arbo failed to appear, but I never imagined a serious crime like a terrorist attack would occur. Caught off guard by the unexpected turn of events, I furrowed my brow slightly and scanned my surroundings.

“I have already placed magic on every imperial knight. All you can do is die here, helplessly! The High Priest, too, will be unable to use his power freely under my curse!”

Only then did everything fall into place. The reason Father, unlike in the past, had not attended today’s farewell ceremony. He had taken a curse from a sorcerer of the Kingdom of Winshow during the war, and his physical condition had deteriorated sharply as a result. A High Priest who wielded the sacred Aedis magic was inevitably vulnerable to black magic, its polar opposite.

‘I am the only one who can turn this situation around.’

In the midst of the pandemonium where no one could help anyone else, I steadied myself.

“Die!”

A terrorist in a mask charged at Mecato with murderous intent in his voice. The blazing red flames were a hair’s breadth from reaching Mecato’s face.

“Stop.”

I released my magic and brought every current in the room to a halt. In an instant, every object and element froze in place.

“Wha!”

Mecato recoiled in shock as the flames that had been hurtling toward him stopped right before his eyes. The terrorist, finding his own magic suddenly powerless, also stopped the two feet that had been charging toward Mecato.

“Why is my magic…… Who are you?!”

The terrorist who had used magic on Mecato looked around in confusion. Then he detected the powerful Aedis energy radiating from me.

“I was told no one in the Aedis household had manifested any magic yet!”

He clearly had never once considered that my existence could become a variable.

“Aedis! How dare you!”

Together with the red-haired man, the terrorists unleashed their magic at me with fury-laced voices.

To me it was nothing more than feeble magic, but to the nobles and royals who had no resistance to it, it was pure agony, and they began screaming in pain. Everyone was helpless. Everyone except me.

“Enough.”

The moment I spoke, the magic the terrorists had been releasing vanished with a thunderous boom. Losing control of the situation was one thing, but watching the magic they had unleashed disappear so effortlessly left them gaping and blinking.

“It, it is an Aedis. A real Aedis!”

All the terrorists except the red-haired man lost their nerve and faltered. Knowing full well how powerful Aedis magic was, they could not bring themselves to come at me. But the red-haired terrorist, to his credit for sheer boldness, leveled his magic directly at me.

“Do not waver! Our target is the Aedis! We must kill the Aedis!”

Something about his words was off. If the motive was an attack against the Keadi Empire, the obvious target should have been the Emperor.

‘But the Aedis is the target?’

Yet they were openly trying to subdue me. No, this was beyond subduing. They were trying to kill me. The bloodlust aimed at me was blatant.

In that moment, the flames that had been frozen surged back up with ferocious force. The fire shaped itself into the forms of thousands of phoenixes.

“Kill the Aedis!”

At the red-haired man’s roar, thousands of phoenixes launched themselves at me with reckless abandon. The other terrorists also charged at me wielding weapons conjured from magic. Enemies packed every direction with nowhere to turn.

‘No choice then.’

The magic I could use freely at this point was not enough to subdue them all without strain. I began slowly releasing a portion of the magic I had kept hidden. My frail body protested in pain at the sudden surge.

“Ugh……”

But I did not stop and kept releasing magic.

“Gh, ghk.”

When magic collided with magic, the stronger one always consumed the weaker. Even in this state, where I had not released even a quarter of my magic, they were already being overwhelmed by me.

“Kill them.”

At my command, the phoenixes that had been flying toward me reversed direction and turned on the terrorists. Fed by my magic and grown even stronger, the phoenixes displayed their massive forms and breathed fire.

The terrorists tried to douse the phoenixes bearing down on them with water, but it was not enough. The streams of water they summoned evaporated helplessly against the phoenixes. The terrorists’ magical shields began to burn away in the phoenixes’ flames. The scorching heat, like swallowing the sun whole, drove them to cry out in pain.

“Aaaargh!”

At that moment, the red-haired man let out a deafening scream. The terrorists all collapsed to the floor at once. Over the fallen terrorists, magic began flowing toward a single point, like souls leaving their bodies. The destination of that magic was the red-haired terrorist.

‘He is absorbing their magic.’

Having consumed the magic and healed every wound, the red-haired man began unleashing magic with terrifying force.

“For the Kingdom of Winshow!”

He cried out like a vow and poured every last bit of his magic at me.

“Aaah!”

“S, save me! Ugh! Aah!”

I quickly threw up a protective barrier around the nobles crying out in pain. This was not magic a normal person’s body could withstand. Walls cracked and furniture crumbled without resistance. 

The air grew heavy. The oppressive air swirling through the space slammed down on everything in the room without mercy.

The red-haired man transformed the air into transparent arrows and produced thousands of them. The arrows gleamed like the sharp points of a chandelier’s lights. Every single one of those arrows had only one target: me.

‘Remarkable magic.’

But even the magic he had wrung out with every last ounce of his strength was rendered powerless before me. The thousands of magical arrows pouring toward me scattered into a mirage with a single sweep of my hand through the air.

The moment the terrorist saw the arrows he had created with everything he had dissolve into stardust, the will to fight drained from his eyes.

“Impossible!”

Despair soaked the terrorist’s roaring voice. He had come to realize that his magic could not harm so much as a hair on my head.

“You must understand by now that your power is useless against me. Why not surrender?”

I put weight behind each word as I walked toward the terrorist with unhurried steps.

“Ugh…… you…… you monster!”

“You are not exactly human yourself.”

I had no intention of killing this red-haired man. He had carried out a terrorist attack, so I needed to interrogate him and make him give up information. I used my magic to force the terrorist’s rigid legs to buckle. His knees snapped before me without resistance, the way an old tree crumbles.

“Was this a terrorist attack ordered by the Kingdom of Winshow? Or was it your own doing?”

“Ghk! Like I would…… tell you that!”

“If you will not confess on your own, I can make your tongue move for you.”

I closed my slender hand into a fist. The tighter I squeezed, the more the man’s airway constricted.

“Ugh, ugh, ghk. D, die……”

The red-haired man began to smile weakly. It was an ominous smile. His eyes were fixed on something behind me. I spun around quickly. One of the fallen terrorists, eyes vacant and unfocused, was raising a blade toward me.

‘I let my guard down!’

I moved to throw up a barrier in an instant. But the terrorist’s blade had already closed in to arm’s reach. At this rate, getting cut was only a matter of time. But it was not me who got cut.

Instead, the terrorist holding the blade collapsed before me, spraying blood. The droplets that splattered onto my cheek felt vivid and sharp.

“I am late.”

There was no mercy in that low voice. I looked up with trembling eyes at the man standing before me, holding a blood-stained blade. Standing with his back to the brilliant light of the chandelier, the violet eyes of the figure blazed with a cold fire. It was Arbo’s entrance, and it was nothing short of striking.

The air of intimidation surrounding Arbo resembled the presence of a predatory beast. Overwhelmed by Arbo’s force, I looked up at him, completely drawn in. And in doing so, I came face to face with Arbo’s eyes, which had already found me.

The moment our gazes locked, life began returning to Arbo’s eyes, the way fog lifts, clearing what had seemed like eyes swallowed by deep darkness. 

Arbo’s violet eyes, more brilliant than any jewel, were more than enough to squeeze the breath from my chest. It had to be my imagination, but his eyes seemed to be telling me, ‘I missed you.’

Arbo’s gaze, which had been resting on my face, soon settled on my right cheek. Arbo raised his hand and wiped away the droplet of blood that had splattered there. It was a touch at once careless and tender.