The old drainage tunnel beneath the western wall was darkness mixed with the stench of rotting water and the smell of iron rust. Lira crawled through the stone passage on all fours, relying only on Kael's back ahead of her. Her deep green eyes occasionally glanced backward. Each time she looked back, their eyes met. That alone gave her a strange sense of reassurance. (This is strange, in a place like this.) Galvein—the fortress city that served as the headquarters of Darius's curse corps, the Ash Pilgrimage Brigade. Beneath this castle, which boasted triple walls and a moat fifteen meters wide, there was a ritual chamber where corpse-ring soldiers—the bound remnant souls of the dead—were mass-produced. Now was their chance, with the Remnant Flame's decoy unit creating a fierce diversion at the eastern wall. None of the four spoke. Thorne slipped in beside Kael at the front and spoke with only his lips. "The density of corpse-ring soldiers is too low." Kael nodded slightly. Lira felt it too. On their way through the ritual chamber, they'd encountered only a handful of corpse-ring soldiers. At this depth, there should normally be dozens wandering about—given the world's lore, each one required three days' worth of a sorcerer's soul veins to create, making them precious military assets. It was strange to deploy so few. Kael raised his right hand. Everyone stopped. "Assume an ambush." A short, quiet voice. Yet tension ran through all four of their bodies. Mira quietly rearranged the magical auxiliary formula in her hands with her fingertips. Her fingers trembled slightly. In that instant—multiple voices overlapped and fell into the ritual chamber from above. Not a man's voice, nor a woman's. Multiple voices intertwined to form a single word, a sound that gripped the back of the listener's head. "The Sword Saint of a Thousand Soldiers, in a place like this." Black fog began crawling up the walls. From the ceiling to the stone floor of the ritual chamber, shadows spread downward like rain. A man appeared from the upper corridor. Sorcerer Darius—estimated to be in his forties, thin and tall, his left eye perpetually wreathed in black fog. When that eye looked down upon the four of them, the temperature around them dropped several degrees. Lira's left arm throbbed sharply. Beneath the cloth, the mark of the dark magic bloodline—the black pattern—was reacting. Perhaps because Darius's curse and bloodline shared a similar origin, the pattern was faintly resonating. Lira silently swallowed that sensation. Lira sensed heat seeping from Kael's right arm as he stood beside her. Not through the skin. Heat coming from deeper within. The curse marks carved across Kael's entire body—the pattern of curses that had burned every night for twenty-five years—were beginning to emit an abnormal temperature in response to Darius. Lira's hand trembled slightly. (Kael.) It was wordless. Only the fact that she stood beside this person and that something was happening to his body burned simultaneously in her chest. Fear and something else entirely mixed together, refusing to be put into words. Thorne stepped half a pace in front of Lira and drew his sword. Mira was putting the finishing touches on her auxiliary formula. Kael alone—only Kael—remained motionless, his gaze fixed on Darius's face. A curse-sealing formation deployed, surrounding the four of them. There was a sensation of an invisible boundary being drawn across the stone tiles of the floor. There was no escape route left. --- Combat began abruptly. When Darius swept his right hand, a torrent of black fog peeled away from the walls and rushed toward the four. Thorne slashed it away, Kael deflected it with his sword, Lira blocked it by wreathing herself in dark magic—the three movements interlocked, and they weathered the first wave. But Darius used his voice as he fought. "Do you remember what happened twenty-five years ago?" Kael's feet stopped for just an instant. Lira saw it. For just a moment, the trajectory of Kael's sword wavered. "The sweep of the Ash Plains—the operation that reduced that land to wasteland. Do you remember that day when my family died, Sword Saint?" Darius's multiple voices echoed off the stone walls of the ritual chamber. He wasn't shouting; he was speaking quietly, which made it all the more terrible. "For military victory, you drew the settlements within the war zone into the conflict. That was your judgment. There were countless opportunities to stop—and yet you never halted the advance." Kael did not deny it. That silence was heavier than any denial. Lira, Thorne, Mira—the three of them heard that silence. Kael kept his sword gripped, facing forward, but said nothing. Not because he couldn't speak, but because he had no rebuttal to offer, and Lira understood that. "One child, three elderly, my mother—" "Stop." Kael's voice cracked for the first time, barely audible. But that was all. The sword slipped from the Sword Saint's hand. Metal struck the stone floor, the sound echoing through the ritual chamber. Kael's knees buckled—slowly, crushed by something irresistible, he knelt on the floor. "Kael!" Thorne cried out, but couldn't stop his master's collapse. Lira was running. She placed both hands on Kael's shoulders. She looked directly at his face. What had lived in this person for twenty-five years—Lira saw the answer in his eyes. The eyes of one who cannot forgive himself. The eyes of one who seeks punishment. But also the eyes of one who knows he can go nowhere else. Seeing those eyes, something in Lira made a decision. Emotion moved faster than reason. She didn't want to let go. Of this person. No matter what the past held, she—who knew the weight of this person's presence here and now—couldn't let go. From the shadows, Mira watched Lira and Kael make contact. She bit her lip quietly. The night before they came to this place, Mira had told Kael—that being at your side is eroding Lira. Those words were returning to her now. She could see in this very moment who Lira was suffering for. Mira couldn't move. Complex regret seeped across her face, but her hand wouldn't rise to wipe it away. Thorne wasn't looking at Kael. He was looking at Lira's face. Lira was suffering for Kael. The clarity with which he could see this—it was like having a blade pressed to his throat. Jealousy came first, and something more bitter came behind it. It resembled resignation, but he knew it was too early to resign, and that was the kind of pain it was. --- Darius raised his hand. The second wave of curse magic—this time targeting Kael's curse marks specifically, a forced complete acceleration. All the patterns carved across Kael's body glowed black at once. The stone floor beneath his feet cracked. The long curse marks—the accumulation of twenty-five years of nightly burning—were about to be consumed all at once. Lira made an instant decision. The moment of her master Alna's death flashed through her mind. Seven years ago, when Alna collapsed before her after failing to control dark magic and burning away her life force. Her final words—magic loves you, and that's why it comes to devour you—echoed in her ears. And yet. Lira reached for the cloth on her left arm. "Lira." A low voice. Before the cloth could be torn away, Kael's hand grabbed her arm. Or rather—pulled her close. Kael's arms wrapped around Lira. Her cheek pressed against his chest. The temperature of a hard but undeniably living body transmitted to her. "I don't want to lose you." That was all. A short, calm sentence. Words characteristic of Kael. No embellishment, no exaggeration. But Kael as a person—the Sword Saint who had lived in silence and isolation for twenty-five years—had finally put an emotion into words, and that single sentence fell into the ritual chamber. Something melted in Lira's throat. With her face buried in Kael's chest, Lira spoke. "I love you too." Her voice was small. Whether those words reached any of the four amid the roar of Darius's curse magic was unclear. That was fine. These weren't words meant to reach anyone. Kael's hand rested over Lira's left arm—over the black pattern. No one had ever touched this pattern directly before. She had hidden it with cloth. Not just because of the dark bloodline surveillance decree, but because of a fear that had seeped into her from somewhere—the fear of being touched by someone who knew what this pattern meant. Kael's fingers were placed quietly on the pattern. That was all. He touched it and remained there. Lira smiled. And from within Kael's embrace, she released her dark magic. The temperature around them dropped sharply. Shadows extended in all directions. The pattern on her left arm spread across her shoulder, up her neck. The stone walls of the ritual chamber were stained with shadow, and the light source vanished—the torrent of dark magic and Darius's curse magic collided head-on. A backlash of soul veins came. An electric current pierced through her entire body, and her vision went white. The soul veins that had tried to take on the roots of the curse consuming Kael lost control from the recoil of power beyond their limit. This might have been the moment when Alna died, Lira thought. Consciousness receded. In Kael's arms, strength drained from Lira's body. --- Kael held Lira's body close. In that instant, Thorne moved. He ran while sheathing his sword. Not a swordsman, not a mage. Only—the emotion of not wanting to lose Lira drove his body. He had known it was a love that would never be returned. He'd known since the night they headed toward Galvein. And yet. Thorne converted his feelings for Lira into soul veins—not through any formal technique, but using only the will to choose that this life would be at Lira's side as its power. Burning soul veins meant, just like dark magic, directly consuming one's own life force. But now there was no other choice. Thorne's palm touched Lira's head. In that moment, Mira stepped forward. She pulled a folded piece of parchment from her pocket. A fragment of her master Alna's notes—something Alna had never told Lira, a forbidden passage from Alna's records. The final form of a binding spell that could block the backlash of dark magic from the outside. Mira's independent study of Alna's remaining records might have come from intellectual curiosity rather than concern for Lira. But in this moment, there was only one reason to speak it aloud. She wanted Lira to live more than she wanted anything else. Mira's voice rang through the ritual chamber. An ancient language, a complex incantation. Her fingertips trembled, but her voice did not. Three soul veins temporarily merged. Thorne's will and Mira's spell were pressed against the backlash of dark magic from the outside. The backlash was sealed. The countless soul veins that had been usurped into Darius's body—the accumulation of lives stolen from living things—underwent a chain reaction from the ripple of the binding spell. The stolen souls were released. Darius's multiple voices took the form of a scream for the first time. His power rapidly withered. That oppressive silence crumbled, and the black fog in his left eye began to scatter. Kael moved. He entrusted Lira to Thorne in that single instant—and in that moment, Kael's fingertips touched Lira's purple hair. For one second. Then he let go. He picked up his sword. The residual heat of the curse marks burned across his entire body. Yet his knees could stand. His feet could move. That was what it meant to be the Sword Saint's body. Kael ran toward the weakened Darius. One stroke. No excessive movement. The Sword Saint's blade was always like that. Everything was contained in a single motion. The blade pierced Darius's chest. Silence fell over the ritual chamber. Darius's body collapsed. His multiple voices tried to say something one last time, but the words never formed