In a vast, open yard carpeted with tall, swaying grass, a lone figure stood. He was tall, around six foot one, but his face and frame still carried the unmistakable signs of youth. He wore a simple dark navy tee and loose black sweatpants, his black hair slightly messy, stirred gently by the wind.
It was Jay.
He was not even fifteen yet, only a few months away, but the change in him was unmistakable. The thin, fragile build he had carried just months before was gone. In its place was a body shaped by growth and training, lean muscle now sculpting his frame.
Even beneath his shirt, the muscle definition was visible as the wind pressed the fabric against him, outlining his improved physique.
Suddenly, the temperature in the yard plummeted. The moisture in the air crystallized in an instant as a massive wave of jagged ice erupted from the earth in front of him. It moved like a predatory tide, intent on engulfing the entire yard and freezing him into an ice statue.
But Jay didn't move his feet.
With a gentle flick of his wrist, he traced a line through the air. And a massive, jagged tear in the fabric of space manifested instantly, a void of dimensional tear that hissed as it swallowed the world.
Rupture
The ice wave that erupted toward him was deleted instantly, the frozen mass vanishing into the spatial rift and leaving behind a vacuum that sucked at the nearby grass.
But the attack did not end there. From the lingering mist of the erased ice, a giant, twenty-meter Ice Dragon surged forward. It was a masterpiece of high-level magic, its scales shimmering like diamonds as it lunged at Jay at subsonic speed, its roar a cacophony of cracking glaciers.
And then,
BOOM
The impact sent a shockwave across the meadow, kicking up a blinding cloud of frost and uprooted turf.
"How about that, Illya-kun! Pretty hard to dodge without your spatial magic, huh?"
Lavinia stood a few dozen meters away, her sapphire eyes sparkling with mischief.
She had recently turned eighteen, and her mastery over the Ice Magic and Absolute Demise had only grown more refined in the months of peace. She wore a confident grin, certain that her dragon had finally pinned the elusive Dragonslayer.
As the dust and frozen vapor settled, however, Lavinia's grin began to falter.
Jay was still standing in the exact same spot.
He hadn't used his spatial rifts to escape. Instead, he was holding the massive head of the Ice Dragon with his bare hands.
His feet were planted firmly as the grass beneath his boots scorched but also frozen by the sheer friction of the impact.
The dragon's jaw, meant to crush and freeze stone and steel alike, was beginning to spiderweb with cracks where his fingers dug into the enchanted ice. Not a single bone in his hand had snapped.
"An ice dragon. That's an interesting choice of design," Jay said, sending a knowing glance toward the blonde ice princess.
"Thank you. Isn't she beautiful?" Lavi replied with a wide, innocent smile.
"You know, Lavi, I didn't do 500 push-ups, 500 sit-ups, and run 50 kilometers every day in the mountains for the last seven months for nothing, right?"
"I don't think that's the reason you can stop an ice dragon lunging at you at subsonic speed with your bare hands, Illya-kun."
"Yeah, you're right," Jay admitted, as he released the dragon.
For the last seven months, not much had happened.
Azazel had not been able to obtain any significant intel about the existence of the Ars Goetia, and Jay had already expected that. The book was thousands of years old, even older than the Great War itself, and in this era, there were probably very few people who had ever even seen it, let alone knew where it was.
Still, Jay told Azazel that as long as Glenda's condition did not change, he would wait one year before searching for it himself.
The truth was that even with Ophis's help, his energy was still unstable. He had not yet been able to fully integrate his own soul and energy with the other part of his existence, the portion constructed from the remnants of Azi Dahaka.
Though it was in the end, identical to his own, it was still composed of two different existences.
Because of that, his energy capacity was lower than it should have been. Using that unstable energy meant drawing from a completely different system, a different flow, and a different method of control.
It was harder to regulate, harder to stabilize, and carried a high risk of magic activation failure. In cases where he used either his purple or black flame, the result was often an ineffective attack such as slower manifestation and far lower efficiency.
Jay called it the flaw of his Black Grail, if it could even be called a flaw at all.
So, over the last seven months, he had not continued his Anthem of Life project. Instead, he focused entirely on recovery, stabilization, and the slow tedious process of bringing his energies into balance first.
On the positive side, it helped him reach a physique now comparable to someone like Archangel Michael, and it even surpassed Euclid based on a quick comparison in his memory.
He had only been able to stabilize about 80% of his total power. As for his mana, although it was not multiplied like when he used the Grail to enhance himself, it was still immensely high, higher than it had ever been before.
And even after all that, aside from his eyes and the runes etched along his shoulder to his upper arm, there was nothing else that had changed in his physique. Maybe he was a little taller, but he was not part dragon, not some hybrid form, just as he had once thought after desperately reconstructing his body with Azi Dahaka's soul and flesh.
And all of that was thanks to the Black Grail, to Jay. If the True Cross was indeed not even in the category of Sacred Gears, as Michael himself had stated.
In that case, the Sephiroth Grail definitely possessed the highest potential, even compared to Dulio's Zenith Tempest or that guy, Cao Cao's True Longinus. Still, Jay knew he could not judge properly yet. He would need to witness the true, fully unleashed power of the latter before making any real comparison.
So aside from overseeing the development of the new village that he and Lavinia had built, stabilizing his energy, doing some physical training here and there, and continuing his magic training, there was little else he could focus on. Especially spirit magic, which ultimately led to nothing.
Because there were literally zero recorded runes, symbols, or formulas related to it, not in Glenda's library, and not even in the Grigori database.
KRING
The sharp ring of a cellphone shattered the silence of the meadow.
As Jay's hand reached into his pocket, his eyes began to glow with a faint golden light as they scanned the Ice Dragon. Behind his retinas, the golden X of Avesta ignited, and in a single second, he saw every magical line and rune that constructed Lavinia's creation.
With a single thought, he fed that information back into the world.
A moment later, the dragon shattered.
Its form unraveled into shattered particles of mana, scattering into the air like drifting mist.
After the construct was destroyed by Avesta, all that remained was the energy that had been used to manifest it.
"Hey. That's definitely cheating." Lavinia shouted, stomping her foot playfully.
Jay ignored the protest and answered his phone. Ernesta Carmilla's voice came through the speaker, sounding uncharacteristically hurried.
"I understand," Jay said shortly. "I'll be there with Lavinia in a few minutes."
He pocketed the phone and looked at Lavinia, his expression turning serious once more.
"Ernesta called. She said Azazel is visiting."
"The Governor General? Is he finally bringing us some good news?" Lavinia asked, walking closer and wiping a bit of frost from Jay's hand.
"I don't know," Jay replied. "But something important must have brought him here."
The two of them began the walk back toward their home. It was a unique structure, a large wooden house that blended traditional Romanian craftsmanship with sleek, modern architectural lines. It was technically still unfinished, but its simple, elegant design made it stand out against the rugged forest backdrop.
The garden surrounding the house was Lavinia's pride and joy. She had spent her free time planting rows of flowers, with the most prominent being a sea of deep purple irises that swayed in the wind.
The house held a secret, however.
Using a monumental effort of spatial magic, Jay and Lavinia had moved Glenda's entire underground basement from Emerald City to the foundations of this new home. It had taken three months of preparation to ensure the complex spatial magical circle didn't collapse during the transition, but they had succeeded.
Deep beneath the floorboards, inside her own room, lay the unconscious, soulless body of Glenda.
She hadn't opened her eyes once in seven months.
***
After that, Jay and Lavinia decided to walk to the village instead of teleporting. It was a small rule they had both agreed upon. Every time they went there, they would go on foot, so they could see for themselves what was happening inside the village, how it was growing, how people were living, and what had changed.
Their home was only near the outskirts of the settlement, close enough that the walk was short, but far enough to let them pass through its streets, its fields, and its people. It was their way of staying connected to the place they had built, not as rulers watching from above, but as part of the life within it.
The walk downhill took only a few minutes before the canopy broke, revealing the village.
Jay and Lavinia had agreed to name it Valeyra.
The name was derived from the Romanian word vale, meaning valley.
Valeyra was a living painting, a sanctuary carved directly into the rugged heart of the mountains.
The valley itself was a long, narrow corridor of vibrant emerald green, flanked by sheer vertical cliffs of grey stone.
These walls were so smooth and immense they appeared sculpted by the hands of old gods rather than the slow erosion of nature.
From the high crests, dozens of waterfalls cascaded downward in thin, white ribbons of water that drifted through the air like silver threads, catching the light and creating a perpetual mist that kept the air humid and refreshing.
It was still a modest settlement. The current census stood at roughly 2,980 residents, the vast majority being children and women.
Among them were about two hundred men from the former Carmilla Faction who had remained loyal to Ernesta. They had transitioned from being aristocrats and warriors to laborers, helping clear the land and lay the foundations for the infrastructure.
Though much of the surrounding land remained wild, the core of Valeyra was solid. Paved roads now connected the central plaza to the outlying houses, a hospital, some crops, and a growing school system.
The process had been accelerated by the survivors' willingness to learn human magic. Under Lavinia's guidance, those who once relied on blood-empowered abilities were now channeling their mana into construction and agriculture.
As Jay and Lavinia turned onto the main street, the sound of rhythmic chanting and children's laughter met them.
In a wide yard adjacent to the schoolhouse, a girl with a doll-like appearance stood before a group of children. She had long, wavy light blonde hair that shimmered in the sun, and she moved with a practiced, somewhat stiff grace.
This girl was Elmenhilde Karnstein.
Once a high-ranking vampire of the Karnstein House, one of the three noble houses of the Carmilla Faction, she is now the primary instructor for the village's magical curriculum.
Yes, there is a magical curriculum here, one that carries the same importance and weight as the normal school curriculum for these children.
It was not treated as something special or dangerous, but as something natural, a part of daily life, just like reading, writing, and counting.
When both the children and the girl noticed Jay and Lavinia, their faces instantly brightened. Smiles spread across the yard, and voices followed.
"Zayyn! Zayyn!"
The children lunged toward Jay with a terrifying lack of hesitation.
Despite his reputation among the ex-Vampires, to these orphans, he was simply the man who had opened their cages. Jay stiffened, his arms hanging awkwardly at his sides as three young boys collided with his waist.
Lavinia, meanwhile, was engulfed by the girls. She laughed, her sapphire eyes glowing as she patted heads and listened to a dozen stories at once.
"Well, well, everyone," Lavinia teased, looking over the crowd.
"How is the magic session going?"
"Lavinia-sama! Karnstein-sensei is scary!" one boy shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at Elmenhilde.
"Yeah! She's a meany!" another echoed.
Elmenhilde's pale face instantly flushed a deep, embarrassed crimson.
"Hey! I am not!"
She looked at Lavinia with a mixture of desperation and respect. Lavinia was her mentor in human magic, and the former vampire took that role with deadly seriousness, often to an overbearing degree.
"Sensei... no, I mean, Lavinia... I was just telling them exactly what you taught me," Elmenhilde stammered, smoothing her dress.
"But they wouldn't pay attention to the Thaumaturgy lesson, so I had to scold them a little bit... Just a little."
Lavinia chuckled, stepping forward to pat Elmenhilde's shoulder.
"El-chan, they are just kids. You have to be gentle with them. Magic is supposed to be a wonder, not a chore."
She then turned to the children, her expression mock-serious.
"And you guys, be good boys and girls. Listen to El-chan, kay~"
The children shouted a simultaneous
"Kay~."
"Good!"
During the exchange, Elmenhilde cast a fearful, subtle glance toward Jay, he noticed it, but he could not blame her. After all, he had taken everything they had. Their identity, their wealth, their status, and their entire existence had been reduced to the same level as the people they once saw as cattle.
Practically, only Ernesta treated him as usual, with respect and normalcy. The rest of the vampires still feared him to their core.
"Alright everyone, back to your lessons," Lavinia called out with a wave.
They continued down the street toward the center of the village. The Village Hall was not an imposing structure.
It was a humble, two-story building made of wood.
At the entrance, two guards clad in simple reinforced leather gave a deep, synchronized bow.
When the door opened, the scent of expensive tobacco and aged paper filled the room. Inside, the familiar figure of the Governor General was sprawled in a chair, looking entirely too comfortable.
Across from him stood Ernesta Carmilla.
Even in this rural setting, Ernesta remained regal. Her long white hair was tied back, and she wore a beautiful simple white dress. She was currently the Magister, the de facto leader of Valeyra.
"Now, now, Ernesta-chan," Azazel was saying, a smirk playing on his lips. "Why would you think I'd travel to such a remote, rustic place if it wasn't to see your beautiful face?"
Ernesta didn't even look at him. She stared straight at the door as Jay and Lavinia entered, her expression shifting into one of profound relief.
"Mr. Illya, Mrs. Lavinia. Welcome," she said, her voice smooth and formal.
"Good morning, Ernesta-chan!" Lavinia chirped, while Jay offered a short, silent nod.
Ernesta turned back to Azazel, her eyes cold.
"Since your true audience has arrived, Governor, I will excuse myself. I have reports on the new irrigation system to finalize."
She exited the room with a graceful sweep, leaving the three of them alone.
Azazel sighed, watching her go before turning his attention to Jay. His playful demeanor didn't vanish, but his eyes sharpened.
"So," Jay began, pulling up a chair and sitting across from the Fallen Angel.
"Are there finally news about the Ars Goetia?"
"No," Azazel said flatly.
Jay's eyebrows rose. "Then why did you come here? I thought we agreed you wouldn't waste my time unless you had a lead."
"Wait a minute, don't be so hasty," Azazel said, holding up his hands.
"I don't have the book's location, but I have heard some very... interesting rumors. Rumors that suggest we've been looking at the problem from the wrong angle."
"Rumors?" Lavinia asked.
"We initially thought the creation of the Evil Pieces might be connected to the Ars Goetia, right? But that theory was disproven by the pawn piece in my lab."
Azazel somehow had an Evil Piece in his laboratory, supposedly for research purposes. He claimed he had obtained it through his own methods.
But when Jay tried using the Grail to extract information about any connection between the Evil Pieces and the Ars Goetia, it yielded nothing. No resonance. No link. No trace of origin.
"My hypothesis is that the Evil Pieces currently in circulation or being created today have already changed from the original versions made 500 years ago, which remain mysterious to this day, including how they were created." Azazel explained,
"Only Ajuka Beelzebub knows the truth behind it, and if this is correct, then that genius of a man has likely already found a way to replicate their effects from the original batch. This would mean that the current batch technically has nothing to do with the Ars Goetia, which is probably why the Grail cannot obtain any information about it."
Jay remained silent, his dark hazel eyes fixed on Azazel.
"I thought we had already established that, but as you know, we don't even know for sure what the original batch was, which pieces were created by Ajuka Beelzebub using the Ars Goetia, or even whether he used it at all to create the Evil Pieces." Jay retorted.
Azazel nodded.
"I know. That's exactly why this rumor is important. Whether or not the Evil Pieces are related to the Ars Goetia, it's worth trying."
Jay remained silent, while Lavinia curiously asked,
"And what is this rumor, Governor?" Lavinia asked, her curiosity piqued.
Azazel leaned forward, his voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial whisper.
"Have either of you heard of the King Piece?"