Eduardo
Pillar isle Dungeon
Pillar isle
North Pillar Ocean
America continent
April 17th 6415
It didn't take long to finish off the remaining Silver Moon Bears.
Each time I pulled the trigger, my bullets surged with resonant force—not just mana-enhanced, but perfectly attuned to the flow of my core. The resonance rounds Greta had forged didn't just channel my energy—they harmonized with it, drawing from the well of spiritual pain that had built up inside me like a coiled spring. Every shot was a cathartic release. Precision. Power. Purpose.
The beasts stood no chance.
They fell one after another, torn apart by bullets that rang with the weight of near-death and defiance. Each one I dropped only deepened the intensity of my mana core, as if the ache of survival itself was transmuting into raw magical strength.
And then there was Lilith.
She moved like twilight made flesh—fluid, fierce, and terrifyingly graceful. Her twin hammers—Heartbeats—were instruments of devastation, but the way she wielded them reminded me of a dancer in a deadly waltz. Each strike was a step, each spin a flourish. She transitioned from one beast to another with such elegant brutality, the battlefield looked more like a stage than a war zone. There was a rhythm to her violence—artistry in the way she killed.
At some point, I stopped fighting and just watched. Not because I couldn't keep up, but because... for a moment, I was in awe.
And then, as abruptly as it had begun, the portal flickered.
Its silvery glow stuttered, then collapsed inward like a star folding in on itself. The humming ether vanished with it, leaving behind only silence... and the acrid scent of blood, ash, and spent mana.
Lilith lowered her hammers, chest rising and falling in steady breaths. I holstered my pistol blade, feeling the slow throb of mana in my veins—stronger now, steadier. We didn't speak for a few seconds.
We didn't need to say anything. Whatever this dungeon had thrown at us… we had survived it. Together.
I reloaded my guns with practiced ease, slipping fresh resonance rounds into the chambers. Beside me, Lilith held her hammers out, murmuring a light incantation. Magic shimmered across their surface, cleansing the gore and blood until they gleamed once more—gleamed with something like pride.
I glanced at the weapons—Heartbeats, she'd called them. The question had been itching at the back of my mind since the fight began, and it finally clawed its way out in my expression. She caught the look immediately, her golden eyes narrowing.
"Just spit it out," she said flatly. "I don't bite."
"Yeah, right," I muttered, slinging the gun back into its holster. "First time I saw you, you tried to kill my guards."
"Only because they were rude," she snapped back without missing a beat. "So? Are you going to ask me, or should I pretend I don't see that irritating curiosity crawling across your face?"
I raised my hands slightly in mock surrender. "Alright, alright. Those hammers… They're forging tools, right?"
She gave a simple, "Sure," and started walking again. We moved deeper into the winding cavern, both of us still alert, eyes scanning for another portal, trap, or worse.
"Then why use them in battle?" I asked. "You've got a sword, right? A katana? Why not use that?"
Her pace didn't slow, but her voice was quieter this time. "Because I want them to know me," she said. "And I need to know them."
I frowned slightly, not quite understanding. She noticed and sighed.
"If I want to be a great forgemaster," she explained, "then I have to understand more than just heat, pressure, and metal. I have to understand my tools—how they feel, how they move, what they respond to. And they have to understand me too. My mana, my rhythm, my intent."
She glanced down at the twin hammers, almost fondly.
"Battle is the purest test," she said. "No forge will ever reveal what a weapon can truly become unless it's been wielded in the storm. So, I fight with them. So they learn me, and I learn them."
I stared for a second, then gave a small smile. "That's... actually kind of poetic."
She rolled her eyes. "Don't get sentimental. It's just smart forging."
"Sure it is," I said with a smile. "Still... poetic."
She didn't respond. But I thought I saw the faintest ghost of a smile tug at the corner of her lips—brief, almost imperceptible, like moonlight skimming over a blade's edge. It vanished before I could say anything.
We walked in silence for a while, our footsteps echoing softly through the cavern. The ground beneath us was slick and uneven, shaped by ages of underground currents. Glowing moss clung to the walls like half-forgotten starlight, illuminating our path in silvery blues and ghostly greens.
It was quiet—unnaturally so. The kind of silence that weighed on the ears and made every breath feel like a trespass.
Eventually, we rounded a bend and came upon it.
A portal.
Set between two towering silver-patterned pillars that pulsed faintly with mana, it shimmered with an otherworldly light—silverish blue, like moonlight caught in water. It hovered in the air, still and waiting, as though it had been expecting us. Lilith slowed her pace and tilted her head.
"I wonder if we're still on the lower floor," I said.
Lilith glanced at the moonglass veining the ceiling. "If we are, we're too deep for Aeternum to scan. The moonglass in this dungeon interferes with its perception."
"Yeah," I said. "No choice but to limit the use of Internal sense. It's like walking blind through a puzzle box. Though we did beat those Silver Moon beasts," I offered, trying to sound more confident than I felt. "So maybe we passed whatever trial this was."
Lilith folded her arms, eyeing the portal. "Strength through unity. That's what the inscription said back there. Maybe this was the Dungeon's way of seeing if two clashing souls could find common rhythm."
I looked at her sidelong. "You think we did?"
"I didn't say it was perfect," she muttered. "But we're not dead. That counts for something."
I chuckled as she stepped closer to the portal. The light pulsed gently, like a heartbeat.
"Well," she said, drawing in a breath, "here goes nothing."
Lilith stepped through the portal without hesitation, her silhouette dissolving into the silver-blue light like a blade vanishing into mist. I lingered for just a second—uncertain, not of the destination, but of what we were becoming. We weren't a team. Not really. Not yet. But something had shifted in that fight, that moment we stopped clashing and started moving together.
So I stepped through. The world twisted, warped, and then—clarified. We emerged beneath a vast, twilight canopy.
Silver trees towered above us—twisting, wild, ancient. Their branches curled like calligraphy written by moonlight, and their leaves shimmered as if laced with stardust. The air was cool and crisp, tinged with a faint metallic scent, like ozone after lightning. Overhead, a deep midnight sky stretched endlessly, speckled with stars that blinked in slow, deliberate rhythm—like the forest itself was breathing, moonlight pouring through the canopy. For a moment, I was still. Caught in the sheer majesty of it.
"Beautiful," I murmured, almost involuntarily.
Lilith stood beside me, her gaze scanning the treetops, her breath visible in the cold. She didn't say anything, but I saw how her fingers loosened around the handle of her hammer—an unconscious sign of being at ease.
The ground beneath us was soft and glimmering, blanketed in moss that glowed faintly underfoot with a bluish-silver hue. Strange lights flitted through the branches—maybe fireflies, maybe something else entirely.
"I've never seen trees like this," I said.
"Neither have I," Lilith admitted, her tone quiet but alert. "This isn't just some random forest. It's part of the Dungeon's design. Probably a trap. Everything here has a purpose."
"Even beauty?" I asked.
She glanced at me with a frown. "Especially beauty. The most dangerous traps are always the ones that lull you first."
"Sure." I smiled. She had no idea how that applied to her.
She rolled her eyes. "Let's keep moving. We don't know what's watching."
We moved deeper into the silver forest, the world around us shifting with every step. The trees were strange—towering things with bark that shimmered like frost-covered steel, their trunks twisting unnaturally, branches curling inward like the script of a forgotten tongue. Vines hung low, glittering like strands of moonlight.
Flowers lined the path, unfurling in rhythmic pulses, each bloom a quiet heartbeat of soft mana. It was quiet. Not peaceful—hushed. Like the forest itself was holding its breath. Our footsteps crunched faintly on a carpet of luminescent moss. Occasionally, a silver petal drifted down, landing with a sound too soft to be real.
My internal sense reached out instinctively, brushing against empty air—nothing stirred. Not a whisper of life. But I still felt it. A coldness creeping into my bones. The kind that didn't come from temperature, but from presence.
Mist began to drift in—thin at first, like the breath of the trees themselves. It curled around our legs, coiling low and slow, silver-bright and laced with something… wrong. It didn't obscure our vision, but it drained sound, dulled the world to a strange hush. No birds. No wind. Just the soft chime of mana flowers behind us.
I tightened my grip on my gunblade. "Lilith... something's wrong."
She didn't respond. Just kept walking—steady, measured steps, her eyes scanning. Calm. Collected. Dangerous. Her fingers, I noticed, had curled again around the shaft of her hammer, the same way they had before she'd crushed a mana beast's skull. That told me everything I needed to know: She felt it too. We rounded a bend in the silver path—and she froze.
No words. Just motion.
She slammed her hammer into the earth. The ground cracked open with a crunch, and from it, a stone boulder surged upward—just in time to intercept a gleaming silver slash that would have cleaved us both in half.
The impact exploded in a burst of mana and gravel. I was thrown off my feet, barely twisting midair before landing hard on a branch above. Lilith wasn't far—she'd caught a higher perch, one leg crouched, one arm already raising her hammer again.
Another silver crescent tore through the air—then another, and another. They sliced through the trees like they were parchment, sending chunks of ancient bark raining down. I leapt, using wind-threaded footwork to vault to a safer limb, my gunblade drawn.
"Where the hell is it coming from?" I hissed.
I reached out with my Internal sense again—nothing. No movement. No energy signatures. Just that eerie, silver fog. My blood ran cold.
"That mist," I muttered. "It's dampening our senses. Same as the Moonglass."
Lilith didn't reply—she was already moving. Graceful. Lethal. Her hammer spun in her hands like it belonged there, like it was an extension of her breath.
And me?
I tried to steady mine.
The silver mist thickened—not in sight, but in presence. Like it had learned to breathe.
Branches creaked somewhere above. Not broken. Not snapped. Shifted. I raised my gunblade, slowly scanning the canopy.
"Don't rely on sight," Lilith whispered, her voice barely audible over the silence. "Or sense. Listen to the way the silence bends."
She was right. The stillness wasn't still at all. Something out there was circling. Not walking—stalking. Each step hidden by precision, each breath folded into the folds of the mist.
Then I felt it. Not a sound, not a presence—but a change in pressure, like the world had taken a shallow breath and forgotten to release it. My skin prickled. My vision blurred slightly, as if something brushed past my peripheral, just beyond the threshold of my reaction time.
Lilith suddenly pivoted midair. Her hammer spun, cracking against a branch—but nothing was there. Just bark torn loose. Her body tensed, eyes narrowed.
"It's not just hiding in the mist," she said. "It is the mist."
Another silver slash whistled through the air—this one arcing behind me. I twisted just in time, the blade singing past my cheek and grazing the bark behind.
We were being herded. Every motion, every false attack—measured. Testing us. Watching our response times. The predator wasn't rushing. It was learning. Lilith leapt beside me, grounding us both on a thick, spiraling root that extended from one of the larger silver trees.
"If it's going to use the mist," she said, voice steel, "then we give it nowhere to hide."
She raised her hammer. Light and darkness sparked at her shoulders—dancing together, rippling through her veins. Her stance widened.
"Light it up."
I didn't need a second invitation. I loaded one of the Illumina cores Greta had given me—light rounds with radiant burst impact. A flick of my thumb. The cylinder clicked. I aimed low.
"Covering fire," I said.
I pulled the trigger. The first shot lit the forest floor in searing brilliance—silver mist burned away like paper near flame. In that flash, I saw it—just for a heartbeat. Tall. Thin. It clung to the underside of a tree, limbs like coiled silver wires, body flowing like mercury.
But that flash was all Lilith needed. She moved—Skyfall burst, wind-threaded, divine rhythm. Her hammer howled through the air, trailing arcs of light and shadow in a spiral, slamming into the branches above where the creature had been.
A shriek echoed through the forest—not loud, but deep, as if vibrating beneath our bones rather than around us. The mist recoiled, pulling away in long, desperate tendrils.
I raised my weapon again. "So what now?"
Lilith didn't turn to me. Her eyes remained fixed upward, senses sharp.
"We make it bleed," she said. "Then we track it."
The crescent slashes stopped—just as suddenly as they'd come.
Lilith landed beside me, her breath even, hammers spinning slowly in her hands like they were waiting for a rhythm only she could hear. The forest had grown completely still, the silver mist thickening at our feet.
A shape coalesced from that mist. At first, it was just a shimmer—then a loping form, lean and predatory. Long limbs, silver-pale fur slick with condensation, its skin like mercury, and then it opened its eyes, which were like frostbitten moons. The creature didn't roar. It exhaled, and that breath froze the air.
"What the hell is that?" I whispered, my breath barely stirring the thick silver air. My grip tightened around the gunblade, finger resting just above the trigger.
Lilith didn't respond right away. Her stance shifted—subtle but sharp—one hammer lowering, the other angling behind her like a coiled serpent. Her gaze swept the clearing: once to the mist, once to the flickering shape, and then it settled—steady, cold, certain.
"Lunaris Wraithhound," she said, like she was naming an old ghost.
The creature moved.
Not ran. Moved. It dissolved into the mist, silver fur and crescent horns blurring into smoke. My eyes tracked it, instincts screaming—but by the time I raised my gun, it had already vanished between two twisting trees.
A crackle echoed behind us. I spun, aiming blindly—but again, too late. Only the glint of its eyes lingered, like distant moons winking out of existence.
"According to Aeternum," Lilith said calmly, "this thing didn't wander in. It was born here. Bred here."
"What does that even mean?" I said, backing toward her, the blade of my pistol drawn like it would make a difference.
"It's Dungeon-native," she murmured, watching the mist swirl around us. "An evolved mana beast—silver-aspected, mist-adapted, and Lunar-fed."
She touched her fingers to the silver air, her eyes narrowing. "It secretes a special form of silver mana. Aetherially tuned. The mist it exudes functions like Moonglass—disrupts Internal sense, mental scanning, and perception-based abilities. It becomes one with the fog—part of the terrain itself."
I watched as small silver droplets clung to the leaves, pulsing faintly. Like veins. Like breath.
"So… it's not just hiding in the mist," I realized, exhaling. "It is the mist."
Lilith nodded, her lips thinning. "It's not just a predator. It's a perfect one. Made to hunt anything warm-blooded and clever enough to sense danger."
Her hammer spun once, its edges glowing faintly with light and darkness. "And if Aeternum's right… There are more."
"So what should we do?" I asked, eyes flicking between the shifting mist and the trees that now felt more like veils than shelter.
Lilith's gaze remained fixed ahead, unblinking. "If this mist is mana," she said quietly, "then it picked the wrong prey."
A subtle hum vibrated in the air as her right arm began to glow. The soft, dull light of the forest turned harsher, darker—like twilight curling inward. Deep violet runes pulsed beneath her armor jacket, spreading like veins of power along her skin. The markings coiled down her arm, threading into the handle of her hammer. A moment later, the weapon lit up—wreathed in a thick aura of dark purple energy that shimmered with unnatural hunger.
I felt it immediately.
A pull. A low, magnetic gravity that dragged the silver mist toward her weapon. The mist obeyed like it recognized something older, stronger—like prey offering itself to a predator. The silver haze around us began to thin, drawn into the spiraling aura of her hammer.
Lilith's Ability Factor.
Right. I had forgotten. She didn't just wield elemental force—she absorbed it. Any energy, any essence, even mana itself. Her Factor didn't just break the rules. It consumed them.
But the mist didn't give in quietly.
Another silver crescent slash tore from the haze—zigzagging through the trees, impossibly fast, aimed straight at Lilith's exposed side. There was no time for her to react.
So I did.
I moved on instinct—body snapping in front of her like a shield.
The crescent tore through my chest.
A sound escaped me—more breath than voice—as the edge of the silver energy carved through my Validus layer like paper. Pain lanced through every nerve, a searing burn that turned cold just as quickly. Blood sprayed behind me in a slow, arcing mist. My legs gave out, but I didn't fall. I refused to fall.
And through that pain, I focused.
The mist was thinner now, thanks to Lilith's absorption. My internal senses—blunted until now—spiked awake. The sound of a pained howl echoed from the edge of the forest, a sharp animal keen that carried a second, more telling note—agony.
Vesper Mortem.
My divine protection didn't just prevent death. It ensured balance—returning pain to the one who inflicted it. Which meant my attacker had screamed because they felt the slash they'd dealt me.
Perfect.
I didn't need to see the Wraithhound. I could hear it, feel it—howling in shared torment.
I raised my gun.
The barrel pulsed with resonance, my mana converging into a bullet that glowed deep red.
I fired toward the source of the scream—not once, but three times. Each shot howled as it tore through the air, sharp and angry. The mist parted where the bullets flew, catching glimpses of silver fur and crescent bone—
One of the rounds hit.
A wet crunch echoed through the trees. The mist shimmered like a wounded animal's breath, then retreated violently from that spot, dragging silver droplets into the canopy as if recoiling from the pain.
I staggered, blood still leaking from my wound. Lilith caught me before I could drop.
"You idiot," she whispered.
"Saved your ass," I muttered, smirking through the red on my teeth.
Her grip didn't soften. "Next time, let me take the hit. I can't die, remember?"
"Yeah," I gasped, grinning. "But neither can I. Not unless Death files a formal complaint."
"When the hell did you get a sense of humor?" Lilith snarled, her voice sharp but her grip steady.
She hoisted me with one arm like I weighed nothing, leaping from tree to tree with terrifying precision. Branches blurred past us, silver leaves scattering in our wake as we put as much distance as possible between us and the pack. That's right—pack. I might've dropped one of those freaks, but there were more. I could feel them. Hunting. Coordinating. Waiting.
Retreat wasn't cowardice. It was survival.
Lilith didn't waste breath with spells—she didn't need to. Her entire body glowed with the subtle luster of Skyfall, her movement guided by sheer martial mastery. She was a blur of motion, controlled and efficient, her feet barely touching the bark before launching again. The mana art let her fly through the forest canopy without ever truly flying, weaving through the twilight trees like a storm on rails.
She didn't channel magic. She didn't need to.
Magic would've drained her. Combined with the mana art, it would've cost too much. And Lilith Kain didn't waste effort—she calculated it.
Beneath the faint sheen of her skin-tight armor, I could feel the tension in her muscles, the careful conservation of strength and mana. She was faster than any beast I'd ever seen—and the fact that she was carrying me, bloodied and broken, like I was a piece of luggage she begrudgingly cared about?
Yeah, that was the part that scared me the most.
"I'm just saying," I coughed, wincing as the air bit at my chest wound, "you could've at least pretended to be impressed."
She didn't answer.
But her grip tightened.
The moment she landed, it was with a thud—firm, sharp, deliberate. Her boots scraped the soil as she skidded to a halt on the other side of a broken forest path, a jagged road cutting through the wild silver trees. She dropped me unceremoniously beside the trunk of a moonbarked tree, the impact knocking the breath out of me.
"Could've been gentler," I muttered.
Lilith didn't respond. She stumbled back a step—then another—until she was pressed flat against the far side of the tree, her back rigid, as if the bark behind her might somehow restrain whatever was rising inside.
Then I saw it.
Her face twisted—not in anger, not in fear—but something far more primal. Her pupils narrowed, the sharp orange glow in her eyes flickering, dimming like a dying ember. Her breath hitched, shallow and sharp. Her lips parted slightly, and her fangs—not the elegant, ceremonial kind—lengthened.
A low, involuntary growl vibrated from her chest.
She wasn't in pain.
She was starving.
And she was starving for me.
A cold realization spread through my veins faster than the blood she was fixating on.
All this time… she had never fed. Not once since becoming a Vampire. We'd all just assumed it didn't matter—she was a Kain, after all. Different rules. Different biology. She'd said so herself, brushing it off with that usual Lilith indifference. And we'd accepted it, because who the hell was going to question Lilith Kain?
But now I saw it: that wasn't confidence. That was suppression. Restraint. Denial.
And something had broken that.
Her breathing deepened. Her hand trembled near the hilt of her hammer—gripping it, not to fight, but as if it were the only thing anchoring her to herself. I followed her eyes, locked onto my wound, to the dried streak of blood still crusted over my torn chest armor.
The mist curling between the trees seemed to hush, like the whole forest was holding its breath.
Then I remembered. The Feast of Lamentation. The banquet held by the Mircalla House, where blood flowed like wine and temptation was part of the tradition. Lilith had sipped—just a taste, nothing more. But maybe that was all it took.
A spark in dry kindling.
Now, the hunger wasn't just stirring. It was roaring.
And it wasn't for animal blood.
It was for Vampire blood.
Specifically—mine.
I didn't move. Not out of fear.
But because I understood.
She was fighting it—clawing against something ancient, something deeper than instinct. Her jaw was clenched tight, her body tense, every muscle screaming with restraint. But her eyes… her eyes were begging for help.
So I gave it.
I stood up, slow and steady, ignoring the flare of pain in my chest. I unlatched one of the clasps on my jacket, pulling the torn edge aside to expose the wound—still open, still glistening.
Her gaze snapped to it like a hound to prey.
"I'm offering," I said, voice calm despite the storm in my veins. "You don't have to fight it alone."
"Don't—" Her voice was hoarse. "Don't be an idiot."
I stepped closer.
"I've been worse," I said with a faint smirk, "and besides, my blood's got good insurance."
"Eduardo—"
I didn't let her finish. I raised my hand and reached out, brushing her cheek with the back of my fingers. She flinched—hard—but didn't pull away.
"I trust you," I said quietly.
She shuddered.
Then she lunged.
Not violently—desperately. One arm wrapped around my back, the other gripping my shoulder like I was the only thing anchoring her to this world. Her lips pressed to the wound, and she drank—not with elegance, not with grace—but with a need so raw it shook her.
And then—
Agony.
A ripple of searing pain tore through her body. She gasped, wrenching herself away as if struck by lightning. Her back hit the tree, eyes wide with horror, blood staining her lips.
My knees buckled—but I didn't fall.
Because I knew what happened.
Vesper Mortem had activated. The moment my life was put at risk, it shifted the pain I felt into the one who caused it. It didn't punish—only reminded.
Lilith clutched her side, trembling.
Her breath came out in broken gasps, like someone pulled from the brink of drowning. She looked at me—not with hunger now, but with terror.
And guilt.
"I—I didn't mean—" she croaked.
"I know," I said, voice softer now. "It brought you back."
She slid down the tree, arms wrapping around herself. Her fangs still glistened. But the hunger had receded. For now.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
I sat beside her, not touching, just being there.
"You don't need to apologize," I said. "You didn't kill me."
"I almost did."
"Almost doesn't count." I looked up at the silver-lit canopy. "Besides, have you forgotten, you can't kill me."
The forest remained quiet around us. The mist curled lazily between silver-trunked trees—no longer thick, no longer hiding predators. Just air and silence.
Lilith sat near the base of a tree, her shoulders finally easing. For once, she wasn't preparing to strike or scanning for danger. She just breathed. Slowly. Deliberately. Like it was a foreign act she had to relearn.
The silence stretched between us—not awkward, but full. Like the whole forest was listening in.
Then her voice broke the stillness, low and brittle: "I wasn't just hungry."
I turned my head, watching her. She didn't look back—her gaze remained locked on the mossy roots at her feet. Her fists were clenched against her knees.
"I was angry," she said. "Frustrated. And I used that to push you away. I shut you out, acted like your voice didn't matter." She exhaled sharply. "You were right about Ella. She's… she's already walking a path I don't understand. She's changing. Becoming more than just the girl I promised to protect."
Her jaw tensed. "And I keep trying to stop her. Because the thought of losing her too—"
She didn't finish.
But I already knew.
"Because of Jennifer," I said quietly.
She flinched. Just slightly. But it was enough.
I had never met Jennifer, but I'd heard pieces of what happened in Thornhill Dungeon. The entity imprisoned there… how it had taken over her friend. How Lilith had made the only choice she could to stop it.
The weight of that decision still clung to her like a second skin.
"She was family to you," I said.
"She was family," Lilith whispered, her voice cracking at the edges. "Ella is, too. And I keep thinking… if I just hold tight enough, maybe I won't lose her. But that's not how this world works."
Her fingers trembled against her knees. "Every time I see her growing stronger, walking further away from who she used to be… I feel proud. But also… terrified. Like I'm watching her vanish in real time."
I didn't rush to respond.
I just sat there, letting her unravel the knots inside herself.
"I've been so focused on control," she murmured, "that I never thought about how much I was trying to control her. Not protect. Control."
She finally turned toward me. "So… I'm sorry. For being cruel. For lashing out. For not listening when I should have." Her apology wasn't smooth. It wasn't polished. It was real. And that made all the difference.
I leaned back against the tree, letting her words settle between us like falling leaves. The forest had gone utterly still again—quiet in a way that felt sacred, like it was holding its breath for us.
"…You don't have to apologize," I said after a beat, my voice low.
Lilith tilted her head, eyebrow raised—not in defiance, but in quiet surprise.
"No," I continued, shaking my head slightly. "You were right. I was arrogant. Probably still am, if I'm being honest. I used to walk around with this superiority complex—thinking that being a Vampire, a royal one at that, made me better than everyone else. Above them. Especially humans. I thought they were soft. Weak. Fragile."
I looked down at my hands—still faintly stained with dried blood.
"But then I met you… and you didn't fit any of those boxes. You were stubborn, reckless, terrifying. You were everything I thought humans couldn't be. And still… I didn't get it. Not really."
I exhaled, slow and bitter. "Not until last year. When my comrades—Carmen, José, the ones I trained with, fought with—were slaughtered by humans. And me? I should've died too. I did die."
My throat tightened. The memory wasn't sharp, but the echo of it still burned. "That ritual… what they did to us. What they did to me. If it hadn't been for that entity from the other side—cursing me with Vesper Mortem—I wouldn't be sitting here."
I gave a short laugh. Dry. Hollow. "But the truth is… I was jealous."
Lilith's eyes sharpened at that. Not angry—just attentive, like she was watching a knot finally unravel.
I looked her in the eye. "Ariella and I… we were meant to be something. Betrothed, bonded—some ancient rite between noble bloodlines. But the truth is… I never cared much about that."
I swallowed, the words catching on something old and brittle inside me.
"What I really wanted… what I couldn't admit back then… was for you to look at me the way you looked at her."
Lilith's breath caught. "Eduardo… don't—"
"I know," I said quickly, voice hoarse. "I know what I did. I shouldn't have done it. Not without your permission. I crossed a line, and I was an asshole for it. You have every right to hate me. I deserve that."
Silence.
"But I couldn't stand it," I continued, quieter now. "The way you two were together… it was like watching gravity bend around a sun I wasn't allowed to orbit. You didn't even need words to understand each other. You belonged. And I—" My voice broke, just slightly. "I was just the guy with the right bloodline. The perfect title. The wrong soul."
He let out a slow breath.
"So I pushed you. Mocked you. Tried to tear you down just to make myself feel tall. It was petty. Cruel. And I knew it. But I didn't know how else to deal with the ache."
"Ella and I…" Lilith's voice was barely above a whisper, her gaze drifting toward the silver canopy above. "I don't even know what we are anymore. Or what we were. But I know we can't be together. Not like that. Not with the alliance looming over everything."
She paused, the weight of her words hanging between us like morning frost.
"And… a part of me hated you for it," she admitted, the words rough as gravel. "I never really stopped to see things from your side. I didn't want to. You were just the obstacle."
"It was never my intention to come between you two," I said softly, meaning it.
"I know," she replied, and for a second, I thought I saw a flicker of regret pass through her. "But it doesn't change anything. What Ella needs is a strong alliance with the Mircalla House. Not... me."
She pressed a hand to her chest, as if to still the ache underneath.
"If she's going to take back her family's throne, if she's going to survive what's coming… then your betrothal matters more than whatever she and I had. Or thought we had."
Her voice didn't crack. Lilith never cracked. But her silence afterward said everything her pride wouldn't. A prickling sensation bloomed in my chest—and then, like a tide receding, the pain began to ebb. I glanced down. The deep wounds that had torn through my torso were gone, smooth skin knitting over muscle and bone. My divine protection had activated again, flooding my body with accelerated healing.
But the pain hadn't truly vanished. It still lingered—swirling beneath the surface, not as a wound, but as fuel. It sharpened my focus, fed my limbs with more power than feeding ever could. I inhaled slowly, pushing myself up to my feet.
"I'm glad we finally got the chance to talk," I said, dusting off my coat. "Maybe… maybe we can—"
"Be friends," Lilith said, cutting in gently.
She stood as well, brushing a leaf from her shoulder. Her eyes shimmered, faintly glowing now with a light I hadn't noticed before. A flush colored her deep brown skin, the glow of mana or something else—something warm. The sight of her caught me off guard, just for a breath.
"Yes," I said quietly, that word carrying more weight than I'd expected.
Lilith's gaze met mine. "Fine. We can be friends."
I offered a small, crooked smile. "I'd like that."