Silence filled the cold, damp room of the dungeon. Luca sat on the floor, a short distance away from the corner wall, while Lane had fallen into a deep sleep with his head resting on Luca's shoulder. Luca could feel the warmth of Lane's quiet breaths against him. He stared at the boy fixedly, but his eyes no longer held the same warmth as before.
A single thought kept circling in Luca's mind—"This boy is a stranger to me. No matter how innocent he looks, there's no telling what power lies hidden behind it. I shouldn't get too close... emotions will only make me weak." He tried to harden himself, turning his heart into stone. He decided then and there that he would only use Lane as a tool and never truly accept him as a friend.
But then, in a dark corner of Luca's mind, Lane's laughing face and those bright, lovely eyes flashed vividly. He began to remember how this stranger had reached out to him for the first time without any selfish motive. How he trusted Luca at every moment with such pure innocence, as if Luca were his entire world.
Luca became trapped in a strange internal conflict. On one side was his cunning mind, and on the other was that unknown feeling that kept bowing before Lane's innocence. This fierce battle between his heart and brain triggered an unbearable, sharp pain in Luca's head. The pain grew so intense that darkness began to cloud his vision.
Since Luca was sitting away from the wall, as his body went limp and unconscious, he began to fall uncontrollably to the side. At that exact moment, something extraordinary happened. Lane, who had been in a deep sleep just a second ago, snapped his eyes open instantly. Before Luca could strike the floor or the wall, Lane caught him with lightning-fast reflexes. Lane gently supported Luca and carefully laid him against his own shoulder.
Luca was now completely unconscious. In the silence of that blackout, a hazy vision began to emerge behind Luca's closed eyes. He saw three mysterious individuals standing there. Who they were or where they came from was impossible to tell. Suddenly, a heavy, echoing voice pierced through the silence and rang in Luca's ears— "Celestial..."
That word struck Luca's consciousness like a bolt of lightning from the heavens, and with that, he sank completely into the depths of darkness.