Evelyn wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of a hand still stained with blood. On the operating table, the great Paladin, Alaric, lay stiff. The stitches across his chest were still a raw, angry red, forming the jagged yet sturdy patterns characteristic of Evelyn's taxidermy—practicality over aesthetics.
The silence of the workshop was suddenly shattered by a violent jolt.
Thump.
A single heartbeat, so powerful it shook the old wooden table. A faint, rhythmic purple glow pulsed from between the stitches in Alaric's chest. The Chimera's heart had just accepted the command of the knight's nervous system.
Alaric's eyes snapped open.
They were no longer the clear, sky-blue eyes of a Holy Paladin. Instead, his pupils were narrowed into vertical slits like a predator's, glowing with an unnatural golden hue. Alaric gasped, his lungs forced to inhale air that felt like liquid fire. His large, calloused hand immediately shot out, gripping Evelyn's wrist with crushing force.
"What... have you... done?" Alaric's voice was hoarse, more of a beastly growl than a human tongue.
Evelyn didn't flinch. She leaned in, staring deep into the eyes of the man who, just hours ago, had been determined to take her head. "I did what your God could not, Alaric. I gave you life."
Alaric groaned in agony. He could feel something hot and wild thrumming inside his ribs. It wasn't the steady, calm rhythm of a knight's heart; it was the frantic, bloodthirsty beat of a monster. "This scent... the smell of a beast... it's inside me..."
"That is an S-rank Chimera core," Evelyn interrupted coldly. "It will pump strength through your veins ten times greater than any mortal's, but it comes with a price. You will always be hungry. And you are now in my debt."
Alaric tried to rise, but his body was still brittle. He looked down at the crude stitches on his chest with horror. For a Paladin, carrying the organs of a monster was the ultimate desecration of his holy vows.
"You... you stitched your sin into me, Evelyn," Alaric whispered, his voice a mix of hatred and an newfound, terrifying dependency.
Evelyn offered a thin, lethal smile. "Not just sin, my dear. I've stitched your fate to mine. From this moment on, that heart only beats as long as you are near me. Stray too far, and it will stop forever."
Outside, the distant tolling of cathedral bells echoed through the mist, signaling that the hunt for the "Witch of Stitches" had begun. Evelyn handed a blackened blade to Alaric.
"Now, show me, Holy Knight... will you slay your brothers with that monster heart, or will you let us both burn?"