While Kaelion was lost in the depths of his own mind, conversing with his entity, Ur, the outside world was tearing itself apart in chaos. Outside that silent reflection, Claude faced the fury of the Askov Forest. The storm was not just rain; it was icy lashes striking his face, obscuring everything around him.
The noise was deafening. The frantic sound of hooves sinking into the mud created a heavy echo, interrupted only by the roar of thunder that seemed intent on cracking the ground. The air was thick with the metallic scent of ozone seconds before a blue-white flash tore through the sky, striking a tree just a few meters from the carriage.
A piercing scream, muffled by the wood and leather of the structure, cut through the sound of the rain. It was Emanuelle.
Claude felt a tightening in his chest. Instinct told him to pull the reins, stop everything, and hold his niece, promising safety. But his hands, with fingers white and numb from the cold, only gripped the leather tighter. Stopping meant death. Beatrix and Lucius were not like the storm—they were hunters, and the trail of mud left by the carriage was an invitation to the slaughter.
"Faster, Raphaelo!" he growled, his voice losing itself in the wind.
The fear that dominated him was not of the darkness or the lightning. It was the fear of failing again. Every aching muscle, every scar beneath his Asterion Knight armor was a reminder of the years gone by. He remembered the smell of mold in the dungeons and the taste of blood from every suicide mission he accepted to climb the ranks. He had not become a monster of Arcane power for the sake of glory.
Everything was for Maria.
He saw her not just as the "treasure" Duke Hoffman coveted, but as the girl who changed the family's destiny. They were the children of an influential merchant, surrounded by silk and coins, but still, mere commoners in the eyes of the high nobility. They would never have the blue blood or the prestige of the great clans—until the "gift" awakened.
Maria's potential in Elemental Magic, especially her connection to the elements of earth and wind, was what placed a target on her back. What should have been a blessing for the family became the curse that tore her away. To the world, she was a political and mystical weapon; to Claude, she was the only piece of humanity still worth the price of his stained hands. He had spent years accumulating Arcane power and influence within the Order of Asterion just for this moment: the rescue. And he would not let the Duke touch her again.
At twelve years old, Maria was not just a child; she was a prodigy who defied the Magic and Arcane logic of the kingdom. While young nobles from ancient lineages spent decades in grueling meditations and training that cost them their youth to reach the Second Circle near the age of twenty, Maria reached it with the ease of one breathing. For her, earth and wind were not elements to be tamed, but friends who answered her commands even before they were verbalized.
However, in a world dominated by "blue blood," the talent of a commoner was rarely celebrated; it was coveted as a trophy or feared as heresy.
Claude was already seen as an "abnormality." A commoner rising through the knightly hierarchy with brute strength and an Arcane power that shouldn't belong to someone of his class. But Maria represented something different. She was the "trump card" that ambitious minds in the high court began to observe with a silent hunger. The nobility's thinking was as pragmatic as it was cruel: if a family of ordinary merchants could generate two "monsters" of power, what would happen if that blood mixed with an elite lineage? They didn't see a girl; they saw a matrix, a womb capable of generating a new generation of war gods.
It was this dark interest that brought Duke Hoffman into the family's life. Or rather, it gave the Duke the pretext to destroy it.
Hoffman did not use diplomacy; he used force. With the cynical smile of one who carries the royal seal and the weight of an army, he used every ounce of his political power to tear the girl from the comfort of her home. The screams of her parents and Maria's despair were stifled by corrupt bureaucracy and the cold gleam of the ducal guards' steel.
Claude fought with everything he had. He used his influence in the Order of Asterion, shouted through the marble corridors of the palace, and nearly drew his sword against men he had sworn to protect. But the reality of the Kingdom was bitter: the honor of a commoner knight was disposable paper before the will of a Duke. On that day, he realized that no matter how strong his Arcane power was, he was still just a pawn on a board where Hoffman was the master. The impotence of seeing his sister led away like property was what forged the man who now rode furiously under the storm.
The years that followed were forged in steel and blood. Under the tutelage of Duke Baal, the feared Master of the Order of Asterion, Claude transformed his fury into a political and military weapon. He survived battlefields where hope died early, accumulating achievements that even the most prestigious nobility could not ignore. He now held the title of Count and the command of his Order, but the shine of the medals on his chest seemed dull. Claude knew that in the Kingdom's game of chess, a Count was still a minor piece before a Duke like Hoffman. His ascent was not for glory; it was the slow construction of a ladder to pull his sister out of that abyss.
While Claude wove alliances in the shadows, Isabel was the one who kept the remnants of Maria's soul together within the Duchy.
A lady-in-waiting by obligation but a friend by choice, Isabel witnessed what official records would never dare to tell. She saw the twelve-year-old girl wither under the constant oppression of the Duke's son—a young man four years her senior who treated Maria's life as property. Isabel was there when Maria, at sixteen, gave birth to Emanuelle amidst the trauma.
Three years later, the horror repeated itself. But this time, Claude's escape plan was in motion. Destiny, however, held one final cruelty. At the height of the pursuit, as they tried to cross the shadows of a filthy and damp alley, the pains of labor paralyzed Maria.
There, amidst the smell of garbage, Kaelion came into the world. But there was no comfort of a cry. The baby was born pale, cold, and lifeless—a small, inert body that seemed to succumb before it even began. Maria's despair and Isabel's dread before the dead child froze time, while the metallic sound of swords from the Mercenaries hired by Claude echoed nearby. It was in that sepulchral silence that the impossible happened: the Spirit of Conrad, wandering and powerful, found its vessel. Where there should have been only a corpse in a forgotten alley, reincarnation took place. Kaelion did not awaken to life like an ordinary baby, but as the host of something much greater, bathed in the blood of flight and the mystery of an ancient soul.
Sephira was not a refuge; it was an antechamber of danger. The city streets, still under Duke Hoffman's dominion, smelled of trampled mud and trash. Inside the stifling tavern, where candlelight flickered against cold wooden walls, Claude was finally able to lower his guard—if only for a moment.
The reunion with Maria brought a relief that almost made him lose his balance, but it was what he saw in her arms that paralyzed him.
Looking at Emanuelle and little Kaelion — the baby who had defied death in that alley — Claude felt a bitter taste rise in his throat. The blood running through the little ones' veins was the same blood of the lineage he had sworn to destroy. For a dark second, he wanted to feel hate. He wanted to pour onto them all the rage, pain, and humiliation his family had suffered in recent years. The children were living reminders of the Duke's violence and his sister's agony.
But then, the silence of the room was broken by a soft murmur.
Maria, exhausted and pale, adjusted Kaelion's blanket and kissed the top of Emanuelle's head with a tenderness that seemed to ignore all the horror of the world outside. There were no traces of bitterness in her gaze; only a love so pure and resilient that it filled every crack of that damp place.
In that moment, Claude felt the bitterness burn and turn to ash. He realized that his own feelings of hate were selfish. They belonged only to him, while Maria's love belonged to the future. If she, who had carried the pain in her own flesh, could love them, who was he to deny them the same?
A new kind of warmth, different from arcane fury, began to heat the Commander's chest. He looked at Kaelion's small hands and Emanuelle's frightened face, and the title of Count seemed, for the first time, to have a real purpose.
If the Principality of Aldebaran was the destination, he would take them there, even if he had to raise a wall of bodies between his family and the Hoffmans. Claude made a silent vow as the rain continued to lash the roof of Sephira: even if the heavens decided to pour every misfortune upon their heads, he would ensure that light in Maria's eyes never went out again. They would live. They would be happy. And he would be the shield that made it possible.
Suddenly, the thread of memories binding Claude to the past was cut by the present. The sound did not come from the sky, like the thunder, but from the depths of the Askov Forest. It was a dry noise, a snap of branches followed by a low vibration that seemed to make the mud beneath the hooves tremble.
Onir, who was riding to the left of the carriage, was the first to react. His voice was thick with a panic he tried, in vain, to suppress.
"Commander Claude! We have trouble!" he shouted, his horse's reins becoming unstable as the animal sensed the danger even before the men did.
Claude didn't need Onir to explain. The wind brought the smell of wet fur and rotting flesh. The growls, once distant, were now becoming multiple and hungry, echoing between the tree trunks, as if the forest itself were snarling.
"Wild Beasts!" Claude's voice thundered, cutting through the noise of the storm.
Ahead, Kandria, who was holding a small arcane flame to guide the way, turned his horse to join the formation. Even under his soaked hood and in the poor visibility of the flickering light, Kandria felt the air change. The man who, seconds ago, was sinking into melancholy, had vanished.
In his place stood the Commander of the Order of Asterion.
Claude's posture hardened; his shoulders expanded beneath his armor, and his hand sought the symbol etched on his golden armor with a mechanical, almost lethal fluidity. Arcane Energy began to pulse around him, a cold energy that made the raindrops evaporate before they even touched his metal. Kandria noticed in Claude's eyes that he wasn't just ready to fight; he was prepared to exterminate anything that stood between his sister and safety. Claude's "battle tone" was a terrifying silence that preceded the massacre.