At the same time.
Luke was sitting on a bizarre, misshapen statue, calmly surveying the base of the so-called "Shadow God cult." Honestly—whoever built this place did a pretty convincing job.
He hadn't expected a cult this large to be sitting so openly in a mountain valley.
Ten minutes earlier, he'd led the soldiers straight toward the red pillars of light. Aside from that first cultist who showed up with a dozen dark creatures—basically donating himself and his pets to the kill count—
Everything afterward had been weirdly smooth. No one else discovered them.
After a quick recon by a few Kingdom Rangers, they found a tunnel inside the valley that led straight into the Shadow God cult's base.
And then Luke gave the order to strike.
The raid hit the cult's hundred-plus zealots so hard they didn't even have time to understand what was happening.
Cithria led the Dauntless Vanguard trainees like she'd gone feral—no pauses, no mercy, no room for the enemy to react.
Of course, the cultists weren't completely helpless.
Once they snapped out of their shock—How the hell was our base found?—they immediately fought back.
Quite a few of them could use black magic. As they chanted dense, complicated spells, their staves overflowed with dark energy.
Black magic streaked through the cult's grand main hall, lashing out in every direction.
At the same time, dark creatures from all around the compound surged out and threw themselves at the soldiers.
But all of it did was delay the inevitable.
A lot of the cultists only knew low-tier dark spells.
Still, there were a few in clearly higher-ranking robes, and the black magic they used was on another level. Their combat power didn't look weak.
They held for a moment.
Then they got crushed anyway.
Under the combined beatdown from the Vanguard trainees Cithria was leading—plus the sheer weight of the soldiers—those leading dark casters were suppressed and killed quickly.
Once the front-line cult mages died, the rest were just trash. They scattered, focused only on fleeing—
But they didn't even know where to run.
In just a few minutes, the Shadow God cult's numbers plummeted.
A quick glance across the compound showed corpses everywhere. Blood sprayed across stone and pillars, making an already sinister place look like a nightmare.
Vayne joined the battle.
Her silver bolt punched through a cult mage's skull without hesitation.
The wet, sharp sound of the bolt piercing bone—followed by the splatter—sent a jolt through her chest.
In the next second, her blood felt like it was boiling.
That feeling was exactly like the day she killed a dark creature for the first time.
Revenge and violence burned hot in her veins, driving her into a state of exhilaration.
This was the first time she'd truly killed a person.
Before, she'd only killed dark creatures.
But watching that cult mage fall with his eyes wide open—
Vayne felt nothing but pleasure.
What was the difference between people who threw themselves into darkness and monsters born from it?
Her teacher had told her: someday, the darkness she faced might wear a human face—and when it did, she must not hesitate.
Vayne had listened.
When she took the second cult mage's life, the excitement that had seeped into her bloodstream condensed into something else—power—making her stronger again.
Hunting.
Only by hunting dark creatures could she become stronger.
Vayne finally understood that clearly.
Her lips curved upward. The blood stench in the air only fueled her urge to kill, and the racing heartbeat made her feel intoxicated.
"No—don't kill me!"
"I was dragged here! They brainwashed me—forced me to become one of them!"
"They took my daughter—my wife! If I didn't work for them, they'd kill them!"
"I swear—I swear I never wanted to do anything bad—please, please let me go!"
"I—I know I shouldn't have attacked you, but if I didn't, they would've killed us!"
When Vayne raised her crossbow again and aimed at another cultist—
The man completely collapsed, dropping to his knees and slamming his head into the ground again and again, hard enough that his forehead swelled red.
His eyes were full of pleading and despair.
He'd lost all control of his expression. Liquid ran from his eyes and nose, his whole body shaking uncontrollably, and a dark wet patch spread across his pants.
Every movement screamed the same thing: I don't want to die.
But Vayne only stared at him with cold eyes, finger resting on the trigger.
"Do you think he deserves to die?"
A voice cut across her thoughts.
Vayne turned her head and saw Luke walking over. Her face stayed icy as she said, "Of course he deserves to die."
Luke continued evenly, "But he says his wife and daughter are in the cult's hands. He says he was brainwashed, threatened. He says he didn't want any of this."
"And what does that have to do with me?" Vayne replied flatly. "He threw himself into darkness and used dark power."
Luke looked into her black eyes.
There was only coldness. No hesitation. Like an absolute judge, declaring a world that was nothing but black and white.
Luke kept going. "Maybe he hasn't hurt anyone yet."
The kneeling cultist heard that and latched onto it like it was air. "I've never hurt anyone! They kept me as low-level labor inside the cult. Ever since they dragged me here, I've never even left!"
Luke glanced at Vayne.
"First off," Vayne said, still unmoved, "a cultist's words aren't exactly trustworthy."
"Second—even if it's true, black magic eventually corrodes the mind. He just hasn't hurt anyone yet."
"Who told you that?" Luke asked.
"Books," Vayne said, "and my eyes."
As she spoke, she shifted her crossbow back on target, lining it up with the cultist again.
The man nearly screamed. "Don't—don't kill me! I swear I haven't hurt anyone! I know where the kids they kidnapped are! They sent a lot of people out today—I wanted to get those kids out! Just now—I didn't even mean to hit you—I aimed my spells at the walls!"
Vayne paused again.
Luke stared at the man for a beat, then said, "Lead the way."
The cultist looked like he'd been handed his life back. Ignoring his soaked pants, he stumbled to his feet. "Th-this way—follow me!"
He led them into a hidden passage. With the base in chaos and no one watching him anymore, he moved more confidently—though his back was hunched and his body still shook.
Soon, he brought them to a cramped opening in a dark corner—barely big enough for children or animals to crawl through.
He leaned close and blew three short whistles into the hole. Fear made the sound thin and unsteady.
But something inside answered.
A little girl crawled out first, filthy from head to toe, painfully thin, her eyes so weak they looked unfocused.
Then two more kids followed—both around four or five—just as skinny, like they'd been hungry for a long time.
"Uncle… you're here…"
"Can we get out?"
"Who are they?"
The three children showed no fear toward the man at all, but when they saw Luke and Vayne, they immediately shrank back, terrified.
Like they were afraid Luke and Vayne were with the cult.
The first girl—the one glowing faintly—was one of the children Luke had been tracking.
The man forced a strained smile at the kids. "They're here to take you home. If you stay with them, you'll be safe."
"Then what about you?" one child asked.
"We go together…" another whispered.
The children clustered close to him, like he was the only safe thing in the world.
It was a sharp contrast to his cultist identity.
The man didn't answer them. He turned to Luke with a bitter smile. "With what I can do… I could only bring these three out. I didn't know how to leave this place. I was trying to figure something out, and then you arrived."
Luke looked at Vayne, returning to the earlier question. "So what if he didn't hurt anyone—and he even saved people?"
Vayne watched the scene.
For a few seconds, she said nothing.
Then she stubbornly met Luke's eyes again. "It doesn't change the fact that he threw himself into darkness."
"He was forced," Luke said.
"And?" Vayne snapped. "What does that have to do with me?"
Her emotion spiked suddenly. She raised her voice at Luke, hatred spilling out as she shouted, "Anything connected to darkness deserves to die!"
It sounded less like she was arguing with Luke—and more like she was injecting herself with a dose of certainty, repeating it to stabilize her own heart.
In her world, there was no gray.
Anything connected to darkness was evil. Everything deserved extermination.
Luke stared at her eyes and said, "Then what about me? One day, maybe I'll choose darkness for power too. Do you think I'd be controlled? Do you think I'd do evil things? Or do you think I should die as well?"
Vayne froze for a split second, then shot back, "That's a twisted argument!"
"No," Luke said quietly. "Your world is just too straight. You think everyone is the same. The moment someone is touched by darkness, they must be rotten. Isn't that right?"
Luke held her gaze.
Vayne clenched her jaw. "Fine. Then yes. I hate everything connected to darkness. I hate them!"
But her eyes slid away from Luke's, like she couldn't keep looking.
She turned her gaze back to the man and raised her crossbow again.
She had seen him use black magic.
That was proof. There was no arguing around it.
Maybe because three kids were behind him, the man tried to look braver. His shaking stopped, and he closed his eyes, strangely relieved.
He'd said everything he could.
He'd done what he could.
If that still wasn't enough to escape death—
Then let it come.
No matter what, at least the children were safe.
A faint smile appeared on his lips.
That smile stabbed at something inside Vayne.
Her face hardened. She aimed the crossbow at his forehead. All she had to do was pull the trigger, and the sharp bolt would steal his life instantly.
This time, Luke didn't stop her.
He didn't interfere.
Time stretched thin.
Inside Vayne's head, a voice appeared—whispering at her ear:
Do it.
Pull it.
Kill him.
Now.
The voice got louder and louder, until it became unbearable—until her frustration boiled over and she couldn't take it anymore.
"Click."
A trigger pulled. A bolt launched.
Thunk.
The silver bolt buried itself in the stone wall.
Then came several seconds of dead silence.
The three children froze, terrified.
The man slowly opened his eyes and realized he wasn't dead.
Vayne lowered her arm, turned away with cold eyes, and walked off.
Like she'd made a concession.
Luke followed her, about to speak—
When Vayne said harshly, "Don't misunderstand. You didn't convince me. I still hate everything connected to darkness. I just… didn't find a good enough reason to kill him."
She was still stubborn. Still convinced she was right.
But something had shifted anyway.
Luke didn't say anything.
Watching that proud, lonely back, he smiled slightly.
Just like he'd said—
Vayne's worldview was too straight. So straight it only had black and white.
But in a way, that was its own kind of purity.
Humans have desire and emotion. Most people can't live like that.
Because people get pushed and pulled by countless things, changing their beliefs, changing their minds.
But Vayne was different.
From the night her parents were slaughtered, she'd cut off everything else—until all that remained in her eyes was hatred for darkness.
That hatred made her cold to everything.
Fortunately, her personality hadn't fully hardened into its final shape yet.
There was still a sliver of space—enough for Luke to interfere.
Getting her to take even one step back today was already a major breakthrough.
The rest could come slowly.
By now, the fighting inside the Shadow God cult was ending.
Cithria found Luke and reported, "Your Highness, we captured eighteen cultists alive. We also found sixteen civilians they abducted—three of them children."
Luke nodded. "Our people?"
"No deaths," Cithria replied. "Some soldiers have injuries of varying severity."
"Evacuate the wounded first," Luke said. "When we return, rewards by merit."
"Yes."
Cithria turned and left to carry it out.
Then the rescued civilians were brought forward.
"Naya! Rosie!"
The man who had led Luke and Vayne here spotted a woman and a child in the crowd and shouted, suddenly frantic.
The woman and child saw him and froze.
Then the man forgot everything else, ran forward, and hugged the woman tightly—then lifted his daughter, pressing his face against hers over and over, tears overflowing at the corners of his eyes.
Seeing that, Vayne felt like her eyes had been stabbed. She looked away.
The rescued people, once they realized they were safe, finally broke—crying openly, one after another.
"How many people like you were abducted and coerced?" Luke asked the man.
The man thought, then shook his head. "I don't know. I've been here two months. Before I was dragged in, there were already others like me. A lot of them… truly became part of the cult."
"They brainwash us every day. I could feel myself slipping. So I wanted to do something before I couldn't anymore."
He sighed.
The cultists who were killed—many of them were just like him at first.
But after staying here too long, they became real cultists.
Luke considered that, then asked, "What's the Shadow God cult planning lately?"
The man shook his head again. "I'm not qualified to know. They never share information with outer members."
Luke asked, "How many people are in the Shadow God cult?"
The man thought, then answered, "I only know the structure. At the top is an elder. Under him are four archbishops, eight deputy bishops, sixteen priests, and thirty-two cult leaders… those are their backbone. Then there are countless cultists—most of them can use black magic."
Luke frowned. "Most of them can?"
Nearby, Cithria and the others looked grim.
If that was true, the Shadow God cult gathering that many dark mages was extremely serious.
And why were there so many people who could use black magic?
The man explained, "A lot of people couldn't at first. Like me. But I don't know what they did—suddenly I could. Only low-level dark spells, but still."
Luke thought for a moment and didn't find it surprising. A cult of this scale clearly had unusual methods.
Then he asked, "Why were there so few people in the base today?"
There were a little over a hundred people here. And yes, some used higher-level dark magic—
But it was still nowhere near the numbers he'd described.
"They…" the man started—
Then his face changed violently.
He clutched his chest, dropped to his knees, and gasped in pain.
"Dor!" His wife, Naya, panicked and dropped beside him, trying to hold him up.
His daughter started crying in fear.
The sudden scene threw everyone off. Cithria and the others immediately tensed, scanning the surroundings.
But the force stopping the man from speaking didn't seem to come from around them.
Dor looked like he knew he was going to die.
In front of his terrified daughter, he forced a smile through the agony.
Then he looked at his crying wife and moved his lips, like he was saying something.
I'm sorry. I didn't protect you.
Bang.
It sounded like something bursting.
Dor's body went limp and collapsed, the light in his eyes dissolving until it vanished completely.
"Dor!!"
"Dad—Dad!"
His wife broke down screaming. His daughter threw herself onto his chest.
Their pale, helpless cries echoed through the empty space, unbearably powerless.
Luke's expression went blank.
Around them, the captured cultists dropped too—just like Dor—clutching their chests and collapsing in agony.
Vayne stared at the scene, stunned into silence.
Like she hadn't expected the man she spared to die anyway.
Cithria checked them quickly, then reported with a dark expression, "Your Highness, they're all dead. Cause unknown."
Not long after, Frey finished checking as well and walked up. "It's a curse. If I had to guess, it was planted in them from the beginning. Whoever cast it can kill them whenever they want."
Luke nodded slightly, looking at Dor's corpse and sighing.
Even with master-level medical skill, curses like this were outside his reach.
And it also meant one thing:
The cultists who weren't here had realized their base had been hit.
Luke looked at Cithria and gestured toward the rescued civilians. "Assign some people to escort them back."
Cithria turned and ordered, "Nori, Torva—take a hundred men and escort the civilians back to the city."
"Yes!"
Two trainees stepped out immediately.
"My lord…" Naya forced herself to stop crying and said through sobs, "can I bring my husband back with us?"
She wanted to take Dor's body.
"You can," Luke said, and allowed it.
After the soldiers began withdrawing—
The remaining people started searching the Shadow God cult base thoroughly, not missing a single corner.
When Luke and the others reached one area, the stench hit them—thick blood mixed with rot—and everyone's face turned ugly.
Corpses.
A massive pile of them. Men and women, old and young.
Many had been drained completely, reduced to dried husks.
A lot of them stared wide-eyed, dead without closing their eyes, faces twisted in pain.
It was horrifying.
They kept investigating.
Before long, they found several blood pools—dark red blood sitting there, still not dried.
The heavy metallic stink in the air was so thick it made people want to vomit.
This blood had clearly been drawn from those bodies.
No one knew what the Shadow God cult intended to do with it.
No one knew how many innocents they'd murdered by now.
The sight only deepened everyone's hatred for the cult—an urge to wipe them out with their own hands.
Elsewhere.
"That damned prince…"
Elder Dande's face was pale as he stopped chanting, his eyes filled with hatred and rage.
When he shifted his sight back again, he saw an outer cultist trying to leak information.
So he didn't hesitate.
He cast a spell and simply cursed every cultist still inside the base to death.
Killing that many followers of the Shadow God with his own hands pained him deeply—
But he still did it.
He had left behind one archbishop, three deputy bishops, six priests, and many cult leaders.
Those were the cult's backbone.
Now they'd been ambushed and wiped out by the prince and his soldiers—cleaned out in one sweep.
For the Shadow God cult, it was a catastrophic loss.
And the base held countless important items and supplies.
Most—most—most important of all…
The sacrificial offerings he had prepared for so long to welcome the Shadow God's descent.
From this moment on, they were gone.
Just thinking about it made Dande's chest ache so badly he could barely breathe.
It was almost the same as saying that everything he'd prepared had become meaningless.
And there were only a dozen hours left until the Blood Moon.
That damned prince!!!
Dande nearly ground his teeth to dust.
He never imagined that everything he'd prepared would be ruined by a bug he thought he could crush whenever he wanted.
His throat suddenly tasted sweet.
He coughed—then spat a mouthful of blood.
His body fell backward.
A cultist rushed forward to support him. "Elder—don't lose heart. Even if we lost the base, with you leading us, we can rise again sooner or later."
Rise again?
Like hell.
Dande looked at him, but didn't say it out loud. He slowly straightened up in silence, eyes filling with a crazed darkness.
He had at most two days left to live.
To welcome the Shadow God's descent, he had given almost everything.
And now—all of it was about to be destroyed by that prince.
Forty years.
Forty full years since he first received the Shadow God's revelation.
For forty years, he had prepared for this day.
He had received the Shadow God's blessing and gained powerful strength.
In those forty years, he searched for the Fated One while building the Shadow God cult, recruiting followers, and stockpiling power in the dark.
He didn't know why the Shadow God demanded that preparations be made in Demacia—a kingdom that suppressed magic.
But it didn't matter.
He survived forty years.
He even nearly got wiped out once—yet he endured.
And he built the Shadow God cult into what it was today.
At first, he never truly thought he'd find the Fated One.
Because for the Shadow God to descend, the prerequisite was finding the Fated One and using the Fated One's body as a vessel.
And it required an endless source of fresh blood.
Eight adult men's limbs.
Six adult women's skin.
Four children's hearts.
And the most crucial part—the Fated One's body (or blood).
Meet those conditions, and during the Blood Moon, the ritual for the Shadow God's descent could begin.
And the condition for the Fated One was absurdly strict.
It had to be someone who had "died once, then resurrected."
How could anyone even find a person like that?
But Dande never expected the Shadow God to send him a revelation—telling him the Fated One had appeared.
Finding the Fated One meant the Shadow God could descend into this world and lead them toward a beautiful future.
For that, Dande sacrificed his lifespan to search for the Fated One.
And the Fated One was none other than Demacia's second prince.
And just so happened—
Not long after, the Blood Moon was approaching.
And at that exact time, the prince left the protected zone.
Everything—everything—seemed to be unfolding exactly as Dande dreamed.
Long-term use of forbidden power had reduced his lifespan to almost nothing.
But that didn't matter.
As long as he held out until the Shadow God descended, the Shadow God would grant him infinite life.
And he would obtain supreme status.
So every sacrifice was worth it.
It was supposed to be like that.
It was supposed to be exciting—ecstatic.
So why did it become this?
Dande couldn't understand.
All those years of preparation—destroyed by that prince.
That prince moved like a piece that had jumped off the chessboard, doing one unpredictable thing after another.
In two days, Dande would die. And then none of it would matter anymore.
None of it.
For the Shadow God, for the Shadow God cult, Dande had staked his entire life.
He refused to accept this ending.
He would not allow it.
He could feel the life slipping from his old body. Thought after thought flashed through him, and his eyes filled with hatred and madness.
If he died, he would have nothing.
So it had to succeed.
Even if he had to throw away the cult—every ounce of his fifty years of work—
He would still do it.
"Elder, don't lose heart…"
"Elder, steady yourself!"
"You have to lead us forward—lead us to the Shadow God!"
"Even if we failed this time, we can try again!"
Around him, cultists watched Dande stand motionless and called out anxiously.
Dande snapped back to himself.
The wrinkled face returned to calm composure. He looked at them and said, "Who told you we failed?"
The cultists fell silent.
The base was wiped out. The preparations were gone. How was that not failure?
Dande spoke evenly. "As long as I'm not dead, we haven't failed. Preparations are just preparations. The Blood Moon hasn't passed yet—there's still time."
The cultists' faces lit up, reinvigorated.
One archbishop couldn't help asking, "But how do we approach the Fated One now? He's in the city, heavily guarded. And after discovering our base, he'll be on high alert."
"That isn't a problem," Dande said, baring his teeth.
A cold, sinister aura rolled off him. The wrinkles on his face twisted under the grin, making him look even more grotesque as he swept his gaze over everyone.
"Now is the time for all of you to offer everything to the Shadow God."
The cultists' stomachs tightened with unease.
Like they already knew what was coming.
"Our preparations cannot be wasted. And those believers cannot die for nothing."
Dande raised both arms high. His sleeves slid down, revealing two withered, dried arms as he shouted, "Do not be afraid. Do not panic. Even the chosen are only sleeping temporarily. After the Shadow God descends, He will grant you eternal life—and endless power!"
His eyes burned with fanatic devotion.
Pulled by his fervor, the cultists grew excited too—each one feverish, worshipful beyond reason.
In every pair of eyes was devotion to the distant, unreachable Shadow God.
Edessa.
Luke returned to the city with the soldiers.
They'd seized a lot from the Shadow God cult—anything valuable was already being handed off to specialists for inventory and sorting.
Besides that, they also found various records and materials about the cult, plus scrolls and books etched with black magic.
After returning, Luke saw Quinn waiting, just as he'd ordered.
Quinn stepped forward to report, "Your Highness, we didn't find any suspicious persons. But Valor caught an unidentified messenger bird—it seemed to be carrying a letter toward Kerr Village."
She pulled a letter from her coat and handed it to Luke.
Luke opened it, scanned the contents, frowned, then passed it to Frey.
Frey looked at it twice and shook her head. "I can't read it either. It's probably their coded writing."
The characters were crooked and strange. It was clearly transmitting something.
But decoding it would be difficult.
It felt like a cipher—something like Morse code—meant only for people trained to read it.
"Did you track down who sent it?" Luke asked.
Quinn shook her head. "They were careful. We couldn't find the sender."
Luke immediately ordered Cithria, "From this moment, seal the city gates. Entry only—no one leaves. Search the city thoroughly for suspicious persons."
"Yes!"
Cithria answered instantly, spun her horse, and rode off at full speed.
Quinn looked at the mountain of items Luke had brought back. Even after hearing what happened, she still couldn't hide her shock.
From the soldiers who returned earlier, she'd learned the details.
She never imagined a massive cult had been hiding in a valley this close to Edessa.
And it had gone undiscovered for so long.
Who knew how many people they'd harmed during that time?
If Luke hadn't intervened, the cult might have continued indefinitely—no one knew when it would finally be found.
How could a cult that large hide under a city's nose for this long?
Quinn was also curious how Luke found them in the first place.
But then she thought: the prince was already incredible. Finding a cult almost didn't seem strange anymore.
As for the real reason—
Frey had a good guess.
On the way there, she hadn't noticed it.
But once inside the cult base, she started to feel it.
The cult had probably been using a wide-area concealment spell—one that interfered with people's perception and sight.
The stronger the spell, the deeper the interference.
Given how large the base was, the spell's level had to be high.
And yet, to Luke, it had been as if it didn't exist at all.
That was absurd.
Frey thought back to everything since meeting this prince.
The more time passed, the more mysterious he felt—too many things about him didn't make sense.
Naturally, she didn't ask how he found it.
She didn't need to know.
There was something else too.
After returning from the cult, Vayne became even quieter.
Since coming back, she'd been staring off at the scenery outside, as if lost in thought.
"Vayne," Frey said softly, walking up. "What are you thinking about?"
But the moment she got close, Vayne suddenly wrapped her in a full-body hug.
Frey flinched, stunned, staring down at Vayne in her arms, not knowing what to do.
They had relied on each other for two years—but they rarely did anything this intimate.
Frey asked hesitantly, "What's wrong?"
Vayne was already as tall as Frey now. Before, she had only reached Frey's chest. Over two years, she'd grown so much.
Vayne didn't answer.
She just rested her head on Frey's shoulder, breathing in her scent, feeling the warmth of the woman who had been like a mother to her for these two years.
Before this, Vayne's mind kept replaying Dor collapsing inside the Shadow God cult.
His wife and daughter's cries pulled her back to that night two years ago—
The night she lost the two people she loved most in the world.
Now, holding Frey, the turmoil inside her slowly quieted.
She whispered, "Teacher… you're the only one I don't want to lose."
Frey froze slightly, then hugged her back, feeling the way Vayne clung to her like a child.
Warmth rose in Frey's chest—something she hadn't felt in a long time.
"I won't leave you," Frey whispered.
Hearing that, Vayne's lips curved.
She knew her own heart.
She respected Frey the way she would have respected her mother. Without realizing it, Frey had become family.
The person she trusted most in the world.
The only place she could rely on.
She let herself feel that family-like bond—
But soon, a tearing pain rose inside Vayne again, like an old wound being ripped open. A kind of suffering that had tormented her day and night.
And now it was getting worse.
She didn't know what she was worried about.
She didn't know what she was afraid of.
She didn't know where the unease came from.
She tightened her arms without thinking.
Frey felt the anxiety in the girl's grip and soothed her gently. "It's okay. I'm here."
Seconds passed.
Listening to Frey's heartbeat, the pain in Vayne's chest gradually faded.
She released the hug, looked up at Frey's face, and smiled—eyes shining. "I feel a lot better."
Frey's expression softened. She smiled back. "Good."
"Then I'm going to train," Vayne said.
Frey nodded. "Go."
Vayne turned away, her gaze hardening into resolve.
She wasn't the little girl who needed affection anymore.
Now, as long as her teacher was here, it was enough.
From here on, she would keep hunting dark creatures with Frey—until all darkness in the world was wiped clean.
And she would keep hunting, keep growing stronger—
Strong enough that she would never lose Frey.
Watching Vayne walk away, Frey's gaze lingered on her back.
She remembered Vayne's eyes just now—full of trust and reliance.
And she remembered what Luke had said:
Only the one who tied the knot can untie it.
A complicated emotion flashed through Frey.
An impulse rose inside her—she lifted her hand like she wanted to say something.
But when she opened her mouth, nothing came out.
In the end, she didn't have the courage to take that step.
She gave up.
With a sigh, Frey turned to look outside.
She carried a secret—one she had hidden from Vayne for a long time.
At first, she hadn't cared.
But as her bond with Vayne deepened, the moment she wanted to confess, she no longer knew how to begin.
Frey saw Vayne as her child.
Vayne's presence had filled the cracks in Frey's heart, healing her wounds.
And Vayne's hatred of dark creatures ran into her bones.
So the deeper Frey's love grew, the less she knew how to speak.
She was terrified.
Terrified that if she told the truth, she would lose this child.
So she kept it buried.
And if she could, she wanted to bury it for the rest of her life.
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