Sunlight filtered softly through the glass window pane and settled on the calm, unguarded face of Seraphine, tracing a warm line across her cheek.
With a faint flicker of her eyelashes, she slowly opened her eyes, staring blankly at the ceiling for a few seconds before pushing herself upright, causing the bedsheets to rustle around her waist as sleep finally loosened its grip.
As she moved, a half-opened book that had been resting precariously near the edge of her pillow slipped off and fell onto the wooden floor with a dull thud sound, snapping her fully awake.
Her hazy eyes widened as she immediately realised that she had once again drifted into sleep while reading late into the night.
She leaned forward slightly and stared at the fallen Novel.
It was the novel Katherine had gifted her, a story about an innocent girl who suffered endlessly before rising to become a queen, meeting an aggressive alpha vampire along the way, and although the premise had initially sounded strange and unrealistic to her, she now found herself deeply absorbed in it, turning pages late into the night without realizing how much time had passed.
Over the past few days, she had begun imagining the story differently, unconsciously replacing the innocent heroine with herself and picturing William in place of the dominant vampire lead, even though she did not fully understand what the word alpha truly meant.
While the emotions and tension in the story made her heart race in ways she had never experienced before, leaving her cheeks warm with embarrassment whenever she caught herself drifting into such thoughts.
As she stretched one arm down from the bed in an attempt to retrieve the book without standing up, her eyes caught sight of a folded piece of paper lying quietly near the door.
Curiosity immediately stirred within her as she climbed out of bed and walked across the room, her bare feet made faint sounds against the floor as she bent down to pick it up.
When she unfolded the letter, the first line instantly caught her attention,
starting with Dear Sera ❤️
, accompanied by a small doodled heart that made her blush, she immediately knew that the letter was from William.
She started reading the letter with a smile, but as she continued reading, the warmth in her expression faded gradually, replaced by a growing tension that tightened her chest as the meaning of Williams' words became clear.
By the time she finished reading, her mood had completely soured, and she returned to the bed in frustration, grabbing the pillow and punching it repeatedly before pinning it down beneath her hands.
She let out a muffled scream as anger, worry, and jealousy surged through her mind all at once.
How dare William leave without telling her properly? How dare he decide to go alone without even giving her a chance to argue, and what if this so-called mission was merely an excuse, or worse, what if he was meeting another woman somewhere far away from her reach?
These thoughts spiralled rapidly as her emotions ran unchecked.
If William had seen her at that moment, he would have felt a chill crawl down his spine because the gentle and timid Seraphine he knew was slowly developing a sharp, volatile personality whenever she was left alone with her overthinking and that cursed novel where the heroine kept the alpha on edge.
***
*swish*
At the same time, far away from the academy, a narrow pointed single-seat spaceship tore through the sky at impossible speed.
William sat calmly inside, his hands steadily resting on the armchair while the Bio-mech orb sustained the vehicle using an S-rank monster core.
This time, he had ignored the system's nagging and had chosen the vehicle of his choice.
The craft moved with frightening efficiency, replacing the cores by auto-hunting above the forest like the SATD-V, allowing it to bypass forests, mountains, and hostile terrain entirely while shortening the distance to his destination by a massive margin, making travel that once took days possible within hours.
[ding!! A barrier has been detected. Approaching the barrier in five minutes. Do you want to engage?]
"No, hell no," William replied immediately. "What would be the point of going stealthy then?"
He had specifically purchased a blueprint with advanced stealth features.
Currently, he was approaching the boundary of the Drakemor Empire, the territory ruled by the dragon race, where even a minor disturbance could draw unwanted attention.
William leaned back slightly as the ship continued forward; his expression was serious.
He had come here with a clear purpose.
He was here to salvage a lost soul.
And to lay the foundation of his own legend.
His own cult.
***
Inside Drakemor's capital prison.
"hufff!!" haaaa!!" hufff!!" haaaa!!" hufff!!"
Deep inside the capital prison of Drakemor, a bloodied figure sat slumped against the cold stone wall, her hands bound behind her back with heavy restraints.
Broken gasps escaped her lips as she struggled to breathe, each breath burning her chest as blood continued to drip from countless wounds across her body.
At her side, two gouged-out eyes rested on the floor, surrounded by a shallow pool of blood, while chipped black scales lay scattered across the ground, evidence of repeated torture inflicted without restraint or mercy.
Her name was Maris. She was the daughter of Vorin, and after her father's death, she had been captured by the dragons and brought here, where torture and humiliation had become a daily routine.
Her torture had reached a point where pain felt meaningless.
Canadians Can Use AI To Secure Second IncomeA Millionaire From London Explains How She Earns $1,000 A DayInvesting $250 With AI Could Generate A Second Income
Footsteps echoed within her still-functioning ears as someone entered the cell; the prison bars offered no resistance to whosoever had entered.
Maris did not lift her head, having already accepted that whatever came next would only be worse than before.
However, instead of the cold bite of steel, something soft touched her face, followed by a warm liquid flowing into her mouth, its unfamiliar taste spread through her body as pain dulled and warmth followed, wounds closed rapidly as her body responded to the potion.
Gentle fingers lifted her fallen eyes from the floor and placed them back into their sockets, while a light-based spell activated, restoring her vision gradually as flesh, bone, and nerves knitted themselves together with precision.
"Who...?" she asked weakly as strength returned to her limbs, her eyelids remaining closed because newly healed eyes required time to stabilise.
William stood before her, silently maintaining the spell; his grandmaster-level mastery of Luminous Embrace allowed him to reattach separated organs and heal injuries that would have been fatal under any other circumstances.
William looked at the bloodied figure of Maris, examining her physique.
Maris carried three bloodlines within her, the result of Vorin impregnating a human woman, likely someone from a brothel.
William was certain that her mother had died during childbirth because a mortal human body was never meant to endure the strain of bearing a child with demonic dragon blood.
Even so, William spoke calmly but in a hoarse voice, "Do you have a family?"
Maris's appearance was mostly human, with only a small dragon tail and narrow horns betraying her lineage.
Her draconic blood was weak due to Vorin himself being only half dragon, while her blood-red pupils and white sclera resting in her eyes revealed the demonic aspect that lingered within her.
To William, she appeared more anomalous than any hybrid he had encountered before.
Surprisingly, she carried a mana core instead of a demonic one, which explained why potions and light spells had worked without resistance.
As the healing completed, Maris finally opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was a figure wearing a white mask with a white raven beak protruding below the covered eyes.
She also noticed long white hair flowing to the elbows, and eyes glowing faintly with silver light.
Only after that did she notice that she could move, and the heavy chains that had bound her were gone, reduced to metallic ash clinging to her clothes like dust.
This made her realise that the restraints, forged from Mythril and other rare metals, had been turned to ash effortlessly by the mysterious figure in front of her.
As fear, confusion, and disbelief collided in her mind, the masked figure spoke calmly while leaning a bit to match her eye level.
"What do you know about yourself?" asked The White Raven