In the imperial capital, Lusian rested in the princess's private chamber within the palace. Dainslein remained leaning against the wall, within arm's reach.
Elizabeth slept beside him, barely covered by a light blanket. For the first time in several days, neither of them had to worry about demons, battles, or ambushes.
Silence dominated the room. Only the wind entering through the window occasionally broke the calm.
Lusian turned his head slightly. Elizabeth was still asleep, her breathing calm; her hair fell loosely over her shoulders while the moonlight streamed through the window and reflected off her.
Everything seemed peaceful. Everything seemed normal.
But then something changed.
The calm did not last long. Elizabeth began shifting restlessly beneath the blanket, and small beads of cold sweat appeared on her skin. Her breathing ceased to be peaceful and became irregular, as though she were trapped in a nightmare from which she could not awaken.
Lusian noticed immediately. He raised himself slightly and turned toward her, his senses alert.
Something was wrong.
Elizabeth's hands trembled, and her expression constantly shifted between fear, pain, and anguish.
Then she murmured something in her sleep.
"No..." Her voice sounded weak and desperate.
Lusian reached toward her shoulder.
"Elizabeth."
She did not respond. Her breathing suddenly worsened, and her entire body tensed on the bed, as though she were struggling against an invisible force intent on devouring her.
Inside the princess's mind, the palace chamber vanished.
In its place came fire. A completely crimson sky covered the world as enormous columns of smoke rose from cities reduced to ashes. Thousands of corpses covered the streets, while a foul stench of blood and filth permeated the air.
Amid that devastation stood a gigantic altar built from black stone.
And she was there.
Elizabeth recoiled in terror. She wore a long dark robe covered in demonic symbols, while a crown of black thorns rested upon her head. Around her, thousands of people remained chained as monstrous creatures descended through enormous cracks torn across the fabric of the sky.
Then she heard the whispers of the crowd:
"The Demon Queen..."
"The Demon Queen has awakened..."
An icy shiver ran down her spine. She did not understand what she was witnessing, but she could feel it deep within her bones: those hands were her hands, that overwhelming and bloodthirsty presence belonged to her, and the blood covering the black stone had been spilled by her own will.
A man was dragged before the structure, begging for his life through tears. Elizabeth tried to move, tried to scream and stop the punishment, but her body refused to obey her consciousness.
The other her slowly raised a hand.
The man exploded before the crowd in a torrent of flesh and bone. Blood drenched the altar, and screams of horror drowned out the wind.
Elizabeth felt nauseous, but the vision did not stop.
The sky tore open once again. Heroes descended from immense arcane circles: swordsmen wrapped in divine light, mages capable of erasing entire mountain ranges, and warriors summoned from distant dimensions. All of them advanced toward her.
And then the catastrophe began.
Oceans turned red. Kingdoms vanished beneath storms of corrupted mana. Entire armies were annihilated.
Millions dead.
And in the end... a blessed blade pierced her chest.
The pain was unbearable.
Then came darkness.
But the cycle did not end there.
Another memory erupted.
Another world.
Another war.
Once again, she sat upon a throne built from bones.
Again, sacrifices.
Again, blood.
Again, destruction.
The cycle continued without mercy: one life, two lives, ten lives, a hundred lives... a thousand different lives.
No matter the world or the era, the outcome was always the same.
She always ended up slaughtering countless innocents.
She always ended up dying.
Elizabeth's eyes snapped open.
BOOM!
A wave of uncontrolled demonic mana exploded around her. The curtains of the room whipped violently, the windows rattled on the verge of shattering, and the wooden furniture creaked beneath a suffocating magical pressure that flooded the entire chamber.
Lusian's eyes widened as his heart pounded against his chest. He knew that destructive vibration perfectly. He had not witnessed it in the real world, but in the memories of the game.
It was the mystical energy of the Demon Queen.
A terrifying thought crossed his mind, only to be rejected immediately for the sake of his sanity.
Elizabeth could not be that entity.
There had to be another explanation.
Elizabeth abruptly sat up on the sheets. Her body convulsed with tremors as tears flooded her face.
"No...! No... no...!" she sobbed, trying to back away as though the visions were still floating in the air.
Lusian caught her before she collapsed.
"Elizabeth!"
She looked up at him, primal panic frozen in her eyes.
"There was blood... So much blood... I killed them... I kept killing them..."
She clung to him with blind desperation, uttering the names of fallen empires and forgotten eras that did not belong to this world. The mana around her threatened to shatter everything.
Lusian cupped her face in his hands, forcing her to look into his eyes.
"Elizabeth, look at me. Listen to me. It was only a dream. None of it was real. It's over."
She collapsed against his chest, clutching the fabric of his tunic.
Erwin made his decision at that very moment.
They would return to the kingdom immediately.
Nothing mattered more than keeping her safe.
The decision had already been made.
They would return to the kingdom.
However, before leaving the palace, Lusian personally informed the Empress of Elizabeth's condition and his intention to withdraw from the front.
The news soon caused concern among the high command, and several discussions took place behind closed doors over the following hours.
When Lusian entered the main hall, the Imperial entourage and the Temple paladins blocked their path.
Alejandro and Leonardo stood at the head of the formation, flanked by several of the summoned heroes.
"You cannot leave," Alejandro declared with tense restraint.
"This is not a simple campaign," Leonardo added, stepping forward. "It is a divine mandate. If the princess abandons the vanguard, the imperial and royal troops will follow her, and the front will collapse."
Lusian continued walking without slowing down.
Leonardo's expression hardened as he addressed Elizabeth directly.
"Sister... think about what you're doing. Disobeying the will of the gods will bring terrible consequences upon the crown. Andrew can barely maintain the stability of the kingdom. If you break the pact, the full weight of the ruin will fall upon his shoulders."
He paused, letting the political weight of his words settle before extending a hand.
"I will do what I can to cover your retreat, but leave command of the troops to me. I am also a prince of the kingdom... even if they now call me the hero chosen by the Temples."
Lusian stepped between Leonardo and Elizabeth.
His voice came low, cold, and unyielding.
"We are returning to the kingdom. Elizabeth is coming with me. The troops that swore loyalty to the crown are returning with us."
Silence descended over the hall, suffocating the room.
Alejandro's hands tightened around the hilts of his swords.
That was when Emily stepped forward, moving away from the sacred healers. She took a breath and stared directly at Lusian.
"I'm going with you."
Lusian looked at her, surprised by the healer's sudden determination.
Alejandro clenched his fists, the vein in his neck bulging with frustration as he watched the chain of command crumble before his eyes.
"Emily! You can't leave like this. Our duty is to the Empire. The gods sent us here to help."
The healer held her companion's gaze without blinking.
The gentleness that usually characterized her had been replaced by firm composure, tempered by the horrors they had just witnessed deep within the forest.
"For now, we have to return," she declared in a calm but unwavering voice. "Princess Elizabeth needs treatment. Her condition is critical."
Alejandro took another step forward, closing the distance with a mixture of desperation and reproach.
"That's selfish. People are depending on us. Are you really going to turn your back on the teachings of the Temple because of the whim of a noble?"
"They're going back," Kara interrupted, appearing from the side with her usual ease as she folded her arms.
Her presence cut through Alejandro's aggression.
Kara glanced sideways at Lusian, openly supporting the young noble's decision while maintaining a casual, almost carefree tone.
"I'm going too," Kara added. "We already know the situation at the front. It's obvious that, for now, it's better to return, restructure our strategy, and prepare properly before doing something reckless."
Leonardo frowned, gritting his teeth at the blatant insubordination of his own people.
"You're going to disobey the divine mandate too?" he demanded sternly, confronting Kara. "You're breaking the law of the Holy See."
The atmosphere grew heavy as lead.
The Imperial knights gripped the hilts of their weapons, and the tension in the hall threatened to erupt into a massacre.
Lusian did not wait for the political argument to deteriorate any further.
He stepped forward, placing himself between the Imperial heroes and his group. His hand came to rest deliberately on the hilt of Dainslein.
"We're leaving," Lusian declared, his low, icy voice cutting through the murmurs in the hall. "If you want to stay here and die for your gods, you can do so. The crown's troops are withdrawing with us."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Lusian's authority left no room for debate or appeals.
Emily moved to his right flank without hesitation.
Kara positioned herself behind him, hands on her hips, ready to respond to any wrong move.
Elizabeth clung tightly to Lusian's arm, seeking his warmth to silence the visions still echoing inside her mind.
Without looking back, the group advanced toward the palace's great gates.
The Imperial heroes and the Church paladins were forced to step aside, trapped between anger, helplessness, and the unsettling certainty that they lacked the power necessary to stop Lusian if he decided to cut his way through them.