Dorian had been rushed from the royal castle to the Plumbarius family's domain, the supreme masters of poisons and toxins in the entire demon territory.
Few knew it, but as soon as the Captain of the Guard, Sales, arrived at the castle, the healers were unanimous: this was not something conventional magic could cure. It was a complex poisoning, impossible to treat with common methods.
And then, she appeared.
Isolde, one of the Six Elders who served directly under Queen Selene, emerged at the castle gates shrouded in a purple mist. Her presence was imposing, dressed in crimson robes embroidered with black. Her sapphire eyes reflected power and secrets that weighed heavier than ages. She said nothing. She simply placed one gnarled hand on Dorian's chest... and then both of them dissolved like smoke, disappearing into the air.
Dorian was unconscious.
His body lay on a cold slab of black stone, like an offering left on the altar of some cruel, forgotten entity. There were no windows in that place. No breeze, no sound besides the occasional drip from ceiling pipes or the whispering of creatures slithering beneath the thick fog that filled the air like toxic vapor.
The room looked more like a torture chamber than an infirmary. Glass vials of pulsing blue, green, lilac, and golden liquids filled dusty darkwood shelves. Rusted chains hung from hooks in the ceiling. On one shelf, what appeared to be preserved organs floated in magical solution, as if still alive. There were black needles the size of daggers, bone scalpels, poisoned stilettos, and sculptures of serpents coiled around skulls.
In the center of the room, above Dorian's half-naked body, ten black snakes with obsidian-gloss scales sank their fangs into critical points: shoulders, wrists, ribs, and hips. Their bodies were motionless—seemingly dead—but their fangs vibrated, as if channeling something unseen.
Below, leeches the size of a grown man's hand clung to his skin. Swollen and pulsing, they drank his blood like ambrosia.
At his jugular, a glass needle embedded directly into the vein injected a translucent green liquid that snaked through his vessels like a new lifeblood. Occasionally, Dorian's heart would spasm in reaction to the pain, but he did not awaken.
Beside him, with his back turned, an elderly man with curly gray hair, half-closed eyes, and an almost gentle expression watched a vial of pulsating violet liquid with fascination. He wore a dark robe covered in alchemical inscriptions drawn in silver ink, and black gloves that did not hide his discolored, pointed nails.
"Marvelous..." he whispered, as if speaking to a lover. "Shadow Serpent venom combined with Northern Bloodflower glands and the final touch: concentrated Crimson Mist essence. He's alive with five deadly substances in his body, and still..."
He turned slowly to examine the unconscious young man. His eyes, deep and opaque like aged amber, held no cruelty—only awe.
**
Seraphine was in the main castle of the demon capital, the only member of the group who remained stable after the dungeon incident. Physically, she had taken the least damage. No limbs torn, no organs compromised, no fatal burns.
And yet, she was unconscious, the victim of total exhaustion.
Her body had reached the absolute limit of what was possible for a low-tier Awakened: all her blood had been drained to sustain a continuous and complex barrier while her prana reserves were consumed down to the last drop.
There was nothing particularly complicated about her treatment. The healers rehydrated her, fed her with nutrient-dense broths, and applied healing magic to reverse physiological functions temporarily deactivated by collapse.
But what worried everyone... wasn't her body. It was her mind.
On the morning of the third day, Seraphine was the first to wake up.
And the only one.
The clinical silence of the healers offered no answers. Her eyes scanned the corridors, the faces, the shadows, searching for any sign of Aeloria, Glenn, Dalia, or Dorian. But nothing.
Her chest tightened. The absence of answers. The grave expressions. The whispers as she passed.
The breakdowns came quickly. First, questions. Then, screaming. Finally, tears. Panic attacks, shortness of breath, eyes filled with despair. Twice, they tried to sedate her, but her body resisted even that, purely on instinct.
That was when Mira Lunaris Argentum, her mother, arrived.
Her mere presence in the castle—without summons, without warning—was enough to put everyone on alert. But the woman said nothing to anyone. She simply walked into the medical wing, looked her daughter in the eyes, and embraced her.
Seraphine collapsed.
And so, Mira took her home.
To a place where the silence of the castle corridors wouldn't weigh so heavily. To a space where, at least for now, the world could wait.
Where wounds of the mind could, little by little, begin to heal.
**
Dalia was in a coma. But her condition wasn't just critical—it was potentially catastrophic.
She had been placed in a special treatment ward, built within the reinforced walls of the main castle. A wing where only mages with affinity for life magic were permitted to enter—and even they remained constantly on edge.
The initial diagnosis provoked silence and disbelief among the specialists.
She had cast something that exceeded all known limits.
Some technique, some ritual, some manifestation... equivalent to a Master Rank.
And that, for someone at her level, was simply... impossible.
But the signs were unmistakable:
Her magical core, which should pulse in sync with her breath, was unstable—like a star on the verge of collapse.
Invisible cracks in the core revealed that the slightest mistake could cause a magical chain reaction explosion and annihilate everything within dozens of kilometers.
The entire castle—and everything around it—could cease to exist in seconds.
Even more disturbing: she had not only cast this power, she had continued to push her core further, using healing magic endlessly to keep the group alive.
The correct analogy: running with a detonator strapped to the soles of your feet.
Now, her body lay on a massive green, glowing stone, soaked in pure life aura, pulsing like a living heart.
Ancient runic seals surrounded her like a magical web, adjusting the tides of energy with microscopic precision to keep her core on the edge of stability.
With each pulse of the stone, a fraction of energy was absorbed, feeding her core... Or perhaps trying to stop its destruction.
Beside the chamber, two healers murmured incantations with tense voices.
One of them, one of the lead masters, glanced hesitantly at the imposing figure watching the scene in silence:
Rose Vanadius Bellator.
Tall, with proud horns and flaming red hair, eyes like living embers. She wore a bold strapless black dress adorned with golden buttons. Two side slits revealed her powerful legs—beautiful, and dangerous.
The woman was a wall of power and authority.
"Lady Vanadius," the healer murmured cautiously. "Are you sure it's worth allocating these resources... to a servant?"
Rose's eyes flared with restrained rage.
She didn't reply with words. She simply stared at the man as if his existence were temporary and turned on her heels, leaving the room with eyes ablaze.
Inside the chamber, Dalia remained motionless. But alive. For now.
**
Aeloria was dead.
Or, at least, that's what everyone believed when his body arrived at the castle gates.
No healer, no matter how experienced, how talented, or how blessed, could spark even the faintest flicker of vitality within him.
His skin was cold.
His heart unmoving.
And his soul… silent.
Hope, at that moment, had been abandoned.
But then… he appeared. No one knew where he had come from or how he had gotten in—everyone blinked, and suddenly, a towering demon stood before the blue-haired corpse.
Adriel Lunaris Argentum.
The name alone was synonymous with legend.
Aeloria's father.
Patriarch of the Lunaris Argentum family and keeper of secrets the world didn't even dare to speak aloud.
He wore black clothing—refined, simple—with a single adornment that drew every eye: a golden medallion hanging proudly from his neck.
His long hair, blue like the purest flame, draped over his shoulders like a mantle. His curved black horns gave him an imperial, yet menacing, presence. His beard was sparse and neatly trimmed, like lines drawn with a ruler. His eyes, vivid blue like stellar supergiants, burned with an almost unbearable intensity. Round glasses with golden rims glinted under the lights of the royal infirmary.
He arrived just minutes after the group was brought in.
He didn't speak.
He didn't hesitate.
He simply activated his medallion with a breath of prana.
A wave of energy swept across the room.
And Aeloria vanished from visible existence.
Just seconds later, Queen Selene herself appeared at the entrance.
Adriel met her gaze over the rim of his golden glasses and spoke with respectful coldness:
"Don't worry. I have unfinished business with my son."
And then he vanished.
As if he had never been there.
Now…
Aeloria existed in a place that didn't exist.
A non-place.
A world with no map.
No sun, no moon, no wind or gravity.
Only the abyss.
Only nothingness.
His body was fused to a monstrous black tree, as if death itself had embraced him.
Thin, elegantly wicked branches had pierced his pale flesh, rooting into his veins—veins once blackened with poison, now seemingly being forcefully purified by that distorted symbiosis.
Aeloria was between worlds.
Trapped on the threshold between existence and oblivion.
In front of him, standing on ground that had no floor, Adriel was sweating.
His entire body was wrapped in red prana, dense as molten magma.
His power was so immense that anyone below Master Rank would've been reduced to vapor just by proximity.
In his hand: a pencil.
But not just any pencil.
It was black as the night before creation, inscribed with runes that rotated slowly along its shaft. The tip was honed to perfection.
And he was drawing.
Not words.
Not sigils.
But solutions.
Lines that made no sense to the human mind.
Curves that defied logic.
Spirals that contradicted physics.
And when the final line was drawn… Adriel extended the pencil.
The tip touched the lower half of Aeloria's body.
The world groaned.
Reality quaked.
The cosmos held its breath.
And then… flesh began to grow.
A new leg.
Not regeneration.
Not illusion.
A recreation.