The Regressed Heir of Ravencrest

Marcus and Evelyn left the central parapet without another word.

Behind them, the cheers along the battlements had long since faded, replaced by the groans of the wounded and the hurried footsteps of the healers moving along the walls. Van watched the two Heaven Knights go, then turned back to the battlements and began issuing orders.

Marcus stepped into the air, and wind gathered beneath his feet. Beside him, flames flickered at Evelyn’s heels. In the next instant, both shot across the frozen plain toward the Winterveil Mountain Range, their presences completely concealed from the soldiers below.

The night wind howled past them as the fortress grew smaller and smaller behind them. Below, the plain was littered with a sea of beast corpses, half-buried in the snow, along with the deep tracks left by the horde that had fled into the mountains.

Evelyn glanced at Marcus once. She could see the exhaustion seeping into him and the injuries he bore, yet he didn’t show any of it on his face. Instead, she could feel the cold fury radiating from him, directed toward the Abyssal Pact and the demon who was behind all of this.

Until now, she had thought Ethan was either Marcus’s illegitimate son, something she had badly wanted to deny in her mind knowing Marcus’s personality, or someone very close to him whom he was training to become the next powerhouse of Ravencrest. That was the conclusion she had reached after her investigation and her examination of the official records.

She had even considered the possibility that Ethan might be the son of the Sword of the North. But the Sword of the North’s son was known to be unawakened, so she had dismissed the thought early on. Now, with Marcus directly confessing their relationship in front of the Ice Dragon, she didn’t know whether to be relieved or bewildered. Her mind drifted back over the absurd things Ethan had done until now, again and again.

Then there was the energy that had devoured the corruption.

Its resemblance to aura was so striking that even Evelyn hadn’t been able to sense anything different about it. She had believed it was related to his cultivation art… until she saw Mythralis’s memories. Even Marcus had shown a small trace of surprise when he saw it, so she was sure that even he didn’t know about it.

Pushing her thoughts aside, she pushed herself even faster and expanded her senses across the mountains ahead.

———

Winterveil Mountain Range

On a jagged ridge high in the mountains, the wind howled through the frozen peaks.

Riennal knelt in the snow, completely still.

Silver-blue chains were wrapped tightly around his arms and legs, and his entire body was sealed within the dragon’s ice, from his feet to the top of his head. His face was frozen in the exact expression he’d had the moment the magic circle descended on him, his eyes wide with horror, as though he was about to scream.

The snow continued to fall around him, gathering slowly on his shoulders.

Then the air in front of him rippled, and the crimson-eyed woman stepped in front of him. Her eyes remained cold as she looked down at the frozen man for a long moment. Then she raised a single finger and tapped it lightly against the ice over his forehead.

Riennal’s consciousness was violently dragged back to the surface.

His eyes, the only part of him that appeared alive beneath the ice, trembled as they struggled to focus. His last memory was of the magic circle descending, the chains wrapping around his body, and the cold swallowing him whole before consciousness abandoned him. Now, his mind jolted awake.

He tried to move, but not a single finger responded. Even drawing a breath seemed impossible.

Then his eyes found the figure standing in front of him.

A pair of crimson eyes looked back at him.

The terror he had felt when the magic circle descended was nothing compared to what he felt now. He didn’t know who she was or what she was. But every instinct in his body screamed at him at once. The fear he felt was incomparable, greater even than when he had summoned the demon, as if his very soul was being torn apart just from looking into her eyes.

The moment she touched the ice, the chains reacted.

Silver-blue runes flared to life, and a cold, ancient will surged from within the frost. It was the dragon’s will, rising like a beast disturbed from its slumber. Sensing an intruder touching what it had been left to guard, it lashed out at her with the weight of the Ice Dragon’s power behind it.

The crimson-eyed woman didn’t even move. Her eyes simply turned toward the chains. The dragon’s will stopped as if it had slammed into a wall. For a moment, the two wills pressed against each other in complete silence. Then the silver-blue light of the runes dimmed, flickering weakly before sinking back into the chains.

There was no visible clash of energy, nor any violent disturbance in the surrounding mountains. The dragon’s will, even though only a part of it, was powerful beyond measure, yet it simply faltered before her presence. It was as though the resistance had never amounted to anything at all.

The woman’s gaze returned to Riennal as though nothing had happened.

Riennal’s eyes trembled.

Who… who is she…?

The woman raised her hand and placed her palm against the ice over his chest.

Then she pulled.

Pain exploded through Riennal’s body.

It felt as though something were being ripped from deep within him, torn from his veins, bones, and his very essence. The demonic energy his Lord had granted him, the power that had sealed his wounds and elevated him to heights he had never dreamed of, was being dragged out of him strand by strand.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to beg. But though the ice held his mouth half-open, not a single word could escape. His eyes rolled back, then snapped forward again as another wave of agony tore through him.

Thick, dark energy seeped through the ice and gathered in the woman’s palm, writhing like a living creature as it struggled to escape her grasp. It was futile.

The woman looked at the man suffering silently in front of her. There was no pity in her eyes, not even the slightest trace of emotion, yet he could feel the enormous hostility radiating from her.

“How dare you…” she said softly, and the air around the ridge grew heavier with every word. “…harm what’s mine.”

Riennal didn’t understand what she was talking about, and he didn’t know what he had done to her. At that moment, all he could feel was the enormous pain gripping him.

As the dark energy gathered in her palm, the woman’s gaze fell on it. She studied it for a moment, and her eyes glinted with recognition.

She remained silent for a moment before laughing softly in amusement.

“So it was you…” she murmured, looking at the writhing energy in her hand, and her laughter slowly turned hostile. “You made a mistake.”

Her fingers slowly closed around it.

The dark energy in her palm shrieked silently as it began to condense into a small orb, unable to offer even the slightest resistance.

Inside the ice, Riennal’s eyes shook. The pain began to recede, but in its place came an emptiness he had never felt before. The power that had filled him, the power that had made him believe he could achieve anything, was gone without a trace.

But the woman wasn’t finished.

Her eyes moved past Riennal, as though she were looking at something far beyond him. Deep within him, a thin, faint thread still remained, stretching somewhere far away into the darkness. The connection between him and the demon who had granted him his power.

Cunning bastard… A faint smirk appeared on her lips.

She looked at it for a moment, then raised the tip of her finger.

There was no sound or light. The thread simply ceased to exist. It was cut so cleanly that whatever lay at the other end of it would never sense it had been touched.

Then she lowered her hand.

Riennal’s eyes stared at her through the ice, wide and shaking. The crimson-eyed woman stepped closer and looked into his eyes, and slowly, his mind began to cloud over.

“You won’t remember any of this,” she said.

As soon as the words left her lips, the figure in front of him began to fade from his mind, piece by piece… her cold eyes, her voice, what she had said… the moment he had woken inside the ice. One by one, they slipped away like snow melting in his hands, until there was nothing left to hold on to.

His eyes went still.

His consciousness sank back into the darkness, and he knelt in the snow exactly as he had before she arrived, frozen, chained, his face locked in the same expression of horror.

The woman looked at him one last time.

Then she glanced toward the two powerful presences that were rapidly approaching. Her lips curved slightly.

The air around her rippled, and she vanished.