[A/N: Hey guys, author here. Sorry to put this here but it was important. I know it's sudden and will create confusion for a lot of people, but I'm adding a character in the story. I just suddenly had this idea and wanted to integrate this character, so I'm doing it now. I'll give a brief explanation about this character. She's Catherine, a maid of Daren and Aria and also a saint. She's been with them for more than a century and serves them as their servant. It was her own choice to serve them after they both saved her from a Duke's family. For now, she's working as the waitress in the inn. I'm sorry for this sudden change, but an ero story without a maid felt empty, so I added one.]
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"Hmmm hm hm hmm hmm."
Daren hummed a lazy, tuneless melody as he stood behind the polished counter of his bar, eyes closed, rag in one hand and a gleaming wine glass in the other. His movements were practiced, almost elegant, as though the act of wiping the same glass over and over was some holy ritual.
Only the gods knew how many unwashed glasses he had stashed away, because no matter the day, no matter the hour, he could always be found here—cleaning one as if it were the most important task in existence.
A grin tugged at his lips, his humming breaking into a snicker. "Today was a great haul. Haaah, it always feels so good to get free money. Hehehe."
The man tilted the glass, watching it catch the light. In his mind, it wasn't a wine glass at all, but a reflection of the sweet coin jingling in his storage ring.
"Who knew Aria's obsession with luxury furniture and fancy utensils would be my best business investment?" he muttered, smirking. "From now on, the wife will be the one to buy the goods. Haaa, wives are the best. Endless spending habits for them, endless scams for me."
He chuckled openly now, shoulders shaking. The tavern was empty save for a sleepy waitress in the corner polishing cutlery, who gave her boss the kind of look reserved for lunatics.
Who would believe this man—this cheerful scam artist humming behind the counter—was one of the most feared sages on the continent? To most, Daren was an enigma. To those who knew him, he was a scandal waiting to happen, a man whose appetite for free coin rivaled his power.
He twirled the rag dramatically, speaking aloud to no one but himself.
"Ahh, noble fools. They think because they wear silks and crowns, their coin purses are untouchable. Bah! A good scam is an art, and I, Daren the Magnificent, am its true master."
The waitress rolled her eyes.
Daren leaned closer to his glass, whispering like a lover's secret. "And when Aria demands another wardrobe carved from dragonwood or silk spun from moon spiders, I'll smile and nod. Why? Because every coin she spends finds its way back into my pocket. Haaa, marriage is the greatest business contract of them all."
He laughed so loud the glass in his hand nearly slipped.
Then—
'Hmm.'
The sound that slipped from his throat was no longer a hum of delight. His grin faltered. His shoulders stiffened.
A ripple, sharp and unmistakable, rolled through the air.
Mana.
Daren's eyes snapped open, pupils narrowing into pinpricks. The rag stilled in his hand. For an instant, the playful scam artist was gone, replaced by the predator lurking beneath the disguise. His senses spread wide, brushing against the threads of the world.
His aura erupted, not like a volcano but like a whisper of breeze. It expanded, covering everything in a protective shroud of doom—not just him, but the entire town—for what was to come.
And then it hit.
Not a ripple. Not a fluctuation.
A tidal wave.
It roared over him like a tsunami made of pure force, pressing against his skin, digging into his bones. People felt their hearts skip many beats. Their breaths caught. Every nerve screamed in danger.
Buildings groaned. The tavern's bottles rattled violently on their shelves before shattering in an explosion of glass and wine. Outside, dogs howled before collapsing. Horses reared and broke free of their reins, bolting in blind panic. Children screamed before their voices were swallowed in unconsciousness.
The earth itself split. Cobblestones cracked, forming jagged lines that spread like spiderwebs through the streets. Roof tiles slid from trembling houses, clattering onto the ground. Windows shattered in succession, like the town itself was howling.
And then the silence came—the heavy, suffocating silence of a world blanketed under an aura too vast, too oppressive, too merciless to resist.
One by one, the townsfolk dropped. Eyes rolled back. Bodies crumpled. Within seconds, thousands lay still. Not dead—just unconscious. But their silence was no less terrifying.
Daren's knuckles whitened around the glass. His humming tune was long forgotten.
He knew this aura.
He knew it too well.
"Aria…" he breathed.
He had felt it even before it hit—that's why he covered the entire town in a protective shroud, so that no actual harm would be done to the townsfolk and the nearby towns.
The waitress in the corner collapsed to her knees with a soft thud, cutlery scattering. She was covered in sweat, her breathing ragged. Even though she was a saint, she could barely withstand this oppressive aura. That's how strong a Sage was. If not for Daren covering the entire town with his own aura and suppressing Aria's, there would have been nothing but pure destruction for thousands of miles.
But this fluctuation would not go unnoticed. Daren was sure the entire nation had felt it. Aria's aura had sent shockwaves and earthquakes rippling across the land.
"Oh, fuck me sideways," he muttered, slamming the glass down onto the counter, which was still perfectly intact and spotless, not even a speck of dust or splinter marring it. "Someone's dying tonight."
The next instant, he was gone.
The tavern counter stood empty, rag and glass abandoned. A single swirl of distorted air marked where he'd stood, fading as quickly as it came.
He reappeared at the base of a mountain cliff, where his house was supposed to be. Now only the remnants of it remained. The whole area was smothered by mana blanketing the sky. The very air was alive, trembling, snapping like a storm of blades.
Clouds above had twisted into a vortex, spiraling down toward the cliff peak where their secret home lay hidden. The moon was smothered, its light devoured by the storm of aura that turned night into something red and furious.
Daren did not waste a heartbeat. He blinked—once, twice—and in the next instant he stood at the cliff's edge, directly behind her.
And froze.
Not from fear but by the beauty at the center of this destruction.
Aria stood in the center of devastation, her figure haloed in burning crimson and gold. Her aura poured out of her like molten fire, shredding the cliff's stone beneath her feet, warping the very air into shimmering waves. Her robes streamed behind her, each fold alive with artifact-born light, moving as though the fabric itself despised the stillness of the world.
Her hair, black as midnight, lifted in the invisible gale of her wrath. Her eyes—oh gods, her eyes—blazed like molten silver, fixed on a single trembling figure before her.
Kent.
He was a pitiful sight. His knees threatened to buckle under the weight of her aura. His hands shook at his sides. Sweat poured down his temple, his eyes wide, caught between terror and disbelief.
The sheer amount of killing intent rolling off Aria was enough to choke the sky itself. Daren was surprised by the fact that Kent hadn't pissed himself yet, nor was he crying and begging for his life. The sheer will it took was truly commendable.
If not for the current scenario, he might have given Kent a pat on the back for such a great feat.
The only reason Kent hadn't died from the sheer weight of her aura was simple—Aria was keeping him alive. She wouldn't let him die so easily, after all.
Aria's aura flared again, a fresh wave of killing intent sweeping over the cliff. The ground split further. Stones cracked like eggshells.
Kent swallowed.
Daren's gaze shifted back to Aria as he finally spoke.
"So… what happened here for our house to suffer so miserably?"
Daren didn't give two shits about what Kent had done, because he knew the man's fate was sealed.
"He saw."
Aria spoke without turning back, her eyes still bloodshot, burning with fury. Daren's face turned dark—for Aria to still remain in such a rage even in his presence was not something ordinary. Something truly grave had happened.
'What actually happened here?'
Just then, before his thoughts could settle, Aria spoke again.
"He saw me… bare."
Her face twisted with disgust, voice dripping with venom.
"Without clothes."
With those words, the world went silent. There was no sound for a few seconds, just the low hum of heavy mana in the air.
Kent, sensing no movement or voice any longer, finally looked up—and what he saw made his blood run cold. His eyes didn't focus on Aria. No… they focused on the person—or the thing—standing behind her.
It was Daren, if one could even call him that anymore.
His body was unmoving, hair covering his face in a shroud of darkness. There was no emotion on his face. His frame was steady, yet every line of his body radiated something wrong—something inhuman.
But what terrified Kent were his eyes. Eyes that looked like the swirling chaos of the abyss itself.
They were fixed on him, cutting down his very soul, piece by piece.
And for the first time, Kent felt it. The true meaning of primal fear. A terror that rattled his bones, shook his very soul, and engulfed his entire existence.