Alejandro, under the command of the captain of the Royal Guard Knights, remained beside Andrew and Elizabeth, never taking his eyes off their surroundings. Asher stayed by the Crown Prince's side, while Leonardo guarded the opposite flank.
Unlike the center of the village, this area had suffered very little damage.
The few undead that appeared were cut down almost immediately by the knights.
The real battle was taking place elsewhere.
Andrew gazed toward the horizon.
In the distance, Larryet's roars and Thunder's lightning still illuminated the sky.
He frowned.
"The Grand Duchess Sophia came here in person..."
He fell silent for a moment.
"That can only mean something happened to Lusian."
Elizabeth immediately looked up.
Concern appeared on her face before she could hide it.
"We have to go."
Andrew let out a quiet sigh.
He lightly tapped her forehead with a finger.
"Think for a second."
Elizabeth looked at him in confusion.
"What?"
"If we run to him right now, everyone will notice how much we care."
Elizabeth opened her mouth to argue...
...then quietly closed it.
Andrew was right.
The captain swept his gaze across the battlefield.
"Your Highnesses, I must ask you to remain here."
His hand rested on the hilt of his sword.
"Our priority is ensuring your safety."
Cries still echoed from the center of the village.
Explosions continued to shake the ground.
As long as the cult remained active...
none of them could lower their guard.
Agustín swallowed hard.
"Your Grace... we needed Jerges alive. He was our only lead to the other ritual sites."
"There was no need."
Sophia's reply came without hesitation.
"My riders are already pursuing the surviving cultists."
Her eyes never left Lusian.
"And I wasn't about to let the man who tried to kill my son keep breathing."
No one argued further.
Sophia carefully lifted Lusian and laid him across Larryet's back.
Then she looked at Emily.
"Get on. We're leaving."
Kara stepped forward.
"Your Grace! Please, wait. Could you help my uncle?"
Sophia didn't even turn her head.
"That isn't my responsibility."
A brief silence followed.
"But don't worry. The Erkham army and your family's forces are already on their way."
She mounted Thunder.
"Adela."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Follow me."
Thunder let out a powerful neigh and began moving forward.
Just then, a figure came running through the smoke and ruins.
"Emily!"
Clarisse Stanley.
She stumbled several times before finally reaching them.
Her uniform was stained with mud and blood.
Her eyes were swollen from crying.
She collapsed to her knees in front of Emily.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."
Emily immediately climbed down from Larryet's back.
"Clarisse? What happened?"
The young woman lifted her tear-streaked face.
The tears wouldn't stop falling.
"Manuel..."
Her voice broke.
"Manuel is dead..."
Emily felt her heart skip a beat.
"What...?"
Clarisse began trembling uncontrollably.
"We were surrounded by too many undead... I couldn't react..."
She covered her face with both hands.
"He... stepped in to save me..."
Her breathing dissolved into sobs.
"The attack was meant for me..."
"No..."
Emily slowly shook her head.
"That can't be..."
Clarisse broke down completely.
"I should have been the one who died..."
Emily pulled her into a tight embrace.
They remained like that for several moments beneath the rain.
Then Emily looked up.
Her eyes were red and swollen.
"Take me to him."
Clarisse nodded through her tears.
Sophia watched the scene in silence.
She understood that decision perfectly.
She turned to Adela.
"Stay with Emily."
"When she's finished..."
"Meet us at the Douglas residence."
"Understood, Your Grace."
Sophia said nothing more.
Thunder surged forward in a flash of lightning.
Larryet followed close behind.
Within only a few seconds...
the Grand Duchess disappeared into the rain, carrying Lusian with her.
At the academy, the silence that followed the battle was more unsettling than the Forest King's roar.
The blackened walls still gave off smoke.
Blood mixed with the mud.
The collapsed towers stood at crooked angles like stone skeletons.
They had defeated the Forest King.
But the price had been enormous.
Magnus sat silently among the ruins.
A bandage covered the place where his left eye had once been.
Beside him, Axel silently watched the healers moving across the battlefield in search of survivors.
"The losses are too great..." he murmured.
His voice was barely audible.
"Knights... professors... students..."
He lowered his gaze.
"Half the academy disappeared when the Forest King brought down the wall."
Magnus clenched his fist.
The makeshift chair beneath him creaked under the force.
"So many lives..."
He drew a slow, heavy breath.
"At least we managed to protect the students."
He lifted his gaze toward the forest.
"Now we have to find out what drove those beasts into a frenzy."
Far from there...
Deep within the Dark Forest...
Two figures made their way through the trees.
Bragoz staggered forward, supporting himself against one tree trunk after another.
His body was covered in cracks and black blood.
Every step looked like a struggle.
Beside him, Dimitri wore a grim expression.
Suddenly...
Bragoz stopped.
His expression changed.
He pressed a hand against his chest.
"No..."
His voice was barely a whisper.
He focused again.
Trying to sense the bond connecting him to the ritual.
Nothing.
Only emptiness.
His eyes slowly widened.
"Impossible..."
He turned sharply toward Dimitri.
"Where is he?"
The vampire frowned.
"What are you talking about?"
"The summoning..."
His breathing grew faster.
"I can't feel it."
"I can't sense my brother's aura."
"I can't sense the portal."
"I can't sense..."
"Anything."
Dimitri remained silent for several seconds.
Then he let out a dry laugh.
"And you're asking me?"
He looked at Bragoz with obvious irritation.
"I've spent this entire time running away with you from those damned monsters."
He gestured toward the wounds covering his body.
"I lost every one of my subordinates."
"I thought you could control that beast."
Bragoz glared at him.
"I never said I could control it!"
A surge of demonic mana shook the surrounding trees.
"I could only lure them."
His breathing remained ragged.
Something had gone terribly wrong.
Terribly wrong.
Because if the ritual had failed...
There were only two possibilities.
Someone had destroyed the ritual circle.
Or...
Jerges was dead.
Bragoz gritted his teeth.
"Go."
"Find out what happened."
"And discover why my brother never crossed the portal."
Dimitri smiled lazily.
"As you command..."
His body dissolved into a cloud of bats.
Then he disappeared into the darkness.
Bragoz remained motionless.
Meanwhile, inside a carriage bearing the silver Douglas crest, Lusian slowly opened his eyes.
The rumble of the wheels gradually brought him back to consciousness.
A dull ache spread throughout his entire body.
Every breath reminded him of the explosion.
Across from him, Sophia sat in silence.
She didn't speak.
She simply watched him.
When she saw his eyes regain their focus, an invisible weight slowly left her shoulders.
"You're awake..."
Lusian took a few seconds before responding.
"Mother...?"
He tried to sit up.
A sharp pain shot through his chest.
Sophia caught him before he could collapse back down.
"Slowly."
"You're not fully recovered yet."
Lusian took a deep breath.
The memories began to return.
The Lich.
Jerges.
The explosion.
Umber...
His eyes flew open.
"Umber!"
"He's alive."
The answer came before he could finish asking.
"They're treating him. It will take time for him to recover, but he'll survive."
Lusian let out the breath he had been holding.
Only then did he look back at Sophia.
"What happened afterward?"
She remained silent for a few moments.
"The cult was defeated."
"And the others?"
"Most of them survived."
The answer was too carefully measured.
Lusian knew her.
He knew when she was hiding something.
"Who died?"
Sophia lowered her gaze slightly.
"Emily's brother."
The world seemed to stop.
Lusian felt a hollow emptiness in his stomach.
"...Manuel?"
Sophia nodded.
"He died protecting Clarisse."
Lusian remained motionless.
He said nothing.
He couldn't.
Manuel...
He wasn't supposed to die.
Not then.
Not like that.
His memories replayed the game's story over and over.
That name was still there.
Alive.
Present for years.
He had never...
Never died during the academy attack.
"You remember..." Sophia murmured.
Lusian slowly returned to reality.
"Yes..."
His voice was barely a whisper.
Sophia rested a hand on his shoulder.
"Don't carry that guilt."
He didn't answer.
"You did everything you could."
"You saved many lives."
"If you hadn't been there..."
"The losses would have been far greater."
Lusian slowly closed his eyes.
But those words no longer comforted him.
Because he understood something no one else could.
This...
This wasn't happening the way it was supposed to.
The attack on the academy.
The cult's ambush.
Manuel's death.
None of it existed in the story he knew.
This wasn't a minor change.
It was a complete divergence.
A chill ran down his spine.
When had it started?
When he tamed Umber?
When he changed his relationship with Emily?
When he altered the tournament?
Or simply...
The moment he came to exist in this world?
He remembered an old theory he had read before he died.
The butterfly effect.
One insignificant change.
One impossible-to-predict consequence.
And an entirely different story.
Lusian turned his gaze toward the carriage window.
The rain continued to drum softly against the glass.
During the following days, Sophia forbade Lusian from leaving the mansion until he had fully recovered.
His physical wounds gradually healed.
The others did not.
Umber was still recovering under the healers' care, so Larryet stayed by Lusian's side at all times.
But not even the lion's presence could calm him.
He slept very little.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the explosion again.
He heard Emily's scream again.
And he remembered Manuel's name.
He wrote several letters asking about her.
None of them eased the weight pressing on his chest.
When Emily finally arrived at the Douglas residence, a servant escorted her to the garden.
Lusian was sitting beside the artificial lake.
He wasn't reading.
He wasn't training.
He was simply staring at the water.
Emily ran to him.
Without saying a single word.
She wrapped her arms tightly around him.
"I thought you were going to die..."
Lusian remained silent.
"When I saw Umber arrive with you... covered in blood... I thought I was already too late."
She began to cry.
"Don't ever do something like that again..."
Lusian stayed still for a few moments before returning her embrace.
He felt her body begin to tremble.
Then the tears came.
"I'm sorry..." he whispered.
Emily shook her head.
"No..."
Her voice was barely audible.
"It's not your fault..."
They remained like that for a long time.
Without speaking.
There was no need.
They had both lost something that day.
At last, Emily took a deep breath.
"The house... feels so empty."
Lusian looked up.
"My mother hasn't stopped crying."
"My father is trying to stay strong..."
"But every time he thinks no one is watching..."
"He just stands there, staring at Manuel's room."
Her words began to break apart.
"I still expect to hear him walk through the front door..."
"As if all of this were just a bad dream."
Lusian lowered his head.
He couldn't find anything that might ease her pain.
Because no such words existed.
Emily wiped away her tears with her sleeve.
"The funeral is in three days."
"The royal family is holding a ceremony for everyone who died during the attack."
She fell silent for a moment.
Then she looked at him again.
"Will you come with me?"
Lusian nodded without hesitation.
"Of course."
Emily let out a quiet sigh.
"Thank you..."
"I need you to be there."
Silence settled between them once more.
Rain slowly began to fall over the garden.
"I don't understand how anyone could do something like this..." Emily murmured.
"Turning people into monsters..."
"Killing entire families..."
"Can there really be that much evil?"
Lusian watched the raindrops ripple across the surface of the lake.
Several seconds passed before he answered.
"I don't know..."
And it was the most honest answer he could give.
Because even he no longer understood what was happening.
Far from the battlefield, the atmosphere inside the Denisse residence was just as tense.
Lorenzo dropped a blackened seal onto the table.
"It failed."
Tomás looked up.
"Explain."
"During the evacuation, I was assigned to Katerin's group. Everything was going according to plan... until the dead started crawling out of the cemetery. After that, everything fell apart."
He paused.
"Clarisse Stanley was trapped. Her fiancé threw himself in to save her. He died in her place."
Tomás remained silent for several seconds.
Then he slammed his fist onto the table.
"Idiot!"
Lorenzo took a step back.
"What did I do?"
"Do you have any idea how valuable a debt from the Stanley family is?"
The young man said nothing.
"A favor can be bought. The gratitude of a great noble family cannot."
Tomás took a deep breath before continuing.
"We're surrounded by enemies, and you wasted an irreplaceable opportunity."
Lorenzo lowered his head.
"There were too many undead..."
"Excuses have never saved a noble house."
The patriarch slowly paced across the room.
"The Armett family can no longer be trusted. The moment the opportunity presents itself, they'll betray us."
He stopped.
"What happened with Isabella?"
"I tried to get close to her... but she hardly leaves Lusian Douglas's side."
A faint smile appeared on Tomás's face.
"I see..."
He stood in thought for several moments.
"Then we'll let things take their course."
Lorenzo frowned.
"Father?"
"When two powerful families begin to intertwine their interests... sooner or later, conflict is inevitable."
His smile grew colder.
"And we'll be there to take advantage of it."