The city of Varendor, once prosperous and surrounded by golden fields, was slowly dying.
The monsters that had once remained deep within the forest had drawn closer like a dark tide, driven by an inexplicable phenomenon that had made even the gentlest creatures violent.
Every night, the walls trembled beneath endless roars.
The fields had been devastated.
The trade routes had disappeared.
And hunger was beginning to spread through the city like another plague.
The streets no longer had the bustle they once had.
Only tired faces, wounded soldiers, and families trying to survive one more day remained.
From the battlements, Governor Arvian Thorne watched the outside world.
Level 85.
He had once been a formidable warrior.
Now, he barely looked like a man who had gone far too long without sleep.
Sunken eyes, an unkempt beard, and deep dark circles spoke for him.
The food reserves were nearly exhausted.
Sending hunters beyond the walls was practically condemning them to death.
And yet, he had been forced to do it.
Because the other option was to remain behind the walls...
and wait to starve.
He had sent multiple requests for help to the Empire.
He knew that no one would probably answer.
Even so, every dawn he raised his eyes toward the main road.
He hoped to see imperial cavalry emerging through the dust.
They never came.
And every evening, he lowered his gaze again.
A little more tired.
A little more resigned.
Until, one morning, the sky rumbled.
At first, it was a distant boom.
Then another.
And another.
Like an endless chain of thunder.
The soldiers on the walls raised their heads.
Then something even more unsettling happened.
The monsters stopped roaring.
The battlefield fell silent.
Arvian frowned.
"What...?"
A light appeared on the horizon.
A line of fire tore through the hordes like a spear.
BOOM!
An explosion wiped out dozens of creatures.
Then lightning struck.
Then another bolt.
Columns of fire swept across the battlefield as enormous groups of monsters were reduced to ash.
The soldiers of Varendor watched in confusion.
The creatures that had seemed endless for weeks...
were retreating.
Dying.
Disappearing.
"An army!" one of the lookouts shouted. "An army is coming from the east!"
For the first time in a long time, Arvian felt something he thought he had forgotten.
Hope.
But it didn't last long.
The governor narrowed his eyes.
Banners began to emerge through the smoke.
They weren't imperial.
They were black.
Silver.
And crimson.
At the center was a fractal dragon.
Arvian felt the hope disappear from his face.
"No..."
Carpathia.
The enemy kingdom.
The same kingdom they had been at war with less than a year ago.
The Carpathian soldiers advanced with impeccable discipline.
They weren't attacking the walls.
They weren't demanding surrender.
They simply destroyed every monster they encountered.
A creature tried to reach a group of civilians trapped outside the walls.
Three Carpathian soldiers stepped in front of them.
They killed it.
Then continued advancing.
Arvian understood nothing.
"Why?"
No one answered.
Why would they help?
Why risk troops in enemy territory?
Why were they protecting their civilians?
Arvian finally descended from the walls accompanied by several guards.
He needed answers.
The messenger he had sent returned shortly afterward, galloping at full speed.
"Governor!"
The man nearly fell from his horse.
"The commander is... the royal princess!"
Arvian froze.
"Which princess?"
"Elizabeth Erkhan."
The governor's eyes widened slightly.
"Princess Elizabeth?"
"Yes. She's marching toward the imperial capital, but decided to aid the city while passing through."
Arvian barely had time to process it.
The Carpathian knights began to move aside.
One.
Then another.
Until they formed a path through the ranks.
Elizabeth appeared first.
Her presence was calm.
Far too calm for someone who had just crossed a battlefield filled with monsters.
But Arvian barely looked at her.
Because behind her...
there was someone else.
A man dismounted from his horse.
He wasn't wearing an ostentatious suit of armor.
He didn't need one.
His movements were calm.
Controlled.
As if that battlefield were no different from an ordinary street.
Arvian felt his body freeze.
The man's eyes met his.
Yellow.
Cold.
Sharp as blades.
Arvian took a step backward.
A cold sweat ran down his back.
No.
It couldn't be.
He recognized that face.
Or, at the very least, he recognized something about it.
That name.
That surname.
Douglas.
His mind immediately returned to several years ago.
To the battlefields.
To soldiers who disappeared during the night.
To enemy troops found completely destroyed at dawn.
To the stories veterans told in hushed voices.
And to one man.
Lawrence Douglas.
The Reaper of Death.
The monster who had forced entire armies to retreat.
The man who, according to the official history, had been executed by order of the Emperor himself.
Arvian remembered the news perfectly.
Everyone did.
Lawrence Douglas was dead.
Then...
Who was that man?
The governor felt his legs beginning to give way.
The messenger swallowed.
"Governor..."
Arvian didn't answer.
"That isn't Lawrence."
The messenger lowered his voice.
"He's his son."
A pause.
"Duke Lusian Douglas."
The name fell like a stone.
Arvian slowly raised his eyes.
Lusian was watching him.
Without hostility.
Without arrogance.
Simply watching him.
But that didn't reassure the governor.
It made things worse.
Because Arvian realized something.
The man standing before him didn't need to threaten him.
He didn't need to draw a sword.
His mere presence had made a Level 85 governor forget how to breathe for a moment.
Arvian looked toward the walls.
The veterans had recognized him as well.
Some had gone pale.
Others gripped their spears so tightly that their knuckles had turned white.
An old man among them muttered:
"The Douglases..."
Another swallowed.
"It can't be."
Arvian heard him.
"What?"
The veteran didn't take his eyes off Lusian.
"Governor..."
His voice trembled.
"You don't understand."
"Understand what?"
The man tightened his grip on his spear.
"We fought the Douglases."
Silence.
"And we learned something."
Arvian waited.
The veteran finally whispered:
"Fighting them wasn't a battle."
He looked at Lusian.
"It was walking toward death."
The wind began to blow again.
The banners of Carpathia fluttered over the battlefield.
And Lusian began walking toward the gates of Varendor.
Unaware that, to some of the men watching him from the walls...
his surname was far more terrifying than any monster they had just faced.
The knights of Carpathia remained motionless atop their mounts, perfectly aligned.
They looked like a row of black statues covered in steel and dried blood.
None of them spoke.
None broke formation.
Behind them came Princess Elizabeth.
She rode with a calmness unbecoming of someone so young. Her sky-blue cloak moved gently through the smoke, scorched earth, and metallic smell that still covered the surroundings of Varendor.
But no one was looking at her.
Every eye was fixed on Lusian Douglas.
Arvian swallowed.
He wasn't a coward.
He had survived monsters, sieges, internal rebellions, and border wars. He had seen entire cities die.
And yet...
The mere presence of that man made it difficult to breathe.
Lusian wasn't smiling.
He wasn't frowning.
He showed no anger, pride, or contempt.
And that made it worse.
Because that calm didn't seem like the calm of a man who had just arrived at a besieged city.
It was the calm of someone who had seen too much death to be impressed by one more corpse.
Lusian's yellow eyes slowly swept across the ruined walls, the corpses of monsters, and the exhausted soldiers struggling to remain standing.
There was no arrogance in his gaze.
Only assessment.
As if he were calculating how long the city would survive if another horde appeared before dawn.
Arvian gathered all the willpower he had left and stepped forward.
Then he bowed his head.
It wasn't a gesture born of diplomacy.
It was instinct.
"D-Duke Douglas..."
His voice came out rough.
"The city of Varendor thanks you for your... intervention."
Lusian didn't answer immediately.
His eyes remained on him for several seconds.
The silence became so heavy that several soldiers held their breath.
Finally, Lusian spoke.
His voice was low and rough.
"The road to the capital passes through here."
He paused briefly.
"If this city falls, the road will be blocked."
Arvian waited.
"Helping you is logical."
That was all.
A simple answer.
Almost cold.
But Arvian understood what lay behind it.
Carpathia had no obligation to stop.
They had no obligation to spend soldiers, supplies, or magic in enemy territory.
And yet, they had done so.
Elizabeth dismounted then.
Her presence immediately eased some of the tension.
Compared to Lusian, she was much easier to approach.
She walked toward Arvian with a calm smile.
"Governor Arvian."
"Princess Elizabeth."
"We apologize for not arriving sooner."
Elizabeth gave a small bow.
"We have brought food, healers, and reinforcements. With your permission, we'd like to enter and assess the situation in the city."
Arvian immediately responded.
"O-of course."
He looked toward the walls.
"The city is at your disposal."
He couldn't hide the relief in his voice.
And as soon as they received permission, the Carpathian soldiers began to move.
No shouting.
No repeated orders.
No arguments.
Every man seemed to know exactly what he was supposed to do.
One group headed toward the warehouses to inspect the remaining supplies.
Another reinforced the inner perimeter.
The healers climbed down from the carriages and went directly to the most seriously wounded.
Other soldiers reorganized the main entrances and established lookout posts.
Everything happened with almost unsettling coordination.
Arvian watched without knowing what to say.
It was like watching a massive machine come to life.
Precise.
Organized.
Efficient.
When the caravan finally passed through the gates of Varendor, the citizens stood motionless on both sides of the streets.
Some stepped back at the sight of the Carpathian armor.
Others simply stared.
But little by little, something began to change.
It wasn't just fear.
It was confusion.
Because this didn't resemble the heroes they knew.
People were accustomed to young, charismatic warriors.
Impulsive men who spoke loudly, boasted about their victories, and turned every battle into a spectacle.
The Carpathians weren't like that.
They didn't celebrate.
They didn't raise their voices.
They didn't seek recognition.
They looked like soldiers who had lived through too many wars to get excited about them anymore.
Even their armor conveyed that feeling.
It wasn't designed to inspire admiration.
It was dark, heavy, and covered in scars, wear, and stains of dried blood.
Equipment worn by men who didn't expect to impress anyone.
Only to survive.
And in the middle of them all was Lusian Douglas.
He walked slowly through the ruined streets of Varendor.
Silence seemed to follow him like a second shadow.
The citizens watched him the way one watches a storm approaching in the distance.
With fear.
With fascination.
And with the uncomfortable feeling that this man did not belong to the same world as them.
The soldiers dismounted from their horses.
The carriages stopped.
Barrels of water and sacks of grain began to be unloaded.
The wounded were carried away.
The entrances were secured.
Everything happened with almost unreal speed.
Without shouting.
Without chaos.
Without confusion.
A knight lifted a sack of supplies and spoke in a firm voice.
"Children first. The elderly next. The wounded last. No pushing."
No one argued.
No one broke the line.
Hunger was visible in everyone's eyes.
But they obeyed.
The citizens slowly began to approach.
Some continued watching the soldiers with fear.
Others could no longer take their eyes off the food.
For many, it was the first time in weeks they had seen fresh bread.
Clean water.
Enough food to go to bed without an empty stomach.
The fields had been destroyed months ago.
The warehouses were nearly empty.
People had survived on roots, scraps, and anything else that could keep them alive.
That food wasn't a luxury.
It contained no great amount of mana.
It didn't increase levels.
It didn't strengthen bodies.
It was simply safe food, prepared to nourish weakened civilians without causing problems due to magical instability.
Enough to keep them alive.
And for the people of Varendor...
that was more than they had ever expected to receive.
Little by little, the city began to breathe.
For the first time in a long time, it stopped smelling only of blood, smoke, and despair.
But Lusian remained apart from the center of the activity.
He didn't distribute food.
He didn't give speeches.
He didn't try to reassure anyone.
He simply watched.
His eyes swept across the walls.
The towers.
The narrow streets.
The rooftops.
The blind spots.
He calculated escape routes.
Distances.
Angles of attack.
Possible ambush locations.
As if he expected something to happen again at any moment.
Elizabeth watched him from a distance.
Then she walked toward him.
"Lusian..."
He didn't take his eyes off the walls.
"Yes?"
"You're frightening the people."
"I'm making sure they don't die."
Elizabeth sighed.
"I know."
She stood beside him.
"But they've lost too much over the past few months."
Lusian remained silent.
"Maybe you should try not to look so terrifying."
Elizabeth paused.
"At least for a few minutes."
Lusian finally looked at her.
"And how am I supposed to do that?"
Elizabeth opened her mouth.
She thought about it.
Then sighed.
"I don't know."
A small smile appeared on her face.
"Maybe that's the problem."
Lusian turned his gaze back toward the walls.
Elizabeth did the same.
Then she realized something.
Lusian wasn't really watching the city.
Not really.
He was searching for something.
His eyes moved across the streets, towers, and faces with unsettling coldness.
There was no curiosity.
No contempt.
Not even exhaustion.
Only vigilance.
Like a man waiting for the world to try to take something important from him.
Elizabeth lowered her gaze slightly.
She knew what it was.
It was always like this with Lusian.
Every decision.
Every silence.
Every movement.
Everything seemed to revolve around keeping her safe.
Even when it made him distant.
Severe.
Or downright terrifying.
Elizabeth sighed.
"Sometimes you're too protective."
Lusian looked at her.
"It's my job."
She smiled.
"No."
Lusian raised an eyebrow.
Elizabeth moved a little closer.
"That's what you tell yourself."
He remained silent.
Elizabeth said nothing more.
For now, that was enough.