“Louise…!”

He immediately ran to her and embraced her limp body in his arms.

On her chest, there were marks as if she had been stabbed with a knife several times.

Wherever their bodies touched, a dark reddish color stained his body as well.

The blood that had not yet coagulated indicated that the bleeding had continued until just a while ago.

The terrible traces made him feel like he was going to vomit.

As he brushed aside the hair that was matted with blood on her cheek with his trembling hand, a deathly pale face was revealed.

She had her eyes open hazily, staring blankly into the air without focus.

“Louise.”

Her name barely escaped his choked throat.

He checked the faint pulse on Louise’s neck and heard the thin breath from the tip of her nose.

Louise was not dead.

“Are you… a demon?”

Sched asked, and Louise answered.

“Yes, Sched.”

As if to prove the sin she had admitted to, she did not die.

However, could this be called living?

The clear and transparent light green eyes were cloudy like those of a dead person.

Her soul had already been shattered into pieces.

She was trapped somewhere between life and death.

She had lived endlessly and died endlessly while bearing the weight of both life and death simultaneously.

Sched clenched his teeth so hard that his jaw might break.

Without knowing anything, he had blamed and resented her all this time.

And sometimes he even consoled himself that it was okay like this.

He thought that he might be able to forgive her, and then the long-standing problem would be resolved.

In reality, there was nothing he could do for her, and nothing that she had to bear had changed.

Sched Lester could not change anything about Louise Ideana.

With what confidence had he been so arrogant and conceited?

Did he think… that he could change her life as he pleased?

Sched held the broken Louise tightly in his arms.

But then.

“……”

Louise’s lips, which had been lying limp without any reaction, moved quietly.

Her lips barely parted without making a sound.

Sched engraved the small movements she was making with all her strength in his eyes.

The white lips that opened wide sideways and shallowly parted.

“…Eve?”

With a body that couldn’t even make a sound, she was calling out her daughter’s name.

It was a call more desperate than anything else.

“Was Eve here?”

Louise did not answer. No, she couldn’t.

She just kept silently writing the child’s name over and over again.

And very slowly, her cloudy light green eyes moved.

The end of her gaze reached the desk in the laboratory.

It was the best signal she could send with her will.

Sched nodded and immediately started examining the desk she had signaled to.

On the desk, research materials of unknown nature were piled up like a mountain.

On the walls, complex equations, letters, and strange drawings were attached.

However, it was clear that they were written in Dietrich Lester’s handwriting.

‘Among these, there must be a clue about Eve.’

But as he was examining the materials, he noticed something strange.

‘Is this all the research he did as a priest?’

It seemed too much to be research to deal with heresy.

These contents seemed as if… they were research to directly realize black magic.

Sched found an old-looking notebook among them.

It was Dietrich’s experimental log.

Thinking that the next plan might be written in it, he opened the old log.

However, what he found in the log was the content of experiments conducted by the Ideana family more than a decade ago.

On the yellowish paper that had faded in color, countless sacrifices and experiments were recorded.

And among them was the name Louise Ideana.

‘Dietrich Lester… was involved in this experiment?’

Suddenly, Sched recalled what Parmen had said before he died.

“That can’t be. Lucifer did it. He said I was close to perfection!”

The Lucifer he mentioned. Someone other than Felix Ideana who was involved in the experiment.

‘Was that… Dietrich Lester?’

Dietrich, along with Felix, conducted countless experiments to complete Louise.

Sched’s hands started trembling again at the unspeakable contents.

And he froze at one point in the experimental log.

There, Louise was drawn.

A drawing, no, more precisely, an anatomical diagram of Louise.

They put the immortal child on the operating table, gave her drugs, and performed a dissection under the pretext of uncovering the secret of her power.

How much faster regeneration occurred, where regeneration occurred faster, under what circumstances regeneration slowed down.

They cut, tore, and broke a living person.

To them, all of it was nothing more than an objective and rational act of observation and research.

Literally, Louise was… the perfect immortal experimental subject.

“Ugh…!”

Sched felt nauseous and couldn’t properly read the experimental contents.

In his mind, images of Louise from his childhood days were mixed.

The pale smile of the girl who always reassured him that she was fine.

What was happening behind it.

How foolish the boy was.

He couldn’t even imagine how much pain his cruel ignorance had caused her.

How did you live embracing all of this?

With what feelings did you look at me, at people, at the world?

The hand holding the log was trembling.

And slowly, anger beyond fear accumulated.

“Dietrich….”

The name filled with resentment flowed through his gritted teeth.

Sched ransacked Dietrich’s laboratory with hatred.

And on the very last page of the log, he found a map.

It was a map of this underground space.

On the old map, there were X marks that seemed to have been added recently.

It seemed to mark the places that had collapsed, unable to withstand the long years.

‘If he took Eve with him……’

There was no telling what kind of experiment he would do on Eve.

Judging from Louise’s condition, it didn’t seem like he had left her for long.

‘If she wasn’t at the temple, then he……’

Sched examined the maze-like paths drawn on the map.

There was one other exit.

When he shone the lantern on the floor, as he expected, bloody footprints were leading to the opposite side of the laboratory.

“…E…ve.”

At that moment, Louise, who had been lying collapsed, moved her body little by little and made a faint sound.

“Louise!”

“…Took… her.”

Louise’s lips moved slowly.

Strength didn’t enter her body.

Was it because she had been too close to death for too long?

Louise felt that her regeneration ability had slowed down.

No, maybe her sense of time had become dull because she had been in pain for too long.

Her mind was so broken that it was difficult to think properly about anything.

But she was clinging to a tenacious thought.

“…Save… Eve.”

Save Eve.

From Dietrich’s hands.

For that alone, she sustained her body that had died, been torn, and shattered countless times.

The demonically tenacious regeneration ability was pulling her back to life even amidst the numerous deaths of the night.

Focus returned to her cloudy eyes, albeit faintly.

Her fingers began to twitch little by little.

Sched, who had run to her at some point, lifted her up and wrapped his jacket around her.

At that moment, the sound of footsteps was heard from the cave connected to the temple.

It must be the priests belatedly following him.

‘No.’

Sched had seen Dietrich’s materials.

Evidence that Louise was an experimental subject of heresy was all here.

His mind was in a mess.

Was it right to chase Dietrich first to find Eve?

Was it right to leave Louise here?

Should he burn those materials right away for Louise’s sake?

Chasing Dietrich was urgent, leaving Louise was frightening, and burning the materials was dangerous.

If he set fire to this underground, it would be difficult for him and Louise to remain unharmed.

Dietrich’s crimes would also burn away with it.

Disposing of those research materials right now……

At that moment, Louise grabbed his sleeve with her powerless hand.

“Eve……”

Sched saw a clear will in her eyes that had seemed emotionless and cloudy.

In the end, he had no choice but to obey that will.

He put Louise down for a moment and headed towards the entrance where the priests were entering.

And he drew his sword.

“Lord Lester!”

The priests, tired from the long work of breaking the barrier, smiled with relief.

Sched stared at them as they approached and gripped his sword tightly.

And then.

Bang! He struck the wall in front of him, leading to the laboratory, with all his might.

As the sword made of Hongyeom iron impacted the narrow cave, a roar echoed through the underground.

“L-Lord Lester, what are you doing now?”

The startled priests stopped walking and slowly stepped back, and Sched struck the wall hard once again.

Then, with a noise that seemed to tear the eardrums, a vibration occurred.

At the same time, a crack split the wall that Sched had impacted.

“Lord Lester!”

“R-Run!”

With the priests’ screams, the entrance leading to the laboratory collapsed with a crash.

“Lord Lester!”

Rocks and soil piled up, completely blocking the view of the priests.

Sched stepped back and stared at the unstable cave.

They would no longer be able to enter this laboratory from the temple.

He ran back to Louise.

In her eyes that seemed to have regained more consciousness, there was a glimmer of surprise.

It also seemed to be worrying about his reckless decision.

Sched lifted Louise, who still couldn’t properly control her body, with both arms.

“Sched……”

A cracked voice flowed from Louise’s lips.

“Don’t worry, I will definitely find Eve.”

Strength entered his two arms holding Louise tightly.

Her body temperature was still cold, so he held Louise closer.

He moved along the path drawn on the map, carrying Louise.

At that moment.

Rumble…!

The cave shook greatly once again with a loud sound.

Sched instinctively protected Louise and looked up.

Bits of soil fell from the ceiling.

Was it the aftereffect of the impact he had caused by collapsing it earlier?

‘No, this is……’

It was a sound coming from above ground, not from underground.