Louise was no stranger to dark magic.

No, she feared it precisely because she knew its power too well.

Even if it was brainwashing, the distinct sins were etched into her body and subconscious.

She had already killed countless people and faced all sorts of demons.

In those nightmares that haunted her childhood, the ones she could never forget even if she tried, she used to learn how to efficiently subdue and kill the enemy.

Using that power was as easy as moving her limbs, and that’s why those dreams were even more terrible and frightening to Louise.

That power was becoming vividly mine, growing familiar.

As her arm was torn off, a knife stabbed into her heart, and her abdomen ripped open, she reached the end of the experiment.

After having a knife pierce your heart countless times, the pain of your body shattering becomes laughable.

“There’s no way someone like you, who has never properly had their heart stabbed, could beat me.”

At last, a faint smile spread across Louise’s lips.

At the same time, the dagger, enveloped in dark power, pierced through Dietrich’s heart with a thud.

Dietrich simultaneously collapsed to the floor, coughing up blood.

The pain of convulsing, twisting his entire body, unable to even breathe properly.

“Ugh… ack…!”

“…That’s why you shouldn’t have touched Eve.”

She recalled the day she first felt that agony.

The moment when a single second feels like an eternity, when your very being is annihilated – that must be hell.

Louise slowly removed her trembling hand from the hilt of the knife that stabbed Dietrich.

For the first time, she stabbed someone of her own will.

Even though she had steeled herself, the trembling wouldn’t stop.

Dietrich’s words were not wrong.

“See, in the end, you’re the same kind of being as me.”

No matter what reasons she attached, she had harmed someone with a power that should never be wielded.

Where the rain had stopped, water droplets fell from Louise’s drenched chin.

At that moment.

“You will never… kuh-huk!”

Dietrich, shaking as if convulsing in pain, grabbed her hand.

His bloodshot eyes glared at Louise as if to kill her.

“You too… the same, cough…!”

Sounds similar to wraiths came from his blood-soaked lips.

And from his hand grasping Louise, a pitch-black light began to spread.

Louise kicked him away with her foot, tearing him off as pain like her skin was burning.

“Ugh!”

Unable to endure the pain, Dietrich’s body completely toppled over onto the mud.

At the same time, the wraiths attacking Paradelle Castle collapsed all at once.

In the air where the rain had ceased, a strange sound of collapse echoed, and the cheers of soldiers could be heard from afar.

Louise raised her head, clutching her wrist where a burning sensation remained.

Above the hole-riddled sky, the dawn was ever so faintly shining.

Her body felt heavy.

As she laboriously turned her blood-soaked body, the devastated land came into view.

The Ideana territory was once again stained black with dark magic, and the bones that had crawled up from the ground were distantly strewn about.

And beyond that field, a group walked out as the inner gate of Paradelle opened.

A gust of wind fluttered a white flag.

A golden star drawn on the pure white flag. And the coat of arms in the shape of a staff entwined with a white rose.

It was the flag of Archbishop Giselle Marlhein.

“Ah…”

That’s right. She had said she would come here too.

If it was Giselle, she would be able to temporarily seal Dietrich’s power before he recovered.

Is this… fortunate?

Louise looked at her own blood-soaked hands.

Was it because she used too much power in the fight against Dietrich? Or was it because the tension had dissipated?

Her thoughts were fragmented.

Strength drained from her body as if she had overexerted herself by using her power after a long time, and her vision blurred.

The shoulder bitten and torn by the demon wasn’t healing easily, and the blood that had flowed down her face had clotted, making it difficult to open her eyelids.

The wrist Dietrich had grabbed at the end felt scalding hot.

‘Eve…’

Her thoughts converged to a single point.

I have to save Eve.

Giselle is coming.

In the eyes of god, Dietrich, Louise, and even Eve are all just the same demons.

“Eve…”

Louise staggered towards Eve.

The moment she took a step, pain reverberated throughout her entire body, tingling.

When she lowered her gaze to look down, she realized her ankle was twisted without her knowing when it happened.

She hadn’t been aware of how battered her body had become while fighting Dietrich…

She dragged her unresponsive legs, taking steps.

Her vision darkened as if she would collapse at any moment, then narrowly returned to a blurry state.

And belatedly, she noticed him beside Eve.

“Louise…”

Even when her vision blurs, even when deep darkness obscures her sight, even when fog descends. His violet eyes are always clearly visible.

Sched Lester was embracing Eve with his body being consumed by the curse.

As if to protect Eve from the immense impact of the battle.

Louise froze on the spot before him.

He was looking at her with shock-filled eyes.

At that moment, a realization she had failed to grasp belatedly reached her skin.

All her sins were exposed for all to see.

She felt suffocated as if her filthy body was stripped naked and put on display.

Black curse markings were etched on Sched’s body.

And the same power as that flowed through her blood.

“Sched…”

How could she explain?

What excuses could she offer?

Her mind went blank and no words came to her.

Black veins bulged up like a spider’s web on his face.

Once, she had wanted to save him no matter what.

She wished for him, at least, to be free from this terrible curse.

So she had left him with all her might, loving him, and departed.

But in the end, the two of them were here, before the sins of Ideana.

One still bearing the sins of heresy.

The other becoming a sacrificial lamb to those sins, dying.

In the face of fate’s mockery, akin to inevitability, Louise was powerless.

Crushed by an unbearable weight, her heart felt as if it would crumble.

Her head ached as if it would shatter and breathing was difficult.

“I, I just…”

I only wanted to protect you.

Louise looked at him being consumed by the curse.

Even as he was dying, there was nothing she could do.

It crumbles. The only resting place that was never tainted by nightmares.

At the same time, memories of nightmares surged in like a tidal wave, and a headache like a stab to the head descended upon her.

Louise’s body staggered and collapsed to the ground.

“Louise…!”

Sched reached out to her fallen form.

His blackened hand touched her cheek.

“Eve…”

In her flickering consciousness, Louise reached out towards the child.

I have to hide Eve.

I have to conceal the child from Giselle.

Her blood-stained fingertips grasped Eve’s small hand.

But her faintly trembling fingertips soon fell powerlessly onto the mud.

“Louise…!”

Sched dragged his body closer to Louise and embraced her.

Her body was scorching hot like a ball of fire.

At that moment, the sound of footsteps splashing in puddles of rain was heard.

Sched raised his head.

Under the light of the dawn that had somehow arrived, casting a faint glow in the sky.

The face of a woman with refreshing sky-blue hair appeared beneath that light.

“…Giselle.”

As his heart sank, he held Louise tightly in his arms.

“If you want to live, hand over that woman.”

The beautiful eyes with long lashes calmly looked down at the battered Sched.

No. This can’t happen.

He wanted to explain the entire situation to Giselle, but he couldn’t utter a long sentence at all.

It felt like the moment he parted his lips, the pain he was barely suppressing would pour out.

He simply held Louise tightly and looked up at her.

Giselle let out a scoff at his hostile gaze.

“On the verge of death, and you dare to look at the priest who can save your life like that?”

It was clear at a glance that the curse possessing him was severe.

To the point where it was a wonder he could even hold onto his sanity.

The pain from the curse must be beyond words.

A situation where crawling on his knees and begging for his life wouldn’t be enough.

Yet that foolish beast seemed unaware of who held the upper hand.

“Louise, I can’t hand her over…”

A rough voice flowed through his clenched teeth.

But Giselle responded with a coldly neat expression.

The threats of a dying human were hardly frightening.

She elegantly raised her hand.

Then, the knights who had been assisting in subduing Dietrich in the distance rushed over to her.

In Sched’s violet eyes, his loyal subordinates were reflected.

“Your Grace!”

It was Carlyle and Hedrick.

Seeing Sched’s condition, they were stunned and at a loss for words.

Although they had been together for a long time, this was the first time they had seen their lord in such a wretched state.

At that moment, Giselle’s gaze shifted to Carlyle and Hedrick.

“Baron Lester’s condition is critical. Take him to the estate immediately.”

She commanded the knights without a moment’s hesitation.

If words wouldn’t work, there was no choice but to use force.

Carlyle and Hedrick approached Sched without hesitation.

“Stand back, that’s an order…!”

Sched shouted in a hoarse voice at the two men grabbing him.

But for the first time, Carlyle and Hedrick disobeyed their lord’s command.

“Forgive us, Your Grace. We will accept any punishment.”

For them, there was nothing more important than treating Sched’s critical condition.

Sched fiercely resisted while holding Louise in his arms.

But with a body consumed by the curse, it was impossible for him to match the strength of the two knights he acknowledged.

“No…”

Louise slipped away from his embrace.

Sched reached out his hand amidst the excruciating pain that felt like his body was being torn apart.

“Your Grace, if you move like this, your condition will worsen…!”

“Loui…se…!”

Amidst the agony, his vision blurred.

The blood that had pooled inside his mouth spilled out with a cough.

At the same time, his surroundings darkened.