Louise slowly sat down on the sofa across from her, and Giselle pulled over a glass and placed it in front of her.

“You seem to have forgotten that I am the High Priestess?”

Giselle said as she poured wine into her glass.

“Your Eminence also seems to have forgotten that I am a demon.”

Louise smiled as she looked at the High Priestess sitting across from the heretic and pouring her a drink.

At that moment, the wine flowing from the bottle briefly stopped.

But the stream of glittering, deep red wine soon resumed.

“Should I just lock you up.”

Giselle muttered gruffly as she set down the bottle that had half-filled the wine glass.

Louise let out a light chuckle and swallowed a mouthful of the wine the High Priestess had poured for her.

The alcohol was quite astringent and strong. Thanks to that, warmth spread through her cold body.

“Thank you, for many things.”

A quiet word escaped Louise’s lips as she set down the glass.

It was directed at Giselle, not the High Priestess.

Giselle’s eyes narrowed slightly as she rested her chin at a leisurely angle.

Then she picked up her own glass and gulped down the alcohol.

She emptied half the glass and set it down.

“I will visit Eve from time to time to check on her.”

“Eve…?”

“Of course. She’s a child that needs to be watched.”

Giselle nodded her head loosely with her chin resting on her hand.

At that, Louise’s eyes sank and she hid her gaze in the wine pooled in the glass.

“No one has ever had both divine power and dark magic at the same time. That child could become a monster, you know.”

“…If Eve becomes a monster, it will clearly be because someone made her that way.”

“What?”

“Because monsters are not made by themselves.”

Louise fiddled with the small dagger at her waist.

The blade that Sched had given her once.

Louise quietly looked at the blade with its history and spoke.

This dagger had once belonged to Felix Ideana.

Her father may have used this small blade to torment innocent people.

Judging from the torture chamber where Sched had been imprisoned… he probably had.

The Ideana family crest engraved on the sheath would remember those sins vividly.

But this dagger had also played an important role in sealing Dietrich.

A demon’s blade, but also one used to stop a demon.

Eve was no different from this dagger.

If she was embraced warmly, that child could become not a demon, but a strong guardian to protect the world…

“…Are you talking about yourself?”

Giselle, who had been quietly listening, asked.

At that, Louise smiled bitterly.

“Did it come across that way…?”

“…I read Dietrich’s journals.”

Monsters are not made by themselves.

Someone makes the monsters.

Those words applied to Louise as well.

Someone who was unwillingly given the fate of a demon through experimentation.

Someone who could only be called a monster.

“That’s not what I meant…”

Louise shook her head and took another sip of wine.

The tart taste made her tongue tingle.

The oddly peaceful conversation between the High Priestess and the heretic soon gave way to silence.

Outside the window, darkness had already fallen with the setting sun.

The carriage carrying Eve would have already left the outskirts of Paradel and be heading far away to the port of Hellingen.

A deep night that swallowed the world in stillness.

Louise tirelessly recalled the child’s face, lest she forget it.

At that moment, the two people who had been quietly gazing at the darkness that buried the shapeless world simultaneously set down their glasses.

Their gazes were fixed on the same place.

White fragments falling through the darkness.

“…!”

Louise sprang up from her seat and ran to the window.

As she flung open the window, an excessively cold wind blew in.

“Giselle…!”

Snow was slowly falling outside the window.

As Louise turned her head, Giselle also rose from her seat, donning a white coat.

Snow falling on ground where rain does not freeze.

The meaning was clear.

“Prepare the barrier.”

The master of Furnig was coming.

Giselle hurried away to prepare for the dragon’s appearance.

At that moment, Louise urgently called out to Giselle who was about to leave.

“Giselle, I want to help too.”

Louise looked at the High Priestess with straight eyes.

The immense disaster that would soon befall them. She wanted to lend her strength to stop it.

At that, Giselle’s face hardened.

“I have no intention of borrowing the power of dark magic.”

At the sharp answer, Louise faced the reality she had briefly forgotten.

She had been forgetting it due to the battle with Dietrich.

Her power was taboo and sin.

Even if that ability became a powerful weapon, it was a power that must never be wielded.

“Don’t add to your sins with reckless acts.”

Giselle warned the heretic and took her leave again.

Louise was left alone in front of the window where snowflakes were pounding.

As always, she had to actively become a helpless bystander more than anyone else.

The snowflakes rapidly became heavier.

The sound of rough, roaring winds echoed in the gray sky.

The unprecedented cold that visited Ideana piled frost on branches and windows.

‘At this rate, we’ll all freeze to death from the cold rather than the dragon…!’

Carlyle thought as he diligently moved his body on the castle walls where a biting wind blew.

The breath rising from his mouth froze white and clung to his eyelashes like crystals.

They had amply prepared cold weather gear and firewood in advance, but the skin-biting cold exceeded expectations.

The world was completely buried in white. Visibility was also hazy as if covered in fog due to the violently swirling snow.

At that moment, the wind changed direction.

“Everyone, prepare!”

Carlyle fixed his eyes on the sky that had turned completely white.

There was only one reason for the wind direction to change so drastically. The dragon’s wingbeats were distorting the air currents.

As everyone readied the ballistae and catapults, a huge shadow finally appeared above the sky.

A vast darkness looming like the clouds of a typhoon.

Those who had never seen a dragon froze at the absurdly large size.

At the same time, an earth-shattering roar reverberated loudly enough to tear eardrums.

Kwang!

The huge shadow roughly scraped over the barrier surrounding Paradel.

Objects on tables and cabinets toppled and fell to the floor from the tremendous vibrations.

“Aaah!”

“Eek!”

People who had taken shelter in underground bunkers trembled in fear at the earthquake-like tremors.

And finally, a silver dragon shining pure white revealed itself amidst the snowstorm.

“Th-That’s Gellevan…!”

The soldiers gasped the icy cold air as they beheld the dragon’s form.

It was overwhelmingly large, as if their lungs had completely frozen and they couldn’t move.

The dragon’s red eyes were the size of human heads, and its long protruding fangs looked larger than a person’s height.

Its entire body was covered in armor-like, hard silver scales, and the long tail stretched out like the course of the Leche River.

The sun-like crimson eyes swept over Paradel Castle through the blizzard.

At the same time, the huge wings fully unfurled on both sides.

As the dragon spread its silver wings, Paradel was plunged into complete darkness under its shadow.

Having confirmed its prey, Gellevan suddenly soared high, folding the long-stretched wings in an instant.

With a single wingbeat, a storm arose, and the colossal body pierced through the snow clouds and vanished to an unfathomable height.

“High Priestess Giselle! Prepare for–!”

Carlyle, who had experience fighting dragons, shouted towards Giselle who was overseeing the barrier.

At the same time, something massive descended from the sky like a lightning strike.

Crack-! With a shrill sound like metal shattering, the dragon’s claws pierced the protective barrier.

A clear crack split across the thick barrier from a single attack.

“Repair it!”

Giselle and the priests instantly repaired the barrier that seemed ready to break at any moment.

In the meantime, the prepared soldiers fired the ballistae and catapults.

Thick arrows and rocks flew and struck Gellevan’s body that had descended to a low altitude.

However, the dragon’s hard scales deflected the attacks without a single scratch.

“Aim for the wings!”

Hedrick ordered the soldiers again.

Ordinary attacks like rocks or arrows cannot penetrate a dragon’s scales. The only thing that could pierce those hard scales was aura.

In order for the aura to reach, they first had to drag it down to a distance where spears and swords could touch.

Therefore, the first task was to target the scale-less wings and bring the dragon crashing to the ground.

But.

“I-It’s not hitting…!”

Gellevan’s movements were more agile than they had anticipated.

It was amazing how such speed could come from that colossal body.

Moreover, the storm generated by its wingbeats blocked the arrows and rocks, causing them to fall weakly to the ground.

Occasionally, one or two attacks would hit the wings, but it was a negligible level to bring down the dragon.

While they struggled with aiming, Gellevan turned its huge body and struck the barrier again with its tail.

Kwang-!

The earth shook once more and cracks formed on the barrier.

The dragon, confirming the cracks, lashed its tail several times.

Bang, bang, bang!

“Ugh! Seriously…!”

Giselle, who was repairing the barrier, quietly chewed on a silent prayer from the immense impact.

Her devout prayer was momentarily directed at Eclas.

‘If only that bastard had gotten the other High Priests to arrive here on time…!’

I wouldn’t be suffering alone like this!

Although she was managing with the assistance of other priests, it was still insufficient.

Above all, she had recently expended a great deal of divine power due to Sched’s summoning sigil and Dietrich’s seal.

The fatigue and aftereffects from that had not fully dissipated, yet here she was, facing a dragon once more.

It was the same for the other knights and soldiers.

‘That bastard Dietrich is the problem from the start.’

If it weren’t for that incident, it wouldn’t be this arduous.

‘And that bastard Sched Lester too.’

The former fiancé who was always absent at crucial times.

If he, who had regained his aura, were present, subduing the dragon would have been much easier.

The soldiers’ morale would have been different too.

‘Because his unwavering, indifferent expression is reassuring on the battlefield.’

But what good was that? Sched wasn’t here now.

Just as she was convinced that breaking off the engagement with that useless man at important times was the right choice, the dragon stopped its attack and flew into the sky again.

‘Is it planning to dive down with its body again?’

Giselle tensed up and broke into a sweat.

But even after a few seconds, the dragon did not descend to the ground.

Instead, a red glow slowly brightened above the white sky where the blizzard raged, as if the sun was rising.

“Breath attack!”

Dragon’s breath. The ultra-high temperature flames spewed by dragons.

As the defenseless soldiers and knights lowered their bodies, the priests hurriedly reinforced the barrier.

Then, the red light at the center of the sky swelled larger and larger, soon firing out flames like a huge gun.

Kwa-kwang!

The lava-like stream of fire struck the barrier, leaving a long trail as if to slash it.

The reinforced barrier precariously blocked the attack.

The snow piled outside the barrier instantly evaporated, and the entangled air currents lashed out as a gale.

And.

“Your Eminence, the barrier is…!”

“Damn it, I know!”

The barrier was visibly weakening as if melting due to the relentless onslaught of intense heat.

They tried infusing divine power to reinforce it, but it was insufficient to withstand the dragon’s power.

Gradually, the scorching heat began pushing through the barrier into Paradel.

‘Damn it, not enough divine power…!’

It was indeed a problem that everyone had overexerted themselves earlier because of Dietrich.

“Everyone, take cover!”

At the same time as Giselle’s shout, a large hole burned through the barrier where the hot flames touched.

As the searing heat rushed in, engulfing them.

Kwang-!

With a loud collision, the scorching heat dispersed.

People’s bodies staggered and fell to the ground from the immense impact.

Giselle, who had lowered her body and shielded her face, raised her head amidst the violently blowing wind.

A pitch-black darkness hung like a fog before her eyes.

And in the center of that darkness, brown hair fluttered in the wind.

“Louise…!”

The woman at the heart of the black mist turned towards the crouching priests.

Calm green eyes swept over them as if confirming the survivors.

Then a composed and serene voice flowed from her lips.

“Come to think of it… The punishment I’ll receive is the same anyway, so there’s no need to stay still.”

Louise lightly clenched her blackened hand as she spoke.