Inside the carriage racing at full speed towards the Grand Duchy.

Thanks to Sion ripping apart the chair, the carriage interior was now spacious enough for five adults to lie down comfortably.

– Aaagh

Esther, who had lost consciousness after the arrow piercing her abdomen was removed, let out a scream.

Sion cradled her head resting on his lap. And he put his hand in her mouth to prevent her from biting her tongue.

‘It’s okay. It’s okay, Esther.’

He embraced her body that was growing colder.

‘Please…… may my body heat warm you. You can’t get any colder.’

“What is the doctor doing!”

Sion roared at the old doctor.

The doctor wiped sweat from his brow as he examined Esther’s wound.

With her upper clothes removed except for covering her chest, her wound was starkly exposed.

Seeing that wound tore at Sion’s heart.

“Fortunately, it seems no organs were damaged. But her condition is hard to gauge……”

The Grand Duke ordered.

“She must be saved.”

A cry thrown at the doctor, and the magician who had turned pale at the sight of blood. Sion’s words were like the roar of a beast.

“Your Highness, your shoulder is bleeding!”

“I won’t die from losing a shoulder!”

Sion ended up shouting at Adrian Eodel who had turned blue.

“Your Highness……”

“Adrian, is this beyond even your abilities?!”

Adrian had never seen Sion so broken.

The carriage interior was already stained with the woman’s blood. The Grand Duke held her, not minding that her blood was mixing with his own.

“Adrian, please save her.”

“……”

The young magician was certainly the empire’s finest. But even he had never seen anything like this.

The woman’s condition was not simply due to an arrow wound. This was……

“Your Highness, this doesn’t seem to be just because of the wound.”

“Then?”

“Look. Dark magic is dancing over Lady Esther’s body.”

“!”

The Grand Duke felt it too.

A face outside the mask that distorted like an illusion before returning to normal. A body shaking violently like glass about to shatter in a storm.

“I don’t know the cause, but that attack from earlier is disrupting the magic, no, magics covering her. At this rate, she’ll die not from the wound but from the magic going berserk.”

“Then can’t you stop that magic?!”

Sion shouted. No, he begged.

It had been long since he stopped feeling the pain in his shoulder. Instead, it was his heart that felt like it was being torn apart.

What on earth was this magic covering this woman!

How cruel must her experiences have been, for this small body to be bound by not one, but multiple dark magics.

What exactly did you go through, white butterfly. No, Esther.

The doctor exclaimed.

“I see! I thought it was strange. Losing this much blood is really unusual. Plus this seizure-like shaking.”

“……I’ll try.”

Adrian said.

“Please.”

“However.”

The boy magician hesitated again at the Grand Duke’s words as he was about to attempt something.

“As I said the day before yesterday, I don’t understand the nature of the dark magic covering her. There are two. They’re both clearly magic that could kill a person easily, so how has she been living? But why does one of these magics feel familiar?”

“Adrian!”

The Grand Duke shouted in anger. Because Esther coughed up blood again.

“Aaah! I don’t know! Anyway, Your Highness! I’ll just do it, I’ll try!”

The boy magician was frightened by Sion’s face that looked like he might lose his mind.

“Di…… Divina Archangele, defende nos in proelio……”

Adrian began chanting a spell to neutralize dark magic while forming hand signs.

The boy’s voice spread throughout the carriage. Then Esther’s shaking began to subside little by little.

“Is it working?!”

The doctor said, clasping his hands as if in prayer.

Sion saw it. Things like transparent yet not transparent, thin membranes, undulating over Esther.

Clearly if he reached out his hand she would be there, but she was surrounded by something intangible. Something was hurting her.

‘Please…… release this woman.’

Adrian closed his eyes and chanted spells while breaking out in a cold sweat.

– Spiritus malignos, divina virtute in infernum

At that moment.

– Kwang

An invisible massive roar burst forth from Esther.

The dark magics enveloping her had attacked Adrian.

As one side of the moving carriage burst open, the boy magician was thrown out of the carriage.

It was forceful enough that it wouldn’t be strange if his neck broke and he died.

[This is the timeline separator]

Fortunately, the boy protected himself with magic at the moment he was flung out.

It was Sion who shielded Esther and the doctor with his body.

The messenger who had departed with them had luckily arrived at the castle first.

Because of that, everyone in the Grand Duchy was able to greet the blood-covered Grand Duke emerging from the half-destroyed carriage, carrying Esther who looked already dead.

Seeing the Grand Duke’s appearance, the head maid Ruwyne Axel let out a scream.

Arcadia, who had come out following the head maid, froze on the spot.

His eyes lingered on the blood-covered Grand Duke, then stopped on Esther who hung limp in the Grand Duke’s arms. The white fur she was wrapped in was stained red.

Arcadia staggered towards Esther.

“Esther. Esther?”

“Arcadia.”

The Grand Duke called.

“What happened? Was it magical beasts?”

“Sanctus.”

“!”

“……Arcadia.”

At that moment, the Grand Duke collapsed to the ground.

“Your Highness!”

Even in that situation, Sion held Esther protectively.

“Arcadia. Esther……”

“Doctor! What are you doing!”

At Arcadia’s angry shout, the Grand Duchy’s doctors placed Esther on a stretcher.

“Quickly to the infirmary! The Grand Duke too, hurry!”

Arcadia grabbed Sion’s uninjured shoulder. The wounded shoulder area was stained black.

The remaining poison was eating away at the flesh.

Arcadia shouted.

“Get up! Hurry! Are you going to be defeated by mere poison!”

At those words, Sion smiled wryly. Then he grabbed Arcadia’s arm.

“Arcadia, save Esther. Until I return, make sure…… to hold onto her.”

“The doctors will save her! So you too, hurry! Hurry……”

Tears welled up in Arcadia’s eyes.

‘You stupid Grand Duke. Your body’s become a rag.’

I will definitely save Esther.

But, it’s okay for us to be injured, but you can’t be like this, Sion Belfast.

If you’re like this, I won’t be able to report about the crimes my crazy brother committed and that insane assassin I let slip away.

I was prepared to beg forgiveness for all my sins to you. If you’re like this…… I’ll feel too sorry.

Arcadia put his shoulder under the Grand Duke’s to help him up.

“Arcadia, there’s only one way to save Esther.”

“?!”

Just then, Adrian called out to the Grand Duke.

“Your Highness! That’s too…… too reckless!”

“Arcadia……”

“Speak.”

“Can you make Adrian shut up for me?”

The Grand Duke smiled wryly.

Arcadia’s heart sank.

“Take me…… to the top floor.”

“The top floor?”

“Yes. To where our sacred sword, Lapis, is.”

“!”

Your Highness.

Sion Belfast.

What are you thinking?

“Hurry.”

Sion’s gaze turned cold.

“Make haste, it’s an order.”

“……”

At Sion’s command, Arcadia supported him as they went up.

Leaving behind the head maid’s wailing voice telling him to get treatment, the two men climbed the stairs.

Finally, when they reached the top floor, in front of the room that only the Belfasts could enter, Sion spoke.

“Arcadia, my friend.”

“!”

“Go to Esther. Hold onto her until I return. Don’t let her die. Can you do that?”

“……You fool.”

Arcadia’s voice broke with anguish.

Sion smiled.

“Yes, I’m a fool. You finally realized? So…… know that I’ll die if you can’t save her.”

“Alright, you bastard.”

Sion smiled at Arcadia’s cursing.

“I’ll…… definitely return.”

Sion opened the blue sapphire door and stepped into the room that appeared dark to Arcadia’s eyes.

Then the door closed by itself from the inside.

[This is the timeline separator]

When he was left alone in the dark space. Sion slowly walked towards the wall in front.

The highest place where sunlight seeps in.

The sacred sword Lapis hangs on a blue silver shelf. No, to be precise, it floats in midair.

One of the three sacred swords spread across this continent, along with the imperial sacred sword Lucella.

A relic of the Belfast god said to reveal the true form of the being it pierces.

The only hope to remove the dark magic that even the empire’s greatest magician couldn’t dispel, which was driving a woman to her death.

[Father, how can we call upon Lord Lapis?]

Long ago, on the day he first beheld the sacred sword, he had asked his father, the previous Belfast, in this place.

His father knelt on one knee as he looked up at the sacred sword.

[All we can do is pray earnestly. It is said to respond only if that earnestness reaches it.] [Has any Belfast received a response so far?] [……Probably not. That sword has never been used since the Belfast god created it.] [Not even once in a thousand years?] [That’s right. Lord Lapis is said to disappear after being used once, the Belfast god said.] [Oh come on, what’s that.] [That’s how it is. A sword that can only be used once for a truly earnest and precious wish. That’s our Lord Lapis.]

Sion knelt on both knees before the sacred sword, Lapis.

And as his father had said, he earnestly called out the sacred sword’s name.

‘Lord Lapis. I beg you to answer. Please come down from that high place and save a woman. Please……’

Sion closed his eyes and kept calling Lapis’ name in his heart.

‘Please…… please……’

How much time had passed.

In the empty room with only Sion, a low and gentle man’s voice resonated.

‘Who are you, Belfast?’

It was a voice heard in the mind.

Sion raised his head. And looked up at Lapis floating in midair.

“Sion Belfast. Your descendant.”

‘Why have you called me? Many have called me until now, but none have awakened me.’

“There is a woman you must save, whose true form you must reveal. Please remove the darkness covering that woman.”

‘A woman…… is it. Is that what I should do after awakening for the first time in a thousand years, only to disappear?’

“Yes.”

‘Why?’

“Without that woman, Belfast will perish. I too will end.”

‘……’

“She is the person I love.”