The two figures finally reached a safe place—the apartment they had rented in London. The same one they shared with all of Xavier's friends, who had come all the way from another continent to save the friend they believed was in dire need of help.
Alcmena and Xavier gently tucked Anastasia into bed. She remained unconscious, her body still battered though partially healed thanks to Alcmena's efforts.
Xavier wanted to go search for his friends, but Alcmena firmly reminded him how out of form his body was. He warned him not to push himself anymore—his body was already exhibiting the early signs of core corruption.
Xavier knew he was right. Every part of his body ached. His muscles screamed in pain, and his head felt light and dizzy—each step was like treading across fractured realities. Still, his heart couldn't rest. His friends meant everything to him, just like Anastasia did.
Alcmena sighed, frustrated. He knew too well that once Xavier made up his mind, there was no changing it. The boy was like a tree grown too deep to be uprooted.
"Fine. We'll go look for your friends," Alcmena relented at last, giving in to Xavier's persistence.
"Really?!" Xavier lit up.
"Yes. But only on one condition—you follow my instructions without arguing. Withdraw from any conflict. I'll handle the fighting. Your body is already at its absolute limit."
"Okay!" Xavier answered with a grin.
Alcmena couldn't help but smile, seeing the light return to the boy's face.
Before heading out, they carefully secured the apartment, locking every door and scanning the neighborhood from the windows. Outside, chaos reigned. Injured citizens stumbled through the streets, fleeing the inferno and devastation they had just escaped. Others helped carry the wounded toward whatever help they could find.
Both Xavier and Alcmena watched in silence. Their expressions were grim and shaken. For Xavier, it was a horrifying sight. But for Alcmena, who had lived through darker ages and bloodier eras, the devastation, while tragic, was not unfamiliar.
They moved through the crowded streets, heading deeper toward the heart of the destruction. Alcmena, now perched on Xavier's shoulder in his feline form, observed the broken city. The blend of tradition and industry that once defined London had now been reduced to smoldering ruins.
"I can't believe he would do this in the open," Xavier murmured, stunned.
Alcmena heard him, but remained quiet. A monster like Percival committing such atrocities? It didn't surprise him.
Suddenly, they noticed a glowing butterfly fluttering through the smoke and wreckage. It seemed so out of place amidst the chaos.
It glowed faintly, ethereal, and hovered closer to them, swirling around Xavier's head.
"Go away, you damn bug," Alcmena hissed in annoyance.
Xavier chuckled at his reaction. The butterfly began to float away.
"Should we follow it?" Xavier asked.
"No," Alcmena replied flatly. "Something's off about it. It doesn't feel right."
"But it might lead us to something."
"Yeah, something dangerous."
"But—"
"No buts, Xavier. You promised not to argue."
Xavier puffed his cheeks and muttered under his breath, "I'm not arguing... just suggesting."
Alcmena rolled his eyes and sighed. "Fine. But if we run into anything, I'm blasting it to dust. Got it?"
"Yes, master!" Xavier replied, overly enthusiastic.
They followed the glowing butterfly deeper into the ruined city. Eventually, it led them to a destroyed and burned-out bakery, the charred remains still fresh with smoke.
As they stepped inside, a voice pierced through the air, sharp and calm:
"Ah, you finally arrived. I wondered if you'd follow it."
Xavier and Alcmena snapped their heads toward the voice—and there he stood.
Percival.
Xavier's heart plummeted. His body froze, a tidal wave of fear crashing through him. His stomach churned. His hands trembled. Before him stood the man who had killed his father two years ago. His uncle.
A grin crept across Percival's face, cunning and cruel. Images of Xavier's kind and loving father flashed before Xavier's eyes.
Alcmena, sensing the panic swelling in Xavier, shouted sharply, "XAVIER! SNAP OUT OF IT!"
Xavier blinked rapidly and stammered, "Yeah... I'm alright, master. Sorry."
A bead of sweat trickled down Alcmena's face. He saw the terror in Xavier's expression—his olive skin pale, his eyes wide like a haunted child. He looked as though he had just seen a ghost.
Percival, seated calmly on a wooden chair—one of the few objects untouched by the flames that had torched the building around them—sipped from a mug of coffee and nibbled on a half-eaten cookie. A sinister grin crept across his face as he took in the look of horror on Xavier's face. The fear and disbelief etched in the boy's features seemed to amuse him deeply.
"Come, take a seat, boys. I've been waiting for you," he said, voice slick with mock hospitality.
Alcmena growled, his golden eyes glowing ominously. Smoke curled from his feline mouth as he began to shift, his body stretching, reforming, his dragon form reemerging. "I knew that butterfly was a trap," he spat. "It always comes back to you, you damn parasite."
Percival chuckled. "Oh come now, no need to be hostile. Is this how you treat a gracious host?"
"We couldn't give two rat's asses about your damn party," Alcmena snarled, growing larger by the second.
Without hesitation, Alcmena leapt from Xavier's shoulder, his dragon breath blazing, ready to incinerate the devil before them.
But Percival merely snapped his fingers.
In an instant, the world around them shattered. The bakery vanished.
Xavier blinked, disoriented. The ruined building was gone. Instead, they stood within the grandeur of a lavish dining hall, too elegant and regal to be real. Chandeliers floated above, and an impossibly long table was laid out with every imaginable delicacy.
Reality had shifted—no, it had been hijacked.
Alcmena found himself confined in a cage—small, humiliating, and inexplicably impenetrable. He snarled, confused at how he'd even gotten in.
Xavier, meanwhile, sat in a velvet-cushioned chair at the far end of the table, directly across from Percival.
"Hungry, nephew?" Percival asked, his tone dipped in faux concern. "Go ahead. Eat. There's plenty."
He turned to Alcmena with a sneer. "Though I'm afraid we don't serve cat food here. Forgive me, Dragon King."
"I don't eat cat food," Alcmena shot back, eyes narrowed. "Only unloved bastards like yourself."
Percival's smile twitched.
His attention turned to Xavier—who sat frozen, pale, barely breathing. His eyes stared through Percival, trembling. This wasn't just fear. It was trauma.
"Now then," Percival continued, voice low and syrupy. "Where were we?"
Xavier's voice broke through the air—small, stammering, barely able to form the words. "W-why... w-why have y-you brought us h-here?"
His Cosmic Eyes began to glow faintly—pulsing, trembling as if warning him, trying to speak. They sensed it: this wasn't real. Or perhaps it was. Was this an illusion? A pocket of reality? A dream manufactured from madness?
Xavier's eyes tried to show him the truth. They screamed it.
But his emotions were too loud.
His dread. His confusion. His grief. The moment clouded every sense—touch, smell, sound, sight, even the deeper senses beyond. Thirty-three channels of perception, warped. He was caught inside something forged by sheer mental domination.
An illusion so elaborate, so complete, it could only come from a mastermind who moved pieces like a grand chess game.
"I just wanted to see you," Percival said softly. "Is it so wrong for an uncle to want to spend time with his dear nephew?"
"YOU'RE NOT MY UNCLE!" Xavier screamed, his voice raw with fury. "YOU NEVER WERE! STOP CALLING YOURSELF THAT AND LET US GO!"
"Let you go?" Percival raised a brow, amused. "You're not being held, Xavier. You can leave... anytime. If you're capable."
Alcmena blasted the cage with fire—but the flames bounced off harmlessly. Percival snapped again. Chains materialized from nothing, binding Alcmena tightly.
"Missing a limb, are we?" Percival mocked. "Did you cross someone strong?"
Alcmena glared at him. "Only the ones you sent after us."
"Do you mean Heinrich? Or perhaps Haruki?" Percival's voice lilted. "I sent him to greet your little maid, Anastasia. They go way back, you know. Thought it'd be a nice reunion."
Alcmena growled. "I don't care about your twisted games, you slimy bastard. All I want to know is how you learned sorcery and the Forbidden Dark Rune Spells. Why would you raise the very being who nearly destroyed everything back from the dead?!"
Percival sipped champagne, relaxed. "So, it was Emperor Julius who left you both in that broken state? Makes sense. He vanished on me quite suddenly. Said he sensed something more... important."
He raised his glass toward Xavier, eyes gleaming. "He must've sensed you. The boy with Excalibur."
Xavier's breath caught.
His eyes pulsed again.
They glowed bright—but this time, trembled with desperation, not just warning.
Something was very, very wrong.
But then—
Xavier slammed his fist against the table with a deafening crack.
The sound shattered the moment. Everything fell into a silence so thick, it was suffocating.
His voice erupted like a storm.
"WHY?! WHY!" he roared, chest heaving. His eyes shimmered—rage, pain, confusion all flooding out at once. "Why do you dare show your face here, after taking away the person I loved most? After tearing apart my family and leaving them in ruins?!"
His words cut the air like daggers, trembling as they poured out.
"Why are you here, Percival?! Tell me! You killed your own brother—MY FATHER—just so you could bring back the very thing the Great Heroes gave their lives to destroy!"
His voice cracked. The fury in him turned to grief.
"You stole children from their families... just like you did to me. You took Adam's son. You shattered his wife. You left her broken. You LEFT HER BROKEN!"
Tears welled in his eyes. His fists shook.
"WHY DO YOU DO THIS?! PLEASE! TELL ME WHY!!"
Even Alcmena stood frozen. The Dragon King had seen anger, sorrow, and despair across countless ages—but never all three burning this vividly in one boy.
Percival... merely smiled.
It wasn't just joy.
It was amusement.
"So Adam told you his sad, tragic little tale," Percival sneered, his voice thick with mockery.
Then he laughed.
A loud, unhinged, almost inhuman laughter.
"The only reason I took his child..." He leaned forward, eyes glinting with madness. "...was because his son, Caelen... is a descendant of the Great World Forger."
Xavier's breath caught. His stomach dropped.
"What?" he asked, voice cracking.
Alcmena narrowed his eyes. "What did you just say?"
Percival's grin widened. His tone shifted—mockery now giving way to grandeur, to something ancient.
"To be precise," he said, savoring every syllable, "Caelen is the reincarnation of Ulfberht."
Silence.
"The Father of All Blades."
Xavier's heart slammed in his chest.
"The one who forged Ethereal Instruments."
Alcmena's pupils constricted.
"The smith who crafted Excalibur... under direct command of the Allfather Himself."
The air turned ice cold.
Neither Alcmena nor Xavier spoke. Their expressions hollowed—shock, disbelief, and something close to fear carving into their faces.
Reality around them almost seemed to bend under the weight of the revelation.
It was as if the name Ulfberht alone had summoned the pressure of ages.
And then Alcmena whispered, his voice nearly choked:
"There's no way this can be true".