Leon and Elise stood as if time had frozen them.
The air was saturated with the smell of burning blood; ashes filled the surroundings, and bodies lay scattered in a heavy silence, as if the whole world had gone dark in an instant.
"Impossible…" Leon whispered, his wide eyes searching for any explanation. "How… how did this happen so fast?"
But no answer came. There was only silence.
Suddenly his gaze fell on a familiar sight — a body that planted more horror in his heart than anything else. An ice spear had pierced his chest, driving him into the ground, and frozen blood coated his clothes.
"Smith!" Leon screamed as he ran. He fell to his knees beside the body, grabbed his shoulders and shook him violently.
"No… no way… get up, old man! Please get up! I know you like to joke… this is just a prank, right? Just a silly game from you!"
But the body remained cold; his eyes were open and lifeless, as if the soul had left long ago. Leon's voice trembled; his cries became desperate pleas:
"Please… don't leave me… you promised you'd stay… you promised me!"
But promises do not save the dead. All his entreaties shattered against the eternal silence.
At that moment Elise was even more terrified than he was. While he knelt beside the man who had been like a father to him, she dragged her feet slowly, as if an invisible force pushed her against her will. Every corpse that passed her, every disfigured face she looked at, added a new weight to her chest. Her heart beat like a war drum, and her body nearly collapsed with each step.
Then she stopped in front of an old metal door, half covered with frozen blood. She didn't know how she had reached it… but something — a mysterious force — compelled her to reach out and push it.
The door opened with a cold, metallic creak… and the moment her gaze fell inside, she collapsed to her knees, a sound choking in her throat: a muffled cry, closer to a sob than a scream.
In front of her lay the body of a child not yet thirteen. Torn to shreds. His limbs were nailed to the walls with spears of ice; his entrails were pulled from his belly, and his face was half destroyed, the other half mutilated by torture, as if hell itself had come to rend his body.
Elise shuddered. Her lips moved, but she could not find a voice. She tried to scream, to call… but her voice betrayed her, as if the whole world conspired to silence her.
What finally escaped her was only a cry — a sharp, maddened, desperate wail. Tears flowed as if they would never end, and her words came out broken and hoarse:
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry, my son… sorry, Mireille… I couldn't keep my promise… I couldn't protect Adam from this cruel world… Why? Why does this always happen?!"
Her words shattered when she lifted her eyes. The body before her was no longer the same. It had become something else — an impossible vision, a living nightmare.
A little girl no older than five or six stood there in a torn dress, her face smeared with dirt. Her eyes were blue, and her red hair hung over her shoulders. A chain of iron hung from her neck, dragging her toward the darkness. Beside her was another child — his face, his hair, his eyes, everything identical to hers. He walked beside her with innocent steps, smiling as if the scene around them were merely a springtime stroll.
Elise gasped, her hands trembling as she reached out.
"Brother…?" she whispered, tears still streaming without pause.
---
Elsewhere, Leon teetered between madness and shock. Smith's body still lay before his eyes, and blood was still smeared on his hands.
"Impossible… who would dare kill him like that? Is it… the elite families?" he muttered.
But his mind immediately rejected the idea: "No… no one would dare… not while he was alive. Not with my parents around."
Then a cruel flash pierced his mind — that unknown feeling, the presence he had sensed the day Adam awakened. If it was him… if what he had seen was only the beginning… then he had to run. He had to save Elise.
"Elise?!" he shouted, turning and looking for her.
But she was gone. She had disappeared.
He ran through the ruined palace, stumbling among corpses, searching every corner. Each time he tried to call the bloodline, the answer was the same: nothing.
His heart froze.
"Bloodline… it won't work? How? What… what's happening?!"
His eyes widened; his face became a mask of terror. Like a lost child, he ran madly through hell, shouting her name without thought.
At last his feet halted before a strange metal door, different from all the others he had passed. He hesitated, as if something inside warned him not to open it… but a mysterious force tugged at his hand, pushing him forward.
The door opened, and what he saw inside was shocking.
Behind the door, darkness was not merely the absence of light but an embodied thing standing in the shape of a man. His hair was as black as night, falling over his shoulders as if swallowing the space, and his golden eyes shone with a fiery glow that sent chills through the bones. In his hand was a long sword, black as forged iron, plunged deep into the body of a woman who barely remained standing; her breaths were ragged and her blood poured so profusely that it pooled over her feet.
Each breath she drew sounded like a death bell ringing through the hall.
Leon raised his head slowly, as if time had stopped, to see her face. When the bloodstained woman turned toward him, his heart froze.
"Elise…"
His voice was hoarse, barely escaping his throat, laden with terror and pleading. In that moment he did not see a body riddled with wounds; he saw his partner in life — the woman who had laughed with him, argued with him, held him, and shared the dream of building a safe home for their children.
Elise smiled despite the pain; her lips trembled as she tried to say,
"I'm… sorry…"
Her words were not merely an apology but an admission of helplessness and the echo of a promise she could not fulfill. It was as if she cast the last of her soul at him.
Then, without resistance, her body fell forward — like a withered flower collapsing into its pool of blood — and the sound of her hitting the ground was like an earthquake striking Leon's heart.
Time froze. His world shattered. He could hear nothing but the echo of his torn heart screaming, "No… no… nooooo!"
Leon did not move. He stood like a statue, watching his soul being wrenched from his chest. The unknown man stood before him, blood dripping from his sword.
The man approached with slow steps, sat beside Elise's body, and ran his fingers through her bloodstained hair as if she were a broken doll. A mocking smile flashed across his lips.
Leon's eyes trembled. Was the man mocking her death? Would he dare touch her after killing her before Leon's eyes?
His knees threatened to give way; his chest boiled. Images of the children raced through his mind — their laughter, their innocence, their questions about their mother… How would he tell them? How would he explain that everything ended in an instant?
"The woman I loved more than my soul… is gone. The man who raised me, Smith, is dead. And I…?"
Leon slowly raised his head. His eyes burned like embers, anger and sorrow tangled in a single spiral. He whispered in a hoarse voice,
"Even if I have to tear my soul apart… I will rip you to pieces, you bastard."
The stranger laughed softly as he continued to run his cold hand over dead Elise's shoulder:
"Oh… the stubborn kid has returned… but this time? There's no father… no brother… to save you."
Leon's body trembled at the word. Finally, he recognized the voice. He recognized the presence. He recognized the old horror.
"Arkan!" he cried.
The man smiled a sly smile and raised his sword again.
"Well done, my nephew. You still remember your uncle…"