Chapters 55-58

For some reason I was convinced that I had scheduled this week's chapters. Apparently, that wasn't the case when I opened patreon to schedule next week's chapters. I probably need some memory supplements or something.

Chapter 55

“Where is she, Adriana?!” Lucianus slammed a fist against the wall of the villa, punching a small crater into it and making the entire estate tremble. “Where is my daughter?!”

Adriana did not flinch. She sipped her wine with a composure so absolute it was almost mocking. Her eyes never left the surface of the cup.

She only glanced at Hadrian, the man who had come with Lucianus and the only witness to this fight. 

“I’m sure she’s safe,” she said. “Which is more than I can say about your temper.”

Lucianus’s knuckles bled. His chest heaved. Every muscle in his frame trembled with the barely contained rage of a man who had lost control over what he valued most.

“WHERE IS SHE!?”

“I have no idea,” Adriana replied calmly, finally meeting the furious eyes of her husband. 

“She’s vanished for three weeks! The estate was sealed. And now she’s gone.” His voice shook. “Do you think I’m stupid, Adriana?”-

Adriana let the question hang in the air for a moment.

“Do I?” 

“Lucianus,” Hadrian said with a deep voice, “I believe perhaps we should let your wife—”

“AHHH!” Lucianus shouted, interrupting the man. “Adriana, on my family’s honor, if you don’t tell me where—” 

“Honor?” Adriana slowly rose from her seat and launched a [Light Shield] around them. All the servants had already evacuated the estate after Lucianus had come back, guards included, but she didn’t want any more damage to her house. “What honor?” 

“What honor? What honor?!” Adriana shouted back now throwing the chalice of glass at him, which shattered on the wall right beside his head. 

“She is my daughter!” Lucianus replied, punctuating his words by rapping his index finger on his chest. 

“Is she? Is she your daughter? The daughter you refuse to teach? The daughter you refuse to look at as your heir? 

“I want to protect her!" Lucianus shouted so loud that his Mana carried it to his voice and made the [Light Shield] Adriana had summoned tremble. 

The man now panted like a wounded beast. 

“Where were you?” Adriana asked. “Where were you when our daughter needed you? You slapped her in front of everyone. Is there a single word she uttered to Aurelianus and that whore that you disagreed with?! ONE?!

Lucianus gritted his teeth and struggled to find the words against the sharp arguments of his wife. 

“Aurelianus is the Patriarch of a—”

“I don’t give a shit!” Adriana shouted. “Dawn’s Mercy! What scared rat have I married?!” 

Lucianus recoiled at those words. He had never heard, even after all this toiling, Adriana say something like this. In this moment, he didn’t feel like her husband, the Patriarch, the man who was accruing more power in his hands than anybody else, ready for his revenge. 

He felt like he was fourteen again, squaring against the Princess of Lumina, the strongest caster, the most potent warrior at her age, a talent for the ages. 

Hadrian on the side, felt like he wanted to bury himself in a hole and never come out. In his wisdom, knowledge, and all of that, he really didn’t want to be on the wrong side of this woman. 

“Adriana, I—” Lucianus, feeling the unbound rage of his wife mounting, was actually ready to retract. He was feeling the kind of reverence he hadn’t felt in more than a decade for his wife.

“What? Are you scared I’ll leave you?” Adriana said. “Because I will, Lucianus. I will leave you. I will leave this Light-forsaken house for good! And don’t worry about me, I have already found the precedent.” 

“What?” Lucianus frowned, not following anymore. 

“I found it in the law. I can request a divorce, and my brother has to agree. Oh, and by the way, I found a way for your daughter to become a Champion. Not that you asked.”

“W—what…” 

Adriana looked at Hadrian, the man who had been so mysterious and always by the side of her husband. Now that she had the [Librarian] Class, she knew exactly what this man was, what his purpose was by her husband’s side.

“I am a [Librarian], Lucianus,” Adriana said in a growl. “A cursed, damn [Librarian].” 

Both men opened their mouth. 

“Why?” that was the only thing that Lucianus managed to say. 

“Riddle me this, Lucianus, before I answer: do you know how Flavia, Lavinia’s mother, died?”

“She took a contaminated potion,” Lucianus said.

“Lucianus, answer the question like that again, challenge my intelligence like that, and you shall never see me again.”

“I—I…” Lucianus was without words.

“There were no other batches of contaminated potions when Flavia Aurelia was poisoned. No other Undead outbreaks. I had the records scoured. Not one person in Alba, in the span of that week, and barely a few over a month—none of which in Alba—were infected.” 

Lucianus turned to Hadrian. 

“Wait. Aurelianus could have never—” Lucianus stopped himself when he saw the expression on his wife’s face and immediately understood the crossroad because he wasn’t actually stupid. Either defend Aurelianus without a good reason other than he was one of the heads of the Great Families, or lose his wife.

“He poisoned his wife because he wanted an heir and Flavia’s pregnancies…” Lucianus frowned, his memory on the subject was fuzzy. “I don’t remember, Adriana. I suppose she wasn’t having luck with children.” 

“She was dying,” Adriana said, with tears in her eyes. “She had so many failed pregnancies that Aurelianus was holding it over her head, saying it would affect Lavinia. I suspect he pressed that point to have Flavia drink that potion knowing it was contaminated. He blamed it on the Undead, on the Necromonarchy. Easy way to get rid of your wife and get a male heir from a whore. Maybe you should think about it, Lucianus. Maybe that’s what you really need. Just find a whore to bed like your friend and get the male heir you always wanted. I’ll take care of my daughter.” 

“Adriana…” Lucianus was feeling disoriented now. All the pieces that he had ignored for all these years fell together. He started seeing things they way his wife must have seen them all this time that he had been out on the front. 

“Adriana, I didn’t know—” he muttered. “I… I’m sorry.”

“I had to accept a Class that could get me burned on the stake or worse,” Adriana said, looking at him. “I would have done it for Lily anyway, but you? Where were you? Do you even know your daughter anymore? Do you even know me anymore?” 

Now, tears pooled in Lucianus’s eyes. 

“I used the Class to find out about your family’s Great Skill. I had Lily take the test and she got four wounds, Lucianus. Four. You know what that means.”

“Wait, what?” Lucianus couldn’t believe his ears. “That’s… impossible.” 

“Mesh the Darkness Mana with the Light, Lucianus. That’s what she did. Instead of forcing the Light to overcome the Darkness. I mean, if you think about it, Light shines the strongest in the shadows, no? It just took our genius daughter for us to realize.” 

“How strong is her Skill?” Lucianus muttered. “If she unlocked a new evolution, it must be—”

“Probably the strongest your family’s ever seen, no?” Adriana said with a complacent smile tinged with sadness. “And, not to repeat myself, where were you?” 

“If I knew—”

“I told you many times,” Adriana said, disgusted by now by her husband’s words, “I told you so-many-times. And you didn’t believe me, Lucianus. This is it. This is the end of the road. And you weren’t here for me or for your daughter.”

Lucianus looked distraught.

“I—” he stuttered, unable to say a word. “What can I do, Adriana?” 

“Lucianus, I don’t think you can do—”

This time, it was Adriana’s turn to be surprised because her husband walked up to her and dropped to his knees, putting his forehead against her feet. 

This, right here, was the lowest a man could steep to show reverence. If this was in public, Lucianus would forever lose the respect of everyone he knew. And to do that for his wife, a woman? 

“I was blind,” he muttered. “I was a fool. I believed myself better than you, than our daughter, than everybody. But you worked out a solution, a path for Lily when I just wanted to shield her from everything.

“I was a fool Adriana. I was, truly” Lucianus continued, talking at her feet. “Do not leave me Adriana, I beg you. I have nothing but you and our daughter. I shall do all that I initially meant to for Lily. She’ll be my heir, I promise. She’ll be the next head of the Gens Claudia. I should have done the same with my sister, but I was a fool. And she ended up taking risks I didn’t want her to take. All because I couldn’t say no to our father.”

Adriana, looking at her husband now crawling at her feet, inhaled deeply. 

“Rise,” she said. “Rise and look me in the eyes when you say these things, Lucianus.”

The man did, and looked at his wife’s deep blue eyes, the same color of their daughter. 

“I won’t tell you where Lily is,” Adriana said. “Our daughter will risk everything, Lucianus, to get what she needs. Neither of us can shelter her. I don’t trust you to understand what a girl like Lily has to endure to achieve what any boy would have been supported in, every step of the way.”

The patriarch of the Gens Claudia nodded. 

“Also, Lucianus,” Adriana said, placing a hand on her husband’s face, “understand this: I won’t stand for how you behaved not one moment longer. Not one instant will pass where you will feel entitled to speak to me like you did. If I have to burn on a stake for it, I will—and you and your [Librarian] friend here will soon follow, though.” 

Lucianus looked surprised that Adriana understood who Hadrian really was, but then he reasoned that, having now the [Librarian] Class herself, it wasn’t so preposterous. 

“You will share your plans with me and I will share what I learned if you want this marriage to continue. I want to know everything you did, Lucianus.”

At that, the man made a face.

“What?” Adriana asked.

“If I tell you everything, Adriana,” Lucianus said, with a pained expression, “you might want to divorce me nonetheless.” 

“It’s a choice I’ll make. So, start from whatever you think is the worst thing you did, Lucianus. How bad could it be?” 

Hadrian at this point had sat down and was sipping on some wine. The couple, instead, had stayed on their feet, with Adriana looking at the knife on the table close to her several times in a row.

“You made a deal with what?” 

“I maade a deal with a God.”

“And not the God of Light?” 

“I don’t know how to enter in contact with the God of Light. The only God that we found any record on was the God of Life and Death, Lucas, Adriana.”

“What a weird name,” Adriana frowned. 

“So, the only reason I managed to have Lily wasn’t because I got lucky… it’s because…”

Lucianus nodded.

“Because I made a deal with a God. I… I suspect one of the reasons your brother wanted our marriage to happen was that he knew you couldn’t have children. This would create a massive problem for the Gens Claudia since he imagined that I couldn’t have simply have you removed. And if I tried, he would have used it as an excuse to move against me, saying he needed to defend your honor.” 

“But how would he have known…” Adriana frowned. “I didn’t know I couldn’t have children.”

“Well, and this is all speculation,” Lucianus said cautiously. “Either someone very close to you knew that you were, perhaps as a result of something that happened to you growing up, or maybe Ennius made sure you couldn’t have children himself.”

“Ennius is an incapable idiot. This doesn’t even sound like him,” Adriana frowned. “In fact, I am absolutely sure this is not his doing. It’s just too…” 

Adriana suddenly widened her eyes. 

“This was…” she felt a stab of pain in her heart. “No…”

“What?” Lucianus frowned, moving one step forward and taking his wife’s hands. 

“This wasn’t Ennius, Lucianus. This was my mother.” 

Chapter 56

“Your mother?” Lucianus asked. “What do you mean?” 

“I…” Adriana sighed. “When I was almost fourteen, my mother had me try to go through the trial to learn the [Sacred Flame]. However, my Light Affinity wasn’t powerful enough. The [Sacred Flame] has a strong Life aspect, but it is primarily Holy affinity. The Holy Affinity calls for Light and Fire together. You know I was a Holy caster, like most of the people in my family, right? Other than being a very powerful healer.” 

Lucianus was still reeling from the realization that Hestia, Adriana’s mother, had tried having her daughter learn the [Sacred Flame]. But he tried staying on topic.

“Yes, of course. We were on the front together. But the [Sacred Flame]?” 

Adriana summoned a wisp of her [Holy Flame]. The [Holy Flame] was to a Holy Affinity user what [Heal] was to a [Healer], and essentially the [Holy Flame] was to the [Sacred Flame] what [Heal] was to [Life Flow].

“I trained my Fire Affinity since I was a baby—the same goes for my Light Affinity, Lucianus. My mother wanted me to lead, to be the next [Pope]. But I needed a display of Skills greater than anybody else. Everyone respected my talent, but if I couldn’t learn the Great Skill…”

Lucianus suddenly understood something.

“You think the reason she pushed you through the [Sacred Flame] trial was to break you?”

Adriana nodded, looking away, jaw set hard enough that her cheeks trembled. “She wanted either to make me or break me. I wasn’t enough for her as I was. When I failed, she kept me locked in the villa for a whole year, pretending I was sick. I was, truly. The trial had broken me. The fire had eaten deep into my body. I always suspected that might have played into me not being able to have children…”

Lucianus breathed out, running a hand over his face. “You never told me this.”

“There was never any reason to. It was the price for trying to acquire power.” 

Adriana’s fingers dug into the table, knuckles whitening.

“But that means,” she continued, “that my mother must have known. She must have known what the trial did to me. She has all sorts of [Healers] and weird characters under her command. Someone must have informed her. And she told me nothing all these years. She truly decided to side with Ennius once she knew I wasn’t a viable option. But then, what is she thinking now?” 

“Adriana,” Lucianus said, his aura starting to burst from his body, “I promise, no one will ever do this to you again. I will take care—”

“No,” Adriana snapped, putting a hand on her husband’s chest. “Not you. You’re past that time. You can’t. The only person I trust to take care of this is our daughter, Lucianus. You want things to change for people like me? It’s not going to be the slaughter of Ennius, my brother, by your hand that does it.” 

Lucianus exhaled and nodded slowly, finally convinced.

“Lily will need the performance of her life at the tournament, Adriana,” Lucianus said. “Do you understand that?” 

“She will—and Lucianus… I mentioned the [Sacred Flame] because I think that what Lily did… it applies to the [Sacred Flame] as well. The reason my body got ravaged… it’s because there’s a similar ritual to the one necessary for the [Sacred Flame]. I believe our daughter would be able to learn the [Sacred Flame]. The only thing is, I wish there was someone in my family, perhaps someone who mastered it, who could teach her. [Life Flow] was easy for her—she’s always had the greatest talent for healing. But the [Sacred Flame] is a much more complex ritual, it involves character, experience, ruthlessness. And she’d need be taught.” 

*

The armory stank of oil, sweat, and the dry musk of leather gone too long without the sun. 

Caesar led Lily inside, boot heels drumming on the pitted boards. 

Racks crowded the walls—spears, pikes, shields, battered swords of every shape and length. 

Most were too heavy, too long, or too clumsy for a girl of thirteen, even one as wiry as Lily.

Caesar rummaged through the racks, tossing aside a chipped partisan, then a rusted short sword, until he found what he wanted. 

He held up a pair of reinforced leather vambraces, the kind meant for knife-fighting and crowd work—each one embedded with narrow plates of blackened iron that would turn a blade or stop a rotten tooth from tearing flesh.

“Put these on,” he said, handing them over.

Lily slid her hands into the braces, flexed her wrists, then buckled the straps tight. The leather was stiff and worn, but it fit. She looked up and Caesar threw him more and more padded leather to put on, even double-layers, until she felt like she could barely move. 

“Are you serious?” she asked, wrapping a second layer around her neck and putting on the thickest helmet she’d ever seen. 

“I’m dead serious,” Caesar said, without even cracking a smile. “You’re not going to die your first hour out there because you wanted to look pretty or fast. The Undead don’t care how quick your reflexes are. You get bit once, you’re done. This gear buys you time to make the right decision.”

Lily strapped on the helmet, which wobbled on her head and pinched at her ears. The second layer of neck padding made her feel like she was wearing a brace for a broken neck, but she locked it tight, ignoring how much it dug into her skin. She tried to move her head and felt like a statue. “I can barely see out of this thing.”

“Good. You won’t need to,” Caesar said, sorting through a crate of battered wooden shields. He pulled out a buckler barely bigger than a dinner plate, thick and chipped. “Strap this to your arm. Don’t let go. If something grabs you, you lose the shield before you lose your hand. You break your arm before you let them sink their teeth into your throat. If you get grabbed anywhere and you can’t get yourself free, smash the buckler into the zombie’s maw. Now, for the eyes.” 

He took her through every piece, not rushing—inspecting the fit, tightening every strap himself, double-checking the gauntlets and the seams for any flaw. For every spot Lily complained about, Caesar added another strip of leather or bark. 

She ended up looking less like a fighter and more like a padded scarecrow sent to guard a cabbage patch. Her knees were stiff, her arms barely bent, and her gloved fingers barely poked out from the overwrapped gauntlets.

He held up a visor that looked like it had been hammered out by a blacksmith who hated children. It was a rusted iron faceplate with a slotted bar over the eyes protected by surprisingly clear glass and a crossguard down the nose. 

“Put this on. If it cuts your cheeks, don’t whine. That’s better than getting your face torn off.”

Lily slid the visor down and fastened it behind her head. The world narrowed to two thin bands of light and a tunnel of muffled sound. The padding pinched her jaw, and the iron smelled of sweat and dried blood. She adjusted the strap with gloved fingers and blinked at Caesar, her vision already tunneling.

She tried to lift her chin. The extra padding forced her to keep her head low, like a dog.

“Even if you’re going to fight with your fists, remember this, Undead don’t duel. They swarm. You can’t risk a sword getting stuck in bone or armor, much less a gauntlet. I’ll teach you how to kill them with your hands.” 

He pulled a long dagger from his belt—a squat, leaf-bladed thing with a handle stained dark from old blood. He handed it to her hilt-first. 

“Just in case. Strap it to your left forearm like this,” Caesar demonstrated. “You need protection, easy access to weapons. You will not have the time to fumble around with your belt. During engagements, I prohibit my men from bringing any other equipment than what they can carry over their armor. Some idiots bring food out there. Do you know what happens if you eat contaminated food in the midst of an encampment of tired, or worse, sleeping soldiers?” 

Lily recoiled at the thought.

“Fighting the Undead,” the said, “it’s complicated.”

“Protocols, rules,” Caesar exhaled, “one must drill their men day in and day out. You can’t take chances. All it takes to die and come back immediately after is one bit. One drop of contaminated blood in your eye, your mouth, any exposed wound. That’s all it takes. One drop and you’re dead. High-level warriors can wear their magic around their body, but before you can attempt that, I’d rather go the safe route.” 

Lily nodded and flexed her fingers inside the gloves. They felt foreign, heavy, like someone else’s strength.

Caesar buckled on his own breastplate and swept up a round shield. 

He motioned for her to follow. 

“Time to see how you move in front of Death.”

They crossed the courtyard, and Caesar didn’t say a word as they moved to the northern gate—a squat arch of black stone manned by three silent sentries. 

He barked a command, and they opened the heavy door. The outside air hit with a chill that sliced to the bone.

Beyond the gate, the world went grey and still. 

Sparse trees, stripped of bark and leaves, clawed at the sky. 

Patches of white fog clung low to the ruined earth. 

To the east, a ravine dropped away, thick with the scent of rot. 

Caesar scanned the horizon, then pointed at a patch of upturned ground.

“That’s where we’ll work,” he said, voice flat. “We’ll start with the slow ones. You’ll see worse if you survive.”

He strode ahead, Lily keeping pace. 

Her feet pressed dew from the grass, her heart thumping with a strange mix of terror and hunger—she wanted to see, to test herself, to know if she was as dangerous as everyone feared.

They reached a low rise. Caesar signaled for her to crouch. He pointed into the mist.

“See that?” he whispered.

She squinted and let Mana Sense pour out in a fine net. There—shuffling between two sunken graves—lurked a corpse. 

“Some idiot buried their friends here,” he said with a bit too much emotion, as if he might have made the same mistake in the past. 

Its skin hung in grey folds and its jaw sagged while its eyes glowed red with a steady, hateful light. It dragged a rusted sword in one hand and its nails were black with rot.

Lily nodded once.

“Your first Undead,” Caesar said, his voice low, almost approving. “Remember what I told you. If it touches you, cut, burn, or run. Don’t let it bleed on you. Don’t let it bite.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. He vaulted the rise, boots silent on the wet earth, then stepped aside. “Go.”

Lily drew in a breath, steadied her nerves, and dropped into a fighter’s crouch—feet apart, knees bent, fists up. 

The Undead noticed the movement, mouth gaping wider. It shambled forward, sword scraping mud.

Lily measured her distance, letting Mana sense track its every limb. It lunged, too slow, blade swinging for her shoulder. 

She pivoted, let it miss, and hammered her gauntleted fist into its face. The skull cracked, bone shattering beneath the knuckles. 

The thing buckled, then snapped up, jaws closing on empty air as she danced back.

Another swing—faster, powered by Coniunctionis—shattered the monster’s skull into pieces. 

The corpse spasmed, then collapsed in a heap. 

The red gleam in its eyes guttered and went dull, and the lifeless sockets stared at nothing.

The sword dropped with a clatter.

Lily stood over the twitching body, chest heaving, blood humming with adrenaline.

Caesar watched with no visible reaction, but the tightness at the corners of his eyes eased. 

“Good. Fast. Clean. You said you learned this from Calpurnia Cornelia?”

Caesar referred to Coniunctionis—the massive acceleration and power Lily had demonstrated had surprised the man. 

“Aunt Calpurnia is a terrific warrior. Their martial art is incredible and they taught to me,” Lily explained. 

“I should bring her to men,” Caesar said, studying the corpse.

“It’s only taught to girls,” Lily said. 

“A nice change of pace,” Caesar laughed, crouching to take an even better look at the dead zombie.

“I didn’t expect the Undead to be this weak,” Lily said. “What level was that?” 

“Fifteen. But they stay weak. Their corpses are mostly for show until about level one hundred. Beyond that, Death Mana starts doing weird things. You don’t want them to level up, to absorb more Death, to absorb corpses. That’s when they get nasty. But at this level? Only the infection from the fight poses a real risk—one drop, no matter the level, will kill you. They’re shitty fighters, otherwise. I could take a dozen Undead at my level, but all they need is one scratch. One scratch that I can’t cut off, and that’s it. It’s goodbye from your Uncle Caesar.” 

The man rose and shook his head. 

“Anyway, you’re going to do that a hundred more times,” Caesar said. “Then we’ll see if you have what it takes to survive the next lesson.”

Lily nodded, jaw set. She wiped the sweat from her brow and bent to collect the corpse’s weapon, glancing up at the line of trees beyond the rise. More shapes moved there, hunched and shambling, drawn by the noise, the smell of violence.

“Uncle Caesar,” she said, voice low and fierce. “How do I fight more than one?”

Caesar grinned—a brief flash of teeth. “With your eyes open. Don’t think. Move. Kill. Never trade. Don’t let them grab you. If you get tired, put as much distance between you and them as you can. Find shelter. Never take chances with the Undead.”

*

Caesar stood on the rise, arms folded over his battered chestplate, his expression carved in stone as he watched Lily approach the next patch of broken ground. The mist clung to her padded armor, turning her outline into a shadow among shadows.

The first thing anyone noticed about the Undead in the half-light were their eyes. The sockets glowed with a raw, unnatural red—points of bloody fire burning in skulls where life had long since vanished. The light didn’t flicker or dim; it drilled straight through the fog, tracking every living thing with unblinking, perfect malice. 

Three of the monsters shambled out between the half-buried stones, their gazes fixed on Lily, the crimson glare never wavering, cutting through the morning haze with a cruel, steady brilliance.

The rotten corpses dragged broken weapons and left streaks in the mud, the stench of them hitting hard—a stench of open graves and cold rot, strong enough to turn a grown man’s stomach.

Lily moved forward with that same compact stance, her whole body braced behind the little buckler. 

When the first corpse lunged, she sidestepped—no wasted motion, just a slip of her foot, a turn of the hips, and her gauntleted fist cracked the thing’s jaw sideways. The blow sent the skull spinning and she spun with it, never letting her eyes off the next monster.

The second one lunged. She didn’t panic, didn’t even blink. Her shield snapped up, absorbing the wild swing, and she slammed her knee into the thing’s ribcage. Rotten bone gave way. She shoved the corpse aside and pivoted toward the last one, snapping a punch into the side of its head. The skull caved with a dull crunch.

She never stopped moving. Not once did she flinch at the sight of torn faces, not at the red, burning eyes, not at the snapping jaws. She barely reacted when putrid blood spattered her arm, only flexed her hand inside the heavy glove, checked that the leather held, and stepped back into a loose guard. When a fourth corpse appeared, stumbling fast and wild, she locked her eyes on its glowing stare, let it swing past her, and drove the reinforced buckler straight into its temple. The monster crumpled in the dirt.

Caesar watched in silence, the mist swirling around his boots. He had seen enough men lose their minds fighting the Undead. He’d seen veterans vomit at the stench, break at the first sight of those red eyes. Most lost their heads—swung too wide, wasted precious energy, tripped over their own feet trying to keep distance. Some froze and died, or ran and died worse.

Not Lily.

She moved like she’d been drilling for years, every action pared down to what worked and nothing more. No twitch, no wasted glance, no panic in her breath. She didn’t even show disgust—not at the stench, not at the sight of those glowing eyes, not at the hands reaching for her.

The three corpses at her feet stopped twitching. She looked at Caesar through the slit in her helmet, her shoulders squared and breath steady, not even winded.

He shook his head, not with disbelief but with a cold, careful interest.

If I saw that from a grown fighter, padded up like a green recruit, I’d assume it was some old monster—someone going back to the basics, re-learning from the ground up, Caesar thought. But she’s a child. She fights like someone who’s forgotten fear, someone who’s been taught by people who dedicated their whole life to martial arts.

He motioned for her to step back.

Lily checked her gloves for tears, made sure there were no gaps in the wrist. Then she wiped the gore off her shield on the grass, eyes scanning the field for new threats, her body angled to keep distance from the corpses.

Caesar walked over, boots squelching in the mud. He crouched beside one of the fallen Undead, split its head open with the flat of his hand, and sniffed at the black ichor leaking from its skull.

He looked at Lily.

“Most people lose their heads when the dead come for them,” he said, tone flat, no hint of praise. “You didn’t flinch. Not at the smell. Not at the teeth. Not at the eyes. You moved like you’ve done this a hundred times.”

She didn’t answer. She just nodded once, watching the tree line for more movement.

He stood, dusted his hands on his armor, and studied her for a long moment.

“Where’d you learn that?” he asked, not because he expected a real answer, but because he needed to know what kind of monster his niece was.

Lily shrugged, barely a hitch in her shoulders. “I practiced. A lot. Calpurnia’s drills. And then, I just… focused. I don’t let anything in my head but what I’m doing.”

Caesar grunted. “No wasted motion. No nerves. No panic. You’re not like the others, Lily. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were just some old veteran hiding in a girl’s body. But you’re not even Classed. You shouldn’t move like that.”

He turned, gestured at the corpses. “Get ready. More are coming.”

Lily didn’t ask for rest. She just slipped into her stance, eyes hard, body already ready for the next fight.

Caesar watched her move, the way she let every threat come to her, the way she measured distance with every step, the way she killed without any of the drama or rage that burned up most recruits.

She’s precise. She’s brutal. She wastes nothing, Caesar thought. Not even a glance. It’s not natural. It’s the kind of efficiency you only see in the greatest fighters.

He narrowed his eyes, tracking how she shifted between the corpses. The System keeps track of everything—even before Class Day. Everyone starts picking up skill levels just by surviving and fighting, long before they ever see a status screen. It’s all invisible, but it counts. All those hours, every kill, every perfect move, every mistake—it piles up, just out of sight.

He watched as Lily cleaned off her gauntlets and reset her stance, eyes sharp and unblinking. He tried to imagine how many skill levels she’d already stacked from doing this day in and day out. Most noble kids got maybe a couple of skill levels from drills, from sparring, from the handful of fights that teachers let them have. But Lily? If she kept this up for a year—if she kept facing the Undead with real stakes, real fear—by the time she reached her Class Day, her skill levels would be obscene. She’d have the kind of foundation it took a lifetime to build.

No one would see it until she finally triggered her Class and the System dumped all the hidden skills and perks into her lap at once. He almost felt sorry for the idiots who thought they could compete with that.

Caesar nodded, keeping his expression as flat as ever as his niece destroyed another small group of zombies that had crawled close after hearing the noise from the fight. 

“Again.”

He watched her move, thinking.

The real monster isn’t the one who’s Classed—it’s the one who built their skills in the dark, year after year, while the rest of us looked away.

If she keeps this up… perhaps, I wouldn’t have to go to another continent. 

This child…

Is she the answer to our problems?

And what happens if I teach her how to wield the Sacred Fire? How much stronger can she get?

Chapter 57

Two weeks later, Caesar leaned on a ruined parapet and watched his niece face a real fight. 

He had gone to an abandoned outpost, an advanced center that they had probably used decades ago for some recon. Sometimes, expeditions still stopped inside the ruined walls for shelter to catch some sleep. Sleep was an ethereal thing in the Dead Lands. Most preferred sleeing during the day in turns. At night, the Undead were even more dangerous since one unseen claw could end your life. 

Now, the dawn was pale and cold. 

Lily moved through the thin mist, her outline sharp against the mud, padded up in leather and iron, visor down, hands flexing in the gauntlets Sabinus had gifted her. 

She looked like she had been born in armor by now—she had quickly gotten used to it.

And not just to the armor. 

Yesterday, she had wiped out a horde of thirty zombies by herself—nothing pretty, but she had done it without breaking. Caesar had kept throwing harder tests at her, raising the numbers and mixing in new threats. She did not slow down or flinch. 

She was learning to fight swarms, just as he wanted.

Now, though, three ghouls circled her. 

These were not zombies. 

Zombies were slow, stupid, and soft. Ghouls had claws like knives. Their skin looked stretched, tough, with blue-black veins pulsing under the rot. Even at Level thirty, they were weaker than most monsters of that rank, but compared to a normal zombie, they were predators. Most new recruits lost fingers or eyes to a ghoul—then their life to the disease—before they even learned to react.

Lily stayed low, shield up, never losing sight of the monsters as they spread out around her. 

Caesar tensed, ready to leap in at the first mistake, but something in the way she moved made him pause. It wasn’t just good training. 

It was something deeper, something he had seen start to shift in her a few days earlier.

Four days earlier

A tide of thirty zombies had broken through a weak section of the wall they had been patrolling. 

Lily met them in an open trench while Caesar watched from the parapet, ready to drag her out.

At first she fought by rote; her fists shattered skulls, yet mud and grasping hands slowed her. When the horde pressed in a full circle she shut her eyes instead of looking for an escape.

Caesar nearly leapt down.

She had stumbled, lost her footing, and for a second, he thought she would die. But she had kept her eyes closed. Caesar had watched, baffled, as her head turned, tracking the invisible.

Then Lily exhaled, and her body started to weave through every blow as though invisible threads guided her. A jaw snapped shut where her neck had been, a rusted sword whistled where her ribs had stood, and her counter-strikes landed with perfect timing. 

She started dodging attacks she couldn’t have seen, slipping through grasping hands. Every step, every shift, she seemed to know exactly where each threat would be before it moved. He had never seen anyone—adult, child, noble, or peasant—fight with that kind of awareness. She finished the horde blind, breathing hard, fists dripping with black gore.

She had built a sense that reached behind her skull and beneath her heels.

Now, as the first ghoul came for her from behind, Caesar saw it again. She didn’t even look back. She twisted, caught the monster’s wrist, and slammed it down with a sickening crunch, Coniunctionis sending a shockwave through her arm. The ghoul’s spine cracked so loud even Caesar winced. Its legs and free arm went limp, head still hissing but the rest of its body useless.

The second ghoul came in fast, claws outstretched, jaws snapping for her throat. Lily moved so quickly it looked unreal—almost as if she had seen the attack coming a second before it started. She stepped into the ghoul’s charge, driving her forehead, covered with the helmet, right into its skull. The monster’s head dented inwards, the force of its own momentum crushing the bone. The ghoul dropped straight to the ground, twitching, its mouth frozen in a snarl.

The third circled, smarter than the others. It feinted, slashing at Lily’s side, then pulled back and lunged low, claws aimed for her ankle. She barely moved, her eyes flat behind the visor, only reacting when the claws flashed up near her knee. She snatched its arm, wrenched it sideways, and in one brutal motion, twisted the monster’s wrist around, driving its own claws straight through its skull. The ghoul went stiff, body sagging as the last bit of Death Mana bled out.

The fight lasted less than ten seconds.

The last ghoul’s body hit the mud, red eyes flickering and then going out for good.

Caesar stared, mouth tight, not moving from his spot on the parapet. He had seen warriors, seen monsters, seen prodigies, but this was new. Lily moved with the kind of precision that came from knowing the whole field—knowing it as if she could see behind her, above her, around corners, through the fog.

He stepped down from the wall, boots grinding over stone, and called out to her.

“Niece!”

She stood up, wiping blood from the eye slits of her visor. Her breath came steady, not even ragged. She scanned the field, checking every corpse for signs of movement, then looked up at him.

“You knew they were there,” Caesar said, walking up. “You knew exactly where to strike.”

Lily muttered something.

“[Cleanse].” 

The infected blood on her body was immediately cleaned up and she looked at Caesar as she pulled off her helmet, sweat running down her face, hair plastered to her brow. 

She had to learn the spell, which apparently everyone had to once they reached the front. It was essential to eliminate every residue of infected blood from one’s equipment. Otherwise, one simple scratch could have turned you into an Undead. 

“I can feel where they are. It’s like I see everything around me.”

He narrowed his eyes, studying her. 

“How long has this been happening?”

She thought about it, then shrugged. 

“A few days. Since the horde. I think Mana Sense got a new Perk.”

He exhaled, rough and low. 

“You’re not just talented. You’re something else. No one gets this good in two weeks.”

Lily knelt by the paralyzed ghoul, cracked open its skull. 

“They’re tougher than the others, but they’re slow. Not stupid, but not alive, either. I can beat them.”

“You broke its back so hard it can’t even move. The other one you used its own claws. You shouldn’t be able to do that—not at your age, not with your build. You know how much force it takes?”

Lily had explained how Coniunctionis worked to Uncle Caesar since the man was a literal outlaw. He had been quite impressed with it and had asked Lily to teach him, actually. 

*

One month passed, and Caesar stopped pretending Lily was just another recruit. The day she destroyed twenty ghouls on her own, leaving the field so littered with ruined bodies that even his veterans went silent, he called her out before dawn.

The morning air bit at her skin, but Lily ignored the cold. She had grown leaner, harder. Her movements had lost the last traces of hesitation. She walked across the training ground with a quiet focus, dried blood still staining the seams of her armor.

Caesar watched her from the edge of the field, arms folded, face unreadable. He waited until the last of the men had cleared away the corpses, then beckoned her over.

“You’re not here to kill ghouls anymore,” he said. “You’ve done enough of that.”

Lily said nothing. She stood straight, feet planted, hands steady. Her hair had started to grow out under the helmet, and her face was cut with bruises and scratches from the unwieldy protection on her head.

Caesar let the silence stretch. He studied her with a cold, measuring look. 

“You think you’re ready for real monsters?”

Lily nodded once, her eyes not leaving his.

“Good. Because we’re about to commit the highest of treasons.” 

Caesar smiled when he saw the girl get very excited at that.

“There’s an everburning ember that allows you to experience the Sacred Flame. Years ago, I shaved a little piece of it so that I could bestow it upon those I considered worthy.”

Lily’s eyes suddenly went wide.

“You’re going to actually give it to me!?”

Caesar reached into his coat and drew out a tiny wooden box. He flipped it open and revealed a single, pale ember—small, cracked, and warm to the touch. 

The stone glowed with a faint, white fire.

“This is a special box. The moment you touch this, you’ll catch on fire. The fire will be the stronger based on your Light Affinity. The weaker the Affinity, the stronger the fire will be. It’s Holy, so it’s meant to cleanse Darkness and Death, Lily.”

Lily stared at the stone. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to burn,” Caesar said, his voice hard. “But I want you to burn without turning to ash. That’s the whole trick. Most people think [Sacred Flame] is a weapon. It’s not. It’s a judgment, first and foremost. Your cousin, Cassius, mastered the greatest form we’ve ever seen because of how in tune with Light Magic he is.” 

“So, I just—” Lily extended her hand.

“If you want to die,” Caesar snorted, snapping the box close. “Sure.” 

“Can’t I try? My healing is powerful. Why shouldn’t I?” 

Caesar made a face and then said, “there are many things to know about Fire that you don’t know yet. You won’t be able to learn about the Sacred Flame without that. But sure, you want the pain? Let’s try.”

Caesar did not hesitate. He cracked the box open again, holding it in the flat of his palm. The ember looked like an ordinary stone until Lily stepped forward. Light flickered along its edges, the glow pulsing in time with her heartbeat.

“Take it,” Caesar said.

Lily reached out and pressed her palm against the ember.

Caesar watched without a word.

The light around her hand faded, but the ember kept burning. She did not drop it.

After a full minute, Lily opened her fingers. The ember sat in her palm, unchanged, still warm.

She looked up at Caesar. Her voice came out confused.

“It doesn’t hurt.”

Caesar stared at her, then reached over and took the ember from her hand. His eyes were hard, but his lips twitched at the corner.

“Your Light Affinity…” Caesar shook his head. 

“You’re ready,” he said.

He turned away and started walking back toward the ruined outpost.

Chapter 58

Caesar stopped outside the ruined outpost and struck steel against flint, lighting a small fire in the shelter of a half-collapsed wall. The dawn wind blew smoke sideways, swirling it around the broken stones. Lily sat down across from him, still flexing her fingers, the echo of the Sacred Flame’s warmth fading in her palm.

Caesar fed a bit of dry wood to the fire, watching the flames take hold. He poked at the embers with a stick, then fixed Lily with a sharp look.

“You’ve got the Light Affinity,” Caesar said, voice low. “That’s half the battle for the Sacred Flame. You’ve proved it. Whatever your parents did for your training… I’m…” 

The man was actually speechless. 

He had never seen someone with a Light Affinity so powerful that they were immune to the Darkness-consuming aspects of the Sacred Fire.

It was downright insane. 

He paused, gestured at the fire.

“But now comes the other half. You don’t just need Light. You need Fire. You have to understand it—not just how it burns, but why it burns, what it wants, what it destroys, and what it leaves behind. Most people never get it. They think Fire is simple. They think it’s just heat, or light, or a weapon you throw at your enemies.”

He picked up a twig, broke it in half, tossed it in.

“Light is pure. It heals, it reveals, it burns away shadows. It wants things to be clean. But Fire? Fire doesn’t care about clean. Fire wants to eat. Fire wants to change whatever it touches. It destroys, but it also forges. You have to respect that. You have to accept that real fire will take everything you give it and leave you something different. Maybe stronger, maybe nothing but ash.”

Lily stared at the flames, eyes reflecting orange and gold.

Lily nodded. “I know what it does. I’ve seen the aftermath of when you use it to destroy the Undead corpses. There’s nothing left. It burns through the Undead, and it takes a piece of everything else with it.”

Caesar’s eyes narrowed. “Now you learn what Fire Affinity really means. Not just knowing how to cast. Not just throwing fire around. You have to understand what you’re burning away, and you have to be ready to lose it.”

He gestured for her to sit. “Stare at the fire. See if you can feel what it wants. Most people just see light and heat. You need to sense the appetite. That’s the difference between Light and Fire.”

He waited as Lily sat by the flames, shoulders set, jaw tight, watching the wood curl and blacken. Smoke and heat rolled off in waves. The fire burned, and Lily sat there, refusing to blink, determined to face whatever truth it showed her.

Lily sat by the fire, her knees drawn up, hands clenched tight. Caesar watched in silence, saying nothing.

She closed her eyes and activated Mana Sense. At first, she only caught a mess of impressions—heat, brightness, twisting flows that slipped through her grasp. Fire Mana felt wild, jagged, almost violent, eating at the edges of her senses the longer she stared. Every time she tried to follow a thread, it slipped away, swallowed up by brighter streams.

She reached deeper, letting the world fall away until only the fire remained. The flames snapped and danced, Mana rolling off them in waves. It was nothing like Light or Life Mana. Light Mana felt clear, sharp, pushing shadows aside. Fire Mana tore through everything, leaving nothing but hunger in its wake.

She tried to push past the chaos, searching for a pattern. Nothing came. Frustration clawed at her stomach. The more she stared, the more the fire felt unknowable, a wild force she could never tame. Doubt crawled up her throat.

She clenched her teeth. 

This isn’t enough.

The fire had burned low. Caesar tossed a splinter of wood onto the embers, but his eyes stayed fixed on Lily.

She sat cross-legged, eyes narrowed, Mana Sense spreading out around her. The world faded, leaving only the lines of fire, the swirl of hungry Mana, the snap of energy devouring wood. The first few times, her senses tangled—she saw only chaos, flashes of color and heat that broke apart before she could grasp them.

She pushed harder. Frustration built. She gritted her teeth. The flames flickered and blurred, but no pattern emerged. The Fire Mana tore itself apart, wild and destructive, beyond any shape she could follow.

She shut her eyes, blocking out everything but the sensation in her chest, reaching deeper into herself, chasing the pattern she knew had to exist. She remembered other breakthroughs, moments when Mana Sense had let her "see" things others could only guess at. Anatomy, disease, the weak points in monsters—always, the difference was in being able to see.

The memory of her old life stirred. Images of classrooms, diagrams of combustion, atoms breaking and reforming, flickered in the dark behind her eyes. Fire was a chain reaction—a hunger, a transformation. There was order beneath the violence, if you looked close enough.

She drew a long breath, let Mana Sense burrow into the fire’s core, ignoring the chaos on the surface. Something changed. She caught a flash—lines moving, spiraling, twisting into a structure. The world snapped into focus. The hunger of the fire resolved into a pattern. The destruction became a path.

She exhaled. Her palm came up, fingers splayed.

Mana gathered at her fingertips, so hot it hurt. 

For a moment, nothing happened. 

Then, with a silent rush, pure flame burst to life above her hand—a single, perfect wisp, burning white-gold. 

The light was so clean it made the dawn seem grey by comparison. 

The air bent around it. 

The Mana structure inside the fire glowed in her mind.

I can see.

The truth slid into place: she was not just making fire, she was seeing it—each strand, each node, each breath of Mana aligned and bound. 

It was the same as the sow’s wound, the same as every moment her vision had cut through the haze. 

This was not chaos. 

It was a pattern that she could follow.

The fire wisp hovered in the air, flawless, almost silent.

Caesar went very still. His mouth worked once before he found words.

“That… Lily, that’s not normal fire.” His voice was rough. “No one, not even Cassius, made it burn like that. That’s the Sacred Flame’s core. That’s pure.”

She nodded, eyes never leaving the flame. 

“I can see it. I can see how it fits together. The Fire Mana isn’t wild. It’s exact. It’s ordered.”

He stared at her, then gave a short, almost unbelieving laugh.

“That’s it. You’re ready. The only step left is to absorb the Sacred Flame. If you can do this, you’ll master it.”

Lily let the wisp burn out, her vision lingering on the afterimage of its structure. She felt no fear. The path forward was visible.

She looked at Caesar, voice steady. 

“I’m ready.”

He nodded. 

“We start tomorrow. Tonight, rest. Tomorrow, you face the Sacred Flame for real.”