“That’s also why Big Sister chose the demons, you know~ Miss Tina, why don’t you become a demon with me?”
Elsa whispered into her ear.
“My… true heart?”
Tina didn’t quite understand.
Lady Gabriella should originally have stood on humanity’s side, yet lately she had been saying things that were extremely… submissive to the demons.
It felt as though she had suddenly been controlled by demonic power.
And yet she was still so gentle.
That feeling was exactly the same as Lady Gabriella’s.
Even after becoming evil, she remained gentle.
The shadow at Elsa’s fingertips surged into Tina’s body, causing her to arch and tremble.
Her waist was pinned by Elsa’s legs; her thighs were lightly pressed down by Elsa’s knees until the restlessness inside her finally subsided, forcing another soft whimper from her lips.
It felt so good.
Yet the more she accepted this sensation, the deeper she would fall into a bottomless abyss.
Being held like this by Lady Grand Commander, her hands covering my stomach and forehead… is this really just the old friendship between close friends?
A flicker of wariness passed through Tina’s eyes, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud.
Elsa was only comforting her, only helping her because Miss Gabriella had asked her to take care of her.
Right now she was terribly conflicted—her heart restless, yet also terrified.
Part of her wanted to cling to her original conviction and save the world, but Philina’s tragic fate and Elsa’s urging left her bewildered.
In a daze, she asked the next question:
“But Lady Gabriella… is the Goddess.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because Lady Gabriella is the strongest human, the strongest female knight. She has to be the Goddess.”
“Does being the strongest female knight make someone the Goddess? Was that the answer Lady Saintess gave you?”
Elsa sensed something was wrong.
The information she had received from the Holy Queen was different from Tina’s.
The prophecy could not possibly contain such wording… After all, the Heavenly Hammer Sage had never named the Goddess, so how could anyone add “the strongest person is the Goddess”?
But this doubt only made Tina more confused. She gently broke free from Elsa’s embrace, her pupils trembling.
“That’s not how it is. Miss Elsa, you… you don’t understand at all…”
“Trust me, of course I understand Big Sister~”
“You haven’t fused with her power—you can’t possibly know Lady Gabriella!”
She shot Elsa a slightly reproachful glance.
Then she forcefully pulled herself from that gentle hold, slipped on her shoes, pushed open the door, and ran out toward the end of the corridor.
In truth, she already knew.
Lady Gabriella must have fallen deeply into it as well.
Yet even if she was only pretending, Lady Gabriella was surely doing it all for the balance between humans and demons—for the sake of protecting this world.
But Tina no longer knew what choice she herself should make.
She was utterly lost.
Tina kept walking downward, flight after flight of stairs.
She knew the gentle Miss Elsa would definitely come looking for her, so she simply fled the residential palace altogether.
Following the winding little path, she ran into the gardens, then headed toward the streets.
A little farther ahead lay the Eternal Night Palace.
Soon she would reach the Central City District.
The clean streets were completely deserted.
She looked up.
Far on the horizon, countless fully equipped demons flew through the sky like a flock of crows migrating south—yet far more orderly, far more rational, and far deadlier than crows.
The Demon King’s army.
Possessed of powerful wings, they would not need long to reach the front lines.
Soon, under Gabriella’s and Isabella’s leadership, they would head to the battlefield and clash head-on with humanity.
Most were mid-tier demons; low-tier demons were rare.
Mid-tier demons generally retained near-human appearances, though their skin was either cyan-blue or crimson-red, or else they were muscular monstrosities adorned with even more extravagant demonic traits.
Some were magnificently imposing; some were as beautiful as high-tier demons, yet their bodies bore even more demonic patterns and markings.
Tina lowered her head, then suddenly glanced back, feeling she had said something terribly harsh.
“Elsa… I-I’m sorry…”
She silently mouthed the name.
Like Lady Gabriella, she too would become a high-tier demon.
And so would Tina herself.
In the near future, she would become just like these demons, just like Miss Elsa—one of them, joining the ranks against humanity.
Yet strangely, she felt no sense that anything was wrong with that.
A few birds landed on the treetops and regarded the slowly approaching girl with odd looks.
Tina gently pressed down the strands of hair lifted by the wind.
No one had followed her.
It was as though she could simply walk out of the Demon King’s Castle and no one would stop her.
Even the maids trusted her completely.
…Miss Elsa hadn’t done anything wrong.
Turning her into a demon wasn’t wrong either.
Because it was Lady Gabriella herself who had given Elsa the dark power.
It was Lady Gabriella’s own choice.
The reason she had gotten so angry…
Was only because she blamed herself.
For watching Lady Gabriella leave her side, watching her disappear before her eyes, watching her be taken captive by the Demon King.
For watching Philina leave her side only to be tortured once more by the Saintess and send out a plea for help.
And even for saying such excessively harsh words to Elsa herself.
That was her weakness, the very thing Lady Elsa had always struggled to accept.
She was clearly more outstanding than anyone, yet so many despised her, even spreading rumors…
—All because of humans.
“I can’t… keep going like this.”
Tina murmured to herself.
She had to do something.
The triangular pattern on her forehead began to glow.
This time, no struggling silver-white lines appeared.
Miasma crawled out from her forehead, forming elegant, eerie threads that spread to both sides like hidden demons and ghosts baring fangs and claws.
The pattern flowed from her forehead down her cheeks, forming a beautiful black marking—like an exquisite black snowflake.
Darkness flooded and filled the girl’s eyes.
Suddenly, the air temperature plummeted, as though autumn had turned to dozens of degrees below zero in an instant.
Ice spread from beneath her feet, gradually covering the entire street.
“Is this… really the right thing to do? Lady Gabriella…”
She raised her head toward the sky.
As the darkness claimed her body, her mind became empty.
Then, as if baptized, her heart was seized by an entirely different, extreme obsession.
She could remember everything, yet nothing seemed to matter anymore.
Sharp, frigid ice crystals climbed up her legs and waist like frozen bones and beastly fangs.
Even more chilling—these were no longer their original cyan-blue, but had been dyed a deep blue matching her long hair.
When the sun finally set, the ice melted into the darkness.
Suddenly, she unfurled a pair of black ice wings, like a fallen angel of frost descended to the mortal world.
She could feel the power inside her body swelling without limit.
The 【Shadow】 that Lady Gabriella and Elsa had bestowed upon her was enough to raise her strength to an entirely new level.
Make humanity pay the price…
She controlled it with her mind—the power of the Arbiter, Lady Gabriella’s power.
Closing her eyes, everywhere the frigid currents touched…
She sensed it.
Near the Black Stone Mountains, massive numbers of human presences.
With her perception enhanced once more, the power of shadow was now far greater than it had ever been.
For a moment she felt she could command this strength and accomplish what she had never managed before.
“Tina?”
Just as she was about to soar into the sky, a familiar voice from behind made her turn.
It was Elsa.
She had found her—but she clearly hadn’t expected Tina to look like this now.
“Have you come… to stop me?”
Tina’s voice was as cold as her gaze.
Yet to her surprise, Elsa walked straight over without the slightest hostility, embraced her, and gently stroked her shadow-corroded body—her back.
So warm.
“I came to help you.”
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