The massive outer gate of the Holy Kingdom stood wide open.
Seraphina stood on the stone road before the city gate, looking up at the city she had lived in for many years. The knights guarding the gate stood on either side, holding long halberds.
The moment they saw her face, they all froze.
‘Isn’t that the Saintess?’
‘Wasn’t she at the Borderland, completely missing?’
She simply passed through the gate and stepped onto Central Avenue, her pace growing faster and faster.
The familiar smell of baked flour drifted from the bakery on the side of the road; the blacksmith’s shop rang with constant clanging; a few children chased each other back and forth at the mouth of an alley.
A little girl with a braid at the back of her head was the first to recognize her.
She tugged at her companion’s sleeve and shouted loudly.
“Look, it’s the Saintess!”
“Wow, the Saintess is back!”
The children swarmed around her in a flurry, shouting excitedly.
But she didn’t stop at all. She didn’t even lower her head to look at them.
Her eyes were fixed straight ahead, her lips pressed into a thin line, completely drained of color.
The children’s smiles froze. They chased after her for a few steps and then stopped on their own.
The little girl with the braid held her friend’s hand and asked in confusion.
“What’s wrong with the Saintess?”
The square in front of the Temple was packed with a dark sea of people—believers, knights, and Elders. Everyone faced the Temple gate, lined up neatly as if holding some special ceremony.
When Seraphina burst into the square, several young Temple Knights standing at the outer edge saw her first.
“Ah, it’s the Saintess!”
Their voices were full of surprise, and they instinctively started to kneel on one knee.
But she slipped right past them, fast as the wind.
The knights stood frozen in place. Someone lowered their voice and asked the person next to them.
“The Saintess’s expression…!”
“Did something happen outside?”
No one answered.
They exchanged glances. Someone unconsciously reached for the sword hilt at their waist.
In the middle of the crowd, Victor Beylan, Master of the Hall of Holy Light, stood at the very top of the steps before the Temple gate, his hands clasped over his chest as he murmured a prayer.
The sunlight shone on his golden hair and white robe, making him look like a divine envoy descended from heaven.
Seraphina passed through the crowd. The believers parted like a tide on both sides. Murmurs rose from the crowd—some delighted, some puzzled.
She walked to the bottom of the steps and stopped.
Victor finished the last line of his prayer and opened his eyes.
His eyes seemed exceptionally gentle and compassionate, like a loving father.
He looked down at Seraphina at the foot of the steps. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly, revealing a smile she had seen many times before.
“Seraphina. It’s good that you’ve returned.”
“Did you have a smooth journey?”
“Our Holy Kingdom will never forget what you have done.”
Seraphina stood there, looking at him.
This face before her, this voice she had heard for so long, this smile—she had been watching it for several years, listening to it for over a decade.
Every time she stood in the Temple listening to him explain doctrine, every time she received his guidance when her heart was lost, every time she saw his approving gaze after prayers ended—she had thought it was a special blessing from the holy light.
Her voice was very soft.
“Teacher.”
“This is probably the last time I’ll call you that.”
The Elders, who had been about to turn and leave, all stopped at those words. They couldn’t even take a step.
The white beard on the First Elder’s chin trembled in the breeze.
He stared at Seraphina in disbelief, then whipped his head around to glare at Victor.
“Saintess, what do you mean by that?”
“Temple Master, look…”
The Second Elder’s face turned pale. He hurried forward two steps, his voice low but trembling.
“Seraphina, what nonsense are you spouting?”
“Offending the Holy Lord in front of so many people—do you want the entire Temple to laugh at us?”
The Third Elder said nothing, but stared hard at Seraphina’s pale face, trying to find a hint of wavering in her eyes.
But he found nothing.
Victor’s smile didn’t change at all.
“Stop pretending.”
Seraphina’s voice began to tremble, but she bit out each word, pointing behind her at the believers and knights.
“Stand before the God of holy light, stand before all the believers, and boldly admit it.”
The First Elder spun around and tried to shout her down with a particularly harsh voice.
“Your heart has long ceased to yearn for the holy light.”
Seraphina didn’t even look at the First Elder.
She kept her eyes on Victor.
“You are not fit to even speak the name of the holy light.”
“The knights who died at the Borderland, the tens of thousands of souls you took for sacrifice, the villagers on the Borderland who became Undead—they weren’t killed by the Heretic Cult. It was you.”
“And those death knights—you sent them deliberately.”
“And that girl named Shirley, the former Holy Maiden Shirley—you refined her into a fallen angel puppet with your own hands.”
Her voice echoed across the square.
Among the believers, some had already raised their heads in panic. Some were whispering. Even the Elders’ faces flickered with shock and hesitation.
Then the entire square fell into a dead silence.
“I’ve been thinking all along—why were you never worried that the monsters on the Borderland would break through the Defense Line?”
“Why, every time I begged you for reinforcements, you always told me to wait a little longer?”
“And you told me to care more about Yisela, saying it would guide her toward goodness.”
“If the whole thing was a trap you set from start to finish—if the curse on Yisela, the tragedy at the Borderland, and the destruction of the Holy Light Church were all paths you laid down to realize your own plan—then what difference is there between me and the knights you sacrificed?”
Victor still didn’t answer. He just stood there quietly, looking at her.
“Answer me.”
“The person you used to be—the most faithful Follower of Holy Light standing beside the former Holy Maiden—how did you become a demon like this?”
Seraphina’s voice finally went completely hoarse.
Victor didn’t walk down the steps. He just stood there, looking down at her like a child who had lost her way home. His tone was still gentle, magnanimous, and filled with compassion.
“My child.”
“Even in the final moment, you didn’t curse me.”
He slowly descended the steps. The hem of his white robe dragged across the stone steps.
“It is as I thought. In the end, a Saintess will always choose the purest heart in this world.”
“The God of holy light chose you.”
Seraphina couldn’t help stepping back.
“But deep in my heart, I have always yearned for the holy light.”
“But the holy light in my heart is absolutely not the God of holy light.”
“That God of holy light never looked upon me with favor.”
“He took everything from me.”
“He took the only light in my life.”
There was no anger or sadness in his voice—only the calm of stating facts.
He continued downward. When he passed Seraphina, he muttered in a voice only he could hear.
“When you see what I’m about to do, you’ll be very angry, won’t you?”
“Shirley.”
Then he raised one hand.
Black magic power surged from his fingertips like a bursting flood, spreading in all directions.
He snapped his fingers.
A dark red magic array unfolded before Seraphina.
Suspended in the center of the array was a transparent crystal cage.
Inside the cage huddled a small silver figure.
Her long silver hair was tangled and messy. Her once rosy cheeks were now as white as paper.
And those ruby-like eyes—half-open, half-closed, pupils completely unfocused.
Then those eyes saw Seraphina.
Yisela’s pupils slowly refocused.
She froze for a moment, then pushed her weak body upright with all her might. The movement was too hasty—her forehead slammed against the crystal wall with a dull thud.
Ignoring the pain, she pressed her face tightly against the crystal wall and called out that name in a voice so hoarse it was almost unrecognizable.
“Saint Sister…!”
Just those four simple words.
No scream, no cry—just a voice trembling so badly, as if she had been saving up strength for a very long time.
Seraphina reacted quickly.
She threw herself at the cage, pressing her hands uselessly against the crystal wall, her palms flat against the cold barrier. But no matter what, she couldn’t reach the little hand desperately trying to touch hers.
Only then did she see clearly what Yisela had become.
The arrogant little brat she remembered—the one who would put her hands on her hips and call her stupid—had become a pitiful little dragon whelp, gnawed by a curse until she couldn’t even lift her tail.
There were no tears in those red eyes. But there was no light either.
Yisela pressed her face against the wall and looked at Seraphina through those eyes nearly clouded by the curse—from the center of her brow down to her pale lips, and then to the half-healed old wound on her neck.
“Look at you. You’ve lost so much weight.”
“Sister, you’ve lost weight too.”
She knew that the reason Seraphina had lost weight had nothing to do with hunger.
Seraphina’s shoulders shook violently.
She bit her lip hard, trying desperately to hold back her tears, but the tears were completely uncontrollable—one by one, they fell onto the crystal wall.
She never used to cry in front of Yisela. But this time, she couldn’t hold it in.
“I’m sorry—I’m so sorry—last time in the Temple, I told you I would protect you forever. I might not be able to do that anymore.”
Seraphina finally broke down.
She lowered her head, pressing her forehead against the cold stone floor, her shoulders heaving violently.
“I beg you.”
She lifted her head, her face streaked with tears. Her hands reached out unconsciously.
“I beg you. Don’t torment her anymore.”
Victor looked down at her.
In his brown eyes, he saw the Saintess kneeling before him, her face full of tears and her eyes filled with begging.
“Seraphina.”
“I want you to voluntarily seal your own soul.”
“If you seal your soul and become a fallen angel belonging only to me, I promise I will not harm Yisela.”
“I will only take the seed from her body. Her life and her flesh I will leave untouched.”
Seraphina knelt there, head bowed, silent for a long time.
Before she could speak, Yisela spoke first.
She pressed her face hard against the crystal wall, those red eyes nearly clouded by the curse staring straight through the transparent barrier at her.
“You big idiot.”
“If you dare agree to him, this princess will never talk to you again for the rest of her life.”
Seraphina’s tears fell instantly, but a smile appeared on her face.
“Yisela.”
“Sister is really very happy to have met you in the final stretch of her life.”
“This has truly been the happiest time of my entire life.”
“So for you, Sister will do anything.”
“No—!!!”
Yisela used all her strength to ram against the crystal wall—against the cage she couldn’t possibly break.
The black veins in her body began to spread wildly, crawling from her neck to her cheeks, from her arms to her fingertips.
The curse was devouring her reason, devouring her life force, but she felt no pain.
None of that pain could compare to the agony in her chest right now—the kind that felt like her heart was being ripped in two.
“If you dare touch her—if you dare—I will definitely kill you!”
“I will never forgive you.”
“I will use these teeth to grind your old bones one by one.”
“And then I’ll use my dragon tail to nail you to that broken statue!”
Victor’s fingers curled into a fist inside his sleeve.
“Enough.”
He looked away and reached out one hand, gently stroking the top of Seraphina’s head.
That hand felt very warm—just like the first time he had patted her head over a decade ago.
“Fall, Seraphina.”
“Once I become a god, you can stay by my side and continue to be my disciple.”
The golden holy light on her body retreated step by step before this black light.
Black light surged from within Seraphina.
When she opened her eyes again, her pupils had turned dark gold.
Her long hair gradually changed from gold to silver-white, and her skin grew even paler.
From her back, it was no longer spotless wings that spread, but black wings full of the aura of falling.
Inside them, there were no tears, no struggle, no pain.
“Sister—!!!”