Lidien with his claws met the overhead slash of Mad Dog, sending him skidding across the bloody ground with his weakened foot while laughing.

"Is that all you've got, my General!?"

Mad Dog slashed his axe horizontally. Even his Demon of Wrath form didn't let him have the upper hand against the weakened Lidien, as he moved abnormally fast for someone who was gravely injured.

Then...

Rip!

Lidien ripped one of Mad Dog's ears with his mouth before leaping back like a beast, crouching on all fours waiting to attack.

And, as Lidien rushed towards Mad Dog once again, he was met by a surprise desperate punch... he could dodge his face but not the shoulder, the impact breaking down to his arms... desperately enduring the pain that could make him lose consciousness.

Yet, his other arm was free... and with a silent strike like a viper, it already connected and penetrated Mad Dog's chest.

Mad Dog gripped the forearm of Lidien, staring at him while gritting his bloody teeth, putting all his strength to snap it in half.

With a brutal twist and a wet tearing of vessels and muscle, Lidien ripped his hand free, Mad Dog's still-beating heart clenched in his crimson fist... making Mad Dog weakly take a step back with an eye that couldn't hide his surprise.

He watched Mad Dog kneel in front of him, as he lifted his heart and slowly, deliberately put it in his mouth, showing him how the Heart Eater Prince he once obeyed would now eat his heart for his betrayal.

Schlick!

Lidien, holding Mad Dog's heart in front of his face, glanced down below... his chest, where his heart should be, was pierced by a blade that shouldn't be there.

"Lidien!"

"Master!"

Lily frantically tried to set herself free, the cold rain on her new skin feeling like acid as her remaining rose-like verve oozed from her body. This world, which she had just rejoined, was already tearing apart the one person who mattered.

Alva screamed, as she almost stumbled while running towards Lidien who was hardly fighting just to stand, making her stumble and claw at the bloody ground.

Xyon...

He watched his own hands drip blood, not his... but from his Master--Lidien, smiling weakly towards him as he coughed up blood.

And as the edge of the riverbank dropped a clump of dirt from its cliff into the torrent of water, he said,

"Remember--"

Before he fell, along with Alva jumping to save him.

Xyon couldn't scream... he watched his own hands tremble from guilt.

He wasn't angry towards anyone... only himself... for being weak... and not being able to help fight with Lidien till the end...

and worse, he was the one who stabbed him in the end.

Killing him.

As the thought of it flooded his mind and very being... the small crack in his heart split till it shattered, opening a small gap of passage towards the Abyss, flooding him with intense emotion...

The Profane Essence deep within him awakened something dormant in his very being.

His Soul Shard shattered, corrupting him with Profane Essence.

And when he couldn't control his own rage, he was reborn...

Not as a human, but a Demon...

An Ash Stage Demon of Wrath.

Then...

A slow clap that destroyed the symphony of heaven's cry made Xyon kneel on the mud and bloody ground.

Azer walked slowly, scanning the mass destruction of Lidien's Blood Explosion along with Aria, who had welled-up tears forming under her eyes, and Lily, now muttering with dead eyes.

"You've done well... child, as a new Demon of Wrath in our ranks, you will replace Mad Dog."

Azer didn't even dare to look down below the cliff. The stab in the heart was enough for him to conclude that Lidien would not survive the fall into the torrent of the river.

"Prepare the carriages, we will leave immediately after retrieving their Rift..."

Then he stared at the sky, and sighed as he whispered.

"It's really a waste to kill a genius who could wipe out the Dark Wolf Clan with just a thousand soldiers... I only hope Rax can take Lidien's place on the Western Front."

***

Crack... and shattered!

Lady Rose, sitting upon her throne inside the Rift of the Shattered Mirrors, shattered all the windows and glass in the ancient castle on the floating island.

"I will never die!"

Her gold-like verve was pressing down on every slave present, crying and wailing for them to be left alive, squeezing them into the ground until only their blood and lumped remains remained.

She saw herself in the reflection of a mirror, begging to live... in front of someone that looked familiar, and not, at the same time... before she saw the world turn, and her own body kneeling, blood cascading from her neck and pooling on her knees... Headless.

Lady Rose, who was now the pseudo-Master of the Rift of the Shattered Mirrors, hadn't seen her reflection even once inside the Rift, not until Lidien left the Blood Rose Clan Territory to revive Lily using the Dark Wolf Clan.

"You can't kill me, Lidien, not if I'm inside this Rift," she said, her hands slowly twirling the wine inside the skull she used as a wineglass.

***

Lidien, a few seconds after his fall, watched the dark skies as time seemed to slow down.

His vision was slowly blurring, losing its focus as the raindrops fell straight towards his eyes, hiding--no, it wasn't tears--just raindrops sliding down his eyes.

He already knew it, someday... somewhere... his adopted Mother and Siblings would betray him, but the thought of betrayal and the actual thing really did crumble his hope, for a family he longed and hoped that he could trust.

"In the end, I am always right... I cannot trust--"

When his thoughts almost became final, an emerald feather lighting up the dark clouds calmed his exhausted mind.

He smiled, as the face of Alva worriedly flapping her single wing just to reach him with her broken figure rushed towards him.

Alva faintly smiled, her weary eyes stared at him as if she could see his soul.

"I'll follow you in the End... Lidien."

Then...

Cold.

He had died once to come to this world. He would not die again in it. He tried hard to maintain his consciousness, his will alone commanding his blood to flow without a beating heart to guide it.

The current took them, and the last Prince of the Blood Rose Clan let it carry him, surrendering to the river's will, toward whatever unknown shore awaited.

End of Volume 2

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