Chapter 28: The Creeping Shadow

“Ian!”

Despite the short distance, Zeimer used magic to blink instantly to Ian’s side. He dropped to his knees and carefully rolled Ian over, pulling his slumped form into his arms. Struggling to maintain his composure, he flicked his hand to draw back all the curtains, revealing a face drained of all color. Ian’s closed eyes were fluttering spasmodically, and his breath came in thin, ragged wheezes.

What on earth is—! Zeimer cradled Ian closer, cupping the boy’s face in his hands.

His mind went blank. He had no inkling of what to do. While Ian had suffered seizures before, he had never collapsed like this.

An attack? No, there were no signs of a struggle, and if an assassin had infiltrated the room, there was no way Zeimer wouldn’t have sensed it. His mind raced, failing to find a logical anchor.

“Damn it, Felix!”

Zeimer poured mana into his voice, shouting the Emperor’s name. There was no time to track his location or find coordinates for a formal message. Every second was critical.

Terrified that moving him incorrectly might cause further damage, Zeimer didn’t dare carry him to the bed. Instead, he held him firmly, letting Ian’s head rest against his chest. The hand cupping Ian’s cheek grew damp with cold sweat.

Felix appeared in a flash. Usually, he would manifest in the hallway and walk in, but not this time. Sensing the desperation in Zeimer’s call, he materialized directly in front of them.

“Ian!”

Felix’s reaction mirrored Zeimer’s. He dropped down opposite the mage and took Ian’s face in his hands. Ian’s skin, usually cool, now felt like ice against his palms.

Felix’s face paled. A warning bell tolled in his mind: something is wrong. He activated his power. A hum resonated as a golden light, so bright it was blinding, gathered at his fingertips. Realizing what Felix intended, Zeimer reached for Ian’s collar. He didn’t have the patience for buttons; he ripped the shirt open with raw strength, buttons scattering across the floor with a series of sharp pops.

Felix pressed his palm against Ian’s chest and began to carefully channel his power. He focused intensely, sweat beading on his forehead as he navigated around the scars where demonic energy was concentrated, trying to reach as close to the heart as possible.

Perhaps because of the mana clustered near the heart, Ian’s chest seemed to be vacuuming in that power, circulating it through his entire body. The heart was the source of life and divine power, but right now, Ian’s felt more like a well of death.

Zeimer, still supporting Ian, grit his teeth. Felix’s power, infiltrating Ian’s body, felt alien and staggeringly vast. Yet Zeimer didn’t look away from the blinding gold; he reached up to support Ian’s neck as it threatened to go limp and snap backward under the pressure of the magic.

It was an awesome, terrifying power. The strength of one who directly inherited dragon blood was simply of a different origin. It was a pure “force” that made the mana Zeimer relied upon seem trivial by comparison.

Zeimer kept one arm around Ian and used his free hand to cover Ian’s eyes.

Lest the light be too bright. Lest he be afraid. Not satisfied with that, he leaned down, pressing his forehead against Ian’s, whispering continuously. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay—”

It felt like hours, but in reality, only a few moments passed. As the light filling the room faded, Zeimer looked up at Felix. The Emperor’s pupils, which had narrowed into reptilian vertical slits, were slowly rounding back into human form.

“His heart…”

“—What?”

“At this rate, it will be consumed by the demonic energy.”

Felix whispered the words low. Zeimer flinched back as if he’d heard something impossible.

“That’s nonsense. Ian’s heart is the very essence of the Goddess’s divine power.”

“It is. And yet, that ‘nonsense’ is happening right now—”

Zeimer adjusted his hold on Ian, who hung as limp as a puppet with its strings cut. He cradled the lifeless head against his chest, only finding a modicum of peace when he heard a faint, thready breath.

“Even now? At this very moment?”

“Yes. It seems it’s been progressing for a while. We simply didn’t know.”

The color had not returned to Felix’s face. In fact, now that the immediate crisis had passed, his expression grew even darker as his mind began to churn. Zeimer, watching him, gasped as a thought struck him.

“Damn it, do we need to engrave a Dragon Scale into him or something!”

Felix remained silent for a long time. He watched with sunken eyes as the servants helped Zeimer change Ian’s dust-covered clothes, wipe his body down, and settle him back into bed. Zeimer wasn’t much of a drinker, but he found himself craving a stiff drink. The sun had barely risen. Felix, too, looked as if he needed a smoke, his face set in deep, brooding lines.

Zeimer looked down at Ian’s face, which appeared as peaceful as if he were merely sleeping. That face that only finds peace when the eyes are closed. Just because he was expressionless didn’t mean the emotions etched into his features were invisible. Zeimer placed a hand over Ian’s eyes once more.

Lest the light disturb his slumber. So the world surrounding him is peaceful, if only in his dreams.

Felix’s jaw tightened, his facial muscles bulging. Despite his fierce expression, his eyes were filled with a profound, sinking sorrow.

“Was he collapsed on the floor?”

Felix asked in a heavy voice. Zeimer nodded.

“Perhaps… he couldn’t bear the pain.”

“I see.”

They had lost so many. Felix had lost a precious younger sibling; Zeimer had lost the benefactor who helped him in his youth. And Ian… Ian had lost no one, yet at the same time, he had lost everyone.

Ian often had nightmares. On those days, he would be dazed, as if he had emptied his mind of all thought. He never initiated conversation, but since he didn’t know how to fake his mood, everything was written on him. A clean, transparent person. Beyond that transparency lay a soul more upright and righteous than any other—and the scars engraved upon it.

Zeimer collapsed, his knees giving out. Covering his face with his hands, he had to face the truth he could no longer ignore. Ian was dying. In more ways than one.

Mitchel burst into Felix’s office. He was drenched in sweat, having shoved past the startled attendants at the door.

“Your Majesty! This—this makes no sense!”

As Mitchel finished speaking, a suffocating silence filled the room. The gazes of Felix, Claire, and Ilya were all fixed on him.

Gasping for air, Mitchel continued. He was so frantic he was still standing by the door.

“It hasn’t even been a month since he visited the Temple. Surely, when we saw the Goddess then…!”

Earlier that morning, Mitchel had been startled by Zeimer appearing in the middle of the Temple. Before he could even scold the mage, he was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and teleported to the palace without a word of explanation. Having almost no mana, Mitchel had collapsed upon arrival, retching from the nausea of the jump. But before he could even recover, he realized he was in Ian’s room and forced his trembling legs to stand.

Only then did Zeimer speak, spitting out fragmented words: Ian, heart, mana…

It was early, just after dawn prayers. Felix was guarding Ian’s side. Ian lay flat on his back, looking exactly as he always did—perfectly peaceful on the surface.

“Mitchel…”

“Your Majesty.”

Felix released Ian’s hand and stepped aside, yielding the spot to Mitchel. He was an Emperor. He carried the weight of a vast continent. Because of that vastness, countless things happened every day. Ilya was already conducting a meeting on his behalf regarding manpower dispatch to the eastern regions. The Emperor had to occupy his throne.

Mitchel gripped Ian’s hand tightly. Zeimer, who couldn’t perceive divine power, wouldn’t know, but Felix seemed to have sensed something.

“I must go. Mitchel, I’m counting on you.”

Felix set his jaw and left without looking back. The Emperor’s day had begun long ago.

Mitchel placed one hand over Ian’s heart and the other over the scar. His touch was incredibly delicate. He had to avoid triggering Ian’s inherent power while also ensuring he didn’t provoke the demonic energy.

Zeimer watched silently from a distance. This wasn’t a sudden event that started this morning. Felix’s reaction suggested that this had taken root long ago and had progressed further than they realized.

All this time, it had been secretly and swiftly eating away at Ian.

Sweat dripped from Mitchel’s chin. Even Zeimer, who couldn’t see divine power, could feel the energies in the air shifting. Fearing a rejection response from Ian’s body, Mitchel didn’t dare inject his own power; instead, he was gathering and borrowing the Goddess’s divine power scattered in the atmosphere.

“Zeimer… the windows… please open them…”

Mitchel whispered in a dying, wheezing voice. Fearing his own mana would disrupt the divine flow, Zeimer manually threw open all the glass doors leading to the terrace. Along with the cold air, something massive vibrated through Zeimer and rushed toward Mitchel.

Mitchel’s eyes began to turn bloodshot. He was overloading. It was a natural consequence of a fragile human vessel trying to contain the dense, heavy power of a deity. Mitchel struggled alone before the greatness of God, fighting to separate his own meager divinity from that of the Goddess. An involuntary groan of pain escaped his lips.

Zeimer’s mind was filled with all sorts of scenarios. Having a high intellect was a curse in moments like this. His fast-moving brain kept conjuring the worst possible outcomes. If there was one shred of hope, it was that Ian’s body had finally sent a signal. Had it been any later, he might have lost Ian to this insidious creeping mana entirely.

Just minutes after being filled with Felix’s golden light, Ian’s room began to glow with a deep violet hue. The light, growing denser by the second, was suddenly sucked into Mitchel’s body.

Only then was Mitchel able to see him—on equal footing.

A massive pool of demonic energy lay low and silent, its eyes gleaming. As if it were alive, as if it possessed a will of its own, it was cunningly hiding itself while growing larger, using Ian’s heart as its nutrient.

Mitchel recoiled a step, the sheer presence of it suffocating him. His gaze dropped instinctively under the sharp pressure.

His legs shook as if they would give out at any moment, but Mitchel braved his fear and lifted his head.

And as he did, he saw a pair of eyes, like a predator in the dead of night, glaring at him as if ready to devour him whole.