Gardenia’s Heart

It was just a second of distraction—but it was enough for even the warrior to be caught off guard.

“Fighting here would be troublesome. Let’s go somewhere else.”

The moment the demon’s eyes focused on the woman, a sudden impact struck his stomach, launching him through something.

The once green environment was replaced by a sea of gray.

Cold wind and mist rushed against his face. Before he could even grasp what had happened, Drelkos found himself in free fall.

Yet, even hundreds of meters above the ground, not a hint of panic appeared on his face. Spinning in the air, living black smoke spiraled around his body, gathering beneath his feet into a floating platform.

Despite the surprise, the demon managed to stop his fall.

“It’s still Lampides...” his red eyes glanced downward.

The city of Lampides, nearly entirely shrouded in fog, stretched across the forest below. Though they were no longer higher than the World Tree—still visible through the mist—he had been moved dozens of kilometers away, making it impossible to reach it easily.

And then, tilting his head ever so slightly, he looked up toward the skies above.

Thunder flashed fiercely through the fog.

With a faint smile on her lips, a girl hovered in the air, two wings of storm and shadow pulsing with chaotic energy on her back. Even in the darkness, lit only by the lightning radiating from her, her crimson eyes gleamed intensely.

“Purple hair and red eyes…” Drelkos didn’t even need to ask to understand what had happened. “So, you’re the one who left Orlaith at death’s door?”

Only the breeze answered him. The girl floating in the sky tilted her head slightly, pressing her index finger to her cheek in a playful, almost cute gesture.

So Orlaith really survived the explosion, the metamorph thought.

“You seem to value formalities, so I’ll answer in kind.”

The black smoke under his feet rose, lifting him to the same height as the girl. In one smooth, elegant motion, he brushed the white strands of hair from his eyes, as a dense layer of mana spread around his body.

“I am the Third Twilight of the great Demon King’s Empire, Drelkos, the Harbinger of the Hollow.”

A surge of black smoke burst around him, and a palpable pressure radiated from his aura.

“Pleased to meet you, Gardenia, the Veilbreaker.”

Nia couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

She had introduced herself during the battle in Caligo—if Orlaith had survived, it wasn’t surprising that the demon knew her name.

However, one word had caught her off guard.

“Veilbreaker?” Nia repeated.

Drelkos placed one hand on his waist and tilted his chin upward, a hint of amusement in his eyes.

“That’s what the demons have started calling you. Creating a portal capable of spanning three continents isn’t exactly trivial.”

The man’s words made a flicker of irritation cross the girl’s otherwise impassive face.

“I already have a name. I don’t need that.” Nia replied, her voice as cold and sharp as a blade.

“Think of it as the result of your efforts—or the recognition of your actions, if you prefer. A title isn’t something we choose for ourselves. Whether you like it or not, others will still use it. It’s up to you to decide if you’ll embrace it—or not.”

Hearing Drelkos’s explanation only made Nia’s expression sour further.

She knew that some of the people she had met were known for their deeds and accomplishments—but validation from anyone other than her wife meant nothing to her.

The metamorph already had a name, and it had been given to her by the most important person in her life. She needed nothing else.

Oblivious to her anger, Drelkos glanced sideways at the massive, cracked tree on the horizon.

“Not finishing off Nerine is a nuisance, but my task here is complete. I have no reason to remain.”

“How uncharacteristic. I was sure your goal was to destroy the entire city,” Nia said, watching the demon, who seemed almost indifferent to the chaos unfolding on the ground below.

Given her past encounters with demons—including one scientist who wanted to test her invention by blowing up an entire city—Nia found it hard to believe the man before her seemed so disinterested in wiping out all the elves.

“It may be surprising to you sunfolk, but not all demons are drawn to bloodshed. Some with problematic behavior might lean that way, sure, but I don’t stray from my path just to squash ants,” Drelkos replied with an exasperated tone.

“You say that even after creating another Torment?”

Even from hundreds of meters in the air, Nia could clearly feel the destructive aura radiating from the newly born creature.

“Rather than wasting all that dark mana on some random beast, a monster-fairy hybrid is far more interesting.” He shrugged subtly. “Whether it ends up corrupting this forest in a wave of purple miasma, or collapses under its own instability, both are outcomes worth observing.”

This wasn’t a matter of efficiency or optimization, like with Orlaith. This demon wouldn’t go out of his way to kill an insect—but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t drop a snake in its path just to see how it reacted. It was a sophistic logic—plausible enough for him to act on it without the slightest burden on his conscience.

Letting out a quiet sigh, Drelkos turned his full attention back to the purple-haired girl, his expression growing serious.

“I don’t yet know all the details, but I have explicit orders that if I encounter you, I’m not to kill you. If you simply withdraw, I swear upon my Lord’s name that I’ll do nothing against you.”

Among everything Drelkos had said, that was the first thing to genuinely surprise Nia.

“If you walk away, I have no issue not fighting.” Nia replied.

It was unexpected—but not unwelcome.

Nia was standing before this being because it was necessary to fulfill her beloved’s request.

However, fighting wasn’t the only path to resolving this conflict.

If Drelkos were to simply leave, she had no reason to hunt him down. Vengeance for the elves, or chasing him just because he was a demon—those weren’t things she felt made sense.

“That is... if you leave the sword behind, of course.”

That is, of course, if that single item is returned.

That one condition was non-negotiable.

Nia couldn’t allow that sword to be taken.

The World-End Blade was currently the only thing capable of suppressing dark mana and serving as a seal.

Without it, the future would bring even more dangerous creatures to these lands.

And with her home nestled within this forest, Nia could never allow that to happen.

It all came down to this.

“That can’t be done.”

Drelkos’s simple answer made Nia close her eyes for a moment.

“I see.”

There was no longer any point in trying to resolve things through dialogue.

What was about to happen could no longer be avoided.

“I’ve heard you can manipulate dark mana,” Drelkos said casually, tightening the white bands on his arms as if performing a habitual ritual. Then, cracking his neck a few times, he stared intently at the girl before him. “More than Orlaith... no, probably even more than Urtiga. This is going to be troublesome...”

Without the radiant golden glow of the World Tree, the black and violet storm on the girl’s back lit the clouds with flickering arcs, projecting her silhouette across the sky.

In this setting, as the air pressure around her began to rise—like invisible hands crushing the space itself—Drelkos understood he could no longer afford complacency.

“I’ll try to hold back from causing any permanent damage,” he said, his tone more factual than threatening. “But I may have to rip off an arm or a leg if necessary.”

Two auras—one blue, the other purple—clashed in the sky above, the surrounding air seeming to chill under the pressure of their collision.

Then, in the instant Nia opened her eyes again, Drelkos moved.

With an explosive step, he tore through the surrounding clouds like a hawk diving into the heart of a storm, launching himself toward the girl wrapped in lightning.

His sharp crimson eyes traced a perfect path through the sudden storm of ice crystals that erupted around her, cutting through the sky in his direction.

He had no wings—by common sense, he shouldn’t have been able to evade. But such logic didn’t apply to a being like him.

Black smoke coiled around him, solidifying in the stormy sky beneath his feet. As though walking on air, Drelkos leapt and dashed across the smoke as if it were firm ground.

“A warrior doesn’t need predefined footholds,” he muttered disinterestedly, slipping past a wall of black ice by the width of a hair.

He estimated that any single strike could wound him if taken off guard.

Each shard of black ice was dense, vibrated violently, and spun at extreme speeds—he couldn’t afford to underestimate them.

Especially not when they were being produced in overwhelming numbers, all while the caster’s face remained calm and dry, not even a drop of sweat escaping her brow.

But if the attacks didn’t land, they weren’t a problem.

What bothered him was something else.

Standing atop a small block of black smoke, Drelkos reached his gloved hand toward the back of his neck.

A sharp crack, like glass shattering, echoed as his entire body jerked forward from the impact.

Before his eyes could even turn to look behind him, the small portal—like a window into a starry sky—had already vanished.

“Attacking from behind is a staple of combat,” Drelkos sighed. “But to do it without even a hint of bloodlust... even I have to respect that.”

Not even a full minute had passed since the battle began, yet his head and heart had already been targeted from blind spots more times than he cared to count.

Teleportation was a notoriously difficult magic to counter.

The ability to send spells through portals directly into point-blank range meant that the caster had an almost guaranteed chance of hitting their mark.

If he lost focus for even a second, a portal could open somewhere he couldn’t see—and a spell could strike a vital organ before he could react.

And that wasn’t even the most problematic thing.

It was impossible to escape someone who would always be one step ahead—so he had to face her head-on.

Drelkos needed to close the distance faster than Nia could conjure a portal, or he’d end up exhausting himself, chasing her endlessly without ever catching her.

Drelkos wasn’t someone who relied on the other side making a mistake.

The girl had so much dark mana that she could keep casting spells all day without tiring. Dragging this out would only lead to a stalemate.

He needed to gain the upper hand.

Mana gathered around his right arm as he steadied his breathing. In the infinitesimal space between one wave of ice and the next, he locked his gaze on the girl and adjusted his stance.

Then, he leapt.

Smashing through the ice crystals with his left forearm, the demon surged forward—faster than sound.

The organic black carapace that encased his body lit up with blue veins, trembling black smoke cloaking half of him like a cumulonimbus.

Whether it was confidence in her portals or the belief she could escape with her wings, his target hadn’t moved from the spot where the battle had begun.

And because of that—he was already ahead of her.

If long-range magic was her domain, close-quarters combat was his territory.

There was no way he’d miss.

His shoulder rotated, and his arm extended straight out.

His fist—trailing a plume of black smoke—shot forward with destructive precision, the sheer force rupturing the air in all directions, creating a momentary vacuum.

Then—impact.

A blow powerful enough to shatter even the resilient trunk of the World Tree made contact.

But it didn’t hit the girl.

Not even a shattering sound followed. It was a dry, hollow impact—deaf as the void.

“You know, Mr. Demon... I’ve been pretty frustrated lately.” Her soft voice finally rang out.

Leaping backward, Drelkos looked toward the spot where his fist had landed.

Genuine surprise flickered in his widened crimson eyes.

The shape that met his strike was a semi-sphere.

“I learned to create this... to protect Lily.”

This had been the second spell she ever learned.

Born from the knowledge she gained after absorbing the first volume of the Book of Truth, it was meant to protect Lily in every battle the metamorph would face—an impenetrable shield so her beloved would never shed blood.

And yet...

“Then... why?”

Nia’s voice sliced through the air like a blade stabbed into flesh.

Her head tilted slowly, as though she truly didn’t understand.

Her eyes were hollow, her lips just a line—but her words oozed like venom from the core of her being.

“Why does it keep breaking against everything in our path?”

Her black sphere had been shattered—again and again.

First by Orlaith’s suicide bomb pawns in Caligo.

Then by that irritating hero and her axe.

And finally, even the claws of the Torment had ripped through her shield with ease.

Her magic had failed to protect her.

And that... infuriated her.

“-!?”

A strained grunt slipped through Drelkos’s lips—not because of the chill crawling down his spine, which had nothing to do with the atmosphere…

And not because the blow powerful enough to shake the colossal World Tree had failed.

It was much simpler than that.

His body had taken a step back before his mind even realized it.

“I found out that creating a barrier is nothing more than creating your own territory.”

Her lips curved into a sweet smile—but the innocence in that expression was enough to make something deep within Drelkos tremble.

“Condensing dark mana and turning it into a solid mass. But increasing the amount of dark mana doesn’t make it stronger, and unlike other spells, I can only create another one once the previous is destroyed.”

Nia raised a fingertip to her cheek.

“My mind used to call it a ‘protective barrier,’ but after I learned what barriers truly were, I mistakenly believed this was something else.”

To create your own territory and establish a domain with a purpose. Nia had been doing that from the beginning—but she had never learned how to manipulate anything beyond a simple solid effect.

Slowly, the black semi-sphere began to dissolve, as if its dense shadowy surface was becoming more translucent until it vanished.

No. Drelkos knew it hadn’t disappeared. It had always been there from the start—it had merely turned invisible again.

“Dissipating the shock of an impact, increasing the barrier’s mass and density. Not relying on a smooth surface, but using fractal patterns. Evaluating how it interacts with light, air, and heat...”

She had been a metamorph since birth—nothing had ever changed that.

Her very nature was rooted in devouring.

Absorbing what surrounded her and strengthening herself with its best qualities.

But in that moment, it wasn’t the primal hunger of her species that made her mind race and her smile widen.

It was an intellectual hunger.

“There are so many things I’ve never tested that I can explore now. I can develop a defense that will protect my wife from anything that dares to stand in her way.”

Blushing slightly, Nia closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to the center of her chest. The black lightning on her wings crackled wildly, responding to her emotions.

“Is there any point in telling me all this?” Drelkos, who had listened from start to finish in silence, resumed his combat stance. “Don’t tell me you expected me to do the same out of courtesy?”

“Oh, not at all. It’s much simpler than you think, actually.”

She blinked her crimson eyes with the innocence of a child.

Nia didn’t like wasting time talking to anyone who wasn’t her wife, but she’d realized there was something important she needed to make clear—and so she had calmly explained everything in advance.

“Since that hero is no longer useful, I was in need of a proper training partner.” Nia smiled gently, a wall of black ice crystals forming around her. “So please, don’t hold back—and do your best to be a good meal, Mr. Demon. If you die too quickly, I won’t be able to get any stronger.”