Far away, back at the forgotten building on the very edge of the cursed zone, the sky had turned a sickly shade of gray.

The jagged silhouette of the building loomed against the horizon, its blackened towers like the broken teeth of some ancient beast, gnashing at the clouds.

Inside, the atmosphere was a suffocating mix of dust, stale blood, and the lingering residue of Vonjo's overwhelming presence.

Vance staggered in the wrecked dining hall, his body battered, his pride shattered.

"No no no no no no… this cannot be!" He exclaimed in terror.

His breaths came in ragged bursts, every inhale scraping against the hollow pit that had replaced his heart. He had been beaten before.

He had been humiliated before. But this… this was something he could not comprehend.

Vonjo hadn't just hurt him physically—he had stripped him of everything that defined his existence. His power, his heritage, his birthright as a child of the House of Sutterfouse… gone.

"No no no no, this is not real! Not real!"

He lifted a trembling hand to his own chest, almost disbelieving, as if feeling for the familiar pulse of fallen curse energy that once thrummed like a second heartbeat beneath his skin. Nothing. Only the pathetic thud of a normal human heart.

"I… I… I… disgust myself," he muttered, voice raw. The words were barely audible, but the emptiness in them carried through the ruined hall.

He staggered toward a shattered mirror lying among the rubble, jagged fragments reflecting pieces of a man he no longer recognized.

His reflection was a stranger—pale, bloodstained, powerless.

A fallen prince stripped of everything.

"This is a nightmare, right?" he asked.

But he could feel everything: the wind, the Earth beneath him, and even the sky. He clenched his teeth in silent rage and despair as his trembling fingers closed around a shard of broken glass.

Vonjo wanted him to live like this, to suffer the indignity of crawling through life as a normal human—a powerless insect. Worse than death. Unacceptable.

"Not… like… this," he whispered, each word more frayed than the last.

And with a sudden, violent motion, he drove the shard into his own throat.

A wet, tearing sound. A flare of white-hot pain. Blood sprayed in an arc across the ruined floor. His knees buckled, and the taste of iron filled his mouth. His scream was hoarse, gurgling, torn from the depths of a soul drowning in hatred.

"VONJO SUTTERFOUSE! I FUCKING HATE YOU!"

The sound reverberated through the crumbling hall, and the building itself seemed to tremble in answer. The guards, only just regaining consciousness after being flung into unconsciousness by Vonjo earlier, awoke to the sight of their young master drenched in blood, clutching his throat, trying to die.

At first, confusion froze them in place. But when the reality of the scene sank in, terror bloomed in their eyes.

"N-No… Young Master!" one of them stammered, his voice breaking.

"Please, stop! Don't do this!" another cried, scrambling toward him, hands outstretched but trembling.

They all knew the truth: if Vance died here, they would be held responsible. They would be hunted, flayed, and erased by the Sutterfouse elders. No corner of the realms would hide them from that wrath.

But Vance didn't hear them.

Or rather, he heard them and didn't care. Their fear was meaningless to him now. Hatred and despair burned in his deadened eyes, a flame that had nothing left to consume but himself. He slammed his bloody palm against the floor, and suddenly the temperature of the room seemed to drop as a dark, writhing silhouette coiled behind him—a Chimera soul, monstrous and twisted, its form barely clinging to the mortal plane.

The guards stumbled back in terror.

"He's… offering his soul… to a devil," one whispered, his face ghost-white.

"N-No… if he completes the ritual… he'll become… a monster!" another choked out.

"Y-Young Master! STOP! This isn't the way!"

Their desperate pleas echoed against the trembling walls as Vance began to laugh—a low, broken sound that scraped against their ears like rusted metal.

"I DON'T CARE ANYMORE!" he howled, voice cracking as the Chimera soul began to solidify, its eyes glowing with hungry malice. Shadows slithered across the floor, crawling up the walls like living ink.

Just as the air grew suffocating, a new presence entered.

The sound of a single footstep echoed from the shattered doorway.

"What," a cold voice said, "is happening here?"

All heads whipped toward the door. A silhouette stood framed by the gray light, tall and imposing, his outline rippling with suppressed energy. His eyes scanned the destroyed dining hall—the broken furniture, the blood-slicked tiles, the unstable ritual pulsing around Vance.

The man took a step inside, his voice cutting through the chaos like a knife. "Explain. Now."

But Vance only laughed, a hoarse, deranged sound. "I DON'T CARE! I WILL DIE HERE! I WILL CURSE HIM—VONJO! I'LL—"

SLAP!

The figure moved in a blur, his palm striking Vance's face with bone-rattling force. The ritual wavered. Shadows dissipated. The Chimera soul flickered and then screeched as if in protest, dissolving into smoke.

Vance's head snapped to the side. For a heartbeat, silence ruled the room. Then his eyes flooded with raw fury.

"W-What did you do!?" he screamed, voice breaking into a sob. "I… I want to die! I've… I've become a normal human! I—"

"Shut up," the figure snapped.

In one fluid motion, he drew a blade and slashed Vance's neck—not to kill, but to render him unconscious. Blood spurted, and Vance crumpled to the ground, eyes rolling back. Gasps erupted from the guards.

Then, to their astonishment, the figure knelt and pressed a glowing hand against the wound. Flesh knit together under his touch, the blood slowing, the gash closing until only a thin red line remained.

The figure exhaled slowly, his gaze sweeping over Vance's limp body. He placed two fingers against his neck, then his wrist, then along the pulse points of his chest.

"…Normal," he murmured. "Completely… normal."

His hand lingered over Vance's heart. He probed with his senses, searching for the familiar thrumming resonance of fallen curse energy. There was none. He checked the channels in his limbs, the latent nodes in his chest and spine. All empty.

"This… this makes no sense," he muttered under his breath, his voice low but incredulous. "The bloodline is intact. The vessel is healthy. Yet… there is no flow. No trace of the curse. It's as if…"

He trailed off, his fingers brushing Vance's skin with a meticulous, almost surgical focus, muttering to himself as he examined every subtle reaction. His senses swept for dormant energy, leakage, external seals—but all he felt was a void, a hollow shell of what was once a proud heir.

"…Bled dry," he said finally, his voice colder now. "Completely… bled dry of fallen curse energy. Not suppressed. Not sealed. Not burned out. Consumed."

His eyes narrowed, and for the first time, true unease flickered across his face.

He lifted his gaze to the trembling guards and then to the empty air, as if speaking to something beyond them.

"…What is this!?" he demanded, the question cutting through the ruined hall like a blade.