Lennox Carlisle stood before a vast black abyss.
Where the Marquis's estate had once risen in cold grandeur, there was now only emptiness—a yawning pit swallowed by darkness so complete that not even light dared enter.
He stared into that void for a long time, unblinking, until the present dissolved and he found himself somewhere else entirely. Somewhere too familiar. Too painful.
*I want you to suffer the way I suffered.*
---
That summer, the weather in the north had been clear and cool. But for everyone on the ducal estate, it might as well have been scorching.
After losing her child, Juliet seemed frozen in time.
She didn't cry. She didn't scream. She didn't curse anyone. Instead, she found a far more devastating way to punish Lennox.
She began to forget about herself.
It started with small things—smashing glass ornaments one by one, tearing the roses from the garden with her bare hands, trampling the petals into the dirt. But even in these small destructions, something darker lurked beneath the surface.
He couldn't take his eyes off her. Not for a second. Her behavior stirred a creeping dread in his chest, a certainty that if he looked away—even for a moment—Juliet would simply cease to exist.
When he finally couldn't bear it any longer and demanded to know if she'd gone mad, she only smiled.
It was her only smile in those weeks. Dull. Faded. A ghost of the warmth she'd once shown him.
And yet Lennox couldn't understand why it filled him with such rage.
In truth, he didn't care about the glass or the roses. None of it held any value or meaning.
He was only afraid she would cut her bare feet on the shards. That she would prick her fingers on the thorns.
The man who had never bowed his head to anyone found himself kneeling beside her bed, carefully bandaging her wounded ankle.
One early summer morning, as he wrapped the linen around her bloodied skin, the realization struck him like a blade between the ribs: *This is emotion. Stupid, childish, utterly inappropriate.*
He had been wrong to think he could simply discard her whenever he wished.
He understood this now.
But it was already too late.
Too late to try to reach the heart of a woman who flinched at his anger like a wounded animal, never understanding what she had done to deserve his cruelty.
Marquis Guinness had beaten her with a whip. But Lennox had left no fewer scars—they were simply invisible.
---
*I feel bad showing this.*
Juliet had never liked baring her skin. Even in the oppressive summer heat, she wore long sleeves. She simply couldn't bear for anyone to see the marks of years of abuse etched across her body.
But over time, she stopped hiding.
She stopped caring.
Her emaciated shoulders remained uncovered. She no longer averted her eyes from the disfigured landscape of her own back reflected in mirrors.
She didn't even tend to the orphaned foxes anymore—the ones she had nursed back to health every spring without fail.
Lennox felt it in his bones: this was all a terrible omen.
---
*Just kill me.*
When Juliet spoke those words—her lips dry and cracked, her voice utterly devoid of life—he finally understood what he had been afraid of all along.
He watched her every reaction with barely concealed panic, caught every whispered word, because he knew the truth he had been running from.
The woman who had once loved him selflessly was gone.
Now, even if he fell at her feet and begged, she wouldn't spare him so much as a mocking smile.
He may not have been the one who inflicted the first wounds upon her. But he was the one who pushed her to the edge.
If mental scars left visible marks on the body, he would be no better than the Marquis who had tortured her for years.
Juliet had lost the will to live.
He watched her fade a little more with each passing day, but he could not—*did not know how*—to let her go.
He stood outside her door countless times, hand raised to knock, hesitating. But she—the one who had once reached for him despite everything—never turned around again.
---
*What a pity.*
Lennox's head snapped up.
*Still afraid of rejection, aren't you?*
A massive black panther materialized from the shadows, its body the size of a small house. It wagged its tail lazily, golden eyes gleaming with cruel amusement.
*Do you really believe that if you obtain the artifact, you'll be able to save your woman this time?*
"Shut up."
The panther laughed—a low, rumbling sound that vibrated through the air.
*Well, even if you manage to kill the snake... whether she'll forgive you is another matter entirely, isn't it?*
At first glance, those who entered contracts with artifacts seemed to receive power without paying a price.
But Lennox knew better.
Entities from other dimensions were cunning, malevolent, and they *never* gave anything for free.
The price might be eternal hallucinations. Creeping madness. A curse that infected your bloodline for generations.
These spirits fed on fear, pain, and despair. And Lennox understood precisely why the panther kept stirring up his old wounds.
---
"Your Highness..."
He turned. His assistant stood behind him, worry carved deep into his features.
"Is everything alright?"
"It's fine," Lennox replied, his voice cold as winter stone. "Nobody died."
The knights stood in silence, gazing at the ruins before them. Where the marquis's mansion had once loomed, only dust and rubble remained.
He was right—the Duke of Carlisle's detachment had miraculously escaped the collapse, managing to retreat just in time. By some stroke of fortune, not a single man had been injured.
"Must be something underground," one knight murmured. "They say this sort of thing has been happening more frequently in the south..."
"Still hard to imagine," another replied, shaking his head. "A mansion that size, just... collapsing into nothing."
They tried to keep their voices steady, but anxiety threaded through every word.
After all, the same thought was spinning through each of their minds.
The Duke of Carlisle's southern journey had proceeded without incident. But the moment he approached this mansion, the entire structure had simply... fallen into the earth.
*He could have died. This could very well have been an assassination attempt.*
*Could this be the work of Marquis Guinness?*
But the Marquis had been declared missing long ago.
*Officially, he had disappeared. Unofficially, the knights knew full well that Marquis Guinness was no longer capable of weaving any intrigue—or anything else, for that matter.*
While they exchanged dark theories in hushed voices, Lennox remained motionless, staring into the void.
*Ah, as if the past came to life...*
A shadow glided closer—the ominous spirit wearing the guise of a black panther.
*Suddenly decided to indulge in memories? Hm?*
The panther licked its lips with obvious relish. It seemed lost in nostalgia, but Lennox knew the spirit was doing something far more deliberate.
It was reopening old wounds.
---
About twenty years ago, he had been thrown into a cave in the middle of a battlefield teeming with demons.
In appearance, it had resembled this current pit—only far wider, and infinitely more terrifying.
It was there that he had learned how dangerous Carlisle blood truly was. How it *attracted* the most malevolent entities from the void between worlds.
The deep underground passage before him now was impressive, but something else caught his attention. At the edge of the crater, barely visible through the settling dust, was the unmistakable outline of a ring.
The mansion's collapse had revealed what lay hidden in its dungeons.
And then he understood.
At first glance, it appeared to be a magic circle—typical for summoning rituals.
But this circle began at the forest's edge and seemed to envelop the entire building, as if the mansion itself had been constructed as part of some gigantic summoning from the very beginning.
Inside the ring, a serpentine pattern twisted across the scorched earth. Fragments of transparent scarlet stones lay scattered throughout, glinting with an unnatural light.
Sir Milan stepped forward, his brow furrowed deeply.
"These appear to be the same artificial magical stones that Marquis Guinness was selling."
*These reddish fragments were the traces of forbidden magic.*
*The Marquis had pretended to mine magical crystals, but in truth, he had transformed kidnapped orphans and vagabonds into raw materials, performing unholy rituals to create them.*
*Even ordinary humans possessed some trace of mana. But to use it like this... it was pure madness.*
*Who do you think taught him this method?*
The panther drew closer, its eyes flashing with ominous light.
"A method for creating artificial magical stones..." Lennox whispered, his expression dark as a storm cloud.
"He summoned it with this circle."
"Summoned what? Who?" Milan asked, alarm creeping into his voice.
"The body of a snake."
"A... snake?"
*Yes. Perhaps the spirit awakened by the Marquis himself had taught him the secret of creating crystals, promising untold riches in return.*
*A common tactic of otherworldly beings: exploit human greed and fear.*
*A fool might rejoice in his apparent success, never realizing he was merely a pawn in a game far beyond his comprehension.*
*Entities from other dimensions could not interfere directly with this world. It was forbidden—even for god-like spirits.*
*But if human souls were offered as payment... their partial incarnation could be summoned.*
The panther chuckled softly, watching the conversation unfold with obvious entertainment.
*The crystals created from those sacrifices most likely strengthened the summoned spirit, feeding it power with every death.*
Lennox Carlisle, unlike others, had never made deals with demons. He understood the true cost of such "power."
The price was madness. Hallucinations. A slow, agonizing death.
His caution was not cowardice—it was wisdom.
*Marquis Guinness never understood this.*
*We cannot tell them the truth. It was part of the agreement.*
The panther wagged its tail contentedly.
*Although... there is one among us. One who hates humans so intensely that he has become just like them.*
Lennox's fingers tightened around the knot on his sword's hilt.
One of the knights had mentioned that Juliet once asked the Fran couple if they had a daughter.
*Perhaps she had already made contact with Dahlia—earlier, in the past, when I knew nothing of it.*
The thought was deeply unsettling.
*What if all of this is merely bait?*
*What if the guardianship was nothing but a ploy to capture my attention? And the real goal was to arrange a meeting between Juliet and someone she was never supposed to encounter?*
---
A falcon cut through the air with a piercing whistle and landed softly on the knight's outstretched arm.
"Milan."
"Yes, Your Highness."
The knight with the falcon on his shoulder turned to face the Duke.
"Send word to the castle. Tell them to prepare for a hunt."
Milan's eyes widened. "A hunt?"
"Yes." The Duke was already mounting his horse, settling into the saddle with practiced ease.
"Forgive me, Your Highness, but... what hunt? The castle is in the north. What does hunting have to do with any of this?"
Lennox gripped the reins tightly, his knuckles whitening.
"We must catch the snake."