Drex and the other children fought with desperate ferocity, blades clashing against the tough hides of the orcs that had ambushed them. The cave walls echoed with the sounds of metal ringing, spells hissing, and orcs growling in pain. Despite their youth, the children were trained, and after a hard-fought few minutes, three of the remaining beasts collapsed in blood and grunts.
But something shifted in the air.
Lucy felt it even in her paralyzed state. The cave grew heavier, darker. A cold tingle crept down her neck. Her head, the only part she could still move, slowly turned toward the darkness deeper in the cave.
Then came the roar.
A deafening, animalistic bellow that made the walls tremble and the children freeze mid-motion. From the shadows, it stepped out, the boss. Larger than the others, muscles coiled like steel, skin darker and thicker than the rest. It dragged behind it a massive axe that looked roughly carved from mountain stone, edges jagged, crude, deadly. Red markings pulsed on its arms, and its eyes burned yellow.
The very sight of it made Lucy's stomach twist. She could only move her eyes and barely tilt her head. The aura of the suffocating pressure was like nothing she had felt before.
The boss orc bared its fangs.
And then… the worst happened.
The remaining children who had fought beside Drex dropped their weapons and backed away.
"I… I'm sorry!" one of them shouted, wide-eyed. "I don't wanna die!"
"We'll take punishment instead!" another cried. "Better than being chopped to pieces!"
"What are you doing?!" Lucy tried to scream, but her voice barely left her lips. She strained, trying to stand, but her body wouldn't listen.
"Why aren't you helping us?!" one of them yelled at her, hatred in their voice. "You're the reason we're here! You're supposed to be stronger than this!"
They ran.
All of them.
Left behind were only Drex… and Lucy.
Drex's hands trembled as he tightened his grip on his sword. But he didn't leave.
"I'm not abandoning you," he said under his breath, eyes fixed on the advancing orc boss.
It charged.
Drex met the strike, raising his blade with a shout. The impact was monstrous — the force of the axe nearly shattered his bones. His sword cracked, then snapped entirely as he was pushed back several feet. His armor absorbed the brunt of it, but it split across the chest from the blow, tearing open.
"Drex, run!" Lucy screamed, voice breaking free at last.
"No!" he shouted back, still standing. "I won't leave you!"
He dodged the next few swings narrowly, sliding under one massive arm. He snatched a fallen bow and quiver from the ground and spun, channeling his wind magic into the shaft of an arrow. With focused precision, he let it fly.
It struck the orc's neck — not a killing blow, but deep enough to draw a roar of pain.
The beast thrashed wildly, swinging its axe in every direction. Drex tried to stay mobile, weaving and dodging. But his movements were sluggish now. The boss's leg slammed sideways without warning and collided with him, sending him crashing into the cave wall with a bone-crunching thud.
"Drex!" Lucy screamed, helpless.
Her body shook — the numbness still clung to her like chains, but her heart pounded wildly in her chest. She could feel something breaking inside her. Fear? Shame? Magic?
Then a flash of blue light.
A spear made of ice sailed through the air, striking the orc's arm.
It howled.
Both Drex and Lucy turned and saw her.
Saria. Their mother.
She stood in the mouth of the cave, chest heaving, hair damp with sweat. Magic surged at her fingertips, cold mist curling from her skin.
Lucy's eyes widened in horror. "No…"
Saria rushed forward, hands crackling with magic. But the orc reacted faster than she expected. With a guttural growl, it hurled its massive axe straight toward her.
She barely moved in time. The weapon clipped her arm — the sharp stone edge biting deep.
She shrieked as blood sprayed across the rocks. She collapsed, clutching the wound, breath ragged.
"MOM!" Lucy and Drex screamed at once.
Drex, despite the pain, crawled toward the orc, gripping a broken bow like a club. He tried to choke it from behind — but the beast caught him, lifted him off the ground with one hand, and slammed him against the cave wall.
The orc raised its hand, tightening around Drex's neck.
Another ice spear struck its head, but only lodged partially into its skull. It didn't kill.
Saria gritted her teeth, blood running down her arm.
I was strong once, she thought bitterly. Why did I stop training? Why did I let myself grow soft after marriage?
The orc roared again and charged.
It still held Drex.
She readied another spell — but her hands were shaking. Her vision was blurry. And worst of all, all her remaining magic was explosive. Too wide. Too destructive.
She couldn't risk it.
If she cast the wrong spell, she might kill her son.
And Lucy… still couldn't move.
Everything around her blurred. Her heart was beating in her ears, her fingers twitching. She wanted to scream. To run. To help.
But the energy pulsing through her body wouldn't listen.
The red marks on her skin flickered to life again, glowing faintly. She clenched her fists — her nails dug into her palms.
But still… nothing.
Then the orc reached Saria.
And everything stopped.
[Lucille – Present Moment]
Sitting alone on the edge of her bed, Lucille clutched the seed in her palm. Her eyes were glazed, unfocused — but her mind was far from quiet. Memories tumbled through her like a river breaking through a dam.
She could see it all.
How they escaped the dungeon? She didn't know. All she remembered was Drex, bruised and battered, telling her she had done it.
"You got us out," he'd whispered. "You… you froze everything."
But their mother hadn't made it.
Saria had fallen behind — too injured, too exhausted — and the moment Lucy lost control… the cave had turned to snow. It had swallowed everything.
They returned to the estate broken, barely alive. And her father — stoic as always — simply looked at them and said:
"…Unfortunate, I will miss her dearly."
No tears. Just a flicker of sadness that faded quickly as Drex spoke up.
"She awakened, Father. Lucy… she froze the whole cave. All of it."
And that — that—was what mattered.
He didn't care about how she felt. About Saria. About the lost children. He only cared that Lucy's magic had awakened into something powerful. Something unique. Something not of her nature.
From that day forward, he poured everything into honing it, dragging Lucy into deeper, darker training. She tried to resist. Told him it felt wrong. Told him something about the magic that disturbed her. That it didn't feel like hers.
He used her guilt against her.
"If you had embraced it sooner," he said, "you could have saved them."
If she had acted faster, if she hadn't been weak, her mother might have lived.
Her friends might have lived.
But instead, she was the survivor, and that is how the world fully worked; it makes and wants survivors.
And part of her still wondered… if the tree had done something to her that day, cause it felt like that.
It felt like it saved them, maybe. But it felt like something else had taken root inside her. Something not entirely her own.
Still, she trained. From fifteen to twenty, she followed her father's plans. She froze battlefield dummies, sparred against enchanted golems, and shattered walls with frost-tipped rage. She became the daughter he always wanted.
Until he realized even that wasn't enough.
Until he gave up — for now.
So she left.
She ran from that estate. From Beacon City. From the man who called himself her father.
She wanted something normal. Something good and maybe friends or something close to it. Something… hers.
And now…
Now she was somewhere else.
Not in her room. Not in the city.
Somewhere deeper.
The walls were gone, replaced by swirling fog and blackened soil.
Before her stood a great, ancient tree. Gnarled, alive, and throbbing with red veins that pulsed like a heartbeat. It towered into an endless sky, its leaves crackling with crimson frost. Her breath misted in the air, but she wasn't cold.
She was being judged.
Words floated in the space above the tree:
[Primordial Bloodline Awakening. Compatibility: 98%]
Then she saw her.
A figure seated beneath the tree, calmly watching her.
The demon.
She was… terrifyingly beautiful. With pale skin that shimmered like snow under moonlight, and short, silvery-blue hair that curled slightly at the ends. Her crimson eyes glowed softly, like embers buried under frost. Thick, black horns arched back over her head, streaked with cracks that pulsed with red energy. Her ears were sharp — almost elven — and her black nails, something about her felt casual, yet regal in her simplicity. A symbol of calm… and something far more dangerous.
The demon didn't speak.
But Lucille knew her.
She didn't know how. But she knew.
And then, just behind the demon — a flicker.
A bloodied face. Twisted with hatred. Wild, maddened eyes. Fangs bared in a scream of pure bloodlust.
Her face.
It was her face — from that day in the cave.
She had forgotten it. Blocked it out.
But now she remembered.
That moment when she had lost control. That scream, that slaughter. That voice.
It was hers.
Lucille screamed — and so did the demon.
Their cries overlapped, echoed, and fused.
Back in Beacon City, in the Desmire estate — her room exploded with frost.
The air turned white as a blizzard poured outward from her bed. Ice splintered across the walls. Windows shattered. The temperature dropped below freezing in seconds. Servants collapsed just from the pressure.
In the heart of it all stood Lucille — no longer the same.
Her skin had turned paler, almost porcelain.
Her hair had taken on the same glinting silver-blue sheen.
Her horns had emerged — curved and blackened like obsidian.
And her eyes…
Glowed red.
She stood frozen, breath misting out with every exhale, her body trembling.
But it wasn't from fear.
It was from awakening.
From far across the compound, members of the Desmire bloodline froze mid-motion, heads turning in horror.
A demon's presence had appeared.
And it was coming from their territory.
One of the guards whispered, "…That power… That pressure…"
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