Morvana stared at the spot where the boy had been sitting only moments ago.

A faint smile curved her lips.

"Future, huh?"

How interesting.

She murmured softly, feeling no trace of regret —

not for the grandchildren she would never meet,

not even for the daughter who had died in that supposed future.

That time wasn't here yet.

Still, she acted and played her role as any mother was supposed to in such moments.

But it wasn't love that drove her.

It was a curiosity.

She wanted to know how much that boy truly knew about her and about the future he spoke of.

She wanted to understand why the Demon King had chosen him as his successor.

And most of all… why the System had chosen him to glimpse the future.

Because in that regard, they were the same.

The System had once rewarded her too, a small glimpse of what was to come, many years ago, when she completed her Awakening Trial.

Back then, she had been nothing but a naïve and powerless girl who was never meant to become matriarch.

But she did.

Because the System showed her the path and because she killed her twin sister… and took her place and talent.

Twenty-two years ago, when she completed her Awakening Trial, the System had granted her a glimpse of the future.

In that vision, her sister, Morvana, stood as Matriarch, radiant in power and reverence while she — Veluna — knelt in chains, condemned as a dark mage and executed soon after.

She never forgot that image.

So she chose a different path.

She made sure the prophecy would belong to her instead.

She waited for the perfect moment because her sister was strong.

Too strong.

But after Morvana gave birth to Arza, the cracks began to show. Her power wavered and her aura, once sharp enough to cut through steel, began to fade.

Veluna saw the opportunity in that weakness.

And when Arza turned three, she finally moved.

While her sister and the child were on their way back to the family estate, Veluna struck.

The ambush was flawless and convincing. To anyone who would later investigate, it would look like an attack by a minor cult of A.S.S., the sort of fanatic group that occasionally targeted noble families.

Veluna made sure of it.

She had spent months planting evidence, leaking rumors and everything that would make the lie look inevitable.

By the time the soldiers were dead, cut down by Veluna's own subordinates, only Morvana and the child inside the carriage were left alive.

Veluna remembered that day as clearly as crystal.

She had walked through a sea of blood until she reached her sister and the small, white-haired child clutched in trembling arms.

The child's cries echoed in the silence and Morvana, drenched in her own blood, begged for her daughter's life.

Veluna had no intention of killing the child.

After all, the girl wasn't just a member of the Matherion Family.

She carried the purest trace of the Demon King's bloodline and Veluna knew that spilling that blood would make the Demon King himself her enemy.

So, she promised to fulfill the last wish of her sister.

She promised not to kill the child… After all she had other plans for her.

With that decision, she ended her sister's life and absorbed the every last trace of talent her sister possessed with the skill she had recited with the glimpse of that future.

The skill had vanished after one use but it gave her everything her sister ever possessed.

The child, Arza, sat in the blood of her own mother, crying for a mother who would never rise again.

Veluna stood in silence for a long time before turning her blade on her own followers. She could not risk a single word surviving that night.

When the last of them fell, the valley was quiet.

Veluna gathered the crying child in her arms and began the long walk back to the family estate, her body bruised, bloodied and trembling just enough to look convincing.

By the time she reached the gates, her story was already written.

She was the sole survivor of a cult's ambush — the mother who had risked everything to save her daughter.

She made sure everyone believed that Veluna had died a hero that night, fighting to the end for her family.

Because from that day forward,

Veluna ceased to exist.

Only Morvana remained.

Arza, the only other survivor, didn't remember anything. After all, how was a three year old child even supposed to understand anything?

But the incident had scarred the child so deeply that she never cried again.

She didn't laugh.

She didn't frown.

She simply stopped feeling everything.

And that suited Veluna just fine. It saved her from the burden of pretending from forcing herself to play the part of a loving mother she could never be.

She stood here now, Matriarch of one of the strongest families in the Demon Realm and Principal of Noxvalen Academy, all because of a single glimpse the System had once shown her.

She had done the unthinkable and had defied fate itself.

So when the boy, Rael Ashborn, claimed he had been granted the same grace, it stirred a spark of curiosity within her…

… and perhaps, just perhaps, a sense of familiarity.

It was something she had never felt from anyone in this world. So she wanted to know his story. She wanted to see how he would try to defy his fate.

But the boy was a fool. Instead of using that knowledge to carve his own path, he wasted it on something as meaningless as emotion.

Love.

She never understood it and why people were so desperate for it, why they built entire lives around such fragile, fleeting things.

Love was just lust disguised as something noble and she never had anything to do with either of those.

Because love, emotion and friendship were weak people who needed others to lean on.

But she was not one of them.

Veluna had long set her sights beyond such trivial things.

She wanted more.

She wanted to become a God.

After all, the glimpse she received that day hadn't only shown her death… it had shown her the path.

A way to ascend beyond mortality and a way to rewrite fate itself.

And now, she wanted to know if the boy had seen something similar or worse, if he somehow knew her truth.

But he didn't.

He had no real information.

His knowledge would only unlock as his strength did.

And still, there was something about him that unsettled her. The boy hadn't merely seen the future.

He had inherited it.

Every memory, scar and emotion.

That made the boy dangerous but more interesting.

Her rational mind wanted to kill him to avoid any variable but her curiosity leaned more and more towards keeping the boy alive.

So she accepted the boy's offer and sealed it with a soul contract, binding him to her will, ensuring he could never move against her interests.

That way, she would protect her plans from any future threat.

And perhaps she might also keep the only person in this world who was anything like her alive.

Someone who could understand what it meant to be chosen by the System.

Someone who might, one day, walk the same path she had taken toward godhood.

"Hope you don't disappoint me, Rael," she murmured, her voice almost gentle. "After all… I have quite a lot of hopes for you."

A genuine smile curved her lips as she thought of the boy.

—

Meanwhile, a girl walked through the dimly lit campus toward her dorm, her steps calm and unhurried.

Her lavender hair swayed gently with each movement, while her golden eyes glowed faintly in the dark.

It had been hours since Sylvie arrived back from the Forest of Unmasked and night had already settled over the academy.

Yet she was only heading to her dorm now for one simple reason.

She knew about the illusory array enveloping the academy, the one that twisted and distorted every path.

So before the term officially began, she wanted to learn the true layout… to note the mana signatures of every important building.

And she had done exactly that.

She wandered through the academy grounds with the mana-tracing bracelet the academy had issued, the one that revealed only the direction of the dorms.

She got lost more times than she could count but eventually, she memorized the mana signatures of every important place.

Only now, satisfied, was she finally heading toward her dorm.

Still, something else bothered her mind, the boy who had saved her.

Rael Von Ashborn.

How had he become the successor of the Demon King?

More importantly… How did he survive after being swallowed by the Goat Monster?

She had seen it happen as the creature devoured him whole.

There shouldn't have been a body left to bury and yet… somehow, he was alive and now chosen as the successor of one of the most powerful beings to ever exist.

Was it because that Goat Monster had actually been a pathway… to somewhere hidden?

She had this exact thought back then as well, when the boy had rushed in like a savior and taken her place to be swallowed.

But if that was true… then he hadn't saved her out of kindness at all.

He had done it for himself.

Still, it didn't disappoint her.

Because Sylvie knew….

expectations were nothing more than disappointments waiting to hatch.

And she had never expected him to be kind, anyway.

Still, she couldn't help but wonder about how the boy knew about the Goat Monster in the first place?

That question refused to leave her mind.

It seems, I do need to keep an eye on him.

—

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