[Location: Morningstar Safe House, Eighth Hell]

With a soft glow, a magic circle bloomed across the stone floor, sigils pulsing like veins of molten silver before collapsing inward the moment Grayfia's heel pressed against it. The circle shattered like a broken mirror, scattering faint sparks of light that fizzled into the oppressive gloom. The silence that followed was deafening, a stark contrast to the roars and shrieks of Gluttony's capital she had left behind.

The Morningstar Safe House in the Eighth Hell was no ordinary refuge. It stood cloaked in forgotten wards, its walls formed not of stone, but of obsidian glass harvested from the Abyss itself—material so resistant to corruption that even the Satans hesitated to tamper with it. Outside its hidden perimeter, the Eighth Hell stretched like a wound that refused to heal. This realm had many names, whispered in dread across infernal courts and mortal cults alike, but the most enduring was "The Abyssal Purgatory of the Damned."

It was called a prison, but that word barely sufficed. The Eighth Hell was a necropolis of broken gods, ancient devils, and forgotten horrors that no other Circle dared to house. Here, the very air was so thick with miasma that even the mightiest demon needed wards to breathe freely. The land shifted like a dream gone rotten—plains that bled black ichor, forests of calcified bones, rivers that boiled without heat. And far above, the sky was a blind void, no stars, no moon, no fire—only an oppressive emptiness that pressed down upon intruders like a predator's gaze.

The safe house itself was buried within this nightmare, veiled by enchantments laid by Lucifer Morningstar's own hands at the start of his exile from the Silver City. Its gates bore the sigil of the Morningstar, a mark that bent the very laws of this Circle to deny entry to uninvited souls. Even the damned, restless and whispering beyond the wards, could only claw at its invisible walls like dogs shut out of paradise.

Grayfia did not linger in the entry chamber. Her silver heels carried her forward, crisp against the black-glass floor, each step echoing faintly as if the obsidian itself remembered who walked upon it. She shed no blood here, summoned no frost. But her presence was still absolute.

Her eyes scanned the safe house halls. Though warded and sealed, though hidden from the crawling malice of the Eighth Hell, Grayfia did not permit herself rest. Not here. Not ever. She moved like a blade sheathed but unsheatheable, every nerve alert, every breath sharpened to its purpose.

Her hand hovered briefly across the wall. The wards pulsed faintly at her touch, resonating with the signature of her master's bloodline. It soothed her—not because the wards calmed her, but because they reminded her that this sanctuary existed to protect him.

Her master.

Dominic.

She let his name form in her mind like a prayer. It steadied her rage. It sharpened her patience. The Satans believed her a legend of slaughter, a queen of annihilation, a nightmare they could neither bind nor kill. All true. But what none of them had ever understood was this: she had never fought for herself. She had never unleashed her frost for her own pride. Everything she did, she did for him.

She moved deeper into the safe house. The air here was still, but alive with wards, and the shadows coiled like obedient serpents. Her senses caught every shift of mana, every pulse of the abyssal winds outside, but within the Morningstar Safe House, there was only discipline. The silence of loyalty.

Her steps carried her to the central chamber, and it was there she paused—because she was not alone.

A presence pulsed at the edge of her perception. Feminine. Familiar. Dangerous.

Grayfia's eyes narrowed.

A ripple of warmth—mocking, lazy warmth—brushed against the frozen air she carried. The wards shivered, not in warning, but in acknowledgement. Whoever had entered had the right to.

A voice drifted from the darkness ahead, and laziness could be felt in the cadence, smooth and deliberate, like silk dragged across steel.

"Well, well… Grayfia Lucifuge," the voice purred, dripping amusement, "I wondered how long it would take you to arrive. I was almost falling asleep waiting. Satan of Gluttony is not your match, so why the delay?"

"Ariandel Belphegor. I wonder how you would like to die?" Grayfia's cold word echoed in the silence of the chamber, sharp as a diamond edge, slicing through the lazy amusement in the air. Her silver hair fanned slightly, catching the faint glow of the wards and reflecting it like frozen fire. Every inch of her posture screamed authority, lethal grace, and unshakable resolve.

A laugh, low and velvety, curled through the shadows. "Die? My dear, Grayfia… you know that's never been my style. I came for him, not for you."

Grayfia's eyes narrowed, ice lancing through the chamber as she took a measured step forward. "Then leave. Leave before my patience snaps. You are far from your comforts, and I am far from merciful."

From the darkness, a figure emerged. Ariandel Belphegor—one of the Seven Satans' infamous daughters, her form lithe yet exuding a danger that seemed to warp the shadows around her. Her long hair shimmered like molten gold, eyes burning a violet that seemed almost to pierce into Grayfia's very soul. She moved like a predator stalking a cornered fox, each step deliberate, elegant, and threatening.

Grayfia did not flinch. "You will not touch him. Not today. Not ever. I have made myself clear."

"Still salty about not becoming his fiancée, huh? Remaining a maid just as you were a millennium ago~"

"You will never—" She wanted to continue, but she sensed something in Grayfia, which, after confirming several times, filled her slothful being with wrathful heat that even her violet eyes couldn't contain. Ariandel froze mid-step, the casual smirk faltering as the icy presence before her thickened like a living storm.

"YOU! YOU DARE CLAIM HIM! YOU TOOK MY RIGHT! YOU TOOK MY BELOVED'S VIRGINITY?!"

A ghost of a smirk made its way onto Grayfia's lips, cold and precise. "I took nothing that was not already his to give," she said, voice low, each word a blade wrapped in ice. "And I will ensure nothing—no matter how entitled, no matter how cunning—ever touches him while I draw breath."

Ariandel's violet eyes narrowed, pupils slicing thin like daggers. Her breath hitched, but this time not from fear. No—this was fury tangled with something raw, something forbidden, the kind of desire that made mortals quake and immortals… falter. "You… you… dare—" She stumbled over her words, hands clenching into fists that seemed to warp the shadows around them. "You… dare stand between me and him?"

Grayfia's gaze sharpened, every ounce of her being coiling like steel tempered in the frost of a thousand deaths. "I don't dare. I exist to stand there. To guard him. No one—fiancée, Satan, or monster—crosses this line." Her voice dripped authority, but beneath it was a cold, unshakable devotion that Ariandel could feel like fire licking through her veins.

For a heartbeat, the world seemed to pause. Even the wards pulsing in the obsidian glass floor seemed to bow to Grayfia's presence, shimmering like a frozen heartbeat.

Ariandel's lips twitched, a sneer forced onto her features as her violet eyes burned hotter, brighter. "You… you are insufferable! How can one woman—one maid—hold such power? How can you… dare?"

Grayfia took a single step closer. The chill in the room deepened, frost crawling along the edges of Ariandel's shadow. Her voice, calm and lethal, sliced through the tension like a guillotine. "Because he is mine to protect. That is my right. You will leave. Now."

Ariandel's chest heaved, the tangled emotions inside her raging. "MINE! HE IS MINE!" Her scream echoed, violet fire flaring around her as the shadows writhed. The air thickened, pulses of mana snapping like lightning against the obsidian walls.

Grayfia's expression did not change. She raised a single hand, delicate and unyielding, and a sliver of frost snaked from her fingertips, coiling around Ariandel like a living whip. "I do not fight for pride, for desire, or for entitlement. I fight for him. Understand this—if you attempt to lay a finger on him, if you attempt to breach this sanctum, you will cease to exist. Not from my wrath—but from the inevitability of the Morningstar's discipline."

Ariandel staggered back, violet flames sputtering under the crushing presence of the ice. Her hair floated unnaturally, gilded strands vibrating with rage, humiliation, and a twisted, unacknowledged lust that burned hotter than her violet aura. "You…! You—this cannot—" she hissed. "He belongs to me!"

Grayfia's silver eyes glimmered. "Belongs? You mistake possession for inevitability. He chooses. And as long as I breathe, you will not force his choice." The frost at her fingertips extended, crystallizing into razor-thin needles that hovered around Ariandel, a silent storm of controlled annihilation. "Now leave. And pray you remember who holds the line between desire and death."

For a long moment, Ariandel's chest heaved, her eyes flicking between the frozen tendrils of Grayfia's frost and the unyielding gaze of the Silver-Haired Queen. Something broke inside her—a fraction of restraint, a spark of recognition that, perhaps, this was not a game she could win. Her lips twisted, a bitter, tremulous grin forming. "…You are… remarkable… Grayfia Lucifuge. But this… this is far from over."

Grayfia's lips curved slightly, the faintest glint of steel in her expression. "It will be over the moment you respect the boundary. Until then…" Her hand flexed subtly, and the frost needles shivered like an orchestra of death. "I am eternal. You are not."

Ariandel froze, a shiver crawling down her spine. Then, with a final, venomous glare, she stepped backward into the shadows. The violet flames around her dissipated, curling like smoke, and in the blink of an eye, she vanished beyond the wards of the safe house.

Grayfia's silver hair swirled around her as she lowered her hand, frost retreating back into nothingness. She exhaled softly, her shoulders relaxing for the first time in what felt like centuries. The central chamber remained silent, save for the faint echo of a distant, unseen heartbeat—the pulse of the Morningstar legacy she protected above all else.

And somewhere, beyond the obsidian glass walls of the Eighth Hell, Dominic's presence resonated faintly, unknowing yet central to the storm Grayfia commanded. The first encounter had ended—not in death, not in victory—but in unshakable warning.

Grayfia's silver eyes glimmered in the dim light. No one touches him. No one defies the Morningstar bloodline. Not while I exist.

***

Stone me, I can take it!

Leave a review, seriously, it helps.

Comments are almost nonexistent. Please have some compassion.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.