Nothing in life was predictable—not acceptance, not forgiveness, and least of all, resolving hardship. The estate tutor had once compared fate to climbing a mountain trail: just when you believed you'd reached the ice-crusted summit, the clouds would part to reveal another ridge—jagged, taller, more unforgiving. It mirrored the illusion of finality, only to confront you with a harsher truth. For some, it bred despair. For others, bitterness. A terrifying truth dawns on some: the journey, not the destination, matters. So when Marisia looked at Elisabeth—eyes bright, posture steady—she felt a fragile hope stir.

The [Legacy] usually brought relief, after all; even vile [Energy], when properly anchored, could soothe and fortify the body. Nine-year-old demonic baptism: a strategic act. A calculated decision to minimize suffering while maximizing success rates for future knights wielding [Wild Demonic Energy]. Her sister, she thought, would soon stand again at the summit, blazing like the sun—brilliant, untouchable, smiling as though she'd never broken, and the last months of torturous nights never prevailed.

Yet when the constellation emerged above Elisabeth's head—an echo of the night she was born, stars arranged in sovereign symmetry—Marisia's stomach twisted. 'A crown,' she thought, breath catching. Unlike the others gasping in reverence or awe, her desire surged from somewhere deeper. A symbol of command, of destiny unbound. 'I want… this.'

Was there a reason Marisia longed for it? Wasn't she the one who kept Elisabeth from falling apart—who caught each shattered piece and stitched it back together, night after agonizing night? Marisia carried the weight, bore the pain, endured the silent suffering while Elisabeth, brilliant and blessed, merely walked a path paved by talent. Marisia had clawed her way up through shadows, working endlessly, shouldering burdens no youth should carry. Was it love? Was it duty? Blood? No. It was something far more primal—something she could only now name, as she saw Elisabeth stand like a living myth, radiant and adored, her smile powerful enough to turn a desert into bloom. Marisia wanted that. She wanted it all.

'I… was never meant to be like her,' the thought arrived with eerie clarity, and for a moment, Marisia felt detached—elevated—as though the world around her had dimmed into silence. Everyone else faded. It was only her and this bitter, beautiful truth. Insecurity had tethered her for years, disguised as love, as duty. She had helped Elisabeth not because it was right, but because she couldn't bear to compete, stepping into the footsteps of giants. She had made herself small. She could have been the one adored, the one exalted. But how could she, when her siblings—Brutus and Elisabeth, prodigies—stood so far above? Jealousy and fear. That was the root of it. The only true resentment she harbored. And now, in accepting that, something loosened inside her. It was done. Elisabeth would never need her again. She could return to her old life—beneath the tree, in shadow—watching the mountains stretch beyond reach, knowing she was never meant to climb them.

But just as Marisia's smile returned and a single tear traced her cheek, fate turned with brutal grace. The crown above Elisabeth's head—so regal, so full of promise—cracked with a soundless shatter, splintering into fragments that rained like starlit glass. The festive air froze; breath caught in chests; gasps rang out like dropped crystal. Then it came: a deluge of [Wild Demonic Energy] surged from Elisabeth, so vile and unrelenting it seemed to scorch the very air. No words were needed—only silence and understanding. This was not ascension. This was a collapse. The consequences struck instantly—and would echo forever.

'A berserker?' Marisia recognized it instantly—a surge of raw, unrefined madness, as unmistakable as the scent of iron in blood. It was power born of fantasy: strength unbound, bloodlust incarnate. But beneath the myth shimmered futility. Power without control. Beautiful. Terrifying. Useless.

Elisabeth dropped to her knees, her [Aura] detonating outward in jagged pulses, while her [Energy] coiled through the air like smoke from a cursed pyre. Across the hall, Scarlet's smile faltered, collapsing into a frown so deep it seemed carved from stone—unease flickering behind her eyes for the first time.

"Help," Elisabeth whispered, her voice splintered and frail—like porcelain shattering against stone. Kneeling, her posture folded in on itself, she looked up with eyes hollowed by despair, her will fractured beyond recognition. "Please—"

Without hesitation, her father flashed to her side. With practiced form and a strike as fluid as breath, he knocked Elisabeth unconscious, catching her gently before she could fall. His eyes swept the room—no smile, no pretense. "Our little get-together is over," he said, suddenly standing before the arched doors—massive oaken slabs banded in demon-steel. "You may stay for as long as you like and help yourself out," and then he vanished, taking Elisabeth with him into the dark beyond.

Their mother, Scarlet, turned without a word and strode away. The crowd parted instinctively, murmurs rising in her wake, hushed and speculative. She didn't acknowledge them—she never did. Rumors held no weight with her. But in her eyes, just briefly before she turned, there was something raw: not pride, not fury, but loss. The loss of a genius she had crafted with precision over years, now shattered in an instant—decades of ambition slipping through her fingers like ash.

Maids and butlers scrambled across the hall, offering drinks with trembling hands and clearing platters in nervous haste—subtle cues urging guests to take their leave. But the truth needed no performance: no one wished to remain. Not with Scarlet—called the Nightmare—barely concealing the storm beneath her skin, nor with Roland, the Blade of Joy, leaving grim and wordless, his signature warmth extinguished. One by one, the guests began to slip away, silence trailing in their wake like ash from a burned celebration.

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As the last guests departed and servants swept through the hall in hurried silence, Marisia remained still—rooted to the spot where Elisabeth had once stood. Her eyes didn't move, but her body trembled, tears sliding soundlessly down her cheeks. 'Eli,' she thought, the name echoing like a fading star. Only then did she feel the soft brush of her tail against her ankle, swaying side to side. She touched her lips—they felt wrong. Off. Curved. 'Why am I smiling?'

Looking down, Marisia spotted a scrap of white silk—finely woven, patterned with delicate embroidery, half torn, its edges scorched in a fading crimson stain. 'I see,' she whispered, bowing to pick it up, her fingers brushing the burned threads as if reading a forgotten truth. In that instant, the vision of a quiet life in southern Moorgrel dissolved. Something new stirred—sharp, unyielding. A calling. 'She can't do it,' Marisia murmured, not with judgment, but certainty. 'So I will.'

…

With the festivities collapsing into silence, Marisia returned to her room without a word. Her steps were soundless, her lips carefully composed, forbidding even the faintest trace of a smile. Torch-lit corridors unfurled before her like a procession of judgment, and the tapestries—depicting ancestral triumphs—seemed to leer as she passed. Why did she feel something akin to joy? Why, deep in her chest, did a cold satisfaction bloom at her sister's suffering? Elisabeth had broken—revealed for what she was beneath—and only those with unshakable will survive the curse of berserker-styled [Wild Demonic Energy].

It was ironic. "Hahahaha!" Laughter burst from Marisia's throat, ragged and too loud, as she slumped against the wall. Tears streamed down her cheeks—tears born of exhaustion, not joy. "You deserve this, damn it!" she choked out, slamming her fist into the wall. She froze, trembling, tears still falling, no longer knowing what she wanted. "Why can't you just be perfect, damn it!" Her fists pounded again and again, the stone biting until her knuckles split and bled. Finally, she slid down, leaving a smear of blood in her wake, voice barely above a whisper. "Now… what should I do?"

Two choices—endure or soar. The middle path vanished. Either she would continue absorbing Elisabeth's unrelenting bloodlust and madness, enduring for decades as a vessel until her sister's [Skills] matured enough to stand alone—or she would ascend, claim the role of heir, and step into the legacy carved by giants. A choice between obliteration and ascension, between shadow and flame.

"What should I—" Marisia looked up, her golden eyes veiled beneath snow-white hair streaked with scarlet, her thoughts halting mid-breath. Above her, a testament to her rage—an ancestor's portrait, long ignored. Lorient B. Leonandra: same golden gaze, same crimson-marked hair. A shadow in family lore, a footnote to most. Yet she had once wandered the world in silence, hidden in the guises of human and elf, gathering knowledge and returning with miracles and technology. She lengthened lifespans, reduced birth deaths, and eradicated disease—not with blade or strategy, but intellect and unrelenting will. She was never hailed as a glorious warrior, never praised as a cunning tactician. But no one dared ridicule her. Never.

Marisia faced the same dilemma—her martial prowess fell short of even mediocrity, while her administrative talents, though respectable, were hardly exceptional. Too weak for a knight, too lacking for a proper lady. "I got it," she murmured, rising slowly. Her smile vanished, her tears dried. Why force herself into roles like Fenrir or Aetherfang, when she had something else? Something untouched, untested, yet undeniably hers. Straightening her back with newfound clarity, she turned—not toward comfort, but toward potential. Toward the one strength she had never dared push to its edge.

It didn't take many steps to reach her destination—the private armory of her parents, Lord and Lady of the estate. Before its door, Marisia hesitated, though she wasn't sure why. Something beckoned from the other side—not a sound, but a presence, like a whisper in her bones, stirring forgotten cravings. The door, lacquered in deep ebony, stood still and ominous, its bronze handle warm beneath her fingertips, thrumming like a living thing.

«You want this~»

Marisia opened the door, and the creak that followed thundered like the morning bell through the stillness. "I do not want this," she muttered, though her eyes had already begun adjusting to the dark—slits widening, vision tinting with a strangely familiar scarlet hue. Deep within, a rhythmic pulse of dormant magic beat against her skull, slow and primal. "I've never wanted anything like this," she whispered, voice trembling, her words betraying the stirrings of something she didn't yet understand.

«You are right, little girl,» the voice echoed, pulling her forward like a specter, grabbing her arm with a still madness, bubbling. «You want to feel good, aren't you?»

Marisia took her step, one after another. "Yes," something was there, something she desired—warmth perhaps, or absolution. "I like to make others feel well."

«Of course you do~» the specter floated around her as she walked forward, its form a silver mist coalescing into a woman with antler-like horns. «Being loved, being respected, and being adored is quite nice, isn't it?»

Marisia halted before a chest wrought of bone and wood, bound with runes that writhed like living ink. "Was it all selfish?" she whispered. Her hand hovered, the [Aura] within shrieking in recognition—not as a stranger, but as kin. It surged toward her like smoke from ancestral fire, thick with memories of despair, survival, and unrelenting hunger. The air was heavy with the scent of charred copper and old blood. There was no calm here. No mercy. Only a sting in her lungs, and madness in her lineage. And threading through it all—clear, relentless, and blinding—was one truth: desire. The desire to rise. To take. To ascend without pause or apology. To claim what no one would ever give freely.

«Selfish? Quite so~» The specter flew around, its form mimicking a seductress cloaked in twilight. «A bad girl indeed, but I can give you exactly what you want~»

"I guess," Marisia said, her expression unchanging, eyes focused as her hand froze midair. "You see," her tail bristled, lifting as instinct overtook hesitation, her hands pulling back for just a breath. "I don't need your pity." She swallowed hard, then placed her palm on the armor chest—her [Aura] swirling outwards like a frightened ghost bracing for what was to come. "I can endure. And I'll prove this is all I need… to become something greater."

«Oh?» The specter embraced Marisia just as a wave of madness surged through her body. «I remember ones like you.» Marisia doubled over, blood bursting from her lips. Her stomach twisted with agony beyond comprehension, her heart pounding in erratic spasms as hallucinations cackled and shrieked inside her skull. Everything else melted into one horrible nightmare—except for a single, chilling voice. «All but two died,» the specter cooed, eyes gleaming. «And I dare you to close your eyes forever, little one… You seem like fun~»

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