As Vincent staggered a few dozen steps away, many heads turned in his direction.
The Northern Commander’s eyes flickered.
The axe in Vincent’s hands had shattered. Blood ran from his nose while both arms hung at unnatural angles beside his body.
The white line he created still stretched through the ruined street, splitting monsters, carts, and the broken wall beyond.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Railguards stared at the path carved through the monster tide. The Captains nearest the breach had turned away from their battles. Even the creatures entering Copper Town hesitated before the lingering pressure within the slash.
The Northern Commander briefly looked at Vincent, then turned to Anastasia.
The blonde maid lay farther down the street with her body over several children. Rubble surrounded her, and monsters still moved through the alleys between them.
The nearest Railguards were helping the injured while the remaining Captains had spread across the slums.
Nobody stood beside Vincent.
The opportunity had appeared so perfectly that it felt less like chance and more like a reward.
Duke Brunelle had instructed him to observe the Young Count.
He had observed enough.
The drunkard who humiliated the Knight Order was gone. In his place stood someone who commanded soldiers without hesitation, earned the loyalty of common guards, and possessed a power capable of cutting through an entire monster tide.
If Vincent D’Arc survived tonight, restoring the old order would no longer be a matter of asking forgiveness from a foolish heir.
The Northern Commander tightened his grip around his sword.
Then he ran.
...
Anastasia raised her head.
Dust covered her hair and uniform. One arm remained wrapped around the smallest child beneath her while the other pressed against the road.
She first looked toward the monsters.
Then toward Vincent.
The young master was on his knees, slowly collapsing forward.
A tall figure, the Northern Commander rushed toward him.
Anastasia was somewhat relieved knowing there was some help.
The Northern Commander got closer. He could catch Vincent before he struck the ground.
But then Anastasia saw the sword held low beside his leg with its edge turned forward.
The Commander wasn’t looking at the monsters or the surrounding streets. His eyes remained fixed upon Vincent’s back.
Anastasia’s pupils contracted to a needlepoint.
"Young master!"
She pushed herself up.
The children beneath her cried out as rubble rolled from her back. Her boots slipped against the blood-covered road, and she caught herself with one hand before lunging forward.
The Northern Commander was already halfway there.
...
Several breaths earlier.
D’Arc Manor, the Capital.
It was close to midnight, but every candle inside Vivienne’s study remained lit.
Reports from D’Arc County covered half of her desk. A cup of tea sat untouched near her hand while Linda stood behind her, reading the latest telegram from Copper Town.
Vivienne’s finger stopped upon a line of text.
Something had changed.
It was not just a premonition.
Vivienne didn’t need one.
She felt the deaths of every creature within the universe.
An old woman taking her final breath in a distant village.
A soldier bleeding beneath the snow of another continent.
A whale sinking into the lightless depths of an unnamed ocean.
A child whose fever had finally overwhelmed her body.
Death did not speak to Vivienne.
It existed because she did.
Within that endless certainty, a familiar presence suddenly weakened.
Not toward death.
Not yet.
But close enough that Vivienne immediately lowered the report.
"Vin..."
Linda looked up.
Vivienne swept one hand across the desk.
The reports, teacup, and candleholders disappeared.
The dark tabletop rippled.
Mountains rose from the polished wood. Rivers spread between them while railway lines and towns appeared across a living representation of D’Arc County.
The Highlands formed along the north-eastern edge.
Copper Town stood beneath Vivienne’s fingers, surrounded by a black tide.
Countless pale lights covered the county.
Every light represented a death through which Vivienne could look, enter, or impose her authority.
There were thousands around Copper Town alone.
Dead wolves lay beside the walls. Serpents had been killed throughout the grain district. Mutated beasts littered the western slums.
Across Copper Town, threads that had remained loose for years began tightening.
The fear brought by the monster tide had awakened old grievances.
Vivienne vividly saw karmic threads.
...
Inside the railway warehouse, one of the elderly men pulled the straw mattress toward himself.
"I told you this one was mine!"
The other held the opposite end.
"And I told you that your coat was lying elsewhere!"
They pulled harder.
The mattress tore.
Straw scattered across the wooden floor.
The first elderly man stumbled forward and struck the second across the face.
The blow was weak, and the situation could still be salvageable with words.
But then, a metal cup struck his temple.
The old man fell beside the torn mattress and did not rise.
His opponent stared at him.
Around them, the warehouse erupted.
The farmer who had complained about the bread shoved a volunteer away from the pots.
"You gave them more!"
"They have four children!"
"I don’t care!"
He grabbed an entire loaf from the serving table.
Another father caught his arm.
The two crashed into a stack of crates.
Someone’s bowl spilled.
A woman accused the family beside her of stealing it.
Two cousins began fighting over the abandoned cart they had argued about earlier. A tenant found his landlord among the refugees and demanded the three months of excess rent again.
The landlord laughed in his face.
The tenant drew a small knife.
Railguards rushed toward the first fight.
Before they reached it, another began behind them.
Then another.
Old debts, betrayals, insults, and unpaid promises surfaced together.
The Railguards could not maintain order anymore even if they tried.
...
Inside the residential district, the two neighboring shopkeepers had returned to the alley.
Their wives stood behind them once again.
The Railguard patrol that separated them earlier had been summoned toward the western slums, leaving the narrow passage empty except for the four residents.
"You thought I would forget?"
The first shopkeeper pointed at the man opposite him.
"My brother was still warm in his grave when you climbed into his wife’s bed!"
The other man held an empty glass bottle by its neck.
"She was grieving."
"You were married!"
"So was she."
The dead man’s brother stepped forward.
The bottle struck the side of his head.
Glass shattered.
He stumbled against the alley wall and slowly slid down it. Blood ran from beneath his hair and spread across the stones.
His wife screamed.
The second shopkeeper stared at the man lying before him.
He had not intended to strike that hard.
At least, that was what he told himself.
The injured man tried to rise.
The shopkeeper picked up the broken bottle and drove it downward.
Once.
Then again.
The body stopped moving.
Silence filled the alley.
The murderer breathed heavily while staring at what remained in his hand.
Then his gaze moved toward the dead man’s wife.
She backed away.
He had comforted one grieving widow before.
Now there was no brother left to interfere with the second.
...
New pale lights appeared upon Vivienne’s tabletop.
One death became three.
Three became seven.
Through the eyes of the murdered shopkeeper, Vivienne saw the bloodied alley.
Through the old man lying beside the torn mattress, she saw the warehouse descending into chaos.
Through a tenant whose landlord had wrestled the knife away and buried it in his stomach, she saw Railguards running between disputes faster than they could end them.
The karmic threads tightened further.
Every unresolved grievance within Copper Town was being forced toward its conclusion.
Vivienne spread two fingers.
The map expanded.
The western slums grew across the tabletop until individual streets and buildings became visible.
Linda stepped closer.
A translucent field covered D’Arc County.
It resembled an enormous overturned bowl made from threads too thin for ordinary eyes to perceive. Every person, monster, injury, promise, hatred, and unpaid debt within the county was connected somewhere inside it.
Some threads were loose.
Others had been pulled so tightly that they seemed ready to snap.
Linda’s expression changed. "A karmic dominion..."
Vivienne nodded and glanced at the field.
Her gaze followed its innumerable threads toward a seated figure in the distance.
The figure did not move.
Heavenly laws had gathered around her, separating her from every hostile thought and action inside the dominion.
Vivienne looked at her once.
Nothing else about the seated woman mattered.
Vivienne’s attention returned to Copper Town.
Through the eyes of a dead wolf, she saw residents fleeing through the slums.
Through a serpent with an iron bar lodged beneath its scales, she saw the breached wall.
Through the corpse of a horned bear, she saw Vincent.
Her son was on his knees.
Blood covered his face.
Both shoulders had been torn internally. His veins had suffered damage, and many of the muscles within his arms could no longer respond.
Linda’s eyes widened.
"The young master..."
"He used a power his body could not withstand."
Vivienne’s voice remained calm.
Vincent’s injuries were severe but not fatal.
A few medicines and proper treatment would restore him. Even without those things, his life was not presently in danger.
Anastasia was nearby.
Vanessa rested within the guardroom.
The Commanders and Captains Vincent had summoned surrounded the district.
Vivienne looked across the scene again.
One figure moved.
The Northern Commander broke away from the others.
He ran toward Vincent.
At first, his actions appeared natural.
Vincent had collapsed. The Commander was close enough to catch him and pull him away from the battlefield.
Vivienne’s gaze shifted toward the sword held against his leg.
The angle was wrong.
The grip was wrong.
He was not preparing to defend Vincent.
He was preparing to thrust.
Vivienne’s blue eyes widened.
The tabletop cracked beneath her fingers.
"Vincent!"
Every candle in the study went out.
The manor shook.
Windows shattered throughout the corridor while the ceiling above the study split from one wall to another.
Vivienne’s body scattered into pale fragments.
She entered the death of the horned bear.
Linda stood completely still.
She had witnessed her Madam erase armies; watched rulers crawl before her and gods lower their eyes, but she had never heard her voice tremble so much.
A pale rupture remained where the Madam had disappeared.
It was closing rapidly.
Linda abandoned the telegram and rushed through it.
...
The Northern Commander reached Vincent.
Vincent could hear someone approaching, but his head was too heavy to lift.
His body no longer listened.
A hand caught his shoulder.
The Northern Commander stopped him from falling forward and pulled him upright.
’Just in time...’
Vincent opened his mouth.
He wanted to ask the man to help Anastasia and the children first.
Only blood came out.
The Commander stepped closer.
Steel entered Vincent’s back.
Vincent’s eyes widened.
The blade tore through his heart and emerged from his chest.
For one second, he did not understand what he was seeing.
A sword tip rested before him.
Blood ran along its edge and dripped onto the road.
His own blood.
Vincent tried to breathe.
His lungs refused.
The Northern Commander leaned closer, supporting his weight as if the two were merely wounded soldiers relying upon one another.
There was no rage on the man’s face.
No madness.
Only satisfaction.
The Young Count had suspended thousands of men because one officer had mutilated a child.
He had stripped proud knights of their insignias and replaced their Order with common Railguards.
He had then summoned the same men back and expected them to follow his instructions without complaint.
Now he would never restore the Knight Order and would never investigate the spies within it either.
More importantly, the Duke had asked him to observe, but he ended up accomplishing far more.
From this moment onwards, the Duke would never need to fear what Vincent was becoming.
The Northern Commander pulled the sword free.
Vincent’s body began to fall.
"Young master!"
Anastasia arrived.
The Northern Commander turned toward her.
He had enough time to see her blonde hair, but in the next instance, the world flipped upside down.
The street rose into the sky.
The gas lamps descended beneath him.
For one confused heartbeat, he wondered whether the ground beneath Copper Town had overturned.
Then he saw a headless body standing where he had been.
It still held a bloodied sword.
His own face reflected faintly across the blade as his severed head struck the road.
The Northern Commander never understood what had happened.
Anastasia did not look at him again.
She threw her sword aside and caught Vincent before his body reached the ground.
Her knees struck the stone.
"Young master!"
Blood immediately soaked through the front of her maid uniform as she cried out again.
She pressed both hands against the wound.
It did nothing.
The sword had passed through Vincent’s heart.
"Vincent!!!"
For the first time, this name left her mouth without a title.
Vincent’s eyes moved faintly.
Strands of blonde hair hung above him.
Anastasia was speaking, but her voice had become distant.
Vincent could no longer understand the words.
Her face blurred.
The light disappeared.
His body became still.
Anastasia pressed her ear against his chest.
Nothing remained.
A red system window appeared before him.
He could no longer see it.
[Host death confirmed.]
[Unidentified Anchor destabilization failed.]
[Fate Trajectory restored.]
Anastasia did not notice the words either.
For several heartbeats, Copper Town disappeared from her awareness.
There were no monsters.
No Railguards.
No Captains staring at the Northern Commander’s headless corpse.
There was only Vincent.
It had been a week.
Merely a week since he woke and asked her to accompany him to a masquerade ball.
It did not feel like a week.
She had served him tea.
She had listened to him complain about work, food, his height, his family, and many more mundane things.
She had watched him sleep on tables and floors because he refused to leave unfinished work for the following morning.
He had ordered her to sit and eat with him.
He had trusted her with fears he could not express before Madam or Leona.
He had held her while she slept.
He kissed her.
Her first kiss.
And she kissed him back too.
The memory struck harder than everything else.
Anastasia’s hands trembled against his coat.
She had lived four lifetimes.
She had crossed kingdoms, watched empires fall, and stood beneath skies filled with fire.
She had met heroes.
Saints.
Monsters wearing human faces.
Not one of them had changed as much within several years as Vincent had within a single week.
Her mind moved farther.
She knew what followed his death.
Madam, no, Countess Vivienne D’Arc would withdraw from the world.
The young lady, Vanessa D’Arc would follow her.
House D’Arc would eventually collapse again.
Leona would lose the only person who had ever allowed her to forge for herself.
Eventually, Duke Brunelle, the Royal Family, or the Empire would place chains around her talent and call those chains duty.
The kingdoms would starve.
The sky would burn.
Every preparation Anastasia made would solve one disaster and allow another to destroy everything behind her.
She had already tried.
Four times.
She had never been enough.
Vincent had begun changing the trajectory without even knowing what awaited them.
Without him, this iteration had already failed.
Suddenly, the air changed.
Every living creature inside Copper Town froze.
The stones beneath Anastasia’s knees trembled.
The monsters beyond the western wall stopped running.
Some collapsed where they stood. Others lowered their bodies until their heads touched the ground, as if instinct alone had forced them to bow.
The surviving Captains struggled to breathe.
Railguards dropped their rifles and grabbed their throats.
The world trembled before Death.
Pale fragments gathered beside the two halves of the horned bear.
Vivienne appeared.
Her black hair rose despite the absence of wind. Her blue eyes found Vincent’s body before the final fragment of her form had settled.
The karmic dominion reacted.
Countless threads across D’Arc County pulled toward Vivienne.
The field had been created to force unresolved causes toward their conclusions. Every injury, hatred, debt, and promise within it had been made heavier.
Then the embodiment of Death entered.
The dominion attempted to weigh her authority.
It could not.
The threads stopped.
For an instant, the entire karmic field remained perfectly still.
Then every thread reversed.
The karma surrounding Vivienne did not merely return to its source. It multiplied as it travelled, carrying the weight of every death inside the dominion back through the connections that had forced them together.
The inverted bowl covering D’Arc County shattered.
...
Far from Copper Town.
Celeste remained seated.
Her eyes opened.
Blood erupted from her mouth.
The purple dress covering her chest turned red.
The heavenly laws gathered around her flickered while countless reversed threads tore into her body.
Blood ran from her eyes.
Then her ears.
Her nose.
Every opening upon her face bled as the karmic dominion collapsed through its creator.
Celeste tried to raise one hand.
Her fingers moved less than an inch.
The backlash forced every consequence she had accelerated back upon her at once.
Her body folded forward.
The laws protecting her shattered.
Celeste struck the ground and did not move again.
The dominion vanished.
...
Deeper within the Highlands.
A dark dragon lay curled around an enormous egg.
Wounds covered its body.
Some had remained open for years. Others had been slowly spreading through its organs, injuries that should have taken another three years to finally kill it.
The karmic dominion had shortened those years into days.
Vivienne’s arrival completed what remained.
The dragon’s chest rose once.
Its eye opened faintly.
The tail wrapped around the egg loosened.
Then it fell.
The weight of the limb struck the ground and shook the surrounding trees.
The dragon stopped breathing.
For several moments, the forest remained silent.
The oppressive aura that had driven every monster from the Highlands disappeared.
The first creatures returned cautiously.
A wolf approached the corpse and bit into an open wound.
Nothing happened.
More monsters emerged between the trees.
Serpents climbed across the dragon’s scales. Boars tore at exposed flesh while winged creatures descended upon its eyes.
The corpse disappeared beneath them.
Several monsters found the egg.
Claws scraped across its shell.
A horned beast struck it once.
A crack spread across the surface.
It struck again.
The shell broke.
A small dragon fetus and warm liquid spilled across the ground.
The monsters swallowed it and their snouts tore through the shell’s opening, devouring everything else.
...
Anastasia’s pupils contracted.
The pressure surrounding Copper Town had changed.
The strange force that had obstructed her movements was gone.
Everything was free again.
Too late.
Vivienne stood near the horned bear’s corpse.
Linda appeared through the closing pale rupture behind her.
Vivienne looked at Vincent.
Her expression was unlike anything Anastasia had witnessed before.
It was not merely rage.
It was grief before the mind had accepted loss.
Vivienne took one step, ready to resurrect Vincent.
The road cracked beneath her heel.
Anastasia did not know Vivienne’s motive.
In every iteration where Vincent died, Vivienne had withdrawn from the world and allowed everything around House D’Arc to collapse.
Anastasia had never seen resurrection.
She had only seen what came after.
Vivienne would destroy everyone responsible afterwards.
The County would collapse.
The disasters would resume.
Vincent would remain dead.
Anastasia had only a few seconds to decide her next steps.
She had the answer to her problems inside her mouth.
A tiny poison capsule rested beneath one of her back teeth. She kept it for the day she was captured, restrained, or placed in a situation where death was preferable to what came next.
She had never used it.
Not across four lifetimes.
Vivienne moved again.
"Move away."
Her voice made the surviving Captains collapse.
Anastasia looked down at Vincent.
Her teeth closed.
The capsule broke.
A bitter liquid spread across her tongue.
Her body reacted immediately.
The poison entered her bloodstream through the tissues beneath her mouth. Her heartbeat accelerated once, then lost its rhythm.
Vivienne’s eyes shifted toward her.
She understood.
"Stop!"
Anastasia lowered herself onto the road and pulled Vincent against her chest, cradling his head beneath her chin.
Vivienne was just a breath away.
Anastasia tightened her arms around Vincent.
She could not resurrect Vincent nor could she save this ruined timeline anymore.
Her own life was the only thing she still possessed.
It was the only price she had any right to pay.
Vivienne’s fingers were almost upon them.
"No!"
Anastasia’s failing heart gave one final beat.
Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes and disappeared into her hair.
"I’m sorry, young master..."
Her arms weakened, but she refused to release him.
"This is the only way I know how to save you."
Vivienne reached them.
Anastasia looked at Vincent’s motionless face.
"Please forgive me..."
The last of her strength vanished.
She rested her cheek against his hair and held him as closely as her dying body allowed.
After four lifetimes, she still had no power to save the person who mattered most.
She could not perform a miracle.
She could not command the world.
She could only offer her life and hope it was enough.
Because in the end...
"...I’m just a maid."
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