Raven didn't seem to be afraid of the sudden death decree.
Instead, his gaze didn't leave the High born vampire, and he said calmly, "I'm giving you one fucking chance. I don't care what the hell you do to me, but leave Nemu out of it. Do that, and things might stay… good for both of us."
"..."
Selencia's smirk finally disappeared.
"It seems I've indulged you far too much, brat," she said, her voice dropping like an icy shard slicing through silence.
"I am the Vampire Duchess Selencia Vryndel. Even the Empress treads carefully in my presence. And you, gutter trash, have the gall to threaten me?"
The air shattered as the final syllable left her lips.
Raven was hit by a strong, stifling surge of bloodlust, similar to a crashing cathedral.
The air thickened, becoming dense enough to choke on.
Raven's body trembled as an intangible pressure smashed into him, and his slender limbs began to quiver from the weight. His bones creaked, making a horrible sound like twigs splitting underfoot.
Blood spurted out his nose, ears, and the corners of his eyes, trailing upward in sluggish, dreamlike ribbons due to his upside-down position. His vision clouded and every muscle in his body trembled. Veins bulged as if about to burst through the skin.
But despite the agony, his blood-soaked eyes never left her.
He gritted his teeth, lips peeling back into a bloody grin as crimson dripped between them. His breathing came heavy and ragged.
"Yeah… thought so."
Selencia's eyes narrowed as she applied more pressure.
Raven's ribs splintered with sickening cracks as the strain increased—
"Selencia!!"
The name struck the chamber like a whip, sharper than a blade and ten times as powerful.
The Vampire Duchess stopped in mid-glare, and her bloodlust disappeared as quickly as a fire drowned in icy water.
Her countenance went blank, almost bewildered, as if someone had pulled the plug on her deadly vibe.
She dropped the cursed spirit without thinking.
The afflicted spirit flew toward Raven like a panicked fluff comet, burrowing itself deep between the ragged folds of his coat and shuddering against his chest.
"Eli… y," Selencia stammered, her voice trembling, not with fear, but something eerily close to guilt.
She turned slowly, almost sheepishly, toward the voice.
At the chamber's shattered entryway stood a petite woman with purplish-black hair that shimmered softly with violet hues, with her dainty hands were firmly on her hips, framed by the fragmented splatter of moonlight.
Her expression was a maelstrom of disappointment, irritation, and a simmering menace that did not require words.
"You still tried something," Eliy growled, his voice filled with fury. "Even after I explicitly told you not to."
Her gaze turned to Raven, still hanging upside down, his body limp and soaked in blood. The stench of iron filled the chamber, thick and cloying.
She pointed at him, her voice low but firm. "Even if he's a male, he's still a child. And even if he had motives, there was no malice behind his actions. Just look at how you—"
She halted mid sentence.
Her lavender eyes widened, the rest of the sentence dying on her lips.
Something was wrong.
Terribly wrong.
Her gaze, which held a hint of pity towards Raven, turned into dread.
She instantly shouted.
"Papilio!"
The name struck like a spell and in an instant her shadow rippled once, then something moved in its depths.
From the ground behind her, a creature emerged, about the size of an average man, but nothing about it was human.
Its wIts wings shimmered with translucent black, twitching with erratic energy. Its body moved without sound or breath, like a ghost skipping across dimensions.
It darted into the air, slicing upward on a gust of conjured wind.
As it neared Raven, all of its numerous eyes turned pitch black.
*Swishh*
Thick tendrils of black mist burst from its wings, writhing through the air like sentient smoke.
They wrapped around the boy in fluid coils, avoiding everything else in the chamber, forming a dense cocoon of shadow and pulse.
Within moments, Raven's mangled form disappeared, now suspended as a living heart inside that living shroud.
The chamber fell silent again.
But the silence broke as Eliy stepped forward, her heels echoing with each step across the blood-soaked floor.
Without pause, she raised a hand and smacked the back of Selencia's head with a dry thwack.
Selencia's regal composure shattered on impact.
Her expression twisted into that of a child caught mid-crime, eyes wide, lips trembling slightly, a noble predator reduced to a sulking puppy.
"H-Honey?…" she muttered under her breath, trying to maintain some shred of dignity.
"Do you even know what you've done?" Eliy snapped.
Selencia shrank, her proud aura wilting into something almost pitiful as she muttered, "But… but my baby called this dirty scum 'darling' in her unconsciousness. I couldn't just leave him alive!"
Eliy stared at her blankly.
Absolutely blankly.
She felt neither anger nor surprise, only the weary emptiness of someone resigned to the world's madness.
Slowly, she reached up and dragged both hands down her own face, as if physically holding back the primal scream building inside.
Wordlessly, she stepped closer, seizing Selencia's cheeks and stretching her pale skin like taffy, attempting to wring the stupidity from her.
"You're a thousand-year-old noble, and this is your reason?" Eliy growled through clenched teeth. "I need a damn vacation."
"Oye, I am not that old!"
"Yeah. Yeah, and I am eighteen years old."
Selencia squirmed in Eliy's grip, her voice dipping into a petulant whine as her cheeks were tugged like soft clay.
"B-But what was I supposed to do? Just let that filthy brat live and waltz into my baby's heart?!"
"You are being a child, Cia," Eliy said flatly. "What you did was stupid, but that's not even why I'm scolding you."
Selencia blinked, confused, still pouting. "…Then for what?"
Eliy let go and folded her arms, exhaling a sigh so heavy it felt like it could flatten the chamber walls.
"Because that boy was about to detonate himself, you idiot."
Selencia's expression froze. Her smug twist of lips stilled, and her fangs receded somewhat.
Her gaze shifted to the cocoon still suspended from the chandelier, thick, vein-laced strands of tainted matter coiled tightly around, softly throbbing, as if they were barely controlling something volatile beneath it.
"…Tch."
But Selencia, ever the duchess, pulled herself back into poise with the stubbornness only centuries could polish.
"Heh," she scoffed, lips twitching into a forced smirk. "So the little shit wasn't bluffing after all. I'll admit, that's rare. Still, a minor explosion wouldn't have even scratched me."
Eliy didn't flinch. Her gaze remained level, unamused.
"And what if the building had collapsed? What if Nyx or Sera got caught in it?"
Selencia huffed, lifting her chin. "This building wouldn't have collapsed. It's reinforced—"
"No, it's not," Eliy cut in sharply. "This isn't your precious mansion, Selencia. It's one of your lesser estates. It's old, under-maintained, sitting in a low-tier human sector. No enchantments, no defensive arrays, no protective artifacts. Just bricks and cement."
"....."
Selencia blinked as the sudden realization hit her like cold water.
How could she forget?
Her mouth opened again, but the words caught halfway tangled in her throat, not because of Eliy's glare, but because of her own stupidity.
"...I am sorry." In the end, she finally accepted her fault.
"That's the problem, you are all brawn and no brain." Eliy muttered, pinching her nose, her voice low and weary, glaring daggers straight into Selencia.
Despite being a cold-blooded ancient vampire, a bead of sweat trickled down Selencia's back.
She shifted under the weight of that stare like her soul itself was being held accountable.
To deflect it, she tilted her head toward the cocoon above, then back at Eliy, blinking as if trying to clear her own confusion.
"…But he didn't have anything on him. No bombs. No runes. Not even a glyph. I scanned him. Wasn't he just bluffing?"
Eliy exhaled through her nose, not missing Selencia's obvious attempt to change the subject.
She folded her arms again with the weariness of someone cleaning up after her wife's mess.
"He didn't need a bomb because he is the bomb."
"What?"
"He's a 'curse' user."
The words landed with the finality of a funeral bell.
The chamber fell silent. Even the air seemed to pause.
Selencia's crimson eyes widened like an owl, even though she was a vampire.
Then narrowed sharply, her mind grinding against the dreadful implications.
"…Impossible," she muttered. "A boy?"
Eliy didn't answer immediately. Her indigo eyes drifted toward the pulsing black cocoon swaying from the chandelier.
For a moment, she just stared, as if trying to see beyond its shroud. Her brow furrowed slightly, and she chewed the inside of her bottom lip in rare hesitation and a strange anticipation.
Then she finally turned back to Selencia and said quietly,
"He's an anomaly."