After a silent walk through the endless, luxurious corridors of the pitch-black mansion, they arrived in front of a massive door, much different from the ones they had entered before, wide and glowing with strange runes on it. When the door opened with a heavy creak, the freezing cold of the bottomless abyss was not waiting for them. The moment they stepped across the threshold, space and time bent once again. When their feet stepped on soft, mud-mixed soil instead of hard stone ground, they found themselves in a completely different forest, covered with massive pine trees where sunlight filtered through the leaves, having nothing to do with the steep cliffs they had come from. As soon as the momentary nausea caused by the teleportation passed, Lavinia's anger, which she had barely suppressed for hours, erupted like a volcano. Crushing the dry branches on the forest floor in anger with her boots, she quickened her pace and caught up with Yuria.
"I still can't believe it!" grumbled Lavinia, her ocean-blue eyes flashing with anger. "That man... That man cannot treat you like this! How did you allow him to use those disgusting words to you, to have those sick attitudes, My Lady? If only you had let me, I would have ripped out that arrogant tongue of his!"
Yuria continued to walk with unwavering steps on the path among the pine trees. The black-green blindfold on her face was facing straight ahead.
"His mouth has been foul since the first day I knew him, Lavinia," Yuria said, without the slightest shred of emotion in her voice.
"Do not bother. Those words have no power over me, and there is no need for you to be angry."
Lavinia forcefully blew out her breath and crossed her arms over her chest. At that moment, Aelrindel, who was trailing at the very back of the group, was unusually quiet.
The old elf was walking with slow steps, tapping his staff on the ground, his emerald eyes narrowed by the weight of his deep thoughts as he watched his surroundings.
Lavinia noticed this silence, slowed her steps, and turned to him. "What happened to you, Aelrindel? Why are you so distracted?"
Aelrindel sighed deeply and turned his gaze to Lavinia. "I got very strange feelings... from that man, Lavinia. It was not just his pure power or his aura, but the contents of his mind were also a bit chilling."
The old elf paused, the wrinkles on his face becoming more pronounced. "I suppose you do not know about power transfer from gene to gene. Actually, you should have known... In the old days, almost everyone in this world knew this. Then the number of those who knew gradually decreased. Thanks to Luxaris, they erased history as it suited them."
Lavinia frowned and looked at him.
"I had told you before," Aelrindel continued, the weight of that century-old sorrow in his voice.
"My world was quite different from here. I was born there, in the Elven Realm, but I have been in this world for as long as I can remember. They had brought countless elven children here along with me. Their purpose was to raise us in this world, to build uncorrupted, new, and clean military units. At that time, the Last Supplication War had just ignited..."
Aelrindel slightly raised his left hand, which was not holding his staff, into the air.
"Anyway, I am not telling you this to talk about the past. When we were little, the people who raised us taught us how to cast magic, how to use it. They made us comprehend what they called 'pure magic'. Likewise, the vampires' use of the techniques they call 'blood art'... The dwarves' rune and tattoo art... The demons' hell energy, the angels' holy energy, and the monsters' evolutionary instinct... All of these were taught and bestowed upon them personally by their own gods."
A small, golden-yellow fireball appeared on the tips of Aelrindel's raised fingers within seconds.
"But they say," whispered the old elf, his eyes lost in the fire on his fingers, "that the god of humans did nothing for his own race. He did not show them a path. Despite this, humans gained power. Anomalous, supernatural powers at that. The difference was this, Lavinia: While we learned, while we used techniques and magic that someone had already created; their powers emerged with their awakened instincts, through a completely unique, supernatural trick."
Aelrindel slightly enlarged the fireball in his hand, its flame flickering. "On our side, the power of a person's technique is limited by the depth and will of their soul. There can be massive differences between people using the same magic, the same technique. While some people's fire can barely burn a tree, others' fire can burn down a city to ashes."
He instantly extinguished the fireball by clenching his fist and looked into Lavinia's ocean-blue eyes.
"The soul grows with fear and pain, Lavinia. Who knows, maybe one day that fire of yours will grow enough to burn a city too... You might be confused; as I said, our power was taught to us. But the humans' power was completely different, a supernatural anomaly ingrained in their blood."
Yuria, who had been silently listening to them and walking at the very front up to that moment, intervened without slowing her steps at all.
Her voice blended into the cool wind of the forest and etched itself into both of their minds.
"Not every human is born with a special power, Lavinia," Yuria said.
"It is a rare coincidence seen in one in ten thousand, perhaps one in a hundred thousand. But in order not to lose this might they obtained, humans found a trick for this too."
Yuria slightly turned her head back over her shoulder. The weight of the gaze behind her blindfold crushed even the silence of the forest.
"The trick... of passing down special powers to their own children through bloodlines, through genes."
Lavinia's ocean-blue eyes widened for a moment.
The pieces in her mind were loudly falling into place. She slowed her steps and looked toward Yuria's back.
"What do you mean?" she asked in astonishment.
"Then... did Zirel and Nythar also get their powers from their parents?"
Yuria slightly bowed her head.
Her voice was calm as she advanced on the path through the forest. "Yes. I never had the opportunity to meet their families. Because Luxaris was after them again."
Yuria slightly turned her face behind the blindfold back over her shoulder and briefly looked at Lavinia.
"All three of you have been by my side since your childhood. Except for this old man, of course... Although, he wasn't considered all that old when I found him."
At the very back of the group, walking while leaning on his staff, Aelrindel's steps faltered for a moment.
As the century-old wrinkles at the corners of his emerald eyes deepened, a silent, soft chuckle escaped his lips.
Lavinia, on the other hand, frowned while continuing to walk, trying to untangle that knot in her mind.
"Well..." Lavinia murmured with suspicion.
"Isn't this a bad method? I mean, if someone with a special power marries a completely normal, powerless human... Wouldn't the newborn child's power weaken? As the blood dilutes, can the child's power ever reach its full potential?"
"It can," Yuria said, with a smooth and unwavering clarity. "In fact, they could be much more powerful than the parent they got their power from."
Lavinia blinked in astonishment. "What do you mean?"
Yuria took a deep breath.
As the cool air of the forest filled her lungs, her mind had already set off toward the dusty, forgotten memories of centuries ago.
"It can happen due to many factors," Yuria said.
Her voice was heavy, more like a conqueror speaking history itself rather than a storyteller.
"Let me tell you a story..."
"Once upon a time, there was a man. He possessed a pure, destructive fire power and was quite strong. When the day came, he married someone ordinary, with no special power, and they had children. These children could also use the fire power just like their father. Those children grew up, married, and had their own children... As their numbers continued to increase over the years, they formed a clan among themselves."
As Yuria's steps crushed the dry leaves, the silence of the forest was broken only by her voice.
"However, the clan was rotting from the inside. Because most of the children born didn't know how to use their power properly, how to control it. The power in their blood had weakened, their flames had faded. Yet, there was still hope. A young boy among them stepped forward and started telling the others how to use their powers better, showing them a way. At first, the elders of the clan judged this boy, wanting to put him in his place looking at his age and inexperience. But when the boy proved that his own flame was much stronger, much more searing than all the others... the elders were forced to submit and started believing what he said."
Lavinia was listening with rapt attention.
"When the others asked the boy how he managed to be this strong, how his fire was so fierce despite the weakening of the blood... The boy said that he didn't know either."
A subtle, barely noticeable, mysterious smile appeared on Yuria's lips.
"Afterwards, they summoned an outside witch to that village," Yuria continued, adding a slight irony to her voice.
"It was said that this witch could see inside people and their true potential."
"The witch looked at the soul core of everyone in the clan one by one. They might all be coming from the same man's lineage, from the same blood, but the strength and depth of everyone's soul were completely different from each other. While those with stronger souls controlled and shaped that power in their blood much better; those whose souls were weak and wills were feeble could not even stoke that fire properly."
Yuria stopped. She slowly turned her head toward Lavinia and locked her invisible, heavy gaze directly onto the girl.
"Just as Aelrindel said a moment ago, Lavinia... In fact, all powers are bound to the user's soul and will. Even if you are born five hundred years after the first owner of that power, it still doesn't matter. If your soul is sound and your will is like steel, you can be even stronger than your ancestors."
As she continued to walk on the dark path among the massive pine trees, Yuria slightly lifted her head toward the sky, toward the pale light filtering through the branches.
As her voice mingled with the ancient wind of the forest, it took on a deeper, more accepting tone than ever before.
"But even this world is big enough, vast enough, Lavinia," murmured Yuria.
"There are powers that even I cannot understand, so many people who do not fit within the boundaries of reason and logic..."
Lavinia and Aelrindel continued to listen to her silently.
Yuria's steps were as unwavering as ever, but her words carried a heavy wisdom and exhaustion brought by centuries.
"In the past," Yuria said, choosing her words carefully, "they used to call my power 'soul power'. Now, this simple logic might rightfully appear in your mind: 'If the power a living being possesses in this world is directly tied to their soul, then shouldn't Yuria, who commands souls, be absolutely the strongest?'"
Yuria paused slightly.
On her face behind the blindfold, a subtle, pain-filled humility appeared, parting her unwavering marble mask for a moment.
"No," she said with a definitive tone. "I am not. Because beyond all these legends, all these centuries... I am also ultimately a human, Lavinia. I too have a soul that has limits, that bleeds, gets tired, and is crushed under its own weight."
Yuria slowed her steps for a moment. While the cool wind of the forest slightly billowed her black robe, she raised her right hand and looked into her palm as if probing an invisible crack.
"My human body was not created to carry countless souls," she continued.
Her voice was like a heavy and mournful echo resonating in the depths of the forest.
"Every living being carries a different will, a different emotion, a different energy. Every soul I carry inside me gives me immense power, yes. But as the power grows, the soul gets heavier. The limits of the body that cannot bear that immense weight are pushed, and then..."
Yuria slowly clenched her hand into a fist and lowered it to her side.
That unwavering tone in her voice gave way to an accepted truth. "...your shell begins to crack."
These words had come down on Lavinia and Aelrindel like an invisible sledgehammer. That calm walk on the path suddenly stopped.
The silence of the forest became so suffocating that only the howling of the wind among the branches could be heard.
While Aelrindel's hands holding his staff trembled, Lavinia's ocean-blue eyes widened in horror.
Yuria turned toward them over her shoulders.
On her face behind the black-green blindfold, that usual ice-cold authority had been replaced by a definitive clarity carrying the exhaustion of centuries.
"I am telling you," Yuria said, emphasizing the words. "I don't have much time left anymore."
Lavinia felt her breath catch.
A huge lump settled in her throat, her lips trembled. Just as she was about to lunge forward to object, saying, "My Lady, what are you saying...", a very faint but very light smile, which they rarely saw, breaking that cold marble mask, appeared on Yuria's face.
"That is why you must get as strong as possible," Yuria whispered. Her voice sounded more like a tender testament left by a mother to her children rather than a final order given by a centuries-old commander to her soldiers.
"You know... I wouldn't want to leave with any worries behind."