One year had passed since the death of Sofía Douglas de Mondring.
Lusian forced himself to remember everything he knew about the demon cult, pushing his mind to exhaustion in order to reconstruct every lair, every hideout, and every hidden point he remembered from the game of his previous life.
Every incomplete fragment turned into a possibility of death, and every possibility pushed him to keep thinking even though his head hurt as if it would break.
When he was sure of his deductions, he spread a map over his desk and began marking locations with black ink, one by one, as if he were drawing a future filled with graves.
And then his hunt began.
The kingdom did not notice it through announcements or proclamations, but through the smell of blood that began to spread across the peripheral territories.
The temples of the demon cult began to disappear one after another, reduced to ashes before anyone could even confirm what had happened.
The messengers arrived at the capital with trembling hands, unable to hold the full reports while repeating the same phrase over and over again.
"The Duke of the North… has started hunting again."
Because from the afternoon he swore to destroy them, Lusian never stopped.
There was no rest, no pause, no moment in which he lowered his sword or allowed the world to catch up to him.
Only a constant chain of decisions, violence, and calculation, as if time itself did not exist beyond his objective.
In one year, the name Lusian Douglas stopped being just that of a duke.
It became a whisper that no one dared to say out loud in places where light did not reach.
And in those same corners, even demons learned to remain silent when they heard it.
Doubt began to slowly spread among the kingdom's population.
If the demon cult was truly being destroyed, how could they be sure that every one of the slain actually belonged to it and not innocent people?
Rumors grew with every report that arrived in the capital.
More than a hundred dead in some places, entire villages erased from records, and yet no clear proof of who the victims truly were.
Some began to whisper that the Duke of the North could no longer distinguish between enemy and civilian.
Others said that the death of Sofía Douglas had broken him from within, turning him into someone unable to stop his own violence.
But those who had seen the remains of the destroyed temples did not share the same doubt.
Because they were not simple massacres.
They were forcibly interrupted rituals, demonic symbols erased from the ground, and bodies marked with traces of dark energy that no ordinary civilian could withstand.
Even so, uncertainty did not disappear.
Because in times of fear, truth is always the first thing the kingdom begins to lose.
And as the name Lusian Douglas became more feared with every report, a single question began to be repeated in whispers among the people.
Not whether he was killing the enemy.
But whether anyone could stop him if he ever stopped distinguishing them.
The farmers said he traveled accompanied by a white lightning bolt and the shadow of a beast that devoured everything in its path.
The soldiers claimed to have seen him crossing entire forests without stopping, chasing a single sectarian as if the entire world did not exist around that hunt.
The nobles, on the other hand, did not speak of it aloud, because even mentioning it in a closed room seemed to bring an inexplicable misfortune.
But the cultists did not need rumors to understand what was happening.
They knew the truth better than anyone, because they had seen him fall upon them like a storm that did not announce its arrival.
The hidden temples and concealed lairs that the cult had built over decades were destroyed in a matter of months, leaving no time to reorganize or respond.
The dark priests who once acted with total impunity began to flee as if the very earth had turned against them.
And yet, what terrified them most was not the destruction itself.
But the fact that Lusian did not seem to tire, did not seem to deviate, and did not seem to leave survivors by mistake.
The first time Lusian took a life was in winter, when he discovered a high priest of a small village who sacrificed orphaned children, taking advantage of those who had lost their parents after the mana phenomenon.
That day remained etched in his memory with an uncomfortable clarity, as if the cold of winter were still trapped in his bones every time he remembered it.
His sword trembled as it descended, driven more by rage than certainty, and when the blood touched the ground and the body stopped moving, Lusian could not remain standing.
He vomited shortly after, unable to fully comprehend what he had done, and for days he could not even eat normally.
But he did not stop.
Because the fear of losing Elizabeth was stronger than the rejection he felt toward himself.
And that fear became the only impulse that kept him moving forward.
In spring, he annihilated three summoning cores in the Fractal Mountains, where the cult tried to summon small demons through human sacrifices.
Each life he took still felt uncomfortable, but over time that discomfort began to feel more distant, as if his mind were learning to separate itself from the act.
In summer, he destroyed entire caravans of traffickers operating between border territories, dealing in monster cubs infused with demonic mana.
His hand no longer hesitated to kill, and his eyes remained fixed on his enemies until the very last moment, without looking away even once.
In autumn, the act of killing stopped feeling like something exceptional and began to resemble a routine action, almost automatic, like walking or breathing.
By then, in his mind there was no longer any doubt about those he pursued, because he had decided that the life of a demon cultist simply was not worthy of existing.
In autumn, they found a cultist who survived long enough to speak.
He only said four words before dying of fear:
"That child is a monster..."
Between one hunt and another, Lusian did not rest.
Emily continued her campaigns as the Hero of Light, devastating monsters in various villages while trying to stay as close as possible to Lusian, although it became increasingly difficult for her to keep up with him.
She still remembered his hellish training, where she had seen him break more than a hundred swords without stopping, collapse onto frozen ground, and rise again with his hands bleeding, as if something unknown forced him to continue.
Even when she managed to meet him at the castle at night, she used her light power to stabilize his body while he slept, healing the wounds he inflicted on himself without rest.
But every time she saw him like that, she understood she was not healing a resting person, but supporting someone who refused to stop.
Lusian continued consuming meat and mana-saturated extracts in quantities no human should have been able to withstand.
Each bite pushed him one step closer to mana poisoning, yet he continued, forcing his body to level up not through natural growth, but through sheer will and a discipline that bordered on the unhealthy.
Sometimes, Thunder carried him back to the castle when he collapsed unconscious during the night, unable to stand on his own.
And Umber remained at his side in silence, always vigilant, as if understanding that even his lord's rest was just another form of war.
During the journeys, when Lusian had to remain in the kingdom's capital, Acrópolis, Elizabeth accompanied him whenever her responsibilities allowed it.
Her presence had become constant in those days, although he tried to keep her away from dangerous places where the cult might attack her.
Because the fear was still there, hidden beneath everything he had built with blood and effort, growing silently every time he saw her too close to what he could not control.
It was a fear he never said out loud, but one that always remained in his mind like an impossible shadow to ignore.
If the demon cult ever found her, if they tried to take her, or if they discovered what she meant in the future he remembered from the game…
There was no scenario in which he would allow it.
It did not matter if he had to destroy the entire world to prevent it.
It did not matter if it turned him into something unrecognizable even to himself.
He would not allow it.
Not dead.
Not alive.
Not in any reality in which he could still hold a sword.
Snow fell silently over a forest north of the kingdom, covering the trees and paths with a white layer that even softened the sound of footsteps.
A small group of demon cultists ran through the darkness, gasping desperately as they tried to escape something they did not dare look at directly.
One of them tripped in the snow and fell to his knees, cursing through clenched teeth while another pushed him forward to keep moving.
The youngest of the group began to cry, unable to contain the panic that closed his throat.
—Don't look back! Don't look…!
His scream was cut off when a white lightning bolt descended among them, illuminating the forest as if the sky had opened a wound.
The leader's body exploded sideways, completely charred, before he could even finish his movement.
Thunder burst through the trees with a neigh charged with electricity, making the air vibrate with brutal pressure.
Umber appeared beside him like a living shadow, sliding through the snow with visible fangs and a presence that crushed any attempt at resistance.
And then Lusian descended from the mount.
Taller in presence, firmer in posture, and colder in gaze than the winter surrounding them.
His sword reflected the faint light of the forest as he advanced without haste, as if he already knew the end of the scene before it happened.
His eyes showed no mercy, no doubt, and no recognition toward the men trying to retreat.
—You… —his voice came out low as he tightened his grip on the sword— have no right to exist.
Silence lasted only a moment.
The cultists screamed, but their voices were swallowed by the forest before they could fully form.
The battle lasted no more than a few seconds, and when the snow fell normally again, only shattered bodies remained among the trees.