The snow fell softly as Maria closed the inn's door behind Niklaus and Ethan. She stood for a moment, her eyes following their disappearance into the whiteness.
How strange that boy was...
He wasn't just a passerby. It was as if another universe had crossed her threshold, then left without revealing anything about itself. His gaze was always drifting into emptiness—like a soul trapped in a time not yet born.
Was it really him?
She remembered a harsh warning from the organization's reports: "If you ever come across crimson eyes, do not let him leave without watching him." They believed the owner of those eyes carried something that didn't belong to this world. They thirsted for him, believing he held the power of that person whose records had vanished three hundred years ago.
But now, Maria wanted only one thing: for him to be far away. Alive. Safe.
She sighed and began moving through the empty hall. She wiped the table where Ethan had sat, then looked at the corner of the wall where Adele stood in utter silence.
And suddenly... the air changed.
A cutting cold—as if an invisible presence was piercing her back with icy stares. A painful sting shot through her neck. Her heart trembled. She spun around quickly to look out the window, but there was no one there.
The blood froze in her veins. She looked at Adele, standing silently, almost frozen in place, and immediately understood what was happening.
They had found them.
She ran toward Adele, whose concealment potion was fading. But Maria didn't hesitate. She grabbed the girl's trembling arms.
"Adele, to the closet... now!"
She opened the heavy wooden door and gently pushed her between piles of old blankets.
"Listen to me... don't come out. Even if I call you. Even if you hear my voice out here."
"But..." Adele said, her body still frozen in silence, like someone in shock from memories she couldn't bear.
Maria suddenly bent down and hugged her fiercely—almost breaking. Her tears fell onto the child's black hair.
"Please... my little daughter, listen to me. Don't come out until you hear the sound of fire devouring this place. Then leave without ever looking back."
"Mother... don't leave me," Adele replied in a broken voice. The stillness in her body was turning into fear, her small hands shaking.
Maria froze. As if a word she had dreamed of for six years had emerged from the void, while the hands of death knocked on the door of her world.
"I love you, little one... you must live, no matter the cost. So that I don't die twice."
She closed the door slowly, painfully, then firmly—murmuring a spell that could hide Adele's voice inside the closet for only a few minutes.
She turned. Quickly, she opened a drawer, pulled out magical potions and poisons, then took a piece of paper and a quill. She wrote down spells, stuck the paper to the wall, and before she could catch her breath...
The outer door opened without permission.
The morning wind and cold entered first, followed by two figures: white cloaks, hoods hiding their faces. No features, no identity—only icy eyes that pierced the darkness.
"You little traitor." A female voice, cold, dripping with sarcasm. "Where is the weapon you stole from us?"
Maria stood quickly, clutching the potion bottles.
"She's not a weapon!" she screamed in an unfamiliar tone, saturated with pure hatred. "She's a child!"
The man moved first—his steps shaking the ground. He raised his weapon, a curved axe, and swung it toward her.
But Maria was faster.
She hurled a glass vial. It shattered on the floor and exploded into a stinging purple cloud. The hall filled with choking smoke. The scent of burning herbs and sulfur mixed with the sweat of fear.
"It's not easy to take back what I saved from your hell."
The woman lunged—two daggers gleaming in her fists, plunging toward Maria's chest. The air whistled between the blades.
Maria ducked at the last moment, rolled under the table, and smashed another bottle on the ground—a wall of flame erupted between them. The fire climbed suddenly, leaving a black scar on the old wood.
But the man charged from behind. His iron grip seized the back of Maria's head, clutching her hair and skull, then slammed her head against the wall so hard that the wooden boards splintered under her forehead.
The blood didn't just trickle—it burst from a gash in her scalp, flowing hot over her face, blinding her. She felt her skull crack, her facial bones shifting under her skin. But her heart kept pounding violently.
In that fraction of a second, while pain gnawed at her bones, the survival instinct moved. Her hand trembled toward her pocket. She grabbed the small knife and stabbed the man in the arm—not superficially, but buried the blade until it scraped against bone. She heard the crunch of cartilage as he screamed: "You bitch!" Blood sprayed from his wound like a fountain, mixing with hers on the floor. He clutched his arm tightly and shoved her away. She fell hard onto the ground, her back hitting a broken table, a small splinter lodging into her hip.
Maria muttered as she struggled to stand, her blood-matted hair sticking to her cheek: "You're scared, aren't you?" She wiped the blood from her trembling lips, staining her teeth crimson. "Scared of a little girl... and a boy with crimson eyes."
The woman paused for a moment, as if frozen in place, then looked sharply at Maria. "Is... he here?"
"You won't find him."
Maria raised the last vial in her hand—a blue liquid glowing like a dying heart. She wasn't planning to survive... nor to win... she was only planning for Adele to remain safe.
"And now... burn."
She threw the bottle at them. But the man, despite his wounded arm, raised his axe and deflected it mid-air. The vial exploded before reaching them, spreading a sticky blue liquid over the wooden beams, and the fire ignited fiercely—as if starving.
Thick smoke began choking their breaths, mixing with the smell of burning wood and Maria's singed hair. The wooden pillars became giant torches.
In the midst of the horror, Maria lay on the floor, her hand trembling, her eyelids growing heavy. The man approached her slowly, his boots squeaking on the blazing floor. He raised his weapon and placed the cold blade against her neck. She felt the iron touch her arteries, and the cold of death crawl up from the base of her spine.
"Talk, you bitch. Where's the weapon?" the man spat, while the woman's eyes—sharp enough to pierce the wall—searched for any trace of the weapon they sought, which was Adele.
And at that very moment...
Maria heard a sharp whistle, then a flash of light pierced the man's shoulder. It wasn't just a dagger—it was a long blade that had sunk into his flesh from behind until its tip emerged from the front, tearing the muscle like shredded paper.
The man screamed: "Arrrgh!" Red sparks scattered with the smell of burnt metal and fresh blood.
Niklaus, who had thrown the dagger, now stood before Maria, his black cloak blocking the flames behind him. He didn't utter a word, but his presence was a silent thunderbolt. On his face, there was no anger, no fear—only an empty coldness like the snow outside the window. He immediately understood from their appearance that they were the same people he had met in the cave—Marcus, Eliana, and Rin. But Rin was not here. And that only heightened his caution.
"We're here... hold on," Ethan said as he ran toward the injured Maria, dodging a falling flame from the ceiling.
Eliana hurled her daggers at Niklaus at lightning speed. Niklaus saw the two blades flying toward his chest—in that split second, he felt the world slow down. He saw droplets of blood floating in the air. Then he moved.
He didn't retreat. Instead, he grabbed Marcus by his shirt in the same instant, using him as a human shield. The two daggers plunged violently into Marcus's chest—the first piercing his left rib, the second sinking into his stomach. Niklaus heard the distinctive grating sound of iron cutting through soft tissue. Marcus let out a muffled scream, blood vomiting from his mouth.
But Marcus didn't fall. With a savage motion, he wrenched a dagger from his own body—his flesh pulling away with the blade—and struck Niklaus in the right shoulder with it. The dagger pierced the shoulder until it hit the collarbone. Niklaus felt the cold iron touch his bone and heard a faint crack before the searing pain. The blood didn't just flow—it burst from the wound, soaking his black cloak and weighing it down.
Niklaus didn't retreat. He didn't remove the dagger. Instead, he bit his lower lip until blood ran, then delivered a powerful kick to Marcus's head. The boot struck the man's jaw hard enough to shatter his teeth. A piece of Marcus's tooth flew with a spray of blood, and his head slammed into the wooden wall so violently that the boards splintered under his skull. Sharp wooden shards scattered through the air, some embedding into Niklaus's already wounded shoulder, worsening the bleeding. Marcus remained pressed into the gap in the wall, gasping.
"I knew it was you, you bastard," Marcus muttered with his blood-filled mouth, his voice like a hoarse roar.
Niklaus didn't reply—he had no time to analyze what they knew about him or what they wanted. He saw Eliana moving from the corner of his eye. He rolled aside quickly, pulled a second dagger from the belt on his thigh, and aimed it at Marcus's neck. But Marcus, despite his injuries, kicked Niklaus in the chest with inhuman force. Niklaus felt his ribs groan under the boot, flew backward, and crashed into a wooden table that broke in two beneath him. His back hit the ground hard, and he felt a piece of the broken table lodge into his left side between his ribs. A sharp pain pierced his lung, making him cough blood for a moment.
But he regained his balance quickly. He leaped toward Marcus, intending to deliver a finishing blow. But Marcus raised his weapon—the curved axe—with both hands, and a strange aura began seeping from him, black in color, writhing around his body. He swung the axe to cut off Niklaus's neck.
In an electric instant, Niklaus caught the axe blade with his bare hand. The sharp blade sliced through the flesh of his palm, cutting skin and tendons like torn paper. The blood didn't just flow—it exploded from between his fingers, splattering onto Marcus's face and dripping between Niklaus's severed fingers. He felt the cold iron touch the bone of his palm before he gritted his teeth and pulled hard.
He bit his lips until he heard his back teeth crack. Then he spun with force, lifting Marcus off the ground and hurling him toward the opposite wall. Niklaus jumped into the air, twisted on his heels in mid-air—an impossible movement achieved through sheer will—and delivered a powerful kick to Marcus's skull. Everyone heard the crunch of breaking bones.
At the same time, with his hand bleeding like a fountain, he pulled the dagger embedded in his shoulder—tearing his flesh again, feeling a tendon snap under the skin—then plunged the dagger into Marcus's head from above. The blade pierced the scalp, then the skull, then reached the brain. Marcus's eyes widened for a moment, then became glassy. He fell to his knees, then onto his face, blood flowing from his head, hand, and stomach into one large pool that began mixing with the ash of the fire.