The heavy, absolute silence inside the cocoon of my wings seemed to stretch into an eternity, a fleeting pocket of peace that the harsh reality of our world was already tearing away. As I slowly unclasped my dark membranes, letting the freezing northern gale rush back between us, Elicia stepped back. Her crimson eyes, now sharp and fully adjusted to the dual light of the midnight sky, locked onto the massive, leathery wings folding back against my spine.
A sudden, chilling realization washed over her features. The administrative puzzle pieces in her mind… the high-tier intelligence briefs, the corrupted leaderboard data, the classified reports from the higher districts… all snapped violently into place.
"Eirene... The reports from the lower sectors... you're her. You're the blood-sucking, winged demon causing a systemic anomaly across the Andromeda territory. The one with an active 18 Gold bounty on her head." Elicia breathed, her voice dropping into a tense, terrified whisper as she gripped her staff.
The weight of my hidden sins hung heavily in the air. I looked down at my newly restored hands, then back into her eyes, my voice steady but quiet.
"Yes, big sister, I've been living a double life. The Bureau... they think I'm just a broken, disposable asset they can control. They don't know the full extent of what I've become. They don't know about the wings, or the lifesteal, or the bounty."
Elicia's breath hitched, a look of profound, agonizing dread spreading across her face. She closed the distance between us, grabbing my upper arms with a desperation that made my heart stop.
"Ren... if that's true, then you're in immediate, catastrophic danger, the High Council didn't just put out a public broadcast. They assigned a specialized, S-rank hunter to track the anomaly. Eirene... Elias is hunting you right now."
The words hit me like a physical blow. The blood in my veins completely froze.
Elias. Our big brother. The stoic, unyielding shield of the Rynd household, a man who had dedicated his entire life to the kingdom's military vanguard. The image of his stern face, his heavy armor, and the protective, calloused hands that used to carry me when I was small flashed through my mind. He was out there in the dark, scouring the districts, ready to draw his blade and execute a monstrous, blood-sucking demon… completely unaware that the target in his crosshairs was his own little sister.
"No… Not Elias. He... he doesn't know..." I whimpered, a wave of raw panic tightening my throat.
"He thinks you're dead, Ren! He's channeling all his grief into this hunt because the Bureau told him the demon was responsible for the capital's rot! We can't let this matrix continue. We have to contact his unit. Let's tell Elias about this, right now. If he knows it's you, he'll turn his blade against the Council in a heartbeat." Elicia urged, her fingers tightening on my shoulders as she looked around the dark, empty mountain pass.
"No, big sister!" I yelled, my voice breaking as I forcefully grabbed her hands, stopping her from reaching for her communication cipher. Tears pricked the corners of my dual-colored eyes. "We can't tell him! You know how Elias is! If he finds out what the Bureau did to me—if he finds out he was actively tracking his dead sister to slaughter her—it will completely destroy him. It will break big brother's heart."
I shook my head desperately, my silver hair whipping in the blizzard.
"He believes in the kingdom. He believes in the honor of the vanguard. If we drop this truth on him while he's surrounded by Council spies, they'll execute him for treason before he can even reach us. Please, Elicia... let him keep hunting a ghost. I'd rather stay a monster in his eyes than see his soul tear apart."
Elicia stared at me, her crimson eyes searching my face as the howling wind whipped strands of my silver hair across my cheeks. Behind her spectacles, I could see her mind racing, tracking the impossible timeline of my existence.
Just five months ago, I was completely normal. I was just another human girl, a quiet commoner running through the muddy streets of Town Allure, helping her with the household chores and hiding from the grand weight of the world. Now, as she looked at me, she saw the undeniable physical reality of the kingdom's rot. I had razor-sharp fangs resting behind my lips, a pair of massive, predatory demonic wings folded against my spine, and a dual-colored gaze that belonged to a biological anomaly. To the Bureau, I was a monstrous, blood-sucking entity that needed to be put down or weaponized until I broke.
But as the silence stretched between us, the cold, analytical gaze of the Academy Principal completely melted away. She didn't see an 18-gold bounty. She didn't see a demon. She just saw her little sister.
"You changed so much, Eirene,"
Elicia whispered, her voice cracking with a heavy, suffocating wave of emotion as she gently reached out to touch the side of my face. Her thumb brushed against my lips, right where my fangs hid.
"Where is the little Ren I knew? The girl who used to burn the stew and complain about the winter drafts? You... you've been through an absolute hell, haven't you?"
A fresh tear slipped from her eye, catching the faint indigo light of the midnight sky before freezing on her cheek. She pulled her hand back, gripping her ornate staff with a sudden, fierce intensity that signaled an absolute shift in her allegiance. The kingdom, the vanguard, the High Council… none of it mattered anymore compared to the flesh and blood standing in front of her.
"I promise you, right here and now, I will hide your identity from the Bureau. I don't care what files I have to forge, or what sensors I have to corrupt from the top down. To the rest of Andromeda, the 7th-place Bounty Hunter and the blood-sucking demon will remain completely separate ghosts. I will protect you, Ren. Even if I have to deceive the entire world, and even if I have to keep Elias in the dark... big sister has your back." Elicia said, her voice turning into a razor-sharp, unbreakable vow that cut through the roaring blizzard.
"Thank you, Elicia... thank you so much," I choked out, the words small and fragile as they left my lips.
I leaned forward and buried my face into her neck once more, wrapping both of my fully restored arms around her shoulders and hugging her tightly. The fear that had gripped my chest since my mask shattered finally began to recede, chased away by the absolute security of her promise. I wasn't alone anymore. I didn't have to carry the crushing weight of the Bureau's shadows entirely by myself.
Elicia didn't say a word. She simply held me against her chest, her heavy, fur-lined robes shielding me from the biting northern gale. Within the quiet sanctuary of her embrace, she began softly, rhythmically stroking my silver hair with her leather-gloved hand, her touch gentle and deeply familiar.
For a few precious moments, the blood-stained snowdrifts of the mountain pass, the dead vanguard of Branch 1, and the looming threat of our big brother Elias's hunt all faded into the distance. There was only the steady, calming warmth of my big sister, keeping the monsters of the world at bay while the blizzard howled around us.
The rhythmic, soothing motion of her hand against my hair slowly came to a halt. Elicia gently leaned her head back, her eyes locking onto my heterochromic gaze once again… the brilliant jade-green of my left eye contrasting against the deep, tracing crimson of our family line on the right. The tender, maternal warmth in her expression instantly tightened into a sharp, survivalist focus.
"We need to go, little Ren, We can't stay here. The temporal signature of this battle will already be flashing on the regional monitors." she said, her voice dropping into a low, hurried whisper as she looked over her shoulder at the pitch-black mountain ridges.
My gaze drifted past her shoulder, landing on the Demon Valkyrie Longsword. The massive 4 kg blade was still buried deep in the permafrost, its violet edge glittering coldly against the white snowdrifts where I had used it to pin the apex demon to the earth.
Following my line of sight, Elicia nodded, her jaw setting into a hard line.
"We need to deliver that fallen angel's head to the Bureau as absolute proof of the kill. I will manually handle the administrative reports from the Sisiphon registry. I will log that a high-tier Triangulum anomaly ambushed our position, and that all thirty elite members of the vanguard were killed in action. I will report that only the two of us survived the parameter collapse… and I will officially label you as the high-tier independent asset who slayed the angel."
It was a brilliant, flawless forgery. By putting the official credit under my hidden asset profile, she would justify my presence to the High Council while keeping my true identity buried deep in the static.
"Understood," I murmured, pushing myself up from the blood-stained mud.
My body felt light, powerful, and completely unblemished under the permanent grace of her magic. But as I took a step forward to retrieve the severed head and the longsword, a heavy, dragging sound echoed behind me.
I spun around. Elicia was trembling violently, her hands gripping her ornate staff as she desperately tried to force her legs to support her weight. Her knees instantly buckled, and she collapsed back into the snow banks with a sharp, pained gasp. Her face was completely pale, a cold sweat breaking out across her forehead despite the sub-zero blizzard.
The absolute reality of what she had done hit me like a physical blow. To completely rewrite my mutilated anatomy… to grow back my missing arm, my eye, my ear, my toes, and to permanently erase the necrotic Lifeline curse through a 500% enhancement multiplier… she had completely overexerted her biological limits. She had ruthlessly drained every single drop of her Level 8 Mana Pool until her reservoirs were running on absolute, bone-dry emptiness. The sheer neural shock of the mana bankruptcy had left her lower motor functions completely paralyzed.
She couldn't stand. She couldn't even shift her boots in the drifts.
Looking up at me through her fogged spectacles, the fierce Academy Principal looked fragile, her voice weak but steady as she extended her hand toward me.
"Little Ren… I completely exhausted my parameters. I can't move my legs. Carry me."