Another month slipped by like mist between fingers.
Time in the cavern was strange — it moved differently, almost sluggishly, yet in the blink of an eye, whole days vanished into the cold, echoing dark.
Vergil sat cross-legged near the dying embers of a small fire, a sharpened stone clutched carefully in his hand.
His breathing was slow and even, the quiet hum of focus filling the space around him.
He could walk properly now.
There was still a slight awkwardness, a hesitation in his movements when he had to balance his weight differently, but it no longer dominated his every thought.
He was adjusting.
Learning.
Accepting.
It was strange to look down and see only one arm where there had once been two.
Stranger, still how natural it was beginning to feel.
He shifted, grabbing a smooth, flat rock from a small pile he had collected.
Setting it down in front of him, he began to carve slowly, each letter precise, each sentence deliberate.
Writing.
That was one of the things he did now.
Luminare had encouraged it — at first casually, then with a gentle insistence — telling him that it would strengthen his mind, sharpen his thoughts.
He had started with simple things: the alphabet, basic words, clumsy sentences scratched into stone in the first month
Now, after anothing month of practice, Vergil could form complex ideas, weave his thoughts into more intricate shapes.
He carved, pausing every few moments to reframe his thoughts.
Another month had passed by in an instant.
Vergil was able to walk without too much difficulty now.
A couple of days ago, they found a glowstone board — well, that's what Luminare calls it, since it's got crystals that glow just faintly — and we ate that.
It was quite the delicacy.
Vergil leaned back, stretching his shoulders.
The 'glowstone board' had been a lucky find.
Half-buried under a collapsed section of the cavern wall, it looked like a slab of wood fused with veins of living crystal, humming faintly with energy.
Luminare had sliced it open with a single swipe of her claw-tipped hand, revealing a glistening, tender core inside.
It was sweet — sweeter than anything Vergil had tasted before — and filled him with a warm, vibrant energy that lingered in his chest for days.
He smiled faintly at the memory, the taste still vivid on his tongue.
Not every day was so lucky.
Most of the time, meals were scraps: stringy meats from cave beasts or sour fruits from twisted vines.
Still, they survived.
They endured.
Vergil picked up his stone again and continued carving.
My learning of literature has developed.
I can write complex sentences now.
I don't know if I have anything more to learn.
He paused, frowning thoughtfully.
Of course there was more to learn.
There always would be.
Language wasn't just about sentences — it was about stories, about making someone else feel what you felt.
He understood that much, even if he didn't yet have the words for it.
But for now, he was proud of how far he'd come.
Proud in a quiet, hidden way he didn't need to explain to anyone.
Vergil ran a finger along the latest lines he had carved, feeling the rough grooves under his skin.
Proof that he was still growing.
Still becoming something more.
He set down the stone and looked at his right side — the empty sleeve tucked neatly against his torso.
He exhaled slowly, remembering.
I also tried using the Authority of Transformation to regain my arm, but it didn't work.
The system said that it can mutate and transform body parts that exist, not make new ones.
That day had been a painful lesson.
Vergil had stood in the cavern's heart, Authority thrumming under his skin, pouring all his willpower into the broken, missing part of him.
He had felt something stir, a desperate itching sensation in the phantom limb — but when he looked, there was nothing.
No new arm.
No miracle.
The system's cold words echoed still in his mind:
Cannot create that which does not exist.
He did not scream, nor did he try again.
Afterall, he was left was a strange, hollow peace.
Acceptance, once more.
Vergil scratched another few lines onto the stone.
I still visit the spike and look up, but now I have no more regrets.
I'm quite happy how I am now.
The spike.
It rose from the deepest point of the cavern, a colossal black monolith. For history it was quite important to Vergil.
He still went there sometimes, sitting at its base and gazing upward, To the outside
But he no longer wished to go
No longer dreamed of impossible things.
He was who he was.
One arm.
A broken past.
A future unwritten.
And somehow... that was enough.
Vergil smirked as he added the next part.
Maybe there is still something in me that wants to get stronger, but I'm mostly over it.
I haven't eaten anything with Predation in a while.
Predation — that primal, raging hunger — it slept within him like a coiled serpent.
He could feel it sometimes, stirring when he was near weaker beasts that have been killed. Wanting to eat the corpses, as if screaming to let them feast.
But he resisted.
Not out of fear.
Not out of shame.
Simply because. Their was no reason to eat with predation. He could no longer become the strongest. Afterall.
He was still Vergil.
And Vergil was learning to live without drowning in hunger.
Still, life wasn't without its minor annoyances.
Vergil grinned sharply as he wrote the next line, imagining the look on a certain weapon's face.
That female spear keeps bitching at me.
The cursed spear — Luminare's weapon — never missed a chance to spit venom at him.
"Devil-spawn," it would hiss.
"Filthy abomination."
"Pathetic wretch clinging to masters pity."
Vergil had long since learned to tune it out, treating its endless insults like background noise.
Sometimes he even found it funny — the way the spear's rage burned so brightly while he, the supposed target of its hatred, barely cared anymore.
He chuckled softly to himself, tossing the carving stone aside and leaning back against the cool rock wall.
The fire crackled low, casting long, flickering shadows across the cavern.
Luminare slept nearby, her chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm, wrapped in heavy furs scavenged from cave beasts.
The blood baby, too, was curled up against his side inside his chest, its presence a soft, pulsing warmth.
Vergil stared up at the rough ceiling overhead, the veins of faintly glowing crystal threading through the stone like distant stars.
This was his life now.
Hard.
Lonely.
Beautiful in a way that no one else would probably ever understand.
He picked up another rock, a blank one, and began to write again — slower this time, letting each word settle fully in his mind.
I wonder what comes next.
I feel like something is changing.
Maybe it's me.
Maybe it's the world.
Maybe it's both.
He closed his eyes, listening to the heartbeat of the cavern, the steady breathing of his sleeping family, the distant drip of unseen water.
Somewhere, far above, the surface world churned on, unaware of the boy carving his dreams into stone.
But that was fine.
'I should go for a bath.' Vergil said as he headed up,
Vergil kept going and took some turns to get their
The water came from the ground, it was clean to drink too, but we made a separate area to drink by encasing the bathing area and drinking area.
Vergil took of his clothes with his left hand and sat in the bath. He was relaxed and he started humming.
Meanwhile, back in the cottage...
The door creaked open against the dying wind.
Luminare stepped inside, her cloak tattered and heavy with the scent of sweat and something else — something older, bitterer.
She looked exhausted, a hollowness clinging to her frame. Whatever she had done outside had drained not just her body, but her very soul.
Without a word, she stumbled across the room and collapsed onto the edge of the bed, her armour, pieces of it faintly clinking against the wood.
"Master," the spear hummed, its voice soft, almost tentative.
"Where did you go?" it added, this time filled with a quiet worry.
She said nothing. Her breath hitched.
Then, a terrible sound escaped her —
A violent retch — and she lurched off the bed, staggering to a hand-carved wooden bucket in the corner.
The spear trembled in alarm as Luminare vomited, not bile, but mouthfuls of shimmering blue blood, thick and unnatural.
It splattered into the bucket in sickening waves.
"Master!" the spear cried out, its glow pulsing violently, the stone at its core beating like a frantic heart.
After what felt like an eternity, Luminare wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve and sank back onto the bed, her breathing ragged.
Her face, normally pale, was now ashen, a dead-white mask of exhaustion.
Still, she waved a hand dismissively.
"It's fine," she rasped, her voice colder than the winter winds outside.
"Master, your injuries have worsened," the spear vibrated, desperate.
"You can't keep doing this! Your soul-- your body--!"
"I was fixing the space-time array," she said flatly.
The spear buzzed angrily, distrust dripping from its tone.
"Master... don't lie to me.
It doesn't cost that much to adjust the array. Not enough to bleed your life out."
Luminare's eyes, dim and distant, flickered slightly.
"Is Vergil around?" she asked, her voice quieter, something unreadable beneath it.
The spear hesitated, then spoke carefully.
"Master, why... why do you care for him so much?"
There was sorrow in its vibration, a wounded sound.
Luminare rose unsteadily and crossed the room.
The spear, ancient and loyal, leaned slightly toward her, and she placed her forehead gently against the stone embedded in its shaft.
Her breath was warm against it as she whispered — words too soft for the air to catch.
When she pulled away, the spear recoiled violently, its glow flaring in horrified disbelief.
"Master, please think this through!" the spear cried.
"You can't be serious!
If you do this, it will disgrace you forever— you will become a laughingstoc--"
"Say another word," Luminare interrupted, her voice suddenly cutting through the cottage like a blade of frozen steel,
"—and watch what will happen."
The spear froze.
It trembled in the air, not daring to vibrate another syllable.
In that moment, the warmth, the exhaustion — all of it — was replaced by a cold, lethal pressure that filled the room.
Luminare stood tall again, as if her will alone stitched her broken body upright.
Her expression was as serene as ever — but there was death behind her eyes.
Without another glance, she turned and walked toward the door.
The wood groaned as she pushed it open, cold night air rushing in.
But just before she left —
She paused.
She turned her head slightly, just enough for the spear to see the sharp glint of her eye, and brought a gloved finger to her lips.
"Say a word about this to Vergil," she murmured sweetly, almost playfully.
Her lips curled into a smile — but there was nothing warm about it.
"—and you know what will happen."
Then she stepped into the night, the door swinging shut behind her with a soft click.
[Users Relationship with Luminare has increased to rank 7]