Eve lay draped over the edge of the balcony. The afterglow of the setting sun dyed her face a soft crimson, while a few servants who happened to notice her whispered among themselves.
They said the princess of House Phoenix had finally grown up—there was melancholy in her eyes now, just like a girl in the throes of adolescence, troubled by love, dreaming of a breathtaking romance with some beautiful young noble…
What utter nonsense.
Eve slammed her fist against the balcony railing and stormed back into her bedroom. She had no intention of listening to any more gossip drifting up from below.
There had to be something fundamentally wrong with her life. Beautiful boys? The only male she had ever truly encountered was Lloyd—that lunatic.
What truly weighed on her mind was the secret blood surging within her body. According to Lloyd, House Phoenix must have some connection to demons. That so-called secret blood required alchemical refinement—a technique that, in theory, no one outside the Demon Hunter Order should possess. And so the mystery continued to hover over House Phoenix like an unbroken curse.
Eve wanted to speak with her father about it. But the steward told her that after checking on her, Duke Phoenix had departed for the Platinum Palace—and had not returned since.
She lay back on the soft bed, staring up at the chandelier above. Its warm light filled her entire field of vision.
More than a week had passed since that night of madness. Eve could barely remember how she had made it home. She had intended to keep it hidden, but sheer exhaustion had betrayed her—she collapsed right at the gates.
When she awoke, she was already in her familiar bedroom. Her wounds had been treated, guards stood watch at the door, and when she looked out the window, she saw that the once-empty estate was now crawling with heavily armed soldiers.
According to the steward, Duke Phoenix had been furious—no, enraged. After his departure, the estate's security level had been raised several times over. Eve herself had been placed under restriction: until the Duke returned, she was forbidden to go anywhere.
It seemed that this time… her father was truly angry.
Ah… how irritating.
Eve could already imagine their conversation when he came back. Nothing more than talk of marrying her off to some godforsaken island—only this time, his tone would be far more unyielding.
She hugged the blanket tightly and turned onto her side. She wasn't ready for things to end like this. She wanted to stand in the Hall of Manifestation as a true representative of House Phoenix. And if possible, she wanted to uncover the truth behind her secret blood.
Like the reunion of a long-lost friend, the nightmare she had nearly forgotten returned after that night of madness.
Unbidden, Eve's thoughts drifted back to the scenes from that dream. A woman screaming, struggling in agony—her pain so profound that life itself was torn from her body, until at last the monster ripped her apart.
The memory was jarringly abrupt. Even Eve could not tell where truth ended and illusion began. Human memory, it seemed, was terribly unreliable—like words written on a beach, destined to be erased by the tide, only to be cruelly washed back ashore years later.
The light in the room flickered.
Eve turned her head toward the chandelier. Perhaps there was a problem with the wiring. It flickered a few more times—then plunged the room into complete darkness.
A power outage was nothing unusual. And yet, a strange sensation crept over her. Her body tensed as she stared into the dark.
That was how they always came. Whenever they arrived, all light would retreat.
Footsteps echoed around her.
Eve reached for the cabinet beside her. Resting there was a silver-white revolver—the weapon of Shrike. Lloyd had forgotten to retrieve it after that night, and Eve had kept it ever since.
The cylinder was fully loaded. But before she could act, a pitch-black shadow engulfed her.
No strength remained.
None at all.
In an instant, her breathing stalled. She knew with absolute certainty that it was standing right behind her. She wanted to run—but her body would not respond, as if frozen solid.
It moved slowly past her. Each footstep struck her heart like a heavy hammer. By the faint moonlight spilling through the window, Eve could make out only a vague, grotesque outline—until countless eyes appeared before her.
A face covered entirely in eyes.
From those crimson pupils seeped something ominous and ill-fated. It seemed unable to see her at first, its eyes rolling wildly, searching for something—then, in the next instant, every single one of them snapped toward her.
It saw her.
A chilling laugh rang out.
"I see you…"
The voice sounded right beside her ear—so clear, so real.
Her frozen body finally moved. The silver-white death knell rose, aimed straight at the demon's face. But just as Eve was about to pull the trigger, light returned.
Everything vanished.
Eve stood there, gun raised, pointing at empty space. Before her was the familiar room—unchanged, as if everything that had just happened were nothing more than an illusion.
The loathsome darkness was gone.
Her strength gave out. Eve dropped to her knees, beads of sweat falling heavily from the tip of her nose as her lungs heaved, gulping in fresh air.
She rubbed her eyes hard. Everything felt unnervingly unfamiliar—as though it were a hallucination, or perhaps something else entirely.
Spirit Sight.
The familiar yet alien term surfaced in her mind. Lloyd had mentioned it when they parted: as Eve's connection to the darkness deepened, she would begin to see strange things—and those strange things would see her in return.
"What… is happening…?"
She slowly stood up, the world swaying violently around her. Pressing a hand to her forehead, she collapsed back onto the bed. The strain on her mind far exceeded anything she had endured before. She felt like a small boat adrift in a raging tide, about to be overturned at any moment.
An unnameable fear fermented in her chest. Eve knew the Phoenix estate was well defended—but against demons, it was utterly meaningless. Those monsters had already seen her.
And she had no idea what to do.
At last, she sat up again. After a long moment of thought, her gaze settled on the cabinet.
A business card lay there in silence, its printed words seeming to radiate a strange pull.
…
"Miss, please don't make this difficult for us."
The guard looked at Eve, standing before him in nothing but her nightgown. Beneath the pure white fabric, delicate cutout patterns traced her form. Her smooth neck rose like that of a swan, her long hair released to fall freely down her back, giving her an indescribable presence—as though she were an elf stepped out of the moonlight itself.
The two gate guards were visibly unsettled.
This was not the Eve they knew.
Eve was usually all sharp lines and commanding presence; even in a dress, she carried an air that warned strangers to keep their distance. But now, the cold tigress had softened into something resembling a kitten—standing so close, breathing in her faint fragrance, close enough to make any man's heart falter despite himself.
"I want to go for a walk,"
Eve said gently, a rarity in itself.
"The Duke has given strict orders," one of the guards replied. "Until he returns, you are not to leave."
"I only want to take a walk."
The girl widened her eyes and looked at them. Her clear, crystalline pupils gleamed like gemstones. Faced with a gaze like that, refusal felt almost cruel. Turning her away stirred an inexplicable sense of guilt, as though one had committed a wrongdoing simply by denying her.
For a long time, Eve had deliberately concealed her charm. Though she possessed a flawless body, she wrapped herself in steel and uniform, using discipline and authority to drive away the endless parade of ill-intentioned suitors.
As the princess of House Phoenix and the future Duchess of Old Dunlin, every young noble in the city wished for an audience with her. Yet every meeting ended in disaster. To protect her freedom and her dreams, Eve ensured that each encounter became an "accident."
After the last incident—when she dragged a count's son into a reckless carriage race through the streets, resulting in the poor fool breaking his leg—no one dared show interest in her again.
She was an immortal phoenix, untamable.
Approach her rashly, and you would become ash beneath her feet.
"Is even that… not allowed?"
As she spoke, Eve lifted her skirt slightly.
The guards froze. Their thoughts shattered, anticipation creeping in before they could stop themselves. Both men stood dazed, caught off guard.
The next instant, the wind surged.
A dull thud echoed down the corridor.
One guard felt his vision spin before collapsing to the ground. He tried to speak, but consciousness slipped into darkness. The last thing he saw was Eve wielding a broken chair leg, swinging it down toward his companion.
A disguise—
It had all been a disguise.
The remaining guard's mind nearly broke. From start to finish, this cursed girl had been hiding something. How she'd dismantled a chair and concealed the leg beneath her skirt was beyond him.
The chair leg grew rapidly larger in his vision. He barely managed to raise his rifle to block—but Eve abandoned the swing entirely, driving a brutal punch into his abdomen instead. He gagged reflexively, and before he could recover, the chair leg came crashing down again.
"What's… going on?"
Another guard approached from the far end of the corridor, alerted by the muffled blows. The two locked eyes from opposite ends of the hall, the moment painfully awkward.
A young, barefoot girl stood beneath the light, her crimson hair burning like fire.
So beautiful…
If not for the chair leg in her hands, and the two unconscious bodies at her feet.
She gave him no time to think.
Gripping the chair leg with both hands, Eve drew a breath, her body coiling tight—then hurled it with all her strength.
Another dull impact.
The guard dropped stiffly to the floor, an iron whistle still clutched in his hand, never blown.
Eve surveyed the three unconscious men, straightened her disheveled hair, and exhaled deeply. From deception to assault, the entire sequence had flowed seamlessly.
Fighting demons might take some effort.
Beating a few guards? Child's play.
The fragile girl vanished.
The tiger returned.
She stripped the unlucky men, bound them tightly, and stuffed them into a storage closet. Adjusting her clothes, Eve pulled her cap low, hiding as much of her blazing red hair as possible. She stuffed towels beneath her coat, filling out her slightly slender frame—at a distance, no one would notice anything amiss.
Finally, she slid the silver revolver into the holster at the small of her back.
All set.
She strode outside—only then realizing she had underestimated the situation. Even at night, the manor grounds were heavily guarded, soldiers arrayed like a queen's honor guard. Dome-shaped iron helmets gleamed as long rifles with fixed bayonets pointed skyward.
Then, a long, mournful whistle echoed through the air.
A train rolled slowly into the station, endless steam billowing upward.
Security was airtight. Reaching the train would be difficult—and if she didn't leave tonight, she had no idea when the next one would arrive.
The demons could already see her.
She had to find that damned detective.
Just as Eve ran out of ideas, she spotted something.
As Lloyd liked to say,
that thing was called a "passport through life."
And so, under the watchful gaze of dozens of rifles, Eve hoisted a ladder onto her shoulder and swaggered toward the train on the platform. Off-balance, she waddled forward, swaying side to side like an overweight penguin.