— Millennia of Malice Laid Bare —
The malignant energy around Travis surged once more.
His red robes lashed violently, as if caught in an unseen gale. The vivid crimson drained away in an instant, swallowed by pitch black.
The beautiful façade collapsed.
Hair disheveled. Eyes emptied into a deep, lightless void. His skin was shrouded in layers of dark mist, thick as congealed blood.
This was his true form—
A being sustained for a thousand years by obsession and corrupted residual energy.
The woman in black showed no hesitation. Her long blade cut cleanly through the air.
Black met white. Corruption met purity.
The clash rippled outward, warping the atmosphere itself.
In less than three minutes—
It ended.
She stood before me, blade lowered but unyielding, her back steady as stone.
The foul presence receded. What remained was Travis, kneeling on the floor.
Golden fissures spread across his body, glowing faintly—
Each one a precise mark left by her blade.
Only then did I realize my breath had been caught in my throat. I exhaled slowly.
"Th-that blade..." Travis trembled, lifting his head. For the first time, real fear surfaced in his eyes. "What... what kind of weapon is that...?"
She did not answer.
She raised the blade and leveled its tip between his brows.
"No—please!" His voice cracked. "I haven't seen Aya yet! I waited a thousand years! Just once—just let me see her—!"
She spoke.
Her voice was cold, edged like steel.
— A woman's voice.
"You are not worthy to see Aya."
The words fell.
Blade-light erupted—silent, vast, like a river of stars.
"Wait—!" I shouted.
Too late.
Golden radiance unfurled into chains, binding Travis's spirit layer by layer.
His scream tore through the air as his form fractured, breaking apart into countless motes of light that scattered and drifted downward.
— Spirit dispersed.
— A millennium of obsession, reduced to nothing.
---
— The Healer's Spirit Returns —
Only then did the woman in black turn around.
I froze.
She appeared no older than her early twenties, her features delicate—almost unreal in their refinement.
Had I not witnessed what she had done moments before, I would never have believed such a presence capable of such absolute eradication.
She regarded me coolly. "What? Do you pity him?"
I watched the fading particles of light. "Not pity... Only that after waiting a thousand years, he could not even have a final glimpse. It feels somewhat—"
"Tragic?" She gave a short, scornful laugh. "You believe that was love?"
Contempt flickered in her eyes.
"Aya was the daughter of a medical family. No emperor. No courtly romance. Her father commissioned a portrait. Travis became obsessed."
She spoke without emphasis, as if reciting facts already settled.
"When his proposal was rejected, he poisoned her. Then he used the Skinbound Resurrection—binding her residual spirit to the painting, while forcing his own living soul into her form."
She paused.
"What he called love was nothing more than possession."
My thoughts reeled. "How... how do you know this?"
"Aya told me."
"Aya?" My voice rose despite myself. "But the Triple Thunder fell. The painting was destroyed. How could she still—"
"Look."
I followed her gaze.
Where Travis had dispersed, a figure in red lay upon the floor, slowly stirring.
That presence—
That aura—
It was Aya.
"How is this possible?"
"The ritual succeeded," the woman said evenly. "But when the thunder struck, Aya chose to abandon her physical vessel. She refused to share a body with him."
She glanced at the space where Travis had vanished.
"What you saw before contained only him."
With the corruption gone, Aya's spirit returned to what remained.
By then, Aya had risen to her feet.
Her bearing was calm. Gentle. Dignified.
She inclined her head toward us. "My thanks to you, sir. And to you, my lady."
Though her face remained veiled, her composure alone carried weight.
The woman in black raised a hand.
"You are free. I will grant you a ceremonial garment—one that allows you to walk among the living."
A talisman ignited, dissolving into light that settled upon Aya's shoulders. Her robes shimmered faintly, as if infused with quiet vitality.
Aya bowed again. "Your kindness is beyond repayment."
"You are a healer," the woman replied. "In this age, save lives. Aid the world. That will suffice."
"Aya will remember."
Their voices lingered in the air, like an echo carried across a thousand years.
Yet my thoughts had already turned elsewhere.
I brought my hands together in a formal salute.
"Madam," I said, "I am deeply grateful for your intervention. Might I ask—"
---
— The One Recognized —
Before I could finish my question, the woman in black stepped aside, her gaze cool and appraising.
"There are words I must speak with you alone."
Jasper understood at once and motioned the others back. Selene hesitated, glancing over her shoulder—the afterimage of that blade still clinging to her eyes—before turning away.
The woman added, almost as reassurance, "Do not worry. I hunt demons. I do not harm people."
Their footsteps faded. The space felt suddenly hollow, as if the world itself had drawn back to make room.
I had just drawn breath to speak when she dropped to one knee.
The movement was precise, formal—like the final motion of a ritual repeated too many times to count.
"Young Master," she said quietly. "I am Valeria. You... truly do not remember me?"
The title struck harder than any accusation.
Young Master?
I had grown up in the countryside, raised by my grandfather. What little I knew of the unseen came from a handful of taboos and rudimentary techniques he had taught me. As for my origins—I had always thought them ordinary. I was simply a child once pulled back from the brink.
I steadied my breathing. "You have the wrong person."
"Impossible." She looked up, certainty unbroken. "Faces change. Names change. Even voices can be concealed. But the soul does not."
She regarded me in silence for a moment longer.
"I have searched for this aura for twenty-one years."
The number settled heavily in my chest.
Twenty-one years.
The exact span of my life.
My grandfather had once said I was born without breath or pulse—that he had used a forbidden art to call a spirit into my body. At the time, I had taken it as an old man's way of explaining a difficult birth.
Now, the memory refused to stay quiet.
"I will not burden you with matters you cannot confirm," she said at last. "What you remember is what matters now."
I met her gaze. "I remember none of it."
There was no denial in my voice—only fact.
For a brief moment, something flickered in her eyes. Then she inclined her head.
"I understand."
She reached into her coat and drew out an old, leather-bound book, its surface worn smooth by time. She offered it with both hands.
"This was once entrusted to me by you. The Meta Codex."
"I have not read it," she added. "Nor practiced from it. It has remained sealed—preserved, nothing more."
When I accepted it, nothing happened.
No response. No recognition.
It was simply a book.
I nodded.
Whoever I might have been had no bearing on who I was now.
I was only what I had always been—
A living archive.
A recorder, standing on this side of the boundary.
---
— Shared Roads Beyond the Boundary —
"Come," Valeria said at last, her sharp presence easing. "Your companions are waiting. What was spoken tonight need not be shared."
We returned to the bar together.
Valeria turned to Aya. "What will you do now?"
Aya hesitated, the glow of the neon lights reflecting softly in her eyes, like someone seeing the present era for the first time.
"This world... I do not yet know how to walk within it."
After a brief pause, Valeria said, "Then travel with me. If you wish, you may practice medicine again—to heal others, and perhaps yourself."
Aya seemed startled, then bowed her head in agreement.
Under the lights, their shadows stretched long across the floor.
One—a healer who had crossed a thousand years as a wandering spirit.
The other—a swordswoman who had waited twenty-one years without certainty.
Different origins. Different burdens.
Yet now, moving forward along the same road.
I glanced back to see Jasper and "Bella" standing close, speaking in low voices.
Their silhouettes, too, stretched long—
Not bound by the same past,
but walking onward all the same.
End of Part One.
The story continues in the next volume.