The memories of our chaotic first meeting flooded back into Elias's mind with the force of a physical blow as he stared at the short girl standing by the iron framework of the gates. His brain automatically replayed that bizarre afternoon at the fountain plaza: the absolute confusion of seeing a girl with his exact surname occupying the 3rd rank on the Luminous Knights leaderboard, the staggering physical strength she displayed when she had lunged forward to hug him, and the way her deeply developed chest had driven Catherine into a state of immediate, tragic depression. He remembered how smugly he had dismissed her sibling claims, concluding she was just a distant, unbriefed cousin from an offshoot branch of the family before slapping her with the nickname "Slime Girl" due to the vibrant, pulsing bioluminescent tips of her brown hair.
But the reality standing before him now completely shattered those old, arrogant deductions. The "mundane little academic nerd" he thought was staying out of trouble was actually the Crimson Phantom, a vanguard of the crown with massive blood wings. And the mysterious prodigy he had casually dismissed as a distant cousin was, in truth, an undeniable part of the complex, hyper-evolved reality the Rynd family had become.
The moment our footsteps echoed against the stone, Evelyn's head snapped toward us. Her sharp, vibrant jade-green eyes… the exact biological mirror of Elias's own intense stare… widened in immediate recognition. The unreadable coldness she usually held when dealing with the bureaucracy of the high command vanished instantly, replaced by a wave of pure, unadulterated excitement.
"Big sister! I heard the news!" Evelyn called out, her voice cutting through the quiet twilight of the 8th District.
She didn't hesitate for a single fraction of a second. Ignoring Gatekeeper Damien entirely, her short frame blurred with that same deceptive, terrifying speed that had allowed her to violently shatter the association's leaderboards within a single week. She lunged forward, closing the distance between us in a heartbeat.
As she arrived, she didn't recoil or flinch at the sight of my fully exposed, pulsing crimson blood wings. Instead, her eyes sparkured with absolute awe as she took in the majestic, translucent membranes and the brilliant jade-green and scarlet mana veins radiating from my spine. She ran right up to me, her hands clasped together over her remarkably heavy bust line as she offered a bright, ecstatic smile.
"Congratulations, Eirene! The high-tier communication lines were buzzing all the way to the training grounds! The Crown actually sanctioned your bloodline! You don't have to hide in the shadows anymore, and the baby is going to be born under the permanent protection of the throne!"
Evelyn beamed, her voice bubbling with genuine pride as she looked at the royal decree tucked safely near my waist.
"Thank you, Evelyn," I responded, my voice maintaining its flat, deadpan composure, though a genuine warmth settled into my core. My massive wings gave a soft, rhythmic ripple in the cool evening air, accepting her congratulations without the old, clinical paranoia that used to dictate my every interaction.
Beside me, Elicia stepped forward, her cute dress swaying as her face lit up with a brilliant, maternal warmth. She reached out and gently patted the top of Evelyn's deep brown locks, completely unbothered by the soft, bioluminescent green glow pulsing at the tips.
"Hello, Evelyn, It is so wonderful to see our youngest baby sister waiting for us at the gates. We've had quite an administrative battle inside the Chief's office, but everything has been settled beautifully." Elicia greeted her sweetly, her voice carrying the elegant grace of an academy principal.
Elias stood completely frozen just a step behind us, his leather-gloved hand dropping from the grip of his Death Chant Revolver as his jaw practically detached from his face. His dark eyes darted from me, to Elicia, and finally to the short, heavy-chested brown-haired girl who was currently being treated as an absolute member of the immediate family. The sheer absurdity of the puzzle pieces finally locking together in his mind sent his tactical brain into a frantic, looping tailspin.
"Slime girl?! What the hell are you doing here? And what do you mean 'baby sister'? Elicia, don't tell me you're enabling this absolute madness too! I thought she was just some distant cousin from the countryside estates!"
Elias blurted out, his edgy, commanding captain's persona cracking entirely as he stepped forward, pointing an accusatory finger at Evelyn.
Evelyn tilted her head, her brown locks shifting over her shoulders as she looked up at Elias with an incredibly practiced, mock-offended pout that perfectly mirrored the expression she had given him at the fountain plaza.
"I told you before, big brother! I'm not a distant cousin, and I'm definitely not a toxic slime from the lower caverns! I am your legitimate little sister! You're the one who completely failed your basic security assessment because you couldn't handle someone jumping past your rank in a single week!"
Elias rubbed his temples, letting out a sharp, deeply stressed hiss of air as he looked at the three of us… the divine goddess principal of the magic academy, the Crimson Phantom with her shotgun resting on her shoulder, and the 3rd-ranked bioluminescent powerhouse of the Luminous Knights.
"My entire lineage memory is completely compromised," Elias muttered under his breath, his shoulders dropping in total, defeated resignation as he realized that the Rynd family didn't possess a single ordinary civilian left in the entire kingdom of Caria.
The deep, suffocating echo of the past always tasted like iron and sawdust. For a fleeting, fractured heartbeat, the immaculate white quartz and polished marble of the 8th District dissolved completely from my vision, replaced by the cavernous, quiet twilight of the meat shop back in Town Allure six years ago.
I could still feel the heavy weight of the appraisal books in my twelve-year-old lap, the cold sting of tears as our mother, Linera Rynd, walked out into the fading evening winds with a weathered rucksack and a swollen womb, promising to return in a week. I could still hear the heavy, metallic thud of the knights' gauntlets against our front door a week later, delivering the cold, hollow report that stripped the warmth from our lives. They had told us she was unrecognizable in the deep shafts of the Caria Mines. They had told us there was nothing left to bury. There had been absolutely no mention of the baby. No mention of Evelyn. To the archives of the high command, the child had simply died in the dark, cold earth before ever drawing a single breath.
But the dead had a strange way of rewriting their own ledgers in the kingdom of Caria.
The vivid memory snapped shut like a heavy tome, and my mismatched jade-green and crimson eyes refocused on the damp twilight of the plaza. My newly regenerated left hand was flat against the cold steel of the Means of Communication shotgun resting on my shoulder, while my right hand instinctively tightened into a white-knuckled fist beneath my traveling cloak. The very same mines where my mother had been slaughtered… the place Nautilus Cotton had mapped out for our eventual deployment… wasn't just a mission parameter anymore. It was a grave waiting to be overturned.
"Oh, for God's sake, brother!"
Elicia broke the tense silence, her voice ringing out with a sharp, exasperated maternal authority that instantly cut through the dramatic evening air. She stepped between Elias and the short, heavy-chested brown-haired girl, slapping her hands onto her hips as her silver hair fluttered in the breeze.
"She is your little sister! Stop being so incredibly stubborn and look at the facts right in front of your face!"
Elias didn't budge. He kept his large frame planted firmly on the cobblestones, his heavy combat duster casting a long, intimidating shadow across the pavement as he crossed his arms over his chest plate. His jaw remained completely rigid, his tactical, black-ops intuition refusing to accept a biological anomaly that defied basic logic.
"Prove it, Give me one shred of operational data that explains how a girl who wasn't even listed on the Allure family registry is suddenly ranked 3rd in the entire Luminous Knights association. I'm a high-ranking intelligence officer, Elicia. I don't operate on blind faith." Elias barked, his sharp, jade-green eyes narrowing to thin slits beneath his messy dark hair as he stared at Evelyn's pulsing, bioluminescent green tips.
Elicia let out a long, heavy sigh, her expression softening into a deeply solemn, bittersweet tapestry of grief and truth as she looked back at him.
"Two weeks after you left for your captaincy trials in the capital, I named mother's belly Evelyn, You weren't there, Elias. You were already deep in the 8th District academy barracks. Only Eirene and I were standing in that back room when Mama asked us what her future sister should be called. It was a private vow inside our household."
Elias's stoic expression cracked for a fraction of a second, his spine straightening as the specific name… a name he had dismissed as a fraudulent coincidence at the fountain plaza… was tied directly to the final days of Linera Rynd.
"And that's not all, Years later, during her solo bounty hunter operations in the lower sectors, Little Ren was tasked with an extermination contract deep inside the abandoned caverns. While she was systematically purging the nests of toxic, bioluminescent slimes, she found Evelyn hidden in the deep fissures of the mines. She was fully alive, Elias. Her human biology had adapted to the extreme environment, fusing with the high-concentration magical residue of the caverns to survive. She was a half-human, half-slime hybrid."
I stepped forward from the shadows of my deep hood, my massive, translucent crimson wings giving a slow, heavy ripple behind my back, casting a faint scarlet glow over the white tiles.
"That's true, big brother, My processing core verified her DNA parameters during the recovery phase. The high-density magical slimes didn't consume her; they sustained her embryonic development after the collapse of the central shaft. Her physical strength and her bioluminescent mana are the direct results of that environmental adaptation. She is the baby who was supposed to die six years ago."
Evelyn looked up at Elias, her vibrant jade-green eyes… the exact biological duplicate of his own… shimmering with a complex mixture of childish excitement and deep, unspoken longing. She unclasped her arms from her heavy bust line and took a small, hesitant step toward him, the green tips of her brown locks pulsing with a warm, steady light in the deepening dark.
"Yes, big brother, I'm real. I survived the dark because Eirene pulled me out of the earth." Evelyn whispered, her usual bubbly demeanor softening into something profoundly raw and genuine.
Elias stood entirely paralyzed in the center of the grand hallway, the heavy weight of the realization crashing through his defenses like a physical blow. The absolute absurdity of the situation had finally resolved into a beautiful, terrifying truth. He didn't just have an elite academic principal and a vanguard for sisters; he had a miraculous, hyper-evolved powerhouse who had crawled out of the very graveyard that had broken their family apart.
He slowly lowered his hand from his forehead, his edgy, cynical captain's mask dissolving completely into the expression of a big brother who had finally found the last missing piece of his home.
Elias's hand froze mid-air, his fingers twitching slightly as his tactical brain finally ceased its frantic, logical looping. He looked from Elicia's stern, maternal glare, to my flat, unblinking mismatched eyes, and finally down to Evelyn's hopeful, glowing green gaze. The hard, unyielding posture of the 5th-ranked Shadow Walker completely melted away, replaced by a look of sheer, comedic disbelief.
"Wait… She's really my younger sister?"
In perfect, synchronized harmony, Elicia, Evelyn, and I nodded.
"Yes," we said in unison.
Elias let out a long, dramatic sigh, throwing his head back toward the vaulted stone arches of the 8th District gate. A massive, rough grin broke across his face, his edgy persona fracturing into pure, chaotic older-brother energy.
"Great. Just great. Now I have three ridiculous sisters to worry about."
He stepped forward, his heavy combat boots clicking against the tiles, and reached out. His large, calloused hand landed right on top of Evelyn's head, gently stroking and ruffling her deep brown hair. Evelyn leaned into the touch, her vibrant jade-green eyes sparkling with joy, the bioluminescent tips of her locks pulsing a little brighter against his palm.
"But listen to me, kid, Just because you're officially my sister doesn't mean you get a pass. I am still going to call you Slime Girl. It fits you too well."
Evelyn pouted, crossing her arms over her heavy chest line, though she didn't swat his hand away.
"Hey! I'm a top-three Luminous Knight recruit!"
"Don't care, You have to understand the family hierarchy, Slime Girl. I call Elicia 'Grandma' because she's always lecturing me like an old lady, and I call Eirene over there 'Weird Eyes' because of her freakish heterochromia. You know, I'm kind of an annoying older brother. It's in my contract."
Elicia rolled her eyes, letting out a heavy, long-suffering groan at the "Grandma" comment, while I simply adjusted the heavy strap of Means of Communication on my shoulder, my deadpan expression remaining entirely unchanged.
"Your behavioral parameters are consistent with previous observations, big brother," I noted in my mechanical whisper, my massive crimson wings giving a relaxed, rhythmic flutter behind my cloak as the cool night air washed over us.
"See? Weird Eyes gets it," Elias laughed, finally pulling his hand away from Evelyn's hair and adjusting his heavy duster. The dark, suffocating weight of the High Bureau, the threat of execution, and the painful ghosts of the Caria Mines hadn't vanished… but standing there at the gates of the 8th District, surrounded by a divine goddess, a vanguard, and a hyper-evolved hybrid powerhouse, Elias looked entirely unbothered.
The Rynd family was a beautiful, terrifying disaster of cosmic proportions, and heaven help anyone who stood in our way.
We walked together toward the grand arches of the 8th District exit where Gatekeeper Damien was waiting, our footsteps echoing softly in the cool night air. My massive, translucent blood wings caught the ambient light, casting rhythmic crimson shadows across the polished pavement as they flexed comfortably behind my cloak.
As we walked, Elias kept glancing down at Evelyn. His sharp, tactical eyes traced the contours of her remarkably short but impossibly developed figure, his brow furrowing deeper and deeper until he suddenly went rigid, snapping his fingers as the basic chronology of our mother's death finally caught up with his math.
"Wait a minute, If Mama went into the mines six years ago... that means you're a six-year-old child, right? What the hell?! Why do you look like a teenage girl in her twenties? And your frame... that incredibly voluptuous frame... it makes absolutely no sense!"
Evelyn tilted her head, her deep brown locks shifting over her shoulders as the bioluminescent green tips pulsed with an amused, vibrant light. She casually rested her hands beneath her massive, disproportionate chest line and gave him a practiced, cheeky grin.
"Well, magical slimes tend to grow and age their physical vessels incredibly fast to adapt to their environments, big brother, I am chronologically only six years old, but biologically, my slime core stabilized my human form into this peak adult framework so I could survive the high-density mana fields of the deep caverns." Evelyn explained lighthearted, completely unbothered by her own bizarre biology.
Elias stood completely paralyzed, his jaw dropping so low it looked like it was going to detach from his face entirely. The sheer, cosmic absurdity of discovering that the top-three powerhouse of the Luminous Knights… the girl with an F-cup bust line who had casually leapfrogged his military rank… was technically a first-grader sent his black-ops brain into absolute, unrecoverable shock.
Beside him, Elicia and I merely walked past his frozen frame. Elicia offered a soft, sisterly giggle, while my mismatched jade-green and crimson eyes remained completely flat behind the shadow of my hood. We had been fully aware of Evelyn's rapid cellular aging parameters since the day I pulled her out of the deep fissures, making Elias's frantic, existential crisis entirely predictable.
"Your cognitive processing speed is failing to keep pace with our family's evolutionary variables, big brother," I noted in a chilling, mechanical deadpan as my wings gave a relaxed flutter.
"Shut up, Weird Eyes, my reality is collapsing," Elias groaned, desperately rubbing his temples as he forced his boots to move again, trailing behind his three hyper-powered sisters like a thoroughly defeated man.
Within moments, our formidable, chaotic caravan arrived at the iron perimeter gates. Gatekeeper Damien stood tall in his gleaming ceremonial plate armor, his hand resting on the pommel of his greatsword as his sharp gaze locked onto our approaching group. He looked at Elias's stressed expression, Elicia's graceful smile, Evelyn's glowing hair, and finally at my fully exposed, pulsing crimson blood wings.
But as his eyes drifted to the glowing royal document of absolute sanction humming at my waist, Damien didn't draw his blade. He simply offered a deep, respectful nod of his helmet, prepared to clear the vanguard of the crown through the final threshold of the high district.
Damien stepped forward from the gatehouse, the heavy metal of his armor clanking softly as he leaned against the iron control lever. He looked at the four of us standing in the twilight, his sharp eyes crinkling at the corners with an appreciative, seasoned grin.
"Well, well, The siblings are complete. Elias the Shadow Walker, Elicia the divine goddess, and you, Evelyn… the 3rd ranked of the Luminous Knights. A lot of 'E's in those names, aren't there? And Eirene..." Damien chuckled, his eyes drifting across our formidable group.
His gaze locked onto the majestic, translucent crimson wings flexing softly from my spine, the jade-green and scarlet mana veins casting an ethereal glow over the stone entryway.
"...your wings are absolutely magnificent. Anyways, corporate protocol dictates the usual: toll and status cards, please."
With a smooth, deliberate motion of my newly regenerated left hand, I reached up and completely unbuttoned the front of my tattered dark traveling cloak. I tossed it open, letting the heavy fabric drape loosely behind my shoulders to fully reveal my vampiric evolution to the open air of the gatehouse. The golden royal seal of absolute sanction hummed brightly at my waist, its divine radiance signaling my permanent immunity.
Damien's jaw tightened in immediate, professional surprise. He took a half-step back, his eyes darting between my predatory fangs, my mismatched jade-green and crimson eyes, and the unmistakable, pulsing authority of the King's seal.
"By the heavens, girl, I knew the Crimson Phantom was an elite shadow asset, but seeing a core standing right at my checkpoint under a sovereign decree... that's a security variable I didn't expect to log today." Damien breathed, a low whistle escaping his lips as he adjusted his helmet.
I adjusted the heavy weight of the Means of Communication shotgun resting on my shoulder, my voice dropping into its characteristic, chillingly calm deadpan.
"No worries, Damien, I'm just a demon".