Dan, Erica, and Vernisia were released from the investigation at 7 in the morning. After being released, they returned to Vernisia’s house with her parents.

Sitting inside the living room, Susan had an angry face with regret in her eyes, while Amon was fuming after hearing about everything.

In the night, when Vernisia called Galen, he told her that he was OK with her rejecting her marriage, but then, his men quickly arrived there, and a woman attacked at speed she couldn’t react. She quickly knocked out Vernisia and brought her into the Villa, where they bound her and sealed her before telling her to wait for Galen.

She was horrified upon learning what would happen to her and struggled to escape, but it was futile.

But then, she saw bloodied Zevien opening the door, and that moment was when she felt her heart pierced. When Zevien spoke, “she will live!” she felt such strong emotions from Zevien that she had never felt from anyone before.

She felt as if she had found her world, her fate, her life’s meaning! From that moment, from those strong and resolute words from him, she knew that Zevien would do anything for her, and she… would also do anything for him!

…

“Why? Why do I have this fate?” Vernisia cried in Susan’s embrace. Susan sobbed as she caressed her daughter’s head, “I’m sorry, honey. I am sorry….”

“We will continue to fund research for this,” Amon said with red eyes, “there should be a cure for her disease! If not, we will make one!”

Vernisia wiped her tears as she sadly smiled, “mom, dad, you know…I…love someone. We became friends on the first day of the academy. He is an orphan, but he is very hardworking and good. He doesn’t back down from challenges even if they seem out of his reach. He is also funny and cheerful, always putting me in a good mood whenever I am down.”

“I-I really love him,” Vernisia continued while sobbing as tears spilled from her eyes, “but how can I say that to him? I will not even li-live that long.”

“I can see that he has feelings for me too, and we have graduated today. But he got a bright future ahead of him, and I…I don’t want to ruin it.”

Vernisia’s heart already broke before she could even say it. She had no choice but to kill her own feelings, but….the time she spent with Zevien was the best time of her life. She so dearly wished to spend more time with him.

Susan hugged Vernisia as she heavily sobbed at her daughter’s heartbroken state, “Sorry, honey….”

Susan couldn’t say anything other than sorry because Vernisia’s disease was by birth, and she felt that it was her fault that Vernisia was born with this problem in her magic eidos body.

Even Amon’s red eyes dropped tears as he couldn’t give his daughter a normal future like other girls, ‘I will not give up! My daughter, I will not give up until I find the cure for you!’

…

“Vernisia? Verny? Hello,” Erica waved her hand in front of Vernisia’s blank gaze as her eyes dropped tears.

Erica shook Vernisia’s shoulder a few times before she finally snapped out of her daze.

“What happened?” Amon asked worriedly, “why are you crying?”

Susan also worriedly looked at Vernisia with tearful eyes, “Verny, you don’t have to hide anything; just tell us. That bastard Galen is already dead.”

“N-no,” Vernisia shook her head as she creased her eyebrows, “I suddenly saw some visions about me where I was older than currently. We also had a smaller house, and I had some sort of disease that guaranteed my death.”

Everyone was confused hearing this.

“Forget it; it’s not true anyway,” Vernisia shook her head, “in that vision, I appeared to have that disease since I was born, but it’s not true. Maybe I just had illusions due to this incident.”

Sighing, Vernisia stood up, “I need to sleep. We all need to sleep since we haven’t slept at all.”

“Yeah, go to sleep for now,” Amon said as he stood up and looked at Erica and Dan, “you two should also get some sleep here; we got more rooms upstairs.”

…

In the magnificent palace of Devil’s Bane Kingdom in Astral Land…

The palace had two thrones where the king and queen sat.

The king had a thick black beard and shoulder-length black hair. His eyes would give formless pressure on anyone looking at him. His name was Sargon. His title, Devil Slayer Sargon.

The queen’s aura was gentle but majestic. Her long, light golden hair cascaded down behind her, and her blue eyes with a slight golden hue caused her beauty to go up a notch. Her name was Avery, also known as Pearl of Aurelian.

“Magus Merlin, what is the result?” King Sargon spoke as he looked at the middle-aged man in the center of the palace. The man had long dark purple hair and wore a light purple starry robe with a staff in his hand.

A young man was standing a few meters away from Merlin. His name was Rudian. He was the sole son of Sargon and Avery.

Rudian had short dark blond hair with brown eyes. He was eagerly looking at Merlin, who was looking through a watermelon-sized crystal orb using his magic.

The orb dimmed, and looking at that, Avery asked, “did you find one?”

Merlin grinned, showing his white teeth, and nodded, “I indeed found her. A child bearing magnificent destiny but also high rise troubles. Only she can solve your son’s problem. You have to replace his heart with her heart after exactly seven years, any month in the year 8015, and he will survive the cursed wave.”

However, no one noticed a cold glint passing through Merlin’s eyes as he spoke.

“Where is she?” Rudian asked eagerly.

‘Tsk, why would I tell you that now? I wouldn’t be able to see the results I want to see if I do that,’ Merlin coldly thought while he smiled wryly outside and spoke, “I could only find that she exists for now. Her location is unknown to me currently.”

“When will you be able to find her location?” Sargon asked with a somber expression.

“After three years,” Merlin replied with a smile while caressing his beard, “I will present you her location after three years. Until then, I will have to stay here.”

‘Humph, you have to serve me for three years properly,’ Merlin thought coldly, ‘anyway, that girl had indeed a strange destiny. She was also accompanied by a Dark star phenomenon. Let’s see If can see the results I want to see by using her.’

…

In an unknown location in Astral Land, an organization known as Shadow Sanctuary was doing a ritual.

A group of Shadow Acolytes was looking through mirrors that displayed various girls.

In a total of seven mirrors, seven different young girls were displayed and one of them was Vernisia.

“According to Shadow Codex divination, we have found seven girls with qualifications of becoming the Shadow Priestess. All of them have awakened top-notch shadow-type magic labyrinths.”

“We can’t assess their strength yet or location but once they make more progress in their shadow-type magic labyrinth, we can activate codex once again.”

“Good, let’s report this to Shadow Empress.”