The devastating war between the Gods and Devils five thousand years ago had left scars upon both Humanity and the Demon race that could never truly be erased.
But they had not been the only ones to suffer.
Even Malachar Voss had been gravely wounded during that war.
For the five thousand years that followed, he had remained within Devil territory, recovering from injuries that had never completely healed.
Yet even in his weakened state, his power still stood far beyond that of ordinary Humans.
Even the most accomplished Human warriors, those who had reached extraordinarily high martial ranks, would struggle to gain the slightest advantage against him.
Defeating him outright was nearly impossible.
It was a humiliating truth.
But it was also one that no one could change.
And now that Malachar had personally pursued Selene into the Western Realm, a situation already on the verge of collapse became even more desperate.
Adrian Valerius refused to surrender his wife no matter what happened.
But as the battle dragged on, more and more warriors fell.
Blood soaked the earth beneath their feet.
The wounded were carried away from the battlefield one after another.
And the gazes directed at Adrian gradually changed.
What had once been respect and awe slowly became anger and despair.
They could no longer understand why the entire Western Realm should be forced to pay such a terrible price for the sake of a single Demon woman.
Adrian knew exactly what they were thinking.
But asking him to personally hand Selene over was equally impossible.
On one side stood the woman he loved and the unborn child within her.
On the other stood the people of Humanity, falling one after another because of the battle.
Whichever side he chose, it would feel as though he were carving a piece from his own flesh.
And how could Selene Veyra, standing beside him, fail to understand what was happening?
She looked across the bloodstained ground.
Then she turned toward the exhausted warriors standing before the barrier, their bodies already covered in wounds, yet still forced to hold their positions against the Devils.
Her heart slowly sank.
She knew.
All of this was happening because of her.
She did not want the man she loved to sacrifice the entire Western Realm merely to protect her.
Nor did she want Adrian to bear the hatred of his own people because of her—to be condemned for the rest of his life as a man who had betrayed Humanity.
But there was still a child inside her.
Their child.
A life that had not even been born yet.
A child who had never opened its eyes to see the world.
How could she possibly bear to let their child die with her?
Yet things had already reached this point.
There was nowhere left for her to run.
Selene slowly raised her head.
Tears shimmered in her eyes as she looked at Adrian, her gaze lingering upon his face as though she wanted to carve every detail of him into her memory forever.
There were still so many things she wanted to tell him.
She wanted him to live well after she was gone.
She wanted him to stop risking his life against Malachar for her sake.
She wanted him to know that during all the years she had spent by his side, she had never regretted her choice.
Not even once.
But when her eyes fell upon the wounds covering Adrian’s body, every word that had reached her lips was swallowed back down.
Selene slowly closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, the hesitation within them was gone.
In the next instant, she forcibly summoned what remained of her power.
A dense surge of demonic energy erupted from her body.
Adrian immediately sensed that something was wrong.
His expression changed.
“Selene!”
But it was already too late.
Using every last trace of strength she possessed, Selene forcibly extracted the Core Crystal from within her body.
The instant the crystal left her, all color drained from her face.
Her body swayed unsteadily, as though the final force keeping her upright had been torn away along with it.
But she did not stop.
Before anyone could react, Selene sent the Core Crystal flying toward the pregnant consort of the Western Realm.
The crystal disappeared into the woman’s body in an instant.
Everything happened far too quickly.
By the time those around them realized what Selene had done, there was no longer any way to stop it.
And Selene had no intention of giving Malachar another chance to take her away.
The next moment— before his very eyes— she ended her own life.
Blood spread rapidly across her clothes.
“Selene—!”
Adrian screamed her name.
Malachar stood frozen where he was.
He could only watch as the woman he had been determined to drag back to Devil territory collapsed before him.
For a moment, he even forgot to reach for her.
Never had he imagined that Selene would rather die than return with him.
The shock lasted only a moment.
Then came fury.
Malachar’s eyes turned bloodred.
Devilish energy surged violently around him as an almost uncontrollable murderous rage swept through his entire body.
At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to slaughter every Human before him.
He wanted all of them buried with Selene.
But the relentless fighting had already aggravated the ancient wounds that had never fully healed.
The violent power surging through his body repeatedly tore at those injuries, and the resulting agony left him unable to continue fighting.
In the end, Malachar had no choice but to force down his murderous intent.
He bent down and lifted Selene’s rapidly cooling body into his arms.
Before leaving, he turned back.
His gaze swept across everyone present.
There was no longer anything in those eyes except hatred.
A hatred so deep that merely meeting his gaze made the heart tremble.
“From this day forward, there will be no peace between the Devils and Humanity!”
His voice rang across the battlefield.
“When my wounds are healed, the day of Humanity’s extinction shall come!”
With those words, Malachar carried Selene’s body away from the Western Realm.
But his departure did not bring the calamity to an end.
Not long after Selene fell, the pregnant consort of the Western Realm suddenly clutched her abdomen.
Her face turned deathly pale.
She had already been carrying twins, and with Selene’s Core Crystal forcibly entering her body, a violent pain immediately tore through her abdomen.
Before long, she went into premature labor.
After a long and difficult delivery, a pair of twins—a boy and a girl—were finally born alive.
Both children survived.
Their mother did not.
The severe blood loss caused by the difficult birth ultimately claimed her life.
The Western Realm, having barely survived the Devil assault, was once again plunged into grief.
And soon, everyone’s attention turned toward the two newborn children.
The consort had already been carrying twins before Selene’s Core Crystal entered her body.
Because of that, everyone understood one troubling possibility.
One of the two children might have absorbed the Core Crystal before birth.
And if that were true— that child might one day become a being who was half Human and half Demon.
But the two infants were far too young.
One was a boy.
The other was a girl.
Aside from the order in which they had been born, there was nothing visibly unusual about either of them.
No one knew which child had absorbed the crystal.
For a time, everyone gathered around the twins in uneasy silence.
No one dared speak carelessly.
Not far away, Adrian remained standing where Selene had fallen.
He stared at the two newborn children.
And inevitably, his thoughts returned to Selene, whose body had already been taken away by Malachar.
The emotions he had suppressed for so long finally shattered.
He had believed that as long as he could protect Selene, they would somehow endure until their child was safely born.
Once everything was over, the three of them could finally live together as a family.
But now—
Selene was dead.
And the child who had never even been given the chance to enter this world had died with her.
Adrian had not even been given the chance to hold his own child.
Like Adrian, the ruler of the Western Realm, Lord Sterling, was drowning in grief.
His wife was dead.
The woman who had been alive beside him only a short while ago would never open her eyes again.
And the two children she had sacrificed her life to bring into this world might now carry the blood and power of both Humans and Demons because of that Core Crystal.
He had not even begun to recover from the loss of his wife when this new blow came crashing down upon him.
Lord Sterling stared at the two infants wrapped in swaddling cloth.
There was none of the joy a new father should have felt.
Then his gaze shifted toward Adrian.
Little by little, grief twisted into hatred.
If Adrian had never brought Selene to the Western Realm, why would his wife have died?
If Selene had not forced her Core Crystal into his wife’s body, why would his children now carry such a terrible uncertainty?
As far as Lord Sterling was concerned, all of this had been brought upon them by Adrian.
They were the ones who had brought disaster into the Western Realm.
Because of them, he had lost his wife.
Because of them, the family that should have been whole had been shattered in a single night.
And yet Adrian was still standing there, mourning another woman and another child.
At the thought, Lord Sterling clenched his teeth.
His fists tightened until his knuckles turned white, his entire body trembling faintly with hatred.
But he also understood something else.
With the Western Realm in its current state, he had no power to openly oppose the Valerius Clan, which controlled the Central Court.
No matter how much hatred burned inside him, he had no choice but to swallow it.
And so, the grief and resentment he had nowhere else to release eventually fell upon the two newborn children.
He refused to keep them.
Lord Sterling demanded that Adrian take both children away.
If Adrian refused, he would rather have them burned to death than acknowledge either child as his own.
His younger brother, standing nearby, could not accept such a decision.
The twins had only just been born.
They had barely even opened their eyes.
How could they possibly understand anything that had happened between the adults?
Even if one of them truly had absorbed Selene’s Core Crystal, it had never been the child’s choice.
With that thought, he immediately gathered both swaddled infants into his arms and shielded them from his elder brother.
“Perhaps neither child absorbed the Core Crystal.”
He looked at his brother and tried to reason with him patiently.
“None of us can determine who absorbed it—or whether either of them did at all. We cannot condemn one of these children as a half-Demon based on nothing more than suspicion.”
But Lord Sterling was drowning too deeply in grief and rage to listen.
His younger brother could only tighten his hold around the two infants.
The brothers remained locked in a stalemate for a long time.
Eventually, the younger man realized there was no way he could completely change his brother’s decision.
He could only compromise.
Lowering his gaze toward the two children in his arms, he remained silent for a moment before speaking again.
“Then… let Adrian take the child who was born second.”
His gaze shifted toward the firstborn infant, and his voice softened.
“This child had already left the mother’s body before the Core Crystal was absorbed. He should not have been affected.”
“Since none of us can know for certain what happened, then at the very least…”
He paused.
“…we cannot abandon them both.”
The younger man raised his head and looked directly at his brother.
There was now a trace of pleading in his voice.
“Brother…”
“At least let one of them stay.”