“I was waiting for you.”

  Those were the first words Ezra spoke when they reunited. Kus hadn’t expected anything else—he knew his father well—so he went straight to the point.

  “And? What did you want to talk about?”

  Ezra looked at him with a smile and replied,

  “First, we’re going to treat those wounds. They’re getting pretty bad.”

  If he hadn’t been reminded, Kus wouldn’t have realized how injured he was. The bite on his abdomen looked awful. And now that he had stopped to rest, the repeated blows to his head were starting to take their toll. His vision was becoming blurry.

  . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  After taking a shower, Kus felt renewed. All the stress he had accumuted washed away with the water, and even his blurred vision had recovered.

  When he came out of the bathroom, he found his father waiting in the bedroom. It seemed he had been there for a while.

  “Kus, I want you to look at yourself in the mirror.”

  “For what?”

  “Just do it.”

  “Alright, alright.”

  Still not understanding, Kus walked up to the mirror. But what he saw made his already pale face lose the little color it had left.

  His eyes…

  His eyes were a deep, pitch-bck color.

  Not only that—even the sclera, the white part of his eyes, was completely bck.

  He had seen this before. Yes—on the eyes of that humanoid monster that had chased him at the beginning. And not only on him, but on most of the people who had gone mad.

  Almost all of them had simir eyes…

  Kus vaguely remembered that their pupils had also been far rger than what a human should be capable of. The other two had been the same.

  “Kus: I’m becoming like them—”

  “That’s not it.”

  Interrupting Kus’s murmurs, Ezra pced a hand on his shoulder.

  The instant he did, the darkness covering Kus’s eyes vanished.

  Stunned, Kus looked at Ezra in shock and asked,

  “How did you do that?”

  “How I did it isn’t important. What matters is what you’re going to do with the power you have.”

  “Huh?”

  Kus froze for a moment, then thought back on the day’s events.

  “That’s true… until now, I hadn’t really paid attention to that power. I was too busy trying to get here. But the problem is—this power is evil. Wait… he knew?”

  Just as Kus was about to interrogate his father, Ezra began to speak.

  “Kus, you must not fear the darkness—but you must not let it control you either. The freedom you feel isn’t wrong, but if you surrender to it, you’ll lose yourself. You have no idea what kind of person you’ll become if that happens. If you want to prevent that, you only need one thing—an anchor to hold on to.”

  Kus was too confused to respond. There were… too many things to think about, and far too little time. He didn’t often think about the future, but not knowing what to do frustrated him deeply.

  “Ezra,” Kus said suddenly.

  “What is it?”

  “Did you find that something?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I see.”

  With nothing more to say, a long silence fell between them.

  “I left you some clothes on the bed. Put them on—you’ll find them useful when you learn how to use them.”

  With that, Ezra left quietly, leaving Kus alone with his thoughts. He didn’t even give him a chance to ask everything he was dying to know.

  “That guy really does whatever he wants… Well, let’s see what he brought me.”

  When Kus snapped out of his thoughts, he looked toward the bed. On top of it y a bck shirt, bck pants, and a long bck hooded coat. On the floor, there was also a pair of bck boots.

  “Why everything bck? Well, whatever.”

  Kus pushed those pointless thoughts to the back of his mind. For now, he needed to focus on more important things—like what to do from here on out.

  After changing, Kus realized the clothes fit him perfectly. Apparently, Ezra had them custom-made for him.

  . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  When Kus returned to the living room, he found his father sitting at the dining table. But he wasn’t alone—someone else was seated across from him.

  It was a girl.

  An incredibly beautiful girl.

  She had jet-bck hair, and her skin was white like milk.

  But her eyes…

  Her eyes were blue like the sea, and the coldness mixed with the sadness emanating from them made people feel as if their souls were being pulled away.

  Kus was not immune to their effect. For a moment, he lost himself in her gaze—but quickly recovered and looked at his father instead.

  “Who is she?”

  Ezra turned his head and said with a smile,

  “Oh, sorry—I haven’t introduced you yet, have I? This is Alexa. And this is Kus. Now, take a seat. I have something to tell you.”

  Ignoring his father’s extremely rushed introduction, Kus sat down between Alexa and Ezra.

  Noticing the curiosity in Alexa’s eyes, Kus realized she wanted answers too. Looking at both of them, Ezra adopted a mysterious expression and asked,

  “Tell me—what do you think is really happening?”

  Alexa didn’t say a word after hearing the question. Seeing this, Kus decided to answer.

  “I think… there’s a virus in the air. Something that’s driving people insane.”

  “Wrong.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Ezra’s expression turned serious as he looked at them and said,

  “I can’t tell you everything that’s going to happen—you wouldn’t be able to understand all of it. But I can tell you what’s happening here.”

  He paused for a moment before continuing.

  “A demon has arrived in this city.”

  Kus froze for a moment after hearing that. Then he looked at his father with a doubtful expression and said,

  “What do you mean, a demon?”

  “And not just any demon. The one who came to this city is a Throne—a high-ranking demon named Dantalian.”

  Ezra spoke as if he didn’t realize how insane it sounded and continued naturally.

  “He arrived with one of his legions—evil spirits that take possession of human bodies through one of their desires. Pride, greed, envy, lust, sloth, gluttony, or wrath.”

  “He has pced a barrier around the city. And you’re just a human—there’s no way you can cross a barrier made by a Throne.”

  Kus’s thoughts slowed. He couldn’t say he didn’t believe his father—what he had seen was far beyond anything of this world.

  “Then… how do we get out of the city?”

  “Only if the barrier is broken.”

  “And how do we break it?”

  “To do that, Dantalian must be killed.”

  “And how are we supposed to kill him?”

  “You get straight to the point—I like that.”

  Ezra stood up and headed toward his room. Meanwhile, Kus was left alone with Alexa.

  An uncomfortable silence filled the space.

  Looking at her face, Kus realized she hadn’t moved even once. Her cold gaze, tinged with sadness, seemed eternal.

  It was clear she wasn’t good at communication—and since Kus wasn’t either, the silence remained.

  “Oh, I found it. I’d almost forgotten about this thing.”

  Ezra returned holding a sword. It gleamed with a brilliant silver light, its bde covered in engravings and inscriptions written in an unknown nguage.

  He pced it on the table and said with a smile,

  “With this—”