From a Broken Engagement to the Northern Grand Duke's Son-in-Law

“How could you possibly know that, human?”

Maon’s voice cracked as insects writhed across his regenerating form, weaving flesh from chitinous fragments.

No ordinary human could possess such knowledge.

The Twelve Nobles? Fine. Someone might have leaked their existence.

But knowing his specific abilities? His weaknesses? That crossed into impossible territory.

Only someone who had fought him before and lived to tell of it could know such intimate details.

And no such human has ever existed.

Which meant only one thing: betrayal from within.

“So there really is a traitor among us.”

“Is there?”

Louis’s casual response ignited something cold and furious in Maon’s compound eyes.

“I’ve changed my mind. You’re going back alive—though not in human form.”

Whoosh!

Maon abandoned all pretense of civility, drawing upon his demonic core with single-minded focus.

Demonic energy flowed from him in waves, seeking Louis’s flesh.

The energy crept up his target’s body like a living thing, burrowing deep into muscle and bone.

“...!”

Louis grabbed his head and went perfectly still.

Hisss.

Maon’s mandibles curved into something resembling a smile.

Perfect. Now the human belonged to him completely.

Once demonic energy took root, no mortal will could expel it.

There was a reason humans used concentrated demonic essence as the foundation for their most potent narcotics—it was utterly, inescapably addictive.

“Time to complete your transformation.”

Maon’s segmented fingers traced the ruby embedded in his staff as he approached his motionless prey.

The distance between them narrowed to mere steps when—

“Interesting. So that’s how it functions.”

Louis spoke while his blackened pupils tracked Maon’s movement.

“What...?”

Disbelief froze Maon’s advance.

The human had spoken on his own initiative? More importantly—how had he maintained consciousness while flooded with demonic energy?

Maon’s Corruption possessed more tenacious properties than any other Demonkin. 

As a psychic-type combatant rather than a brute-force fighter, his specialty lay in psychological domination. Even a Grand Master should have succumbed immediately.

“What… what the hell are you?!”

Fear crept into Maon’s trembling voice.

He was supposed to be fear’s incarnation, yet this human kept filling him with the very emotion he wielded as a weapon.

It was like staring into the abyss of the Demon God—confronting the unknown made manifest.

Ignoring Maon’s distress, Louis began walking toward him with deliberate slowness, demonic energy flowing across his palm like liquid shadow.

“The trick is blocking the corruption from reaching your brain with focused Aura. Once you understand the mechanism, complete purification becomes possible.”

He gathered the alien energy into his hand, then expelled it entirely from his system.

Witnessing this impossible feat, Maon began retreating—no, desperately attempting to flee this nightmare.

But Louis’s hand closed around Maon’s throat like a steel trap.

“Going somewhere? We’re not finished playing yet.”

Maon thrashed frantically, but his form specialized in mental manipulation, not physical prowess.

Louis’s grip was utterly inescapable.

“Now then, let’s conduct some research. I’m curious about the effects of this approach.”

Louis seized Maon’s face with eyes that promised only pain, then began feeding him a continuous stream of Willbreaker energy.

“GYAAAAAAHHHHH!”

“Ah, not quite right. Let me adjust.”

Louis muttered with the focused intensity of a manic scholar dissecting a particularly fascinating specimen.

In that moment, Maon understood the terrible truth: this human was fear’s true incarnation.

* * *

Meanwhile, Enoxia stared at the ashen sky with eyes like empty windows.

The same gray expanse. The same moment in time.

Eighty years ago, during the height of the demonic wars, she had been born to a vagrant’s desperate coupling.

Garbage bins served as dining halls. When a rotting field mouse appeared, children spilled blood competing for the privilege of consuming decay.

No food. No parents. Her mother had taken her own life shortly after giving birth, leaving only a crying infant and a fraying rope.

It was a brutal existence.

So she had killed to survive, devoured others to live. Chaos was the only constant in her world.

Then I met my master.

Her mentor, one of the six Grand Masters of that era, showed unprecedented kindness to orphans. Always gentle, always considerate, always placing their needs above her own.

And Enoxia had murdered her.

The reason was devastatingly simple: survival.

The Demonkin had captured her and the other children.

Her master sacrificed herself to save them—by dying at Enoxia’s own hands, ensuring the children’s escape through her final act of love.

“Haha...”

A bitter laugh escaped her lips as she continued staring skyward.

Her life seemed to follow a pattern: repeatedly destroying those most precious to her.

First, she had consumed her mother in the womb, draining her life force.

Second, she had devoured her master’s sacrifice.

And now—

The scenery shifted around her like pages turning in some cosmic book.

She had witnessed this identical scene more than twenty times. The repetition had worn grooves in her sanity.

Enoxia turned her head.

Martel, suspended in demonic chains.

There she knelt before him, helpless and pleading, while Demonkin shrieked with laughter at her desperation.

Then they would sever Martel’s head with deliberate slowness.

Once again, she would witness the death of someone irreplaceable.

“...”

Her voice had abandoned her sessions ago.

The environment shifted to their first meeting, as it always did.

Whoosh—!

Reality flickered to the World Council chambers, where her residence had been decided by politics and practicality.

Seeing the familiar transition, Enoxia closed her eyes and surrendered to memory.

In those days, she had been dissatisfied with everything—the world, her circumstances, the endless parade of weaklings who presumed to give her orders.

Possessing transcendent power yet being told to remain in some backwater kingdom? She couldn’t fathom why inferior beings felt entitled to dictate terms to their betters.

She had mocked Frostfang of the Empire as a hopeless fool, but now she had become something far more pathetic.

Disillusionment with herself and existence itself had become her constant companions.

“What a fucking mess.”

She remembered those exact words, spoken while lighting a cigarette on Diva’s waterfront.

At least she’d had tobacco in her pocket. This trading kingdom offered exotic varieties from across the known world.

But while sitting on the wharf, nursing her cynicism…

“Why do something so harmful to your body?”

Someone addressed her with genuine concern.

Turning, she found a handsome man studying her with worried eyes.

Was he insane?

She had cussed him out thoroughly, demanding he mind his own business.

A man without proper training? To her perception, he was indistinguishable from the worst sort of weakling.

But perhaps that had been prejudice speaking.

The man returned daily, urging her to abandon smoking. She shouted at him to leave her alone each time.

Before either quite understood how, they had grown close.

They discussed health constantly, and she endured his eccentric lectures about environmental responsibility.

As time passed, she discovered herself falling in love.

But the sentiment appeared entirely one-sided.

One day, he arrived with a woman, introducing her as his wife.

Naturally, Enoxia congratulated them.

Marriage represented one of humanity’s most sacred institutions, didn’t it?

Even to her critical eye, that virtuous woman seemed far more suitable for him than someone carrying her particular burdens.

So she had withdrawn from his life entirely.

She refused to invest her heart needlessly, and wounded pride demanded distance.

She should never have made that choice.

Sometime later, rumors reached her of a massacre—the man’s entire family butchered.

His wife, his daughter—everyone he cherished, gone.

Even his granddaughter had vanished.

For such comprehensive tragedy to befall one person seemed beyond possibility.

Like most rumors, she dismissed it as exaggeration born of idle gossip.

Until the man returned to Diva.

“Please find my granddaughter.”

He had bowed his head in supplication, their former friendship replaced by shared understanding of profound loss.

“… Alright. I’ll try to persuade the king.”

She had granted his request without hesitation.

And when the granddaughter’s death was finally confirmed, she could no longer bear to face him.

Because she was pestilence incarnate—one who killed, devoured, and stole happiness from anyone who dared care for her.

Enoxia slowly opened her eyes.

Her hands were painted crimson.

“I shouldn’t be alive.”

She had already lived far longer than wisdom dictated. Perhaps peace was finally within reach.

Enoxia raised trembling fingers toward her throat.

Just as she prepared to end her suffering—

Whoosh—!

Sudden brilliance shattered the darkness, white light exploding across her vision.

“Ugh...”

She squinted against the radiance.

A figure stood silhouetted against the brightness.

“...Martel?”

Had the man she’d waited for so long finally come to stop her?

Enoxia struggled to focus her blurred vision on the approaching shape.

A familiar voice reached her ears.

“Get up. How long do you plan to sleep?”

A raven-haired man stood before her. The Divine Archer’s disciple who had brought grim news of Martel’s granddaughter.

Louis Berg.

He extended one hand while supporting Martel with the other—apparently having rescued him from demonic captivity.

“Pull yourself together quickly. I don’t think I can handle that thing alone.”

Enoxia chuckled mirthlessly.

What she had been granted was neither the man’s happiness nor her own redemption.

But revenge—at least that much remained within reach.

“You said you could kill Duke Artezia alone?”

“I did. What about it?”

“Right. That’s good enough.”

Enoxia’s eyes blazed as Aura scattered around her like falling stars.

If she couldn’t step out of this kingdom, she would entrust vengeance to him.

Instead, she would do what lay within her power.

“I’ll handle that.”

Without those accursed psychic attacks, that pathetic Demonkin wouldn’t even come close to matching her.

“Come at me, you parasitic vermin.”

She would demonstrate the meaning of true power.