"Then, if you’ll excuse , I’ll return to Draven Mansion. There are so matters I need to take care of," Adyr said, after lingering for a while longer, watching the sun’s slow tamorphosis before finally speaking.
He intended to log out and join his family for breakfast. They were already under enough stress, and his prolonged absence had likely started to unsettle them further.
"Sure. We’ll get in touch with you later. Take care," Malrik said, stepping in to give him a brief, firm hug.
The others offered brief words of thanks and saw him off with friendly nods, their voices low but sincere.
Unfolding his wings, Adyr rose into the sky and set course for Draven Mansion.
From above, he could already see the sprawling garden—lush and vivid, covered in well-kept grass and colorful flowers, standing out in striking contrast to the rest of the mansion’s stern architecture.
But it wasn’t empty. The crowd was still there.
On one side, makeshift floor beds had been laid out, where workers appeared to be resting in silence. Most likely, they had been kept on standby in case they were needed, and the Draven family had provided temporary shelter for them.
Elsewhere, mbers of royal households and high-ranking knights stood waiting, clearly on alert.
As Adyr descended, he spotted King Vale, Orven Draven, and several other lords seated beneath the garden pavilion, sipping tea in quiet tension.
The mont Adyr landed, every knight present stood at attention and offered a silent salute.
The king and the lords noticed his arrival and rose from their seats, walking over to greet him.
"Lord Adyr, I hope you’re well," King Vale said, forcing a smile. There was a tightness in his voice.
Like the others, the king had deep shadows under his eyes, and his posture was slightly hunched. It was obvious none of them had slept—they had waited through the night for word from him.
From a distance earlier, they had seen the ape-like form of Liora vanish atop Colossith’s immobilized body. That alone had told them it was over.
Normally, when Liora retreated and the other practitioners took over, the transition was chaotic and loud, filled with unstable energies and erratic bursts of light.
But not this ti. Everything had been eerily silent.
Rank 4 Spark remained completely still, frozen in place, showing no signs of further movent. That alone told them the truth: Adyr’s plan, and the structure they had all helped build, had worked.
Even so, they needed to hear it directly.
"Everything is stable. The structure is functioning without issue. Colossith has been completely contained. Now, all they’re doing is waiting for it to finish feeding and depart," Adyr said with a faint smile, delivering the news they had been desperate to hear.
"Oh, God... thank you," King Vale whispered and finally let himself exhale. His knees bent slightly as he leaned forward, hands resting on his thighs, as if a mountain had just slid off his shoulders.
Adyr watched their quiet celebration for a mont before speaking. "I’ll return to my room and sleep."
His tone left no room for further conversation. He had no desire to linger in the joy or join their relief.
Turning away, he stepped into the mansion and headed straight for his quarters.
Behind him, the King and the Lords could only watch in silence, their expressions filled with unspoken gratitude and reverence.
—
"Mr. Adyr."
As he opened his eyes and sat up in the gaming pod, he was greeted by Nurse Mira, who had quickly risen from the chair where she’d been dozing.
"Hey. It’s okay. I’ll leave imdiately—let’s skip today’s check," Adyr said calmly.
Mira, still half-asleep, gave a small nod, and he left the room without another word.
He didn’t stop by his room to change. Instead, he headed straight to the elevator, requested a vehicle from reception, and began the ride ho.
It was still early—just past dawn—and the streets remained empty. Even those with morning duties had yet to rise.
The sky was overcast, covered in thick clouds, making this world appear even darker than the other. Rain seed imminent.
When he arrived ho, he entered quietly and saw Marielle lying on the couch again. Physically, she looked fine, but she likely still wasn’t ready to return to her room. The ntal strain hadn’t eased yet.
Niva had laid out a blanket on the floor and was fast asleep, breathing softly. Both seed stable.
After checking on them and confirming there were no imdiate issues, Adyr went upstairs, changed his clothes, and made his way to the kitchen.
Before anyone could wake, he began preparing breakfast—his movents quiet, efficient. Whether those of a brother, a son, or a forr serial killer, his steps remained soundless as he crafted a al both refined and nourishing.
He used the sa hands, steady, unshaking, and skilled, that had tortured Cannibal and slaughtered nearly a hundred of his n with cold brutality, now to prepare a detailed and flavorful breakfast for his family.
As the toast browned, eggs sizzled in oil, and fresh coffee brewed beside steeping aromatic tea, a warm blend of scents began to fill the kitchen, gradually seeping into every corner of the house.
"Brother?" Niva had woken a while ago, roused by the inviting slls, and ca to check the kitchen. When she saw her brother there, a flicker of surprise crossed her pale blue eyes, followed by a quiet sense of relief and soft happiness. "You’re back."
Adyr turned to her with a comforting smile. Her short black hair was ssy from sleep, and the right side of her fair face showed a gentle flush—the kind that ca from lying still too long on one side in deep, peaceful sleep.
"Yeah, I returned not too long ago. Go wash your face and wake Marielle," he said, turning back to the stove.
Niva nodded, her face bright with a smile, and hurried upstairs. Monts later, she returned with Marielle, and the three of them sat down together at the breakfast table Adyr had prepared.
"Look at this... he never fails to surprise with breakfast," Marielle said as she took her seat, scanning the spread with visible delight, unable to hold back the complint.
Her eyes landed on her plate, and she paused.
Laid out in front of her wasn’t just a plate of food. It was a portrait. A three-dinsional likeness made entirely of carefully arranged breakfast ingredients. What first appeared whimsical quickly revealed itself as deliberate and precise, each component placed with the intention of capturing depth, shadow, and color like a painter with a palette.
Thin slices of black olive ford the contour of short hair, shaped with exacting symtry. The egg white, perfectly trimd and slightly lifted at the edges, created a soft, fair-toned face. A delicate sar of tomato paste on the cheeks gave it a subtle blush, barely noticeable but unmistakably intentional. And the eyes—deep, open, expressive—were crafted from peeled blueberries, their light blue flesh carefully trimd into elliptical shapes and nested into small indents carved into the egg white, creating a lifelike illusion of gaze and light reflection.
The effect was startling. From a frontal view, it looked like a charming food-art sketch, but when the plate shifted slightly left or right, the arrangent seed to shift with it, mimicking depth and curvature. It gave off the uncanny illusion of movent, like staring at an oil painting that refused to stay flat.
"Is this... Niva?" Marielle asked, glancing between her daughter and the plate. The resemblance was too precise to be a coincidence. Even the parting of the hair and the slight tilt of the head matched Niva’s typical expressions.
"And I have you, Mother," Niva added, pointing at her own plate. Her dish mirrored the sa technique, only this ti it showed a mature face frad by long black olive strands arranged as hair, and the sa signature pale blue eyes, larger now, more knowing.
Adyr, watching them both, said nothing. He simply ate in silence, lips curled faintly. For him, art wasn’t confined to blood and bone. It existed in every act of control, every detail executed with intent.
He noticed Marielle hesitating to eat. Not simply out of a reluctance to ruin the artwork, but because of everything that had happened with Cannibal. The idea of consuming a plate shaped like her daughter’s face must have stirred sothing deep, a discomfort rooted in trauma rather than aesthetics.
And that was exactly the point.
This wasn’t just food or art—it was therapy, crafted with intent.
Adyr had designed the plate not only to impress, but to heal. To replace the grotesque with the familiar. To rewire associations.
He knew the mories buried in her mind weren’t just of pain and captivity—they were painted in blood, sharpened by the image of bodies reduced to at.
So he gave her sothing deliberately gentle. Sothing beautiful. He mirrored the face of her daughter, not as a corpse or mory of horror, but in food—colorful, harmless, warm. It wasn’t subtle. It was calculated.
The logic was simple: exposure therapy.
You don’t cure a fear of the dark by avoiding it. You walk into it until your eyes adjust. You don’t overco a fear of spiders by fleeing—you hold one. You confront heights not with a ladder, but with a leap.
This was no different. By presenting the face of soone she loved in the form of food, frad by warmth and laughter, he was nudging her mind to reprocess the experience. Refra the horror. Not erase it—reshape it.
It wouldn’t work overnight. Trauma doesn’t dissolve that easily. But over ti, the image might lose its sharpness. The bloodstains in her mory might fade into background noise. One day, she might look back and say, "I lived through that," as if recalling a strange but distant dream. Not a nightmare.
Just another story from the past. Survivable... Bearable... Normal...
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