Hundreds of years later, the seal still stood—silent, cold, and unbroken.
People called the land here the Cradle of Winter now.
A wasteland where the breath of frost never ceased, and time itself dragged like wounded prey.
At its heart rose the seal—an icy monument forged in desperation, meant to bind a being the eight kings could not kill. The original spell had been flawed—unstable. But in the centuries that followed, the kingdoms studied it, dissected it, and layered their own magic upon its core.
They tried to improve it.
And in doing so… they changed it.
Each reinforcement carved deeper into the land, feeding it more divine power, more sacrificial energy, more lawless restraint. What began as a prison became a slow, devouring curse—spreading, year after year.
Now, the tundra stretched like a scar across the north.
Oakvale still lay just beyond the deepest reach of frost—but only barely. The road into its ruins was cracked and blackened, the greenery sparse and stunted, as if even the soil feared what lay ahead.
Only the Vigilant Thirteen remained here—eternal guardians stationed at the seal's edge, ever watchful, ever silent.
In most towns, the Cradle of Winter had become little more than a myth.
A tale told by elders—of a being so powerful the eight venerable kings could not slay it, only seal it.
Few believed it now.
Most assumed the legend had been crafted to keep people away from a deadly, frozen wasteland. After all, those who ventured there found nothing but an endless expanse of white—unimaginably cold, eerily quiet, and utterly empty.
Or so they claimed.
In this era, new terrors rose to take the place of old myths.
Where the once-mighty Ignavora Kingdom once stood, a Demon Domain had taken root—twisting the land into a crimson abyss. The demons had appeared suddenly, without warning. No one knew their origin. No envoy. No demands.
Only destruction.
At least, that's what the people believed.
And yet, as the world broke and bled, something else awakened too.
The Era of Magic faded, and in its place, the Era of Cultivation began.
Now, mankind no longer relied on spells passed down through bloodlines or tomes. Instead, they cultivated—drawing upon the spiritual energy in the world, refining their bodies, and rising beyond mortal limits.
Power was no longer inherited.
It was earned.
Stolen.
Fought for.
And deep beneath it all, the Cradle still pulsed.
Belzebuth had just finished burying Yui's remains beneath the roots of the old oak—the one they used to play beneath long ago. It had grown enormous in his absence, its branches sprawling like reaching arms across the grey sky, its bark dark with age and silent witness.
The snow crunched under his feet as he began walking once more—back toward the frozen slope where the Vigilant Thirteen still knelt, paralyzed.
The sound of his approach broke the stillness.
Even before they saw him, the guards tensed. Their eyes darted wildly, their wills screaming at limbs that refused to move. Then they saw him.
Belzebuth.
Returning.
No longer distracted.
The weight of despair sank into their bones.
In silent, growing panic, they tried to move. Even an inch. Even enough to reach the communication runes embedded in their gauntlets. If they could just send a signal… anything…
But their bodies would not respond. Muscles locked. Joints frozen. Even their blood slowed in their veins.
The pressure increased.
What had once felt like a mountain now pressed like the edge of a continent. By the time Belzebuth stood directly before them, their vision darkened. Veins burst. Skin split open. Bones cracked under the sheer weight of his spiritual presence.
They didn't scream.
They couldn't.
Their deaths were slow, quiet, and gruesome—flesh collapsing inward, organs rupturing, blood leaking through their armor until all that remained was red, steaming pulp melting into the white frost.
Belzebuth didn't blink.
Didn't pause.
Only when it was over—when the last of their twitching life ebbed into the snow—did he turn away and glanced at the flickering panel in front of him.
[Ding!]
[You have successfully absorbed the soul remnants of the Vigilant Thirteen.]
[Rewards Acquired]:
- Slight increase in combat proficiency
- Minor boost to cultivation realm
He wasn't surprised by this, he was already too powerful, and so an improvement is still an improvement
Just then he sense someone approaching…
Wrapped in a faded cloak, hood drawn low, Kael moved silently across the blackened snow. He always came at dusk.
It had become habit.
No one stopped him.
He didn't look at the seal. He never did. Not right away.
"Here goes nothing again," he muttered, his voice barely audible in the frozen wind. He knelt, fingers brushing the crust of frost, as if enacting a forgotten prayer.
In his satchel were hand-copied scrolls, fragments of forbidden lore, and a single shard of crystallized soil—blackened and burnt at the edge, taken from the inner frost border.
The Vigilant Thirteen never bothered with him.
To them, he was just another Umbraen—one of the curious lesser bloods who wandered too close to what should remain sealed.
They never noticed the faint streaks of silver in his hair. He kept them dyed, carefully hidden.
But Kael knew better than they did.
He had heard whispers from an old man long thought mad—one who claimed to have seen the war, who spoke of a being too powerful to kill.
Kael didn't believe him at first. But the more he searched, the more the fragments aligned.
And then… he felt it.
Each time he stood at the Cradle of Winter, something stirred inside him. At first, he thought it was fear.
Later, he realized it was resonance.
Something deep within this frozen land… was calling to him.
He dropped to one knee at the edge of the outer ring, exhaled through his nose, and pressed his palm to the snow-choked soil.
Then, once again, he spoke the words he had come to believe were more than myth…
Belzebuth watched the figure approaching through the frost—young, hooded, draped in a weather-worn black cloak that fluttered faintly in the wind. His pace was unhurried, his eyes fixed on the snow at his feet. He didn't look around. Didn't glance at the ruined seal.
Didn't sense the weight watching him from the shadows.
Belzebuth narrowed his eyes.
Umbraen?
The boy's appearance said so. But Belzebuth felt it—his blood stirred.
A faint thrum. A whisper in the marrow.
Resonance?
His bloodline was reacting.
Belzebuth made no move. He simply watched, silent as the snow.
The young man continued forward, stopping just short of the shattered seal. He didn't seem to notice the monument's ruined form—only knelt slowly and exhaled through his nose.
Then he spoke—softly, as if repeating an old prayer to himself:
"Here goes nothing again…'
"By the power of the sun flare,
The ice seal shall shatter."
Belzebuth raised an eyebrow.
A seal-breaking incantation?
Not even close to braking this seal, and besides… I'm already out.
Without warning, Belzebuth stepped forward, his voice low but clear:
"Kid. What are you hoping to find by trying to break the seal?"
The boy flinched—then spun around, panic in his eyes. His mouth opened.
"W-what are you talking about? I-I was just here to pra—"
The words froze mid-sentence.
His eyes widened. His breath hitched.
He stared at the figure before him—tall, cloaked in snow-dusted frost, with wings of silence and eyes that bled crimson across a void of black.
No… it can't be…
It's him. Just like the old man said…
"So the seal… was broken?"
Kael turned his head sharply, eyes darting toward the center of the clearing.
The icy tomb—the monument that had loomed in silence for centuries—was gone.
All that remained were scattered fragments of crystalized ice, gleaming faintly in the twilight.
His breath caught.
Then… it really worked?
He slowly turned back toward the towering figure before him, awe and fear warring behind his eyes.
Belzebuth, meanwhile, examined the young man's face more closely. There was something… familiar about this young man.
But he brushed the thought aside. Perhaps it was just the echo of shared lineage.
He stepped forward.
"From which clan do you come?" he asked, his voice low—measured.
Kael stiffened.
For a moment, he hesitated—then realized that hiding the truth would be dangerous. The aura pressing down on him was suffocating. He was alive only because of the blood that stirred between them.
"I-I'm…" he swallowed. "A mix-blood. Alvarya… and Umbraen."
Belzebuth's eyes narrowed slightly.
Kael reached into his satchel, fumbling for a small vial. With trembling fingers, he poured the liquid into his hand and rubbed it across his scalp. The dye faded, revealing streaks of gleaming silver woven through the strands.
"This is… who I really am."
A long silence followed.
Belzebuth didn't speak.
He didn't move.
His gaze lingered on the silver—on the boy's trembling shoulders… on the weight of history standing quietly in front of him.
Within him, something shifted.
Hope. A flicker…
Then… some Alvaryan blood still survived.
But also… confusion. Pain. A bitter question whispered through his thoughts:
But why the Umbraen?
Belzebuth remained still—silent, unreadable.
Sensing no hostility from the figure in front of him, Kael dropped to his knees. Then, bowing his head low until his forehead touched the snow, he spoke.
"Venerable one… please," he whispered, voice trembling.
"Please help me rescue my peers"
The words echoed faintly across the frost.
Belzebuth's expression did not change, but inwardly, he frowned.
Help you? Rescue?
As if reading his confusion, Kael gave a bitter, broken smile.
"I escaped," he said quietly, "but not alone."
He clenched his fists against the frozen ground.
"The others… they stayed behind. They bought me time to flee."
Belzebuth's eyes darkened.
Kael lifted his head—just enough to be seen, his face tense with a pain carried too long.
"We're not a clan. Not truly. We're just the outcome of an experiment—children born in labs, raised in cages. Products of curiosity."
"We are their test subjects."
There was no shame in his voice. Only fury. And resolve.
His eyes, though tired, held a steady gleam.
"I've been free for ten years now. And every day since, I've searched. Every scrap of lore. Every whisper. Anything that could help me go back."
"I don't know how many are still alive. Or if anyone is. But I can't just leave them."
He looked up—directly at Belzebuth now.
"That's why I came here. That's why I tried to break the seal."
His voice cracked—not from fear, but from desperate hope.
"I thought… if I could find you, maybe—just maybe—there would still be a chance."
With each word Kael spoke, Belzebuth's emotions surged—grief, fury, a growing storm behind shadowed eyes.
So that's how the mixed bloodline came to be…
A brutal truth, born not of peace, but of shackles.
Without a word, Belzebuth stepped forward. Kael instinctively tensed—but instead of striking, Belzebuth gently pressed two fingers against the young man's forehead.
A soft hum resonated in the air.
[DING!]
[Bloodline Resonance Detected – Initiating Memory Echo Sequence...]
Kael's eyes widened.
In an instant, Belzebuth's mind was flooded with Kael's memories—not just those he knew, but the buried fragments even Kael himself had forgotten.
He saw flickers of metal cages. Syringes. Screams muffled by enchantments.
He saw Kael's first escape—the desperate dash through crumbling tunnels.
But most importantly… he saw the locations.
Lab after lab. Facility after facility. Etched into Kael's memory in shards of trauma.
So many places...
Belzebuth pulled back.
The ability—Echo Sight—was a gift of his bloodline, accessible only between kin. On outsiders, it would shatter the subject's mind. Even on Kael, its strain had already begun to show.
He had used it just long enough to trace the labs' locations.
And to see the coordinate of the one Kael had escaped from—and surprisingly, it's the nearest.
Kael gasped, collapsing to his hands and knees, breath shallow and ragged. His skin was cold with sweat.
Belzebuth let him recover only a moment, then...
"Come, Kael," he said, voice firm but calm.
"Let's go meet your kin."
Before Kael could process the words, the world twisted.
Colors blurred. Gravity stuttered.
And then—solid stone.
Kael blinked.
He was standing before a rusted wall—scarred and familiar. The cell he once called home.
Behind him, the air shimmered—and Belzebuth stepped through the fold, eyes sharp as blades.
Kael straightened suddenly.
"Ah! I completely forgot—" he said, flustered. "I never introduced myself. My name is Kael. May I… know your name?"
The figure beside him turned just slightly.
"…Belzebuth," he answered, voice quiet—but absolute. "But now's not the time for introductions. I'm still searching for someone."
The name struck Kael like lightning.
Belzebuth.
That name…
He'd heard it long ago, in a voice soft with memory.
A bedtime story spoken by his great-great-grandmother—of a boy from a forgotten village, of love lost, and a kingdom devoured by fire and frost.
"He was the one I waited for… every day, every night. But maybe… maybe he's not in this world anymore."
She paused then, staring into the fire.
"Sometimes… the people we love don't get to come home."
His breath hitched.
Could it really be… him?
But before he could ask, Belzebuth stepped forward, hand lifting toward the rusted wall.
The air warped.
Stone cracked.
And Kael realized—this was no longer a myth…
This was the beginning of a new calamity for the world