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LONG LIVE THE DEAD - FULL EP 2026
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#FULL EP
- FULL EP 2026
#FULL EPISODE #shortfilm
FULL VERSION #High Quality
#FULL EP
- FULL EP 2026
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Burn her! Burn her! Burn her!
00:03My name is Leia.
00:0424 hours ago, I was New York's top forensic pathologist,
00:08calmly cutting open the chest of a powerful man.
00:11Now I'm bound with rough ropes to the cursed execution platform,
00:15my feet surrounded by grease-soaked firewood.
00:17The witch!
00:18You're in my assault!
00:20Those eyes of yours that can see spirits are the mark of Satan!
00:25But I don't struggle.
00:26I'm just waiting.
00:28Behind these fanatical rioters stands an army they cannot see.
00:32Hundreds upon thousands of resentful ghosts.
00:39Since you wish to do God's will,
00:41why don't you first ask the Saison if she approves?
00:45The air reeks of cheap grease and pine.
00:48Lilla, those cursed purple eyes of yours can see Satan's illusions!
00:52Only fire can cleanse your sins!
00:56My name is Leia, not Leela.
00:58As the top forensic pathologist of the 21st century,
01:02I have dissected thousands of corpses and heard countless last words from the dead.
01:08I transmigrated to this backward medieval era,
01:10becoming Lila, the illegitimate daughter of a noble count,
01:15branded a cursed star for her purple eyes,
01:18pushed to death by her own father.
01:21I found my eyes had mutated.
01:23I can not only discern wounds clearly,
01:27I can also see the lingering victims who haven't yet departed.
01:31Valerie, are you sure you want to light the fire?
01:34Silence! The witch is casting a curse!
01:36A curse?
01:37Sister Cecile is right behind you, Archbishop.
01:39She's wearing an emerald silk dress,
01:41but her throat is charred black,
01:42marks from concentrated strong alkali corrosion.
01:44Didn't she keep grabbing your left hand when you made her drink that cup of holy water?
01:49Silence! The witch is casting a curse!
01:54Archbishop, does your left hand still hurt?
01:58You're lying! Start the fire! Now!
02:02Why so nervous?
02:03I sweep my gaze over the unsettled believers in the square.
02:06Do you want to know where the saint's heart is?
02:10It never went to heaven.
02:11No one breathes.
02:13It's hidden behind the secret door inside the confessional at the Archbishop's residence.
02:17I can see the empty cavity in Cecile's chest as clearly as if I had opened it myself.
02:24He cut out her heart,
02:27simply because he believed it would prolong his life.
02:31Suspicious eyes turned toward Valerius.
02:34He's the real servant of darkness.
02:37Not me.
02:39Burn her! Burn her now!
02:47The wind stops.
02:50I owe you one.
02:51Command me.
02:53Now is the time.
02:54If you want him in hell,
02:56lend me your hands.
02:57The sky blackens at once.
02:59Clouds swallow the sun.
03:01The flames at my feet go out.
03:02Then flare back to life in a strange blue fire.
03:06They do not burn me.
03:07They only eat through the ropes.
03:09Valerius suddenly starts convulsing.
03:11His left arm jerks up against his will.
03:13The old scratches split open again,
03:16blackening as they tear wider.
03:17The cross slipped from his fingers and clattered to the ground.
03:21He lets out a scream that does not sound human.
03:24Then he looked behind him in terror.
03:25A black shape thickens in the air as though ink has been poured over glass.
03:30Cecile takes form.
03:31Her neck is scorched black.
03:33Her body is half-burned.
03:34Tears still stain her face.
03:36Stepping onto the loosened rope and rising to my full height on the execution platform.
03:43Now, I get to judge you.
03:47I had only been in this world a short time.
03:50But I had already seen enough.
03:52I knew exactly where power came from in a crowd like this.
03:55Build a line.
03:57Name a common enemy.
03:59At that moment, Valerius' left hand.
04:01The one covered in claw marks.
04:04Who's crushing his own throat.
04:06He hangs half in the air.
04:08Kicked up by the saint's dead grip.
04:10His legs thrashing.
04:12The square sinks into a silence so heavy it feels like stone.
04:17Fear ripples through the people.
04:19But so does doubt.
04:21Marquis de Moray, who was sent to supervise the execution.
04:25Everyone, do not be fooled by this witch's tricks.
04:29Even if Valerius is guilty, the church should judge him.
04:33You expect us to trust the word of a demon-eyes girl?
04:36Your visions prove nothing.
04:40The dead don't invent tricks.
04:42They only tell the truth people buried.
04:44Take your eldest son, for example.
04:46The one who vanished three years ago.
04:49Valerius told you he died on pilgrimage, didn't he?
04:51The Marquis goes rigid.
04:53His sword shakes.
04:56But your son is right behind you.
05:00He says he saw Valerius torturing a novice inside the confessional, so Valerius silenced him.
05:06He was never buried in holy ground.
05:09He was chopped into pieces and hidden under the old laurel tree in the church garden.
05:15That's impossible.
05:17Cecile.
05:18Show him.
05:20Her shadow stretches across the ground like spilled tar.
05:23Then tears toward the cathedral in a shrieking room.
05:26The Marquis runs after it.
05:28So do the townsfolk.
05:34When they come back, the Marquis is staggering.
05:38In his hands is a sealed gold vessel.
05:41Inside it is a shriveled heart.
05:43That is the end of fate.
05:44The square erupts.
05:47Kill him!
05:48Burn the Karis Eater!
05:51Tear him apart!
05:54The mob swallows Valerius blood.
05:59I stand on the stake and watch the Archbishop die.
06:03The trial has only just begun.
06:07Leela!
06:09You... you're alive!
06:11Thank God!
06:13She is the adopted daughter who entered the convent with me.
06:17She is also the one who drugged my food,
06:20deepened the unnatural color of my eyes,
06:22and pointed at me in front of the church and cried witch.
06:25Leela!
06:28Bella!
06:29Don't expect me to forgive you like before.
06:31I'm not the old Lila.
06:33Not that saintly little fool.
06:35What are you saying?
06:37I was worried about you.
06:39I never thought they were really bad.
06:40I looked at the looming shadow behind her.
06:43The wreath was furiously tearing at Belly's hair.
06:46Bella knew nothing of it,
06:47only busy putting on her act of sisterly affection.
06:50And in that instant, another truth falls into place.
06:54Next month is the coronation.
06:56The prince's bride, the future queen,
06:59was supposed to be me, the only marriageable daughter of the house.
07:03She was trying to take my place.
07:05At this moment, heavy hooves crash against the stones outside the square.
07:11The crowd carts.
07:12Two lavish carriages roll in beneath the protection of mounted knights.
07:16The royal crest and the holy sigil are carved into both.
07:21The doors open.
07:22Two women step down.
07:30The woman on the left is my elder sister, Cassandra.
07:34She sees good and evil as clearly as color,
07:36and turns morality itself into force.
07:39That power made her the royal court's cleanest blade.
07:42The woman on the right is my second sister, Secure.
07:45She can see the end date on every life.
07:48She steals years from the condemned and gives them to dying nobles.
07:51That is how she built her influence.
07:54You should not be alive.
08:01You should not be alive.
08:03Your countdown reset.
08:05A forbidden force rewrote your fate.
08:10As the daughters of the woman who once married into this house,
08:14we should have been house storm pressed pride.
08:18Only I was packed off to a convent whilst still a child.
08:22Then sent to die on a pyre.
08:25Liar!
08:26The king is watching this miracle!
08:28You're an anomaly.
08:29And anomalies make powerful people nervous.
08:32Come with us. Quietly.
08:34I do not trust them.
08:35Not after they stood by while I was condemned.
08:38In light of what you have shown here,
08:40and the unrest caused by your eyes,
08:42you are stripped of the Stormcrest name.
08:45Effective immediately, you are to be exiled to Blackstone Culp.
08:51Blackstone Keep is a death sentence.
08:54People say even rats go mad there.
08:57I'll go.
09:06I'm coming.
09:07I'm coming.
09:08I am being thrown into a ruin full of dead things.
09:12To them, it is exile.
09:14To me, it might be a door.
09:19Because in this world,
09:21power may wear the mask of virtue or time,
09:24but under both lies the same foundation.
09:28Bones.
09:29And if what I hold is really tied to death,
09:32then a fortress full of corpses may be the best place in the world for me to begin.
09:40The moment I tried to pick up the chest again,
09:42that same agony came flooding back.
09:49The road to Blackstone Keep is lined with nameless graves.
09:53As the carriage moves north,
09:55the city gives way to empty land,
09:57then to scrub,
09:59then to sand.
10:01The farther they went,
10:02the more uneasy the guards looked.
10:05Cecile sits across from me now,
10:07no longer flickering in and out like before.
10:10In life, she was all softness and worship.
10:13In death,
10:14something colder has settled into her bones.
10:17Lady Lyra,
10:19that guard's soul was fading away.
10:22Three hours from now,
10:23he'll freeze to death out here.
10:28I can see more than ghosts.
10:31I can see death itself.
10:33Now these eyes seem determined to drag me past time itself.
10:37I see the dead.
10:39I see the wounds that killed them.
10:42I hear their whispers.
10:45Sometimes I see the memory of the moment they died.
10:50I raise my hand and touch the scorched hollow of Cecile's throat.
10:58And I see electric shock-like sensation swept through me in an instant.
11:04Then her injury closes.
11:07The charred wound zips itself shut under a pulse of violet light.
11:12Lady Lyra,
11:15you can restore us.
11:17You can restore us!
11:25It may just be muscle memory.
11:27A doctor sees damage and wants to cut, fix, stitch, understand.
11:32And apparently, I could also mend souls now.
11:38I called these little surprises luck.
11:41The carriage rolled to a stop in front of Blackstone Keep's rusted iron gate.
11:50This wasn't an old castle.
11:54This was a giant morgue.
11:58The moment I stepped into the Great Hall, they came for me.
12:02My brain screamed.
12:04My eyes wept blood from the strain.
12:07I ordered.
12:08My voice cold.
12:10Back off!
12:10They didn't listen.
12:11Spirits with no shape and no sense.
12:14Just raw, hungry instinct.
12:15Suddenly, a gust of wind scattered them.
12:18Don't bother begging them like that.
12:21It's useless.
12:22Beneath the shattered stained glass window.
12:25Half hidden in shadow.
12:27Sat a man.
12:28Like he'd been waiting for me all along.
12:42Who are you?
12:44A failure.
12:46My body was stolen.
12:47My soul though?
12:49It just won't die.
12:50Leela moaned.
12:51Take a good look.
12:52Blackstone Keep isn't a castle.
12:54It's the Empire's soul alchemist's factory.
12:57They haul souls here.
12:58From commoners, from criminals.
13:00Grind them to dust.
13:01And refine the purest life force.
13:03Then they ship it to the capital.
13:05Following his lead, my violet eyes began to pulse wildly.
13:09Visions flooded my sight.
13:11Overlapping.
13:13Chaotic.
13:14They were the collective memories of the dead.
13:16So you're a harvested battery too.
13:20I'm a battery they'll never drain.
13:23They chopped up my body, but my soul was too hard to chew.
13:27Listen.
13:28The Arcan isn't ripping out saint's hearts to extend his own life.
13:31He's just a supplier.
13:33The real customer is the king.
13:35And the one swinging the blade?
13:36That's your sister.
13:38Why are you telling me all this?
13:39Your mother asked me to.
13:41She told me to wait for you here.
13:43Lila.
13:44See your power for what it is.
13:46You can read how the dead died.
13:47You can mend their wounds.
13:49But that's just the beginning.
13:51Next week, the king's sickly son is taking a new bride.
13:55Another sacrifice.
13:57The king needs a top grade spare part to keep himself alive.
14:01Guess who they've chosen as the next offering.
14:04Bella thought she'd stolen a fortune from me.
14:07Who knew she'd actually stolen a death sentence?
14:11What's your name?
14:13Alaric.
14:14Deep under Blackstone Keep, there's something your mother left before she died.
14:18I've kept it safe for you, for decades.
14:21With that, you'll get closer to the truth.
14:25I followed the spiral staircase down.
14:28The underground didn't smell of rot like I'd expected.
14:32Instead, there was a sharp, chemical scent.
14:36Something like formaldehyde.
14:38At the bottom of the stairs lay a precision laboratory.
14:41In the center, on a stone table, sat a heavy iron chest.
14:47The moment I touched the chest, my violet pupils erupted with shattered images.
14:51I saw my mother.
14:54She hadn't died from postpartum weakness.
14:56She had been down in this dungeon, frantically recording something.
15:00She wasn't a victim.
15:02She was a key node in this whole immortality experiment.
15:06Connecting it with what Alaric had told me,
15:08the current king wasn't the first beneficiary of this immortality scheme.
15:12They had used Blackstone Keep to drain life force.
15:14But when the keep stopped working, they needed a replacement.
15:17And my mother, she might have been that replacement.
15:20The moment I tried to pick up the chest again, that same agony came flooding back.
15:31Lady Mondae left a magic mark behind.
15:34It was meant cement to someone from her world.
15:37Someone like her.
15:39To end all of this.
15:44Now, can you tell me your real name?
15:57My name is Lyra. I'm a medical examiner.
16:02Cecil stood behind me
16:05Her voice was no longer ethereal
16:07Lady Lyra
16:09I can feel the wind now
16:11She pulled a longsword from her hollow chest
16:14Looking just as shocked as I felt
16:18I'm going to use this blade
16:20To carve out that old immortal's heart
16:25Only the one who picks up this blade
16:27Is worthy of peace
16:29Back then the king ripped out my heart
16:31Trying to turn me into the purest battery for Blackstone Keep
16:35Your mother used that open heart moment
16:37To secretly stitch part of my soul into the Keep's foundation
16:40She saved my consciousness
16:42But trapped me here, unable to leave
16:44She was a brilliant stitcher
16:48She did all of this so the immortality fast would end with my generation
16:52And she must have had her reasons for saving me
16:55Will you come with me, Alaric?
16:57Lyra
16:59If you want to take me with you
17:00You'll have to use that blade
17:02Stitch my ghost into your shadow
17:05From then on, your life will be my anger
17:12His cold, weightless body passed through me in an embrace
17:15Then dissolved into swirling black smoke that shrank into my shadow
17:29After the coronation banquet in the imperial capital, Bella, wearing a pure white wedding dress, held the hand of the
17:36king's most beloved third prince
17:38I hid in the shadow of the huge stone pillar in the banquet hall, and the shadow under my feet
17:42stirred restlessly, as if echoing the undercurrent surging in my heart
17:46My second sister Sophia appeared behind me without warning, her tone trembling imperceptibly, and her eyes were filled with unprecedented
17:53anxiety
17:53It turned out that Bella had been a pawn from the very beginning, used to carry a cruel exchange of
17:59vitality
18:00The king would use Sophia's hand and transfer Bella's vitality to the third prince
18:04It was never Lyla, I was Leia
18:06After three years of protection, it was now my turn to come back and clean up this mess with my
18:11own hands
18:14The banquet reaches its peak
18:16Leta lifts the golden cup with shaking excitement
18:19The prince does the same
18:20I object
18:21I step out of the shadows
18:23At once, the glamour around the nobility peels away in my sight
18:27The beautiful faces wrinkle, collapse, rot
18:30Under their silk and velvet, I see patchwork flesh and old sutures and stolen years barely held together
18:35Seal materializes in the center of the hall
18:38Her dead white face
18:39All of it appears before the assembled lords and ladies
18:42For a heartbeat, no one moves
18:44Then someone screams
18:46The saint
18:47The saint gives back
18:48The hall explodes into pain
18:50Cecile raises her sword and starts chatting to the crowd
18:53Every thrust lands in the transplanted heart
18:56Walk toward them slowly
18:57An unviolet eye is burning
18:59Today is where we can
19:01Kill that witch
19:02The king lords by slamming a hand on the table
19:04The royal guard searches forward
19:07My shadow derives
19:08Black blades raise across the floor
19:10Spearing a huge soldier in his own shadow
19:13Bodies crumple and weather away before they even scream
19:16Half a power rises from the darkness and wraps one spectral hand around the prince's throat
19:21Bella drops to the floor
19:22Stunned
19:23I crouch in front of her
19:24Then I smile
19:25Thanks for dying in my place
19:27She jerks back
19:28Finally recognizing the danger
19:30Why are you still alive?
19:31You bitch
19:32Catch her wrist and wrench her upright
19:34Then I turn toward the king
19:36Your majesty
19:37Is this the heart you wanted?
19:39Do you even know what she is?
19:40She's not Lady Monda's true daughter
19:43King does not panic
19:44Not even a little
19:45He is staring at the scalpel in my hand
19:48In an infinite second
19:49Once
19:50The hidden mother array beneath the floor ignites
19:52The modern scalpel in my hand lets out a shrill metallic crack
19:55Then it rips free of my grip
19:57It does not fly toward the king
19:59It does not fly toward the prince
20:01It shoots straight across the hall
20:03And buries itself in Sophia's chest
20:07For one second, everything stops
20:10The silver flash
20:11The wet sound of impact
20:13Sophia looking down at the blade sticking out of her chest
20:16I reach her as she falls
20:17At a glance it looks fatal
20:19But I am a doctor before I am anything else
20:22Something is wrong
20:23There is no arterial spray
20:25And my breath catches
20:26The blade is not in her heart
20:28It is embedded in a black growth
20:30At that exact moment
20:31The king lets out a monstrous scream
20:33One whole side of his face shrivels before our eyes
20:36Collapsing into dried rot
20:38Now I get it, I say
20:39Gripping the scalpel
20:40The blade didn't attack her
20:42It cut out the parasite
20:44Sophia cocks up black blood and drives her wrist
20:47Our lives were tied to the king when we were children
20:49She whispers
20:50Mother made a deal
20:52Cecile returns it awry
20:54Sword gripping
20:54Lady Lyra
20:56The noble said that
20:57Their stolen ears are snapping back all at once
21:00Did you do this?
21:01The truth lands the pieces and they're all at once
21:04But Sophia is one half of the king's living room
21:06And Cassandra is the other
21:08My mother used her daughters as thorns hidden inside the king's body
21:12At my call, my shadow boils
21:14Move!
21:15I drag Sophia with me
21:16Cecile shields us
21:18Alaric wraps us in black force and sends us crashing through the palace windows and down into the freezing mode
21:23below
21:25North of the capital stands the holy court
21:28That is Cassandra's domain
21:30Unlike the banquet hall, this place is clean to the point of madness
21:34With a bleeding Sophia in my arms
21:36Cassandra is already seated at the judgment bench
21:39Beside her stands high pontiff Julian
21:41He smiles with his eyes lowered
21:43A holy white aura blazing above him so bright it almost hurts to look at
21:47My child, Julian says
21:48Stepping down from the dais
21:50I have waited for you
21:51I feel it at once
21:53The pressure
21:53Heavy enough to crush thought
21:55Cassandra says nothing
21:57She does not stop him
21:58That tells me everything I need to know
22:01Sophia broke the link too early
22:03The truth is leaking
22:04Julian needs me dead before the room catches up
22:07All those crimes, he says softly
22:09The archbishop, the broken marriage, the chaos in the palace
22:13Such evil
22:14Death is the only thing that can cleanse your soul
22:17He raises his hand
22:18White light gathers in his palm, dense and vicious
22:21Enough to shred the mind
22:23Before he can strike
22:24My shadow spills across the floor of the movement
22:26A scaled hand punches up from the darkness and catches the holy light barehanded
22:31The light vanishes into shadow
22:33The hand is scorched to pieces for the effort
22:35But enough
22:36Julian, he says
22:37Voice low and filthy with contempt
22:39The pontiff sees his face
22:41Prince Alaric, he shrieks
22:43Impossible
22:44Your soul should still be trapped
22:48My pulse stutters
22:49Alaric's identity is bigger than I ever guessed
22:52He is the king's brother
22:54The prince the crown should have gone to
22:56Lyra, Alaric says without looking back
22:59Protect your sister
23:00He draws a massive black sword
23:02Cecile steps in front of me and Sophia
23:04Julian does not attack Alaric head on
23:07He comes for me
23:08Cecile takes the blow instead
23:10White heat tears part of her form away
23:12But she keeps the strike from hitting Sophia too
23:14I hurl the scalpel
23:16The blade slices straight through the holy white ring above Julian's head
23:19And in the instant that false halo breaks
23:22Cassandra's world breaks with it
23:23She does not see radiant virtue anymore
23:26She sees faces
23:27Hundreds of them
23:28All the people she condemned
23:30All the scraps of goodness stripped from them and packed into Julian's crown of life
23:34The dead crowd the room with their grief
23:36My shadow breaks them in
23:38Some become wind around Alaric
23:40Some harden his armor
23:42Some sharpen the sword in his hand
23:44The rest gather behind me
23:45Farmers with pitchforks
23:47Men's with candlesticks
23:49Caberina with split skulls and phantom horses
23:52Cassandra presses bloody fingers to her eyes
23:55No
23:55She whispers
23:56No
23:57That can't be true
23:58You're indispensable
23:59I tell her coldly
24:01Mother didn't surrender
24:03She planted blades
24:04Sophia was time
24:05You were morality
24:07And I
24:08The doors blow open
24:09The king enters with half his face rotten and Bella in one hand like a butcher carrying meat
24:14Lyra
24:15He rasps
24:16Give me the knife
24:16Or I cut out what your mother hid inside your sister
24:19He claws open his robe
24:21A black smoking heartbeat's in his chest
24:23Then he squeezes it
24:25Cassandra drops to her knees
24:26For her gown
24:27Strange violet light pulses from her abdomen in the exact shape of the array beneath a blackstone king
24:33And before anyone can do it
24:34The king chances hand on Julian's bag and reaches for Cassandra
24:40The king's fingers tear through flesh
24:42Julian's blood pours into the glowing array on the floor
24:45The whole hall shakes
24:47No
24:47Cassandra gasps
24:49Mother's plan cannot end here
24:51Then
24:51To my shock
24:52She grabs him
24:53Not to escape
24:54To hold him still
24:56Lyra
24:56She screams
24:57Now
24:58At the same instant
24:59Alaric steps fully out of my shadow
25:02He is taller than before
25:03More solid
25:04More terrifying
25:05His black sword slams across the king's claws and stops them cold
25:09My dear brother
25:10The king hisses
25:11His
25:11One good idea that you agree
25:13Forty years and you're still a fool
25:16Father wanted to give you the throne
25:18Said your soul could not rot
25:19So I took your heart
25:21So I took your heart
25:21I turned you into the cleanest battery
25:23I can't hide
25:24And now look at you now
25:25Kingdom
25:26No body
25:27Not even proper life
25:28What gave you the right to stand in my way
25:31Allard does not cringe
25:32The ground under the throne still remembers your true title
25:35His eyes cut toward me
25:39I understand their hearts
25:40The dead are bringing you too
25:42Their grief turns
25:43Not just into mourning
25:45Into vengeance
25:46For honor
25:47For innocence
25:48For what was stolen
25:50I clench my jaw and get ready to move
25:52Allard drives his sword through the king's chest
25:55I can hold him for three minutes
25:56He roars
25:57Three minutes
25:58That is all
25:59I grab Cassandra's arm and force myself to focus
26:05Cassandra leaned against the stone pillar
26:07Coughing up blood violently from the shock of the king's heart
26:10Yet she stubbornly shook her head
26:12I am guilty
26:13I have to stay here
26:14The king
26:15Ignoring his arm that was spurting black blood
26:18Lowered his head and tore at something
26:19I could see it was a fresh heart
26:21Leia
26:22Now
26:22Alaric roared
26:24The wind around him turned into countless black chains
26:26Tightly binding the king's enormous
26:28Misshapen body
26:30His withered left face slowly recovered
26:32Even growing younger
26:33Madness blazed in his eyes
26:35And his voice warped and stretched
26:37You think I have no clue
26:38You're as naive as you were decades ago
26:41Bella's heart should not have rivaled the same
26:43Yet the king's body swelled
26:45His severed arm went grew
26:46Face after face surged in his chest
26:48And countless soul fragments on the ground were sucked into him
26:52Some of the undead beside me were ground directly into dust
26:55I was not one of the undead
26:57But blood kept seeping from my eyes
26:59Nevertheless
26:59I struggled against the wind toward the king
27:02Cassandra took my hand
27:04Her tattered robe flapped loudly in the gale
27:06And a white light shielded me from applying shards of souls
27:09The undead around Alaric were constantly being drawn away by the king
27:13Fighting back the urge to vomit blood
27:15I saw him turn his head and shout at me
27:17Remember what I told you before?
27:19So the souls together
27:20You have to command him
27:22Alaric drove his brace for him to his chest
27:25As a forensic doctor
27:26I knew this brace was fighting dead all too well
27:29Cassandra held my hand
27:30I stabbed the stealth
27:32Backhanding
27:33You were cracked
27:34Broken abdomen
27:38The blade tip precisely avoided all vital points on Cassandra
27:41Neatly severing the self-destruct pact stitched inside her
27:44Cassandra let out a low groan
27:46As I tore the purple core straight out of her body
27:48And held it high above my head
27:49The core drew the undead energy that had flooded into the king's body
27:52Swirling back toward it
27:53Cassandra struggled to straighten up
27:55I used the blade to stitch and mend the scattering undead forces around us
27:59Then hurled the scalpel
28:01It pierced the purple core and drove straight into Alaric's back
28:04His body stretched and twisted violently in the center of the hall
28:07Devoured by netherfire until nothing remained but a murky shadow
28:11To his mother's heart
28:12Everything was already too late
28:14The king's body disintegrated into act
28:16He turned his head
28:18Half his handsome face was eaten away by ghostly blue flames
28:21Raining purple light flickering alternately in his people's
28:24His features twisted with an eternal madness he had never seen before
28:28Behind his hunched silhouette
28:30He placed the bloodstained crown steadily upon his own head
28:33I snapped open my purple eyes
28:36Piercing heels condensable
28:37And at last saw the true nature of the heart
28:39And only their scalpel touched it
28:41The open self-destruct rune would detonate instantly
28:44Erasing all souls sown within it
28:46Just then
28:47Alaric
28:47Completely consumed by the heart
28:49Let out a beastly growl
28:50And swung his greatsword horizontally at me
28:54I do not stand there waiting for love to save me
28:57I throw myself sideways behind a broken stone pillar
29:00And wrench the scalpel back into my hand
29:03I have to kill him
29:04I whisper
29:05My voice does not shake
29:07Do I love him?
29:08Maybe
29:09But that isn't the point
29:10What matters is this
29:12If I don't cut that heart out now
29:13He will become worse than the king ever was
29:16He drives his sword into the floor to keep from moving
29:19Most of his face is gone to blue flame now
29:21His hand shakes on the hilt
29:23Lyra
29:25Kill me
29:26I move
29:27Fast
29:28I rush straight into his arms
29:30He is too locked in pain to stop me
29:32The scalpel flashes
29:33I drive it toward the glowing core in his chest
29:36Alaric smiles
29:37Then
29:38Instead of stopping me
29:39He grabs my wrist and forces the blade deeper into himself
29:42Boom
29:43The blast throws me backward
29:45As I black out
29:46I see him dissolve
29:47Not into ash
29:48Into light
29:49That
29:50I murmur to myself in the last moment before unconsciousness takes me
29:54Is the worst gruff rejection I've ever seen
29:59When I wake
30:00The war is over
30:01The king is gone
30:02The immortality system is gone
30:05Everyone who lived off stolen years begins aging naturally or dying naturally at last
30:10Later
30:10In the imperial archives
30:12I discover the final piece
30:14Bella really was Lady Monda's daughter
30:16Just not by the earl
30:18She was the child of an affair
30:19That was why the king could still use her heart
30:22Shared blood is useful
30:23Even when it is not perfect
30:25I return to Blackstone Keep
30:27The dead come with me
30:29My sisters walk beside me
30:31When we pass through the stormcrest lands
30:33My father kneels and offers me his staff as if submission might by forgiveness
30:37I look at them and feel nothing
30:39I take only what my mother left behind
30:42Then I begin searching for Alaric
30:44The dead help me collect every scrap they can find
30:47But his fragments are too small
30:49Too scattered
30:50Even my violet eyes can barely hold onto them
30:53So I go back to Blackstone Keep
30:55What are you trying to do?
30:56Sophia asks weakly
30:58Rebuild him?
30:59His body turned to ash
31:01His soul shattered
31:02You'd be stitching emptiness
31:05As long as even one trace of him still exists in the world's field
31:08I say without looking up
31:10I can recreate him
31:14This was an unprecedented full organ reconstruction surgery
31:18Alaric once told me that mother had kept a fragment of his soul
31:21I dragged my broken body back to the underground laboratory of Blackstone Fortress Point 40 years ago
31:26In that deal, mother had traded her own heart for it
31:29Carving it into the ground ruins of the laboratory as the core that summoned me across time and space
31:33Among mother's belongings, I found a letter written in modern English
31:37Unfolding it
31:38I stared at the familiar modern handwriting
31:40I am the beginning of this tragedy
31:42And you, night, are its end
31:44Alaric's body was ground to dust by the king 40 years ago
31:47I thought a heart for a heart was an equal exchange
31:50Yet it was nothing but the king's life
31:52The king had never kept his promise to release mother's daughter Cassandra and Sophia
31:56Instead, controlled them for his own purposes
31:59After her heart was cut out
32:01The mother died with bitter computer
32:03Her soul fragments numbered in this ancient castle
32:06Searching day and night
32:07Until she finally created the great son of a traveler from another world
32:11Her third daughter, born out of wedlock with Calvon
32:13They sent to a convent, my dear child
32:15I am sorry to meet you in this way
32:17Her handwriting was struggled hastily
32:19As if written in extreme urgency
32:21These were her final words
32:23And she revealed the method of resurrecting
32:25Lila's heart must have stopped beating before you arrived
32:28From the moment you opened your eyes
32:30You have been living off the life force within Alaric's heart
32:32I looked at the shattered spirit and his fragments piled on the operating table
32:36My eyes glowing with a divine
32:38Desperate resolve
32:39If you are willing to give half your lifespan to rebuild his circulatory system
32:43He will live
32:44He is a capable ruler
32:45I lay beside the operating table
32:47Gripping the scalpel tightly
32:49This was the ultimate surgery
32:50With no assistance needed
32:52I sliced open my own chest
32:53Out of precision
32:54I cut out half of my own heart
32:56Being violent
32:57Shimmering with the radiance of underworld fire
33:03Those soul fragments were drawn to the heart in my hand
33:06Alaric's eyes snapped open
33:07And in those emerald green pupils
33:09My haggard yet triumphant face was reflected
33:11He sat up
33:12Staring blankly at his own hands
33:15His memories seemed frozen in the moment
33:17He had driven my blade into his body
33:19Only when he saw me
33:20Pale but smiling
33:21Did he believe in disbelief
33:22And hold me into a fierce embrace
33:24A real, tangible embrace
33:26With a heartbeat
33:27Breath
33:27And the warmth of my body
33:29I can actually hold you now
33:30Layla
33:31His voice was hoarse
33:32Trumbling at the end
33:34You have given me new life
33:35A week later
33:36The imperial capital changed dynasties
33:39I looked down over the entire realm
33:41Restored to life
33:42Then turned to smile at Alaric
33:44In his eyes
33:45I saw a flood of emotion
33:46I glanced back at the city's inhabitants
33:49Humans and undead alike
33:50All looking up at me in reverence
33:52In this world
33:53The nature of power was no longer to take
33:55But to protect
33:56Long live the dead
33:57I whispered softly
33:58Alaric took my hand and kissed my fingertips
34:01As soon asio
34:02Veryihen
34:03Asatorium
34:03As soon asio
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