Condemned to die, she returns from the brink of death with a power that terrifies both the living and the dead. As ancient prophecies awaken and enemies tremble before her resurrection, she embarks on a ruthless journey of vengeance, redemption, and destiny. A dark fantasy drama filled with supernatural mysteries, forbidden power, and epic revenge.
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Welcome to our world of addictive short dramas and emotional storytelling.
Here you’ll find viral micro dramas, romantic love stories, revenge series, dramatic plot twists, and binge-worthy vertical dramas designed for mobile viewers.
From billionaire romance and toxic relationships to heartbreak, betrayal, and unexpected endings — every episode is crafted to keep you hooked.
New short drama episodes uploaded regularly.
Watch anytime, anywhere, and enjoy cinematic storytelling in minutes.
Subscribe now for daily short dramas, trending micro drama series, and emotional love stories.
#ShortDrama #MicroDrama #VerticalDrama #MiniSeries #RomanceDrama #RevengeDrama
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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.
00:18The witch! You're in fire!
00:20Those eyes of yours that can see spirits are the mark of Satan!
00:25But I don't struggle. I'm just waiting.
00:27Behind 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,
00:42why don't you first ask the seasoned 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!
00:53Only fire can cleanse your sins!
00:55My name is Leia, not Leela.
00:59As 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,
01:11becoming 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,
01:26I 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,
01:42marked 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.
02:12No 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 simply because he believed it would prolong his life.
02:31Suspicious eyes turned toward Valerius.
02:35He's the real servant of darkness, not me.
02:39Burn her! Burn her now!
02:47The wind stops.
02:50I owe you one. Command me.
02:53Now is the time.
02:54If you want him in hell, lend me your hands.
02:57The sky blackens at once.
02:59Clouds swallow my son.
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, blackening as they tear wider.
03:18The 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.
03:26A 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-burning.
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.
03:58At that moment, Valerius' left hand, the one covered in claw marks, keeps 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 Morae, 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, show him.
05:19Her 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.
05:46Kill him!
05:48Burn the Karis eater!
05:51Tear him apart!
05:54The mom 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...
06:10You'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, deepened the unnatural color of my eyes, and pointed at me
06:23in 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.
06:41I looked at the looming shadow behind her.
06:43The wreath was furiously tearing at Belly's hair.
06:46Bella knew nothing of it, only busy putting on her act of sisterly affection.
06:50And in that instant, another truth falls into place.
06:53Next month is the coronation.
06:56The prince's bride, the future queen, was supposed to be me, the only marriageable daughter of the house.
07:03She was trying to take my place.
07:06At this moment, heavy hooves crash against the stones outside the square.
07:10The crowd parts.
07:12Two lavish carriages roll in beneath the protection of mounted knights.
07:17The 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 eldest sister, Cassandra.
07:34She sees good and evil as clearly as color, and 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, Sophia.
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.
08:04A forbidden force rewrote your fate.
08:11As the daughters of the woman who once married into this house, you 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.
08:24Liar!
08:26The king is watching this miracle!
08:28You're an anomaly.
08:29And anomalies make powerful people nervous.
08:32Come with us.
08:33Quietly.
08:33I do not trust them.
08:35Not after they stood by while I was condemned.
08:38In light of what you have shown here, and the unrest caused by your eyes, you are stripped of the
08:43Stormcrest name.
08:45Effective immediately, you are to be exiled to Blackstone Cult.
08:52Blackstone Keep is a death sentence.
08:54People say even rats go mad there.
08:57I'll go.
09:00Cassandra rules the capital through morality.
09:02Sophia rules the empire through lifestamp.
09:06And I?
09:07Coming!
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, power 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, that same agony came flooding back.
09:49The road to Blackstone Keep is lined with nameless graves.
09:53As the carriage moves north, the city gives way to empty land.
09:57Then to scrub.
09:59Then to sand.
10:01The farther they went, the more uneasy the guards looked.
10:05Cecile sits across from me now, no longer flickering in and out like before.
10:10In life, she was all softness and worship.
10:13In death, something colder has settled into her bones.
10:18Lady Lyra, that god's soul was fading away.
10:22Three hours from now, he'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.
10:43I 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.
10:58An icy, electric, shock-like sensation swept through me in an instant.
11:04Then her injury closes.
11:06The charred wound zips itself shut under a pulse of violet light.
11:13Lady 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 Cape'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.
12:06I 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 instincts.
12:16Suddenly, a gust of wind scattered them.
12:19Don'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.
12:41Like he'd been waiting for me all along.
12:43Who 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.
12:53Blackstone Keep isn't a castle.
12:54It's the Empire's soul alchemist's factory.
12:57They haul souls here.
12:58From commoners through 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 Saintus' 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.
13:37Why are you telling me all this?
13:39Your mother asked me to.
13:41She told me to wake for you here.
13:43Leela.
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.
14:02Guess who they've chosen as the next offering?
14:04Bella thought she'd stolen a fortune from me.
14:06Who 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.
14:29The 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.
14:52I 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, the 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?
15:18She might have been that replacement.
15:21The 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.
15:43Now, 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.
16:08Lady Lyra.
16:10I can feel the wind now.
16:12She pulled a long sword from her hollow chest, looking just as shocked as I felt.
16:18I'm going to use this blade to carve out that old immortal's heart.
16:25Only the one who picks up this blade is worthy of pureness.
16:29Back then, the king ripped out my heart, trying to turn me into the purest battery for Blackstone Keep.
16:34Your mother used that open heart moment to secretly stitch part of my soul into the Keep's foundation.
16:40She saved my consciousness, but trapped me here, unable to leave.
16:45She was a brilliant stitcher.
16:48She did all of this so the immortality farce 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, you'll have to use that blade.
17:03Stitch my ghost into your shadow.
17:05From then on, your life will be my anchor.
17:12It's cold.
17:13This cold, weightless body passed bleeding on an embrace,
17:16then dissolved into swirling black smoke that shrank into my shadow.
17:24Let's go, getting away the scalpel.
17:29After the coronation banquet in the imperial capital, Bella, wearing a pure white wedding
17:34dress, held the hand of the king's most beloved third prince.
17:38I hid in the shadow of the huge stone pillar in the banquet hall, and the shadow under
17:42my feet stirred restlessly, as if echoing the undercurrent surging in my heart.
17:46My second sister Sophia appeared behind me without warning, her tone trembling imperceptibly,
17:51and her eyes were filled with unprecedented anxiety.
17:54It turned out that Bella had been a pawn from the very beginning, used to carry a cruel
17:59exchange of vitality.
18:00The king would use Sophia's hand to transfer Bella's vitality to the third prince.
18:04It was never Lila, I was Leia.
18:06After three years of protection, it was now my turn to come back and clean up this mess
18:11with my own hands.
18:14The banquet reaches its peak.
18:16Lila lifts the golden cup with shaking excitement.
18:19The prince does the same.
18:20I object.
18:22I 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
18:35held together.
18:36The seal 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.
18:45Then someone screams.
18:46The saint.
18:47The saint is back.
18:48The hall explodes into panic.
18:50The seal raises her sword and starts cutting through the crowd.
18:53Every thrust lands in a transplanted heart.
18:56Walk toward them slowly.
18:58My violet eyes burn.
18:59Today is for my king.
19:01Kill that witch.
19:02The king roars, slamming a hand on the table.
19:05The royal guard searches forward.
19:07My shadow erupts.
19:08Black blades race across the floor.
19:10Sparing each soldier through his own shadow.
19:13Bodies crumble 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, stunned.
19:23I crouch in front of her and then I smile.
19:25Thanks for dying in my place.
19:27She jerks back, finally recognizing the danger.
19:30Why are you still alive, you 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?
19:41She's not Lady Monda's true daughter.
19:43King does not panic.
19:44Not even a little.
19:46He is staring at the scalpel in my hand.
19:49Once, the hidden mother array beneath the floor ignites.
19:52The modern scalpel in my hand lets out a shrill metallic crack.
19:56Then 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.
20:08For 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.
20:18At 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, the 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.
20:40Gripping the scalpel.
20:41The blade didn't attack her.
20:42It cut out the parasite.
20:44Sophia cocks up black blood and drives my wrist.
20:47Our lives were tied to the king when we were children.
20:50She whispers.
20:51Mother made a deal.
20:52Cecile returns it around.
20:54Sword gripping.
20:55Lady Lyra.
20:56The nobles are dying.
20:57The stolen ears are snapping back all the points.
21:00Did you do this?
21:01The drink lands her faces and they're all at once.
21:04But Sophia is one half of the king's living land.
21:07And 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.
21:17Cecile shields us.
21:18Alaric wraps us in black force and sends us crashing through the palace windows and down into the freezing moat
21:23below.
21:26North 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, Cassandra 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, stepping down from the dais, I have waited for you.
21:51I feel it at once.
21:53The pressure.
21:54Heavy enough to crush thought.
21:55Cassandra says nothing.
21:57She does not stop him.
21:59That 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.
22:11The broken marriage.
22:12The chaos in the palace.
22:14Such evil.
22:15Death is the only thing that can cleanse your soul.
22:17He raises his hand.
22:19White light gathers in his palm, dense and vicious.
22:21Enough to shred the mind.
22:23Before he can strike, my shadow spills across the floor beneath him.
22:27A 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, Julian, he says, voice low and filthy with contempt.
22:40The pontiff sees his face.
22:41Prince Alaric, he shrieks.
22:43Impossible.
22:44Your soul should still be trapped.
22:48My pulse stutters.
22:50Alaric's identity is bigger than I ever guessed.
22:53He is the king's brother.
22:54The prince the crown should have gone to.
22:56Lyra, Alaric says without looking back, protect your sister.
23:00He draws a massive black sword.
23:02Cecile steps in front of me and Sophia.
23:04Julia, Julian 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, but she keeps the strike from hitting Sophia too.
23:15I hurl the scalpel.
23:16The blade slices straight through the holy white ring above Julian's head.
23:20And in the instant that false halo breaks, Sandra'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 lights.
23:34The dead crowd the room with their grief.
23:36My shadow breaks them in.
23:38Some become wind around Alaric.
23:40Some pardon his armor.
23:42Some sharpen a sword in his hand.
23:44The rest gather behind him.
23:46Farmers with pitchforks.
23:47Men's with candlesticks.
23:49Cavaliers with split skulls and phantom horses.
23:52Cassandra presses bloody fingers to her eyes.
23:55No.
23:55She whispers.
23:57No.
23:57That can't be true.
23:59You're indispensable.
23:59I tell her coldly.
24:01Mother didn't surrender.
24:03She planted blades.
24:05Sophia was time.
24:06You were morality.
24:07And I.
24:08The doors blow open.
24:10The king enters with half his face rotten and Bella in one hand like a butcher carrying
24:14meat.
24:14Lyra, he rasps.
24:16Give me the knife.
24:17Or I cut out what your mother hid inside your sister.
24:19He claws open his robe.
24:21A black smoking heartbeat in his chest.
24:23Then he squeezes it.
24:25Cassandra drops to her knees.
24:26Through her gown, a strange violet light pulses from her abdomen in the exact shape of the
24:31array beneath blackstone being.
24:33And before anyone can kneel, the king chances hands on Julian's back and reaches for Cassandra.
24:40The king's fingers tear through flesh.
24:43Julian's blood pours into the glowing array on the floor.
24:46The whole hall shakes.
24:47No.
24:48Cassandra gasps.
24:49Mother's plan cannot end here.
24:51Then, to my shock, she grabs him.
24:54Not to escape.
24:55To hold him still.
24:56Lyra, she screams.
24:58Now, at the same instant, Alaric steps fully out of my shadow.
25:02He is taller than before, more solid, more terrifying.
25:05His black sword slams across the king's claws and stops them cold.
25:09My dear brother, the king hisses, his.
25:12One good eye glittery for you.
25:14Forty years and you're still a fool.
25:16Father wanted to give you the throne.
25:18Said your soul could not rot.
25:20So I took the heart.
25:21I turned you into the cleanest battery of the empire.
25:24And now look at me now.
25:26Hidden, no body.
25:27Not even proper life.
25:29What gives you the right to stand in my way?
25:31Alaric does not clinch.
25:33The ground under the throne still remembers your true title.
25:36He says, new surfer.
25:37His eyes cut toward me.
25:39I understand what happens.
25:41The dead are going to do too.
25:42Their grief turns.
25:44Not just into mourning.
25:45Into vengeance.
25:46For honor.
25:47For innocence.
25:49For what was stolen.
25:50I clench my jaw and get ready to move.
25:52Alaric drives his sword through the king's chest.
25:55I can hold him for three minutes.
25:57He roars.
25:57Three minutes.
25:58That is all.
25:59I grabbed Cassandra's arm and forced 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, ignoring his arm that was spurting black blood,
26:18lowered his head and tore at something.
26:20I could see it was a fresh heart.
26:22Leia, now.
26:23Alaric roared.
26:24The wind around him turned into countless black chains,
26:26tightly binding the king's enormous, misshapen body.
26:30His withered left face slowly recovered, even growing younger.
26:34Madness blazed in his eyes, and his voice warped and stretched.
26:37You think I have no point, is he?
26:39You are as naive as you were decades ago.
26:41Bella's heart should not have rivaled the city.
26:43Yet the king's body swelled, his severed arm ring grew,
26:46face after face surged in his chest,
26:49and 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, but blood kept seeping from my eyes.
26:59Nevertheless, I struggled against the wind toward the king.
27:03Cassandra took my hand.
27:04Her tattered robe flapped loudly in the gale,
27:06and a white light shielded me from applying shards of souls.
27:10The 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,
27:18Remember what I told you before?
27:19So the souls together, you have to command them.
27:22Alaric drove his grace sword into his chest.
27:25As a forensic doctor, I believe his grace can be slightly dead all too well.
27:29Cassandra helped my hand.
27:31I stabbed the skull.
27:32Backhanded, and you were cracked, broken abdomen.
27:38The blade tip precisely avoided all vital points on Cassandra,
27:42neatly severing the self-destruct pact stitched inside her.
27:44Cassandra let out a low groan as I tore the purple core straight out of her body and held it
27:48high above my head.
27:49The core drew the undead energy that had flooded into the king's body swirling back toward it.
27:54Cassandra struggled to straighten up.
27:56I used the blade to stitch and mend the scattering undead forces around us.
28:00Ben 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,
28:08devoured by netherfire until nothing remained but a murky shadow.
28:11To his mother's heart, everything was already too late.
28:14The king's body disintegrated into act.
28:17He turned his head.
28:18Hatha's handsome face was eaten away by ghostly blue flames,
28:21green and purple light flickering alternately in his face.
28:25His features twisted with an eternal madness I've never seen before.
28:28Behind his hunched silhouette,
28:30he placed the bloodstained crown steadily upon his own hand.
28:34I snapped open my purple eyes, piercing heels convinced war,
28:38and at last saw the true nature of the heart and the moment my scalpel touched it.
28:41A built-in self-destruct rune would detonate instantly,
28:44erasing all souls sown within it.
28:46Just then, Alaric, completely consumed by the heart,
28:49let out a beastly growl and 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 and wrench the scalpel back into my hand.
29:03I have to kill him, I whisper.
29:05My voice does not shake.
29:07Do I love him?
29:08Maybe.
29:09But that isn't the point.
29:11What matters is this.
29:12If I don't cut that heart out now,
29:14he 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, fast.
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, instead of stopping me,
29:39he grabs my wrist and forces the blade deeper into himself.
29:43Boom.
29:43The blast throws me backward.
29:45As I black out,
29:46I see him dissolve.
29:48Not into ash.
29:49Into light.
29:50That, I murmur to myself in the last moment before unconsciousness takes me,
29:54is the worst grout projection I've ever seen.
29:59When I wake,
30:00the war is over.
30:01The king is gone.
30:03The immortality system is gone.
30:05Everyone who lived off stolen years begins aging naturally or dying naturally at last.
30:10Later,
30:11in 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.
30:20That was why the king could still use her heart.
30:22Shared blood is useful,
30:24even when it is not perfect.
30:25I return to Blackstone Keep.
30:28The dead come with me.
30:29My sisters walk beside me.
30:31When we pass through the stormcrest lands,
30:34my father kneels and offers me his staff as if submission might by forgiveness.
30:38I look at them and feel nothing.
30:40I 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?
30:57Sophia asks weekly.
30:59Rebuild him?
30:59His body turned to ash.
31:01His soul shattered.
31:03You'd be stitching emptiness.
31:05As long as even one trace of him still exists in the world's field,
31:09I 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 hardware.
31:29Carving it into the ground ruins of the laboratory is the core that summoned me across time and space.
31:34Among Mother's belongings, I found a letter written in modern English.
31:37Unfolding it, I stared at the familiar modern handwriting.
31:41I am the beginning of this tragedy, and you, night, are its end.
31:44Alaric's body was ground to dust by the King 40 years ago.
31:48I thought a heart for a heart was an equal exchange.
31:50Yet it was nothing but the King's life.
31:53The King had never kept his promise to release Mother's daughter, Sandra and Sophia.
31:57Instead, he controlled them for his own purposes.
32:00After her heart was cut out, Mother died with bitter pain.
32:03Her soul fragments lingered in this ancient castle.
32:06Searching day and night, until she finally created a great summer traveler from another world.
32:11Her third daughter, one out of wedlock in Calvon.
32:14They sent to a pond back, my dear child.
32:16I am sorry to maintain this weight.
32:18Her handwriting was scribbled hastily.
32:20As if written in extreme urgency, these 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, you have been living off the life force within Alaric's heart.
32:33I looked at the shattered spirit and his fragments piled on the operating table, my eyes glowing with a divine.
32:38Desperate resolve.
32:39If you are willing to give half your lifespan to rebuild his circulatory system, he will live.
32:44He is a capable ruler.
32:45I lay beside the operating table, gripping the scalpel tightly.
32:49This was the ultimate surgery.
32:51With no assistance needed, I sliced open my own chest.
32:54Added precision.
32:55I cut out half of my own heart.
32:57Being violent.
32:58Shimmering 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, my haggard yet triumphant face was reflected.
33:12He sat up.
33:13Staring blankly at his own hands.
33:15His memories seemed frozen in the moment he had driven my blade into his body.
33:19Only when he saw me, pale but smiling, did he breathe in disbelief and pull me into a fierce embrace.
33:24A real, tangible embrace.
33:26With a heartbeat, breath, and the warmth of my body.
33:29I can actually hold you now, Layla.
33:31His voice was hoarse, trembling at the end.
33:34You have given me new life.
33:35A week later, the imperial capital changed dynasties.
33:39I looked down over the entire realm, restored to life, then turned to smile at Alaric.
33:44In his eyes, I saw a flood of emotion.
33:47I glanced back at the city's inhabitants, humans and undead alike, all looking up at me in reverence.
33:52In this world, the nature of power was no longer to take, but to protect.
33:56Long live the dead, I whispered softly.
33:58Alaric took my hand and kissed my fingertips.
34:01tips.
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