Mira’s apartment always felt strangely unreal to Azhareth.

  Too warm.

  Too gentle.

  Too peaceful.

  No torches.

  No screams.

  No armies.

  Just sunlight, basil plants, and a woman who smiled at him as if the world had never tried to kill her.

  Azhareth stepped inside carrying Everhart’s feast trays. Rai followed with the swagger of a creature who once devoured armies but was now proudly dragging a drumstick twice his size.

  Mira gasped.

  “Oh my—Raine, sweetheart, you didn’t need to bring all this!”

  Azhareth dumped the tray on the table.

  “It was going to go bad.”

  It was absolutely not going bad, but Mira always believed him.

  She ushered him to sit. Rai leapt into a chair like royalty.

  Azhareth cracked open a cola—

  psssht

  gulp gulp gulp

  “That’s your third can already,” Mira said.

  He opened another.

  “Fifth.”

  She pressed a hand to her forehead.

  “Well… at least it’s better than what you used to drink.”

  Azhareth paused thoughtfully.

  “The alcohol wasn’t even good.”

  Mira gave him a look.

  “Raine, dear… too much soda isn’t healthy either.”

  He froze mid-sip.

  “…No way something this good is bad for your health.”

  “It is!”

  “I refuse.”

  “Raine.”

  He popped open a sixth.

  Mira groaned.

  Rai padded across the table to Mira and barked smugly, as if agreeing with Azhareth.

  “Don’t encourage him!” Mira flicked Rai’s tiny forehead.

  Rai yipped dramatically, then hid behind Azhareth’s arm.

  Azhareth snorted quietly.

  This—this warmth, this scolding, this mundane peace—

  he had never tasted anything like it in 666 lifetimes.

  Then—

  knock knock knock

  Mira blinked.

  “Oh! Visitors?”

  She opened the door—

  and stiffened slightly.

  Rina stood there.

  Straight. Serious. Breath short.

  Kira and Syelph behind her, equally tense.

  “Miss Everhart,” Mira greeted politely. “Are you looking for Raine?”

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  “Yes,” Rina said, bowing. “I need to show him something.”

  Mira stepped aside.

  “He’s eating. Come in.”

  Azhareth approached lazily. “What?”

  Rina held out a tablet.

  “I need your eyes, Teacher.”

  He took it with mild annoyance—but pressed play.

  Static.

  Rotting fog.

  Collapsed hunters.

  A throne of bones.

  A giant plague-ridden rat with golden eyes and a crystalline crown.

  Then—

  the moment the creature squeaked,

  the drone corroded into vapor.

  Azhareth went still.

  His breath stopped.

  His voice cracked open with something raw and forgotten:

  “…Squeak?

  How—

  You should be—”

  He froze.

  Every hunter in the room did too.

  Because Raine’s face—

  was no longer fully Raine’s.

  His hair shimmered—strands turning green, like forest moss.

  His expression softened into profound warmth—

  the look of someone who once raised countless beasts with devotion.

  A gentle sadness radiated from him.

  Damian, the Beast Emperor, Soul 425, surfaced.

  Rina’s lips parted.

  Kira stepped between Rina and Azhareth on instinct, not in hostility but in awe.

  Syelph lowered her spear, trembling.

  Even Mira, who knew nothing, whispered:

  “…Raine…?”

  Rai whined and hid behind Azhareth’s leg, peeking nervously at the rat on the screen.

  Azhareth blinked—

  and the vision vanished.

  The green faded.

  The warmth dissolved.

  Raine’s bored, stoic expression returned.

  He handed the tablet back.

  “It’s just a mouse.”

  Rina stared.

  “…Teacher. That thing killed twenty hunters. How do we defeat it?”

  Azhareth raised an eyebrow.

  “Why would you? Did it attack you?”

  Rina hesitated.

  “No, but—but the dungeon must be cleared or it will break—”

  Azhareth interrupted.

  “And how do you know that?”

  Rina stiffened.

  He leaned back slightly.

  “A dungeon break means the dungeon wants to enter this world. And trust me—”

  His gaze flicked to the paused image of the crowned rat.

  “I don’t think Squea— I mean, that mouse wants to come here.”

  “It—doesn’t want to break?” Syelph asked.

  “No,” Azhareth said. “It’s sitting. It’s calm. It’s not expanding its territory. It’s not calling out. It’s not hunting. A beast only breaks what it hates.”

  Kira exhaled softly.

  “Then… why is it there?”

  Azhareth shrugged.

  “Because it wants to be.”

  Mira leaned in, whispering gently to Azhareth,

  “Raine… dear… you’re not getting mixed up in anything dangerous, right? These people look worried.”

  Azhareth replied calmly,

  “They’re always worried.”

  Mira sighed in relief—then nervously.

  Rina stepped forward again.

  “Teacher… about training—today might be hard. We ran out of potion.”

  Azhareth stared at her.

  “So?”

  Rina blinked.

  “So… training would be painful.”

  Azhareth’s eyes slowly narrowed.

  A tiny chill crawled down the hunters’ spines.

  “You will wish that mouse kills you tonight,” he said, voice quiet and cold, “because tomorrow… you will beg for death when we train again.”

  Kira coughed.

  Syelph stumbled backward.

  Rina shot upright like a soldier receiving punishment.

  “Yes, Teacher!”

  Mira slapped Azhareth’s shoulder lightly.

  “Raine! Don’t bully the poor girl!”

  “I’m not,” he said. “She asked to be stronger.”

  “Not to die!”

  He shrugged.

  Rina bowed deeply, tablet clutched to her chest.

  “Thank you, Teacher. Even when you’re… terrifying.”

  “I’m eating,” he said.

  Rina fled with her team.

  Mira stared at Raine with the exhausted patience of a saint.

  “…Raine, one day you must tell me what hobby the three of you share.”

  Azhareth cracked open another cola.

  “Nothing strange.”

  Rai barked triumphantly, like a tiny warlord praising his liege.

  Mira didn’t believe a word of it.