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"So… my daughter, you have returned," the man said in a deep voice, his panic from earlier nowhere to be seen. He appeared old, in his 80s, and wore a silver crown on his head rather than gold like I had expected. Embedded within the crown were not jewels either, but skulls with glowing green eyes. Ominous.

"Hehe~ hi, father!" Axilia exclaimed happily, still not letting go of my arm. This caused the man before me to set his gaze on my arm which his daughter was hugging, then my face.

"… This is the man you brought back as your partner?" He said, voice dangerously quiet.

"Yep~" Axilia replied, leaning on my shoulder.

"Hmph. How pitiful."

.

At this, both Axilia and I froze, confused.

"Father… what was that?"

"I said… how pitiful," the man repeated, glaring at me. "This man was the best you could find, in all of the Living Realm? His power is beyond weak. I will never let puny insects like him inherit the throne!"

This bastard… of course I'm going to be weak…! I came from a lower realm where this 'True Essence' thing doesn't even exist!

I wanted to speak up to fight back, but Axilia interrupted first.

"… Father. Take that back."

Her voice, unlike the usual cheery, innocent one, was dark and cold. It was completely devoid of emotion, as chilling as the Southern winds of Antarctica back in the Living Realm.

"… Are you ordering me, my daughter?"

"It's not an order, father," Axilia replied nonchalantly as a spear suddenly appeared in her hands, giving off a pale white energy as horrifying as death itself. "… It's a threat."

"Girl…" The man clenched his fists tightly. "You would betray your own father over this man you just met?!"

"Ha… HAHAHAHA!" Axilia suddenly burst out laughing, eyes crazed and dull. Her pupils were dilated, empty; it was as if she had suddenly changed character. "Father…? FATHER…?! You have the audacity to call yourself… my FATHER?! HAHAHAHA!"

She smacked her own face and continued to laugh, as if driven mad by her father's words.

"Tch… butler! Take Aucerina to her room!"

Aucerina…?

"Yes, Your Majesty."

The door suddenly shot open as the butler from before appeared once again, who tossed a silver chain of some sort towards Axilia, hoping to trap her, but Axilia instantly vanished, taking me along with her.

"W-Woah-!"

Before I knew it, we were standing behind the man known as her father, and Axilia had her spear pointed directly at her father's neck. Her eyes were hidden by her hair, but I could've sworn they were glowing red.

"W-Wha…" The old man's eyes widened in fear. "She's never fought back like this before… not even when I compared her to her brother, which is the one thing she hates most…"

"Father… take back what you said about darling."

"D-Damn you, disobedient daughter…!"

Axilia pushed the spear forward a bit more, enough to draw blood from her father's throat.

"Wha-! A-Alright, alright, fine! I take back what I said!"

"Apologize," Axilia continued, voice as cold and quiet as the bitter winds of a winter night.

"Grr…" The king gritted his teeth tightly. "You want me… the King of the Death Realm… to apologize to a commoner from a lower world?!"

"A-po-lo-gize," Axilia repeated, pressing her spear forward even harder.

"U-Ugh, fine! In the name of King Acrius the Third, I apologize to you, boy!" The man growled at me. "Happy now?!"

Axilia, after several seconds, dematerialized her spear and clung to my arm again lovingly, smiling like an innocent angel.

"Yes, father~!"

Saying this, she spun on her heel and passed by the butler out the door, pulling me along with her. I sent a glance back at the king, who was shaking with fury. The butler watched us go with a hint of sadness on his face, but I pretended to have not noticed and instead turned to look at Axilia.

"… Axilia, you have a lot of explaining to do," I said as we got out of the building.

She suddenly stopped walking, scaring me a bit.

"Fufu… darling~ you don't have to know about my past. Just forget about it, mkay?"

Her words were innocent as she smiled at me, but I felt her hands tighten around my arms. There was a threat lying beneath that angelic smile — if I tried prying about her past… she wouldn't show any mercy to me.

This girl… she's absolutely crazy.

But hell, so am I. And I intend to get to the bottom of this.

Not my business? Hardly. I've already been pulled into this girl's life against my will — and I swore to myself I would save her from the loneliness in her heart.

And to do that… I needed to first find out what the root cause of it is.

*****

- Within the King's Room, After Xuan Kai/Axilia had Left -

"… Your Majesty, are you alright?" The butler asked after closing the door.

"Tch… I'm fine. But that girl… she's becoming too powerful for us to control. Just now, if I hadn't swallowed my pride as a king and apologized to that mongrel, I would have really lost my life to my own bloody daughter!"

If you had shown the attention and care she deserved when she was young, and not compared her with the prince all the time… she never would've become the girl she is today. The butler thought in his head, but didn't speak out loud for fear of treason, and instead sighed.

"So, what do we do next, Your Majesty?"

After some thought, the old king spoke darkly.

"… Get rid of her."

At this, the butler froze, sweat forming on his forehead.

"Your Majesty, you can't mean…"

"I mean exactly what I say, butler. Do you pity that girl? Enough to turn traitor to my orders?"

"N-No, not at all, Your Majesty. Forgive my outburst. I will find a way to… remove Princess Aucerina."

"Good. Because if you don't… she'll remove the lot of us, soon enough."

"Understood. However... what of Her Royal Highness...?" The butler asked hesitantly.

"Ah, yes... my mother. Worry not, I will handle that," the king said, stroking his long beard. "It will be simple fooling her. All I must do is continuing to tell her Aucerina has not returned from the Living Realm yet, in search of a suitable husband. She will never find out the truth, being the bedridden old hag she is. Besides... Death will take her anytime now."

"... Yes, Your Majesty."

The butler bowed and prepared to leave, somewhat disappointed at the king's attitude towards his own mother, but there was nothing he could do as a servant. But then, he remembered something else.

"Oh, right, Your Majesty… forgive me, I nearly forgot to show this to you, with all that had happened."

Saying this, he stepped forward and handed a letter of some sort to the king, who unfolded the parchment and read through it. 

And when he did, his eyes lit up in happiness.

"Oh! This is great news! Once he gets back, he can take care of Aucerina with ease! Just at the right time, too… truly, my greatest success — my son, Auldren!"

The oldest and only son of King Acrius III… Prince Auldren, the same child who Aucerina had been compared to and overshadowed by all her life. The butler thought. Sigh… there is nothing to be done. Princess Aucerina, I truly hope you can survive out of this unscathed… but the chances are slim.

"Hahaha!" The old king laughed like a maniac, crumpling the letter in his hands. "Aucerina… my dear daughter… you will soon die a terrible death, just like your accursed mother, hahaha!"

*****

- A While Earlier, The Living Realm… -

"Hah… this forest isn't any better than the one on the other side of the abyss," Ming Hao muttered.

The entire group was in low spirits after the loss of Xuan Kai. Even though Long Yi and Mei Gui seemed confident Xuan Kai wasn't dead on the surface, deep down, they had their doubts and uncertainties. As such, no one dared to approach the group of girls, who walked on their own near the end of the team.

They were currently passing through a biome of the same ash-grey, lifeless forest as the other mountain they had just came from, with no sign of the village that was their goal in sight.

Tired and morales low, the group was on the verge of giving up. But then…

"Look! The ground!" Someone called out, pointing below at their feet.

"Wha…"

Everyone's eyes widened as the ash-grey, tar-like ground below them suddenly returned to normal color once again — the rich brown color of dirt, and the trees returned to normal color as well. The leaves didn't grow back instantly, but with some time, they will. The fog also dispersed, and the mobs that they had faced in the previous forest never came.

"What is going on…"

"The Grey Scourge… it's gone?!"

"The thick Death energy…" Mei Gui muttered, looking around. "I don't feel it in the air anymore."

"It's gone! It's really gone!" The crowd cheered in excitement.

"Ha… don't get too happy just yet," Long Lu interjected, putting a downer on things. "We still have to get out of here… though that shouldn't be too difficult, now that we don't have to worry about the scourge getting us before we can escape."

"This feels… too suspicious," Obsidia muttered. "The Grey Scourge… just suddenly disappearing like this?"

"It's almost as if some mysterious person has saved us…" Feng Mian murmured. "I wonder who… if I ever meet him, I need to give him a big thank you, I suppose."

"… Xuan Kai… I hope you're doing fine…" Lin Luo and Long Yi muttered at the same time, quietly, unheard by anyone else.

Of course, the Grey Scourge disappearing was actually because Xuan Kai and Axilia left this realm and went into the Death Realm, thus taking her domain with her. The person who 'saved' them was, in fact, Xuan Kai yet again.

Later, the group would be rescued by the Shadow Empress Ling Xin herself, who came here in search of Xuan Kai. But alas, the other girls informed her of what happened, and she held an unreadable expression of determination on her face as she parted ways with the group once again.

It couldn't be… She thought, picking up her pace. They didn't… not in the Death Realm…!

After all, if someone from this world went in there, they were already as good as dead.