Finally, tomorrow was the weekend.

  Well, teically, looking at the clock, it was already tomorrow. Past midnight.

  Burn sat alone in the sorium, his painting propped against the far end of the room, staring him down like a silent judge. Then, the door creaked open.

  “Caliburn?”

  He khat voice too well. Even if he were drowning in an o of sirens, each with the same melodie, he could pick hers out without a sed thought.

  Man plopped down beside him, leaning against him like she belohere, fingers zily trag circles on his chest. “Everything’s ready.”

  “That so?” Burn murmured.

  Man nodded. “I’m ready for surprises—whatever nonsense flies out of Princess Bir tomorrow.”

  “And what exactly is it this time?” he asked.

  “A rather nasty curse,” Man said casually, as if discussing the weather. “It doesn’t just corrupt the soul—it twists the body and mind too. Even worse than the ohat hit me in the regalia treasury.”

  Burn exhaled sharply.

  Man shrugged. “He’s probably pnning to sacrifice part of his own soul this time. And more than aire ti’s worth of corrupted mana.”

  Burn hummed, tilting his head. “You know, I’ve always wondered—how does corruption even work? What is it, exactly?”

  Man sidered this for a moment before answering. “Like the stories of the abyss, it came out of nowhere. tless years ago, the first Demon Lord discovered a new energy sourething other than mana.”

  inally, mana had been stant—an unging foreither increasing nor diminishing. A perfect, renewable cycle. Use it, and in time, it returo its inal form.

  “Like water,” Burn mused. It was a familiar cept. Rain fell, flowed into rivers, drained into the sea, evaporated, became clouds, and then—rain again. A closed, reliable system.

  “But then,” Man tinued, “deep uer, he found something else. A different kind of mana—bck, tangible, pletely beyond the trol of Vision or Force.”

  Naturally, the first Demon Lord kept this little discovery to himself. He quickly realized that this new substance didn’t just sit there—it actively made people sick.

  Worse, it came with airely differe of properties pared to normal mana. The more he iigated, the clearer it became—this wasn’t just some straation of magic. It was something else entirely.

  He traced the source, deeper and deeper, until he found it—a sealed chamber, hidden in the depths.

  “A sealed chamber?” Burn raised an eyebrow.

  Man nodded. “The in of corruption.” She hesitated, then added, “Caliburn, what I’m about to tell you is something only two people in the world know—me and Romeuf.”

  Burn blinked. “And you’re just… telling me?”

  Man’s lips curled into a teasing smile, though her eyes held something more serious. “You’re qualified to know.”

  Burn gave her a dry look. “How exactly? You’re the inal Saint, Romeuf is the Apostle, and I’m…” He gestured vaguely at himself. “What, your emotional support knight?”

  “You’re my padin.” Man leaned back, stretg. “Teically, Vd and Isaiah would be qualified too, sihey’re my cardinals, but I’d rather not dump this on them.”

  Vd was already neck-deep in running the vampire church, and Isaiah had enough on his pte with the moon.

  “Ah, so I’m the lucky one,” Burn said, amused. “More qualified than them, apparently. And I suppose that means you think I hahe burden?”

  More than anything, the fact that she—the only person who truly uood what he already carried—was willing to give him even more weight to bear was… strangely fttering. There were things deeper than love, and trust like this was one of them.

  Man exhaled, looking at him thoughtfully. Then she dropped the real bombshell.

  “Romeuf wasn’t the first apostle.”

  Burn blinked. It didn’t register at first. But then, the realization hit—Romeuf had never been called the first Apostle, because of the unspoken assumption that there wouldn’t be another. And he was never called the st either, because no one had ever held the title before him.

  He was simply the Apostle.

  “…He wasn’t the only one,” Burn muttered, frowning.

  Man nodded.

  “Do you know why I’m a Saint and not an Apostle?” she asked.

  Burn didn’t hesitate. “Because God speaks to an Apostle. God never spoke to you.”

  Man sighed, nodding again. “Not onever. God alked to me. But just because you’re an Apostle doesn’t mean you’re incapable of sin. You . I . Every single creation sin.”

  “But if an Apostle did sin… it’d be different, wouldn’t it?” Burn’s gaze sharpened.

  Man firmed it with a solemn nod. “If an Apostle deliberately sinned—a sin so profound, so unfivable…”

  Corruption would spread.

  “But the Apostle before Romeuf…” Man exhaled slowly. “He didn’t sin, Caliburn.”

  Burn frowned. “Then why—?”

  “I know he didn’t,” Man cut in firmly. “A, one day… he was accused of it. And corruption spread from his heart.”

  It didn’t make sense. Burn stared at her, trying to his mind around it. If the Apostle never sihen why did corruption appear at all? No—more than that—why did Corruption itself exist?

  Man’s words sent a chill down his spine.

  “I know for certain because God told Romeuf the truth. God’s previous Apostle did not sin.” She paused, then said, with quiet finality—

  “The Corruption came from another world.”

  For the first time, Burn saw something flicker aan’s face—grief, guilt, something heavy that had been buried deep for far too long.

  She had never believed the previous Apostle was guilty. No, she knew he wasn’t. Ahe evidence was damning. The corruption had spread heless. In the chaos of betrayal, rage, and despair, she had dohe unthinkable—she accepted it. She believed what the world told her.

  By the time she learhe truth, it was too te.

  He had already been sealed away.

  Deep underground, beh the o floor, under a small, unassuming stretch of sea—the border where the Luminus Kingdom met the Wintersin Empire, where the northern and southern os verged.

  The same day she had first maed her Vision.

  Man swallowed, her voice quieter now, almost bitter. “I knew he never sinned. I knew he was falsely accused. A, because there roof of corruption… I sealed him away anyway.”

  And she hadn’t stopped there.

  She drowhe nd. The people who accused him. Herself.

  “And when I was reborn,” she murmured, a faint, wry smile curling her lips, “I was no longer Saint Lucia Elle, Princess of Elysian.”

  Her eyes darkened.

  “I became Merlin’s daughter. His first disciple.

  Man Le Fay.”