"You asked me about my surname before, didn't you?"A cold, mocking smile appeared on her lips. "It's Bryce."
Then she leaned closer, her voice becoming sharper, darker. "Ever since you told me your name, I've known which organization you belong to. You're trying to kill my brothers for the sake of your pathetic powers… You rat. Because of you, I'll have to show a side of myself I never wanted to reveal. Why are you forcing me to do that?"
Friedrich took a small step backward. "I haven't forced you to do anything. You're the one deceiving people here."
Adele laughed loudly. "Deceiving?No, my dear. I'm not the deceiver. You're the one who pretended to be a noble gentleman. Now then… isn't it time you did what you've been hiding? I'm standing right in front of you, completely unarmed."She tilted her head slightly, her eyes never leaving his" face Cowardly Friedrich… You don't even dare raise your voice or speak properly in front of Lady Adele. Good. At least you know how to distinguish between masters."
Friedrich avoided her gaze. His eyes drifted toward the floor, searching for an escape from the situation.
Then suddenly, he felt something strange. Her hand. She had grabbed his hand. The grip tightened little by little until a faint sensation began spreading from his palm into his arm, then throughout the rest of his body.
He could no longer hide his discomfort.
With a strained voice tinged with impatience, he said,
"Now I understand why every man is afraid of you…"
Adele raised her left hand and stared at it for a moment, as though confirming something.
Then suddenly She slapped Friedrich across the face.
Friedrich stumbled backward two steps as if struck by lightning. For a moment, he froze.
He neither breathed nor moved. His body felt paralyzed while his mind turned sluggishly.
Then, with a pale face and a trembling voice, he muttered,
"How… how dare you do that, you bitch?"
But Adele did not answer him.
Instead, she looked down at her hand and slowly wiped it against her dress, as though removing something filthy.
Then she spoke in a calm, deadly voice.
"My hand has been contaminated…Because of you."
Friedrich hurriedly gathered his spiritual power, as though snatching his final breaths before a storm. He raised both hands and traced invisible circles through the air. Threads of gray light glimmered into existence, trembling as they intertwined before gradually stabilizing.
Adele watched him with a calmness completely unsuited to the situation, as though she were observing a child at play.
Then, unexpectedly, she asked, "Are you at the Harmony Stage?"
Friedrich didn't answer. The silence that followed was enough to give her the answer she wanted.
The ranks of spiritual cultivation were well known: Acceptance, Formation, Purification, Harmony, and Reflection. Anyone who possessed a spiritual essence, man or woman alike, understood that Reflection was not merely another advancement it was an abyss where the body dangled over the edge of madness. A stage of pain and fractures, where one was forced to confront their true self without lies or excuses.
Beyond it came Fusion, then Perfection… and finally Immortality.
But every step demanded a price. Sacrifices torn from the heart, never offered willingly.
Adele pointed at herself, as though she were about to reveal a historic secret. "I'll tell you a secret… but this isn't supposed to leave this room."
She looked down at the hand that had slapped Friedrich and noticed something strange forming on her skin.
A circular black mark. It pulsed as though it were alive.
"That…" Friedrich said with difficulty, "will gradually stop the flow of your energy until you explode from within."
With a terrifying calmness, Adele wrapped the black shadows around her arms and neck like restraints, wearing them as though they were nothing more than a garment.
"You won't live long enough to tell anyone about that secret anyway. It isn't even one of my abilities. Just a little trick I learned for fun."
Colton had taught her the technique thoroughly during training. Ever since he had entered that house, Adele had practically claimed him for herself whenever training was involved, and he was the only person capable of enduring the force of her blows.
She didn't give Friedrich a chance to respond.
Suddenly, she appeared in front of him without a sound, without warning, and drove a punch straight toward his chest.
Friedrich barely managed to evade it.
The punch crashed into the table behind him, reducing it to splinters that scattered through the air like smoke.
Annoyance flashed across Adele's face.
Then she began throwing punches with excessive violence.
She wasn't fighting. She was punishing him.
For every strike Friedrich dodged, ten more followed.
Each movement carried lethal weight. The air whistled around her fists from the sheer force behind them.
Friedrich struggled to keep up. At one point, he caught both her wrists and pushed her back while shouting hoarsely, "Damn you… you're like a bull!"
Adele suddenly stopped. "What did you say?"Her voice was calm.
Friedrich felt something change. Her body…It felt as though it were burning.
Watching closely, he noticed steam rising from between her fingers. Her temperature was increasing at an unnatural rate.
He stepped back in disbelief. "Why…? Why aren't my powers affecting you?!"
Adele smiled, reminding him of her earlier question.
"Didn't I tell you I was going to reveal a secret?"
"Another sec—"
Before he could finish, a kick slammed into him and sent him flying into the wall. Yet Friedrich rose with astonishing speed. Sweat drenched his face as his spiritual energy surged higher and higher.
He pulled several specialized knives from beneath his coat, silently grateful that he had brought them.
One knife flew. Then another. The first blade passed beside Adele's face. The second grazed her shoulder.
She didn't flinch. Instead, she tilted her head slightly and looked at him as though inviting him forward.
"Go on. Ladies first? No… men first." Adele advanced toward Friedrich like a starving predator stalking prey already exhausted from running.
Her steps were graceful. Her instincts were not.
A knife from one of his earlier throws sliced across her thigh, drawing blood, yet she didn't even glance at the wound.
All her attention remained fixed on him alone.
As though the entire world had disappeared, leaving only Friedrich behind.
Meanwhile, Friedrich's mind was desperately searching for escape.
Any escape. His body trembled uncontrollably as panic consumed him.
His eyes darted around the room, searching for anything that might save him. He found nothing but a damp ceiling and mold-ridden walls.
"I'm about to enter the final phase of Reflection…" Adele's voice was low. "You're nothing but worthless trash."
"Kill yourself."
Friedrich's lips trembled. He didn't understand. "What…?"
He looked into her eyes. Only for a moment.
And in that brief instant, he saw death itself standing before him. His tongue refused to move.
"What part don't you understand? Are you stupid?" She pressed the knife into his trembling hand. "If you don't do it… I'll do it myself."
His entire body shook as though his bones were about to collapse from within.
He had never imagined his end would come like this.
That he would face a monster hidden inside a woman who looked as though she had been carved from diamond glass.
Beautiful, Cold and Alone.
Far too late, Friedrich realized how foolish he had been.
He had spent his entire life doing whatever he wanted.
Now… He was nothing.
Adele stepped closer and took the knife back from his shaking hand.
Looking down at him without a trace of mercy, she said mockingly, "You're useless trash. And there is no recycling here." In that instant, Friedrich died.
A faint smile appeared on her face. Then she stopped.
She saw the tears silently falling from his eyes.
She saw his spiritual core collapsing and shattering from within. That was the signal she had been waiting for.
In a silent moment, the knife flashed.
Blood scattered slowly, as though time itself respected the dignity of death.
His throat was cut without hesitation.
Friedrich's body fell like an autumn leaf.
Adele stood over him. She adjusted her dress neatly and glanced around.
The inn was nothing more than a cheap, foul-smelling room stained by mold and dampness.
She pulled a specially prepared bag from her pocket and placed it on the lone wooden chair.
Then she looked at the corpse that had once been Friedrich.
Wrapping it in an old blanket, she studied the scene one final time.
Then she left.
Running was never her preferred choice. The corpse was heavy.
She bent slightly, then shot upward with explosive force, leaving a faint trail of dust.
She moved from rooftop to rooftop, leaping across alleys until she reached the forest's edge.
She landed on damp ground, eyes scanning the dense shadows of the trees, as if reading a path through forgotten memories.
Inside, silence ruled. Small animals watched her from afar. Near a slanted trunk, a falcon lay motionless.
She approached It wasn't flying
Her gaze sharpened. Thin cords were wrapped tightly around its wing, suffocating it like invisible traps.
"Who bothered this little bird?" she said with a faintly mocking tone, as if expecting an answer.
She tossed the corpse aside carelessly and moved toward the falcon. When it tried to bite her, she did not retreat she only smiled faintly, as though understanding its anger.
Adele had never disliked animals. On the contrary, she found comfort in them more than she ever did in people.
She had never been able to tolerate seeing a harmless creature harmed without reason, especially by those who possessed reason and speech.
She had always believed that the most dangerous beings were those who could speak.
Words could hide. Animals, however, were innocent of such things. They did not lie, nor could they properly express pain the way humans did through exaggerated cries and manufactured tears.
There was a silent kind of sorrow in that an ache that could not be spoken, only felt.
Perhaps, deep down, she loved animals more than people.
She carefully removed the bindings. The falcon flapped weakly, regained its balance, then rose into the sky and vanished between the trees.
Adele watched it until it was gone.
She returned to the wrapped corpse, lifted it again as though accepting its weight as reality, and exhaled.
Time was passing quickly. Even she had noticed it. She needed to return to "Aren" before the first light of dawn or at least before people began to wake. Too many eyes. Too much noise. And Adele had never tolerated chatter.
She raised her gaze toward the gray sky, then vanished between the trees.
It did not take long before she returned swift as a merciless wind to the city of Aren. She had no intention of returning home while carrying this "bag of rotten potatoes" the corpse whose stench had already begun to seep out, heavy and nauseating even to her.
She searched briefly through the side districts until she found the house she wanted. She stopped at a distance, not approaching yet. She concealed her presence the moment she crossed into the city's borders… and now, she even suppressed her spiritual core.
She looked like a ghost soundless, traceless.
Adele exhaled slowly and closed her eyes in focus.
Hunting had always been part of her past, part of her nature. She was an exceptionally skilled predator almost a nightmare given form.
But somewhere deep inside, she knew something else.
She had never been merely "good" at this.
She had always been far better than that.
And it was not a feeling it was a harsh truth learned early.
Arthur never held back against her… not even when she was a child.
Once, during training, her leg had been broken.
No one gave her permission to rest and she gave herself none either. She returned to training the next day, dragging a broken leg without complaint.
She never understood why they taught her to move without sound.
Why silence was part of survival.
And when her leg broke, she did not scream. She did not blame anyone.
She apologized. Because she had fallen.
And from that moment on, she understood she had no right to blame others.
Now she moved with those same haunting steps she had been taught long ago.
But today, there were no broken bones. Only a broken person… inside a bag. She finally reached the targeted house.
She did not enter through the front door. Instead, she slipped into the backyard.
She placed the corpse on the ground with cold weight, then walked calmly toward a tall tree standing at the center of the yard.
And there, she hung the body as one might display a distorted statue in a ritual.
She used the same cords that had once saved the falcon in the forest.
There was something strange in it as though she were recycling waste in her own way.
She stood still, observing the scene.
Then she felt something was missing.
She moved quickly through the yard and found what she wanted: flowers.
She picked them all without hesitation, even the thorns failing to slow her hands.
She returned to the body.
She began stuffing flowers into Friedrich's neck, arranging them loosely like fragments of something she had once overheard from Kaiden and Henry speaking about rituals of beauty and death… those crimes disguised as art.
She rarely commented, but she always listened.
She drew a thin dagger.
Without hesitation, she sliced open the side of the corpse's abdomen in a slow motion and placed flowers inside, as though planting spring into rotting flesh.
Then she made another cut vertical, across the chest, near what once was the heart and placed a single flower there.
She stepped back and studied the result with a critical eye, as though evaluating a painting in an exhibition.
"It's hideous," she said calmly.
Then she vanished.
As though she had never been there at all.