Kara stepped out of Lusian's room with her chin held high, forcing herself to maintain the unshakable composure of a seasoned warrior. But the moment she crossed the threshold, she stopped dead in her tracks.
Before her stood an impenetrable wall of inquisitive stares.
The women of the mountain hadn't left.They had simply waited.
The infamous post-combat inspection.
Elizabeth was the first to step forward. She crossed her arms with the natural elegance of someone accustomed to judging entire kingdoms with a single glance.
"Well then…" she said, tilting her head with a dangerous half-smile. "Did you enjoy it, or are you going to pretend you spent the whole night discussing military tactics?"
Kara opened her mouth to respond—but no sound came out.
"Oh, come on!" Emily chimed in with a shameless giggle, nudging Isabella conspiratorially. "There's no way it was just talk. Didn't you hear her last night? The echoes reached the farthest rooms in the palace."
Elizabeth arched a brow, never losing her composure.
"Well, Emily," she replied smoothly, "at least she has some variety in tone. You, on the other hand… sound like you're summoning a thunder spirit every time Lusian touches you."
Emily turned red as a ripe apple, but she didn't have time to defend herself.
All eyes returned to Kara.
Her face was now dangerously close to matching the color of her hair.
"Shut up!" she snapped, covering her face with both hands. "It's not what you think! We were… we were stabilizing the divine mark. It was a spiritual process."
"Oh, really?" Adela asked, covering her mouth with one hand while subtly gesturing downward with the other. "Then why are you walking like you're trying not to crack an egg with every step? Your knees seem a bit weak for a spiritual stabilization, don't you think?"
Kara made an indistinct sound—half growl, half surrender.
Dayana, the small crimson-eyed vampire, stepped forward and gave her a sympathetic pat on the hip, wearing an expression of ancient wisdom.
"Don't worry, Kara-san," she said solemnly. "We understand perfectly. My lord Lusian can be very… wild sometimes. He follows instinct and forgets we're made of flesh and bone."
Isabella nodded with almost clinical seriousness.
"It's true. When he's about to finish… he becomes especially strong."
Selvryn, leader of the dark elves, who had been observing everything in silence with near-academic curiosity, stroked her chin.
"Is that so?" she murmured, more to herself than to the others. "I wonder… if it really feels as good as they say."
That was the final blow.
Kara lowered her head in defeat and practically fled toward the spring, muttering under her breath something about Lusian being a merciless monster.
The mountain fell silent once more.
Not the awkward silence of fading laughter, but something deeper. Older.
On the upper terrace, far from the murmur of water and voices, Lusian—still recovering—stood before one of the sprouts of the Mother Tree growing from the living rock.
The sprout, which the day before had been a deep green, now displayed veins of incandescent white, like streams of light running through its young bark.
When Lusian touched it, he felt a presence both familiar and foreign.
It resembled the divinity beating within him, filtered first through the mountain, absorbed and softened by the Tree—it did not burn, it did not hurt.
A gentle energy pulsed in the air.
"The Tree is feasting," Selvryn commented, approaching with a glass vial filled with luminous sap. "Aurelius's explosion should have incinerated the entire mountain, but the Mother Tree acted like a lightning rod. It absorbed the Hero's divinity… and now it's digesting it."
Lusian studied the sprout with renewed focus. The mana around it was thick, saturated with particles of light drifting in the air without burning—like resting solar dust.
"Does that mean the mountain forest will grow faster?" he asked.
Selvryn nodded without hesitation.
"Without a doubt."
Adela pulled out a small knife, eyeing the sprout with practical intent, and crouched as if to make a cut.
"Don't you dare," Selvryn stopped her immediately, with maternal indignation. "Do not harm it."
Adela clicked her tongue but put the weapon away.
Lusian turned his gaze from the Tree and looked toward the valley.
There, the enemy camp remained intact. Divine artifacts sustained a golden dome of protection that pulsed slowly—dense, impenetrable—like a radiant mockery against the wounded mountain.
"We need to grow stronger," he said. "They will attack again."
It was not a guess.
It was certainty.
As he spoke, he felt his own dark mana respond—denser, deeper than before. It no longer clashed with the light the Tree had absorbed.
For the first time, Lusian and the mountain shared the same breath—dark and alive, as if both were breathing in unison.