Judge, Raphael, and Stein clinked their wine glasses together and drank the fruit juice inside, pretending it was wine— except Judge... he hated wine. They had finished their meals and were having desserts.
Everyone except Renald was having fruit juices for dessert, while he was having another glass of alcohol instead of dessert. The king ordered him to have a glass of minted dessert juice as it was a great help in dealing with the hangover.
He obeyed without question, as it was a regular habit of people to have minted dessert juice after they drank a lot of alcohol.
Judge pitied him in his mind as he got up to leave for his room, thinking the party was over. But he had forgotten about a very important event that followed half an hour late after eating— it was the event of giving gifts to the birthday person.
Judge hurried off to his room to get some more research done before heading to bed, completely forgetting the fact that he was the center of today's party. It would be better to say that he did not care about the party.
To him, all of this was a mandatory event that he had no choice but to attend, and now the only part he was excited for, food, was over. He now had only the thought of finishing his research as quickly as possible.
There was only one reason why he was diligently studying artifacts, there were countless divine artifacts that were extremely hard to do research on, and they might provide him with clues to attain godhood.
He passed the door on the right corner of the party hall, but was abruptly stopped by his mother. He was thinking of Clio, and his mother resembled her, with the only change being her iris which were ashen white while Clio's eyes were ice blue.
"Clio!" Judge accidentally blurted out in a low voice, but he immediately came back to being calm. "Mom! What's the matter?"
"Where are you headed?" His mother pretended as if she did not hear the name he had just blurted out, after all, dragons put a great value on other's privacy. If it was something he could speak to her, he would have already told her.
"To my room, there is nothing more interesting going on." He spoke honestly, he knew that his mother could read him like an open book— as far as he let her read him through his face.
"You can head back after the gifts," She grabbed him in her arms, "it is important and you absolutely cannot miss it." Judge silently accepted his fate as though he was a prey that had already been caught by his predator.
Eleyn put down her son before anyone noticed, she did not want anyone to speak ill of her son or herself. She watched as Judge slowly strode towards the chair that was prepared for him, she could not hold back her chuckle as she remembered how much Judge hated the gifting part of his birthday, he was trying to run away from the place on his third birthday.
Judge sat on the chair with the air of someone who had done this way too many times to count. And after a while guests began to come in with the gifts they had prepared.
Alexis was having a hard time sleeping, he went too hardcore with the killing and had just made his target explode by injecting corrupted ether via an artifact. He just wanted to see his prey exploding, but now he was paying for it.
He was completely covered in the blood of his victim, and it was getting harder to scrub it off.
After a long time in the river, he finally got rid of all the thick blood on his clothes. He laid them to dry under the sun as he climbed a huge tree to take a nap.
He dreamed of a young girl, her warm smile filled him with contentment. She was a frail girl, but he was always by her side to look after her.
Liyana, a black-haired girl, was extremely frail, she was at the age of fifteen. The best she could do was the daily tasks that required less strain on her body. But she was not someone who would sit still and rest on a bed.
She did all the work she could, she did not have a family that was bound by blood. But she had one person whom she could call family, it was Alexis.
Both lived in poverty, but always had each other in every moment of their life. Alexis always took the heavy work, he farmed and brought in firewood, he also picked medicinal herbs that provide a person with an ample amount of energy.
Liyana had corrupted ether in her body, it was destroying her body from the inside— very slowly, but surely. It was unknown when and where she got in contact with it, but she was always like that when Alexis found her, he was a kind soul then.
Both the children were devout believers of the god of light, Veritas. They always went there to pray together every day. One day, when both of them were working together in the kitchen, Liyana suddenly fainted, but Alexis caught her in time.
She was squirming and screaming quietly as he put her in bed. He sat near her the whole day, making sure she did not feel lonely, he could do nothing else.
The next day, he decided to head to the church alone, and as he was praying, the priest came to him and asked why he was praying so earnestly. He spoke honestly to the priest and even cried on his shoulders. He felt that pathetic.
The priest tried to console him, telling him that it was okay and god Veritas would help him with his hard times.
Seeing Alexis calm down, the priest offered him a solution. He could borrow the purifying artifact from the church to purify the corrupted ether from his friend.
Such an Artifact was a rare thing to be seen in a small church, but this church, even though small, had many people coming in every day. So the central church issued a small purifying artifact to the church.
Alexis was overjoyed and forgot to see the grin that the priest hid, he went home and told Liyana the good news.
Liyana, in her weak state, touched his cheeks lovingly. It was rare for her to do that since they always quarreled verbally, it was how they showed their love for each other.
She asked him to lean in closely, and when he did, she gave him a tight hug and kissed him. It lasted only a short while, but to Alexis, it lasted a lifetime.
She then instructed him to return the artifact and they should not waste the artifact's strength on her. A divine artifact was charged through the surrounding people's faith in the god whom the artifact was made for.
But it was still hard to recharge once it was used to purify, she knew of the fact, and with an artifact without any usable energy, they could not defend themselves against wraiths or monsters in the form of spirits.
But Alexis, driven even more by love, decided to use it regardless of the consequences, not stopping to think even once as to why the priest would give him the artifact while considering the consequences.
He finally cured her corrupted ether, but the cost was high. The corrupted ether was not dispersed but they all came back into her body forcefully as they had no other medium to go.
Alexis watched in horror as the love of his life, Liyana, thrashed and screamed loudly in extreme pain. Her body started to deform and got twisted and turned, she was not a human anymore.