RAGNA POV...
I watched it all happen, every single step, every merciless second, and yet the black steel knight didn’t even spare us a glance, moving like the countless lives he had crushed beneath those iron boots were nothing more than faded numbers etched into a forgotten ledger, his strides heavy and deliberate as each collision of steel against the floor sent tremors through the house, making it feel less like a home and more like a coffin being dragged forward by the unstoppable will of a death god.
In the next heartbeat, he was already before us, the air folding inward under his presence as he reached out without hesitation, forcing his way closer and trying to rip me from my mother’s trembling embrace, and when his palm clamped around my left arm, the sheer strength in that grip told me he never once considered the idea of resistance.
He was enormous—no, monstrous—his body towering over us like a gorilla clad in black steel, blotting out the light as if he alone decided who was allowed to breathe in this room, and before I could even scream, my father rushed forward.
I saw it—Father grabbed the knight’s right arm with everything he had, his hands shaking yet refusing to let go, every muscle screaming as he tried to stop the bastard from taking me away again, and for a fleeting moment I thought, foolishly, desperately, that maybe he could hold him back.
"Insolent!"
The roar shattered the room, and before I could process it, Father was thrown aside like trash, his body crashing into the floor with a sickening sound that echoed far louder in my chest than in my ears.
The knight didn’t even slow down.
He kept walking toward Mother, who was crying so hard she could barely breathe, staring at Father lying on the floor while knowing—knowing—she couldn’t reach him in time, and as the knight stepped past Father’s fallen body, closing in on her and my sisters, something snapped.
Two hands clamped around his leg.
Father.
I saw him hug that steel limb with everything he had left, his grip desperate, fierce, utterly human, and for a brief instant the knight stopped, looking down in irritation at the man clinging to him like a dying animal refusing to let go of hope.
Father didn’t care about the pressure crushing his arms, didn’t care about the pain tearing through his body; he only cared about one thing—us—and as he strained with every ounce of strength he had left, his voice came out hoarse, raw, and burning.
"I’ve had enough! I won’t let you touch them unless it’s over my corpse!"
For the first time, the knight’s cold golden eyes changed, not with fear, but with decision.
"I see," he said calmly, almost kindly. "Then have it your way."
I saw his hand move to the whip at his waist, and Father, driven by rage and despair, lifted his head as if to bite him, to curse him, to do anything at all—and that was when I saw it, a slender black streak slicing through the air.
Everything slowed.
Father’s body suddenly went limp, the strength draining from him in an instant, and before I could even scream his name, his grip loosened, his form collapsing to the floor with a heavy groan that ended far too quickly.
The room fell silent.
Too silent.
Blood—dark, maroon—spilled from the gruesome wound around his neck, pooling beneath him as his eyes lost their light, and through the blur of tears filling my vision, I saw him look at Mother, then at my sisters, and finally... at me.
At me.
’I died in a shitty way, his eyes seemed to say as his lips barely moved. Leaving you when you needed me the most. Forgive me... forgive your useless father.’
My world shattered.
Sound became muffled, light smeared into meaningless colors, and all I could feel was the cold wind brushing against my skin as if my senses were being torn away piece by piece.
"John!"
"Father!"
Their voices echoed, distant and broken, as Mother and my sisters rushed to him, forgetting the knight’s existence entirely, and Mother—my strong, unyielding mother—crumbled, her face twisted with shock, fear, rage, and a hatred so deep it could drown the world.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to kill.
She wanted to fall apart.
But she didn’t.
Because she knew Father.
She knew what he would have wanted with his last breath.
So she hardened her heart, swallowing her grief, standing between me and fate with a resolve born from despair.
And still, the knight walked forward.
More footsteps thundered in, more black steel knights flooding the house, their eyes sliding over Father’s corpse without interest, accustomed to scenes like this, treating his death as nothing more than an inconvenience.
They bound Mother and my sisters with brutal efficiency, ignoring their screams, their pleas, their pain, and I was dragged along the floor like a captured beast, powerless, humiliated, forced to watch everything I loved be torn away.
And then—
Something inside me broke.
[Host emotion has reached the threshold to activate ’Cursed Mechanism.’]
[Your rage has been compromised.]
[’Cursed Menace’ shall grow.]
[’Cursed Menace’ Activated.]
Savage energy erupted from within me as I slowly stood, my body trembling—not from fear, but from the sight of my father’s death burned into my soul—and when my six eyes lifted, darkness bloomed within them, dim crimson lights swirling like blood-red galaxies awakening from a long slumber.
Anyone who met my gaze felt it.
The presence.
The menace.
A pressure spread, growing heavier with each breath, the air turning turbulent as faint whispers filled the space—children crying, babies wailing, horror stories being screamed all at once—and the world itself seemed to recoil as the curse deep within me finally opened its eyes.
[Author Notes: I would like to say a big thank you to everyone for reading this novel, and our top fans,I appreciate every comment, review, powerstones, golden tickets you guys give the book. But we need more.]
[Our hunger grows!]