The dark mist coalesced, wrapping Silver Sylvester’s house in a suffocating shroud of obsidian. Within this shifting gloom, Mathias’s eyes unraveled into an abyssal void, the whites vanishing completely.

From the outside, it was impossible to believe that this creature of primordial night was the same Duke Luceron—the refined, noble figure who graced court halls with an aristocratic chill.

​He advanced toward Elvira, the shadows trailing his movements like loyal executioners. Her body reacted before her mind could process the danger, a violent tremor coursing through her marrow as it remembered the phantom grip of his hands around her throat from the past.

​Yet, she did not retreat. She held her ground, forcing her features into a defiant, poisonous smile.

​"That time," Elvira rasped, her supernatural strength straining against her ribs, "my power was dormant. It was absent. But now... neither you nor anyone else on this cursed earth will stand in my way."

​She pounced.

​With the feral speed of a cornered predator, she charged, her claws aimed directly for his throat—determined to choke the life out of him before he could weave another spell. But he did not even move to defend himself. He was already there.

But he did not even move to defend himself. He was already there.

​With a motion so precise it felt mechanical, Mathias met her rush. His hand shot out, capturing her lunging wrist with the ease of a man taming a frightened bird. The impact was silent, yet it instantly halted her momentum. Elvira’s eyes widened; she felt as though she had crashed into a mountain of solid iron rather than a man of flesh.

​She snarled, her supernatural strength surging in a desperate, violent tide. She clawed at the air, trying to summon the very malice that had always served her, but the obsidian mist surrounding Mathias seemed to swallow her power whole. It was like a black hole, indifferent and absolute. Every time she tried to manifest her fury, the shadows lashed back, stinging her skin like freezing whips.

​With a graceful, calculated twist, Mathias raised her fist high into the air, effectively suspending her body before him. Elvira kicked out wildly, her heels striking against his impervious coat with thuds that sounded pathetic in the heavy silence.

​But the shadows responded to her resistance. The dark mist condensed, twisting into ethereal, thorny wires that snaked around her limbs and torso. They tightened around her like a living straightjacket, the sharp, obsidian thorns burrowing ruthlessly into her skin, paralyzing her muscles and crushing her physical force beneath their supernatural weight.

Her frantic thrashing died down to a desperate quivering as she realized the terrifying truth: against this man, her ’awakened’ power was nothing more than a flickering candle before a hurricane.

​"Is this truly all you have to offer, Miss Tharon?" Mathias whispered, his voice rising from a bottomless, soul-dead pit.

​He gazed down at her hand, and then calmly reached out to secure the other one. He now held both her wrists, his grip unyielding as iron bands. A cold, predatory look settled upon his abyssal features.

​"These..." He trailed off, contemplating her fingers with visceral contempt. "These are the hands that dared to cause pain to my wife. These are the hands that dared to shatter the one piece of peace I still claimed. These... are the hands that dared to wake my universe and my being."

He slammed her against the floor, the impact hollow and brutal. She lay there, gasping, struggling to pull a single thread of air into her lungs as the floorboards groaned beneath her weight.

​"Do you truly believe we are finished?" Mathias’s voice was a low, jagged rasp that seemed to vibrate from the floorboards themselves. "No... no, no. This is merely the overture of your agony. I do not claim the right to take your life, for that right belongs solely to Olivia. But I will ensure you taste something far worse than death."

​Elvira couldn’t even summon a whimper; the obsidian thorns had tightened, burrowing even into the corners of her mouth, sealing her screams behind a wall of agonizing pressure. Suddenly, a series of heavy, rhythmic knocks fractured the oppressive silence of the house. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

​"Hmm..." Mathias tilted his head, a ghost of a mocking smile returning to his face. "It seems we have visitors."

​Terror, raw and unadulterated, flared in Elvira’s eyes.

​With a casual flick of his wrist, Mathias dispelled the shadows. The dark mist evaporated as if it had never existed, leaving only the mundane dust of the hallway. He stepped over her trembling form and moved toward the entrance. When he pulled the door open, he was met by a group of rough, shadowed men—men whose faces were maps of vice and cruelty.

​"What is it you want?" Mathias asked, his tone dripping with an aristocratic boredom that hid the predator within.

​"Sir," the leader stepped forward, his eyes darting toward the interior of the house. "We were paid to come here."

​"Paid?" Mathias echoed, his brow arching. "Paid for what, exactly?"

​The man leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that carried the stench of cheap ale. "We were paid to... ’take care’ of a girl who was supposed to arrive. You know the way... she was meant for us to enjoy. All of us. Over and over."

​Mathias froze.

​The air in the hallway didn’t just grow cold; it became a vacuum. For a heartbeat, the world ceased to exist. In the dark theater of his mind, he saw Olivia—not as the vengeful queen she was becoming, but as the woman who had sought comfort in his arms. He saw her surrounded by these scavengers, her dignity at the mercy of their filth.

​The realization didn’t cause him to shout. It caused his heart to turn into a shard of obsidian. The ’Duke’—the man who followed laws and kept his hands clean—shattered into a thousand pieces.

​Slowly, he turned his gaze back toward Elvira. She remained huddled on the floor, her defiant facade now completely pulverized. She wasn’t just a sister-in-law anymore. She was a plague.

​"Oh..." he exhaled, the sound more like a death rattle than a breath. "So, that was your plan. You didn’t just want her blood; you wanted to desecrate her soul."

​His fist clenched until the leather of his gloves creaked, the sound echoing like a breaking bone. He looked at Elvira with a look of such absolute, frozen hatred that even the men at the door took an involuntary step back.

​"Sir?" the leader asked, sensing the sudden, lethal shift in the atmosphere. "Do you... no longer have a need for us?"

​Mathias let out a low, dark chuckle—a sound of pure, calculated malice. He stepped aside, gesturing toward the broken woman on the floor with a chillingly polite sweep of his arm.

​"Oh, on the contrary," he smiled, his eyes glinting with a terrifying, inhuman spark. "She is already right here. She is the one you were paid for."

Mathias paused, a cruel glimmer in his eyes as he momentarily released the spell binding her jaw. The second her mouth was free, a raw, jagged scream tore from her throat, echoing through the empty halls of the Sylvester estate.

​"I will kill you, you son of a bitch! I will destroy everything you love, I swear it by my blood!"

​Mathias threw back his head and laughed—a loud, hollow sound that carried no mirth, only a terrifying indifference. "Oh, really? You still find the breath for threats?"

​He reached out, his fingers clamping around her chin like a vice, forcing her to face him. He didn’t just look at her; he looked through her. "There is a beautiful rumor I heard about you, sister-in-law. They say you love having lovers to toy with, only to slaughter them when you’re bored. You enjoy the power of the hunt, don’t you?"

​"You..." Elvira gasped, her breath hitching as the predatory intensity of his gaze paralyzed her.

​Without another word, Mathias placed his palm atop her head. He began to pour his obsidian magic into her—not as a weapon of destruction, but as a numbing tide. She felt the chill seep into her marrow, a supernatural frost that disconnected her mind from her limbs. Her muscles turned to lead; her ’awakened’ strength evaporated as if it had never existed. In all her life, even under the suffocating shadow of her father, Roland, she had never encountered a power so primordial, so utterly devoid of light.

​He leaned down, his lips brushing against her ear, his voice a deathly, intimate calm:

​"Today, you will experience what it feels like to be the prey. Consider it a mercy—a chance to taste the bitterness of the very weapon you forged for my wife."

​He straightened up, his silhouette looming over her like a monument of judgment. "Enter!"

​Seven massive men filed into the room. They weren’t soldiers; they were scavengers, their eyes dark with a lewd, predatory hunger that made the air feel oily. The leader stepped forward, his gaze traveling over Elvira’s frozen form with a sickening, possessive grin.

​"Oh, a noblewoman?" he rasped, his voice thick with filth. "I’ve never tasted noble flesh this soft before. You’ve outdone yourself with this one, sir."

​Elvira tried to scream, to lash out, to do anything but lie there—but the numbness held her captive in her own skin. She was a statue of flesh, vulnerable and broken, forced to watch as the men closed in.

​Mathias looked at the men, a thin, mocking smile playing on his lips. He raised a single finger, pointing toward the ceiling with a chilling, aristocratic elegance.

​"The bed is upstairs, gentlemen," he said, his voice dripping with a terrifying indifference as he turned his back on her. "Enjoy yourselves."

.

.

.

.

​"As we stand just tow days away from our Grand Mass Release on May 14th, I find myself looking at this journey we’ve shared. Every writer has a quiet dream, and mine has always been to see a [Magic Castle] grace this story. Not for the prize itself, but as a sign that these characters—Mathias, Olivia, and their broken world—have truly touched your lives."

​"Please know there is no pressure at all; your time and your comments are already more than I could ask for. But if you’d like to help me turn that dream into a reality, any support through [Gifts, Power Stones, or Golden Tickets] would be a beautiful gesture I would cherish forever. Thank you for walking this dark path with me and for believing in my words."

​"With all my love and gratitude,

Ines"

​