"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

*Haah...* *haah...* *haah...*

Kaisi’s breathing grew rapid and erratic. Her chest heaved violently as she gasped for air, unable to process the absolute nightmare in front of her.

Her trembling eyes slowly moved away from Rian’s severed head, scanning the other glass containers lining the dark laboratory.

In the next tube, floating in the foul green liquid, lay several of her son’s internal organs. In another, she saw his small, pale limbs. Faint traces of pure divine energy still radiated from his butchered flesh.

Tears spilled from her eyes non-stop, blurring her vision.

Finally, her gaze landed on the very back container. There, suspended in the center, was a small, still-beating heart. It pulsed with a brilliant golden light, endlessly emitting massive amounts of pure Divine energy.

*Haah...* *Haah...*

She hyperventilated, her mind completely short-circuiting from the sheer, unimaginable grief. She fell forward, her hands pressing against the glass of the container holding her son’s head.

"Well, well. I didn’t expect my dear wife to come home this early."

A calm, chilling voice echoed from the staircase behind her.

Kaisi turned around in absolute shock.

Standing at the bottom of the stone steps was her husband, Mark. His hands, his face, and his clothes were completely covered in fresh, drying blood. A long silver sword rested on his hip. He looked at her with a casual, almost disappointed expression.

"I thought you would have arrived much later, after my experiments were finally done," Mark sighed, pulling a bloody rag from his pocket to wipe his hands.

Kaisi stared at the monster wearing her husband’s face. Her lips trembled.

"What... what did you do?" she whispered, her voice cracking.

"Why? Mark... he was our son! Why did you do this?!"

Mark tossed the bloody rag aside. His eyes lacked any trace of humanity or fatherly love. He looked completely psychotic.

"Why? For the ultimate goal, of course," Mark said smoothly, stepping deeper into the lab.

"For years, I have been trying to make the Holy Water of Immortality. A potion that can conquer death itself and make anyone truly immortal. But the essence of the formula requires an impossibly powerful, pure Divine magic source. A source I lacked."

He looked at the glowing golden heart with a twisted smile of pride.

"I tried various methods. I sacrificed hundreds of servants and kidnapped commoners, but they all failed. Their mana was too weak. But then... our dear Rian awakened. The Heavens themselves blessed him with an endless fountain of Divine energy. When I saw that golden pillar of light, I finally found my opportunity for success."

Mark slowly drew the sword from his hip. The sharp steel scraped loudly against the scabbard.

"It was a necessary sacrifice for the greater good of my research," Mark continued, his eyes locking onto Kaisi. "But the ritual is not quite finished. If I want to succeed and achieve true immortality, I cannot leave any loose ends. So... die for me, my dear wife."

Kaisi looked at the gleaming sword pointing at her. She looked back at the butchered remains of her sweet little boy.

Suddenly, her crying stopped.

Her wide, tear-filled eyes turned completely blank. The frantic, erratic fluctuations of her mana suddenly stilled, before vibrating with a terrifying, heavy pressure.

[Ding! The World has recognized your desperate need for power!]

[Ding! Sacrificing all human emotions in exchange for absolute strength...]

[Ding! Due to the massive sacrifice of emotions, your ’Path’ has been heavily affected.]

[Ding! Your ’Path’ of ’Protection’ has been modified into ’Destruction’.]

[Ding! You have awakened the ancient Witch Bloodline!]

[Ding! You have gained a Supreme Affinity for Dark Magic!]

[Ding! Your overall status has increased by several multipliers.]

[Ding! Forcibly Ascending to the S-Rank...]

A suffocating shockwave of dark mana exploded from Kaisi’s body. The glass containers around the room cracked under the sheer pressure of her aura.

Her tremendous surge in strength warped the very air inside the laboratory. The ambient mana reacted violently to her presence, swirling around her like a localized hurricane of black smoke.

As the seconds passed, her expression turned darker and colder. Every single ounce of grief, love, and despair completely vanished from her face, replaced by an empty, bottomless void. She turned her dead eyes toward Mark.

Mark stepped back, his confident smile faltering. His hands began to shake as he felt the crushing weight of an S-Rank aura pressing down on his chest. He was only a B-Rank mage.

"K-Kaisi... wait..." Mark stammered, raising his sword defensively.

Kaisi raised her hand.

[Curse Magic: Slayer of Demons!]

The blood pooling on the laboratory floor began to boil. The dark magic seeped into the butchered body parts of the guards and servants that Mark had tossed aside. Bones snapped, and flesh stitched itself together in a grotesque display of dark magic. Within seconds, a massive, horrific humanoid structure made entirely of rotting flesh and bone rose from the floor.

The flesh golem lunged at Mark with terrifying speed.

"No! Stay back!" Mark screamed, swinging his sword.

But the blade merely bounced off the golem’s hardened bones. The monstrous construct grabbed Mark by the throat and slammed him brutally into the stone wall. Mark coughed up a mouthful of blood, his ribs shattering upon impact.

Kaisi slowly floated into the air, her dark aura suffocating the room. She pointed her finger at her husband.

Black, destructive fire erupted from thin air, completely engulfing Mark’s body.

"AHHHHHHH!" Mark shrieked in absolute agony as his skin charred and blistered.

But Kaisi didn’t let the fire kill him. That would be far too easy.

Using her dark magic, she cursed him with the most horrific torture imaginable. She manipulated the dark fire to burn directly into his internal organs, slowly melting him from the inside out. But simultaneously, she forcefully extracted the Divine regeneration energy from his own twisted arrays, injecting it into his burning body.

The Divine energy healed his organs just as fast as the dark fire melted them away.

It was an endless, inescapable loop of pure agony. Mark screamed, choked on his own blood, burned, healed, and burned again.

Kaisi watched him with completely hollow eyes.

The torture lasted for several grueling hours. Mark’s screams eventually turned into breathless, wet gasps. The endless cycle of burning and healing completely broke his mind. He went entirely insane long before his physical body finally gave out.

When the last drop of stolen Divine energy was exhausted from the array, the dark fire finally consumed his heart. Mark’s life completely vanished, leaving behind nothing but a charred, unrecognizable husk on the floor.

The massive flesh golem collapsed into a puddle of rot.

Kaisi slowly drifted back down to the ground. She stared at Mark’s corpse, but she felt no joy. She felt no satisfaction or relief.

She hadn’t won this match. She had lost it. She had lost every single thing she ever had in this world.

Her emotionless state slowly began to crack as the forceful ascension faded.

She collapsed onto the floor.

*Sob...* *Sob...*

As she cried bitterly, her eyes drifted back toward the container holding Rian’s heart.

A sparkling, pure white light began to emit from the small organ. The gentle sparkle widened, pushing back the dark, bloody atmosphere and illuminating the entire underground chamber with a warm, peaceful glow.

The heart slowly morphed, shifting its shape and expanding until it turned into a beautiful, platinum Holy Grail.

The Grail floated through the air and gently landed in Kaisi’s lap.

It contained a pure, golden liquid. As Kaisi looked down into the shimmering surface, she saw a faint reflection—not of herself, but of her sweet, smiling son.

She held the artifact tightly against her chest, hugging it as if she were hugging Rian one last time.

But as she held it, her own life force started to vanish. The forceful ascension to the S-Rank had completely destroyed her body. Her mana core cracked, shattering into several tiny pieces. She was dying.

With her fading breath, she barely managed to gather the last remaining drops of nature’s mana in the air.

[The Final Sacrifice: Bind of Protection]

She cast the absolute highest tier of sealing magic.

The Holy Grail vanished into thin air, teleported into an impenetrable spatial illusion where no greedy noble or dark mage could ever easily find it.

The entire mansion shuddered violently. The dark magic warped the physical space of the estate, sealing the doors, trapping the undead servants inside, and cursing the forest around it to hide the mansion from the rest of the world forever.

The World responded, completing her final, dying wish.

Kaisi looked up at the ceiling, a single, bloody tear rolling down her cheek. A faint, loving smile returned to her pale lips.

"May you achieve your ’Path’ of ’Happiness’ in your next life, my dear boy..."

As she uttered those final words, her body completely disintegrated into particles of light, scattering away into the darkness of the ruined world.

[Memory Fragment Concluded.]