Chapter 332: Father of the Year

Patting himself down, brushing off the grit clinging to his skin, Azriel finally stood on his own two feet—free at last from Nol’s hug.

"Master, here."

Azriel turned. In Nol’s hands lay a simple black robe. Azriel took it with a nod, murmured his thanks, and slipped it on. While he dressed, the marquis studied him with cool, unwavering eyes—the same indifferent, stoic face as always.

"It took a great many health potions—and more than a few healers—to drag you back from the brink," Marquis Rossweth said.

"The wounds are closed, but the flesh around them is still weak, and the damage inside hasn’t fully mended. Don’t make any excessive movements."

Azriel nodded, then frowned.

"Healers?"

The marquis inclined his head.

"You mistook an old friend of mine for the village chief. Despite tearing off his arm and wrecking the place, an understanding was reached. The village was being held hostage by the master. Most of them didn’t even know. In the end, they somehow decided you were the one who saved their lives after hearing about everything that happened."

Azriel sighed inwardly.

’The people of this village must have a below-average IQ.’

"Even so," the marquis went on, "your flesh is tender—easy to pierce. Do nothing reckless for a week."

Azriel hummed and ran a quick check over his body. Before he could speak, the marquis glanced at Nol.

"Show me the key."

Azriel’s brows knit hard. His voice went cold.

"Nol. Don’t."

The air seemed to drop into a bottomless ocean. Nol and the marquis both turned to him. Azriel’s gaze didn’t waver.

"You may want a conversation," he said, "but that tells me nothing about whether we’re allies or enemies—whether I can trust you—or whether I care to cooperate in the slightest."

The marquis’s expression barely shifted, yet both Nol and Azriel felt the change: a small hardening, steel settling beneath ice.

"You must not understand the value of your beating heart to speak to me in that tone," the marquis said.

"M-Master," Nol ventured, uneasy—Nol, who would gladly leap into lava at Azriel’s word.

"Maybe there’s no need to be so... harsh. Just this once."

...toward a Grandmaster.

Azriel’s features eased, the edge at his mouth curling upward. Nol exhaled—then froze as that curve warped, crooked and dark.

"Enough," Azriel said softly, "that your daughter came to me, practically on her knees, begging me to take that beating heart of hers—and destroy it."

"...!"

"Master?!"

What happened next outpaced thought. The marquis vanished. A thunderous crack split the air where Azriel had stood. When Nol’s eyes snapped to the marquis’s last position and back again, both figures were gone. He didn’t understand the blast until the groaning earth and the sound of things coming apart rolled over him. The ground trembled. The wind cried loudly.

He looked farther—and saw it: a corridor of ruin gouged through the Forest of Eternity, trees shattered to splinters, a trail of devastation stretching for kilometers.

Azriel’s skull rattled in his head, though no pain reached him. He flew through trunk after trunk, vision blurring with each impact, until the world flipped and pitched and he hit the ground so hard the earth burst beneath him—once, twice—bouncing in a scatter of craters before he finally tumbled to a stop.

He lay in the dirt, bare-chested. His bandages were torn, filthy, half-peeled away. His robe was pulverized.

Azriel coughed, and a dark ribbon of blood stained the ground.

With a hollow groan, Azriel forced himself upright and coughed up another thread of blood.

"You pulled your fist at the last instant," he rasped—then let out a dry chuckle. He wiped his split lips with the back of his hand and looked ahead.

Across the ruin he’d carved into the earth, the Marquis walked toward him. The man’s face was as indifferent as ever. His presence felt almost absent—no killing intent, no weapon drawn—just a quiet, measured advance.

Azriel chuckled again and met that calm with eyes that held only hatred.

"Ah. I must be worth more than she was," he said, "since I have the privilege of you killing me with your own hands."

The Marquis halted. A heartbeat later, his aura detonated.

Azriel flew—rag-dolled, cannon-shot—through trees, through bark and splinters, skidding and bouncing until the ground finally stole his momentum. He spat blood again. Overhead, the sky wavered.

Then birds began to fall.

He blinked, dazed, as one after another thudded into the dirt—small, broken bodies thrashed from the air. All around him, the dead settled like black rain.

"I came in good faith," the Marquis’s voice reached him, unhurried, implacable, "but it seems you will not."

The Marquis took a single step. The power of his aura multiplied. The world pressed down. Mana roared out of true. The air itself seemed to tremble.

Azriel smiled anyway. He forced his head to turn.

"Did I hit a nerve? Surprising," he said, "since it seemed you had only one daughter left to spare nerves for."

Another step. The weight doubled, crushing him flat against the ground, ribs creaking.

He bared his teeth and smiled through it, a smile stoked by pure loathing.

"I mean—rather than help her when she was falsely accused, you sent her away. Alone."

A third step. The pressure deepened. The earth beneath him crazed with hairline fractures; dust sifted up and stuck to the blood on his face. Breathing became a labor, like a soundless plea in his chest.

Azriel laughed though. It tore into a cough, a wheeze, then back into laughter.

"Betrayed by her little sister. Friends turning their backs. And then her beloved father—sending her off to a world eager to grind her dignity into the mud." He coughed again, scarlet flecking his teeth.

"Truly—father of the year."

His sight flickered in and out. The Marquis advanced, as if he were closing his hand around Azriel’s throat from across the distance. Azriel laughed harder in defiance, each breath becoming thinner than the last.

"D-did you know," he managed, "she was proposed to by Prince Lykos?"

The Marquis stopped dead.

"...He loved her," Azriel whispered, his voice breaking into another cough, "while she—she didn’t even know what love was. No one had shown her."

Blood bubbled over his tongue. He swallowed iron and kept going.

"She finally chose to be selfish. Just once. To live for herself after years of bending to others. And the moment she did, life laughed in her face one last time."

The eyes that refused to show even a tremor at last widened—only a fraction, but enough. The indifferent mask thinned.

Azriel’s answering smile was a dark, cruel thing.

"What a pity," he breathed.

"If only the prince was not a... skinwalker."

Azriel then glared at him.

"Had she a father who actually gave a shit about her—who didn’t neglect her even after all she sacrificed for him—maybe she wouldn’t have died the way she did."

The aura eased, slightly.

Azriel felt nauseous, lightheaded, dizzy.

"...What are you trying to prove by telling me this? That I’m a bad father?"

Azriel managed a small shake of his head.

"Why prove what’s already proven?"

His glare softened.

"When I took her life, I saw some of her memories—her thoughts. And in her final moments... she spared no words for you."

He coughed again.

’...I must have damaged my lungs.’

"I might not be able to hurt you physically, but if you ever gave a shit about her, what I’m saying is worse than anything I couldn’t ever do to your body."

Azriel looked at him. The man only stared back, expressionless. Azriel’s smile widened.

"I suppose I succeeded."

"Master!"

Azriel turned his head, slow, and saw Nol running toward him. He pushed himself up a little—but at the same time Nol staggered and dropped to his knees.

"Ugh..."

Azriel’s eyes narrowed with concern as Nol’s face went white. Nol clutched his stomach, fighting for breath. Azriel quickly realised why.

"...Nol, leave. The mana here has fluctuated too much for you to handle."

’He’s more sensitive to mana than I thought.’

But Nol met his gaze, stubborn and reluctant.

’He doesn’t have enough experience to adapt to it more quickly than I do.’

Azriel sighed.

"Nol, I’m fine." He glanced at the Marquis, whose eyes were on Azriel but unfocused.

"...We’ve hurt each other enough for today."

"But, Master..."

"Nol, go back to the cabin and wait for Instructor Ranni and the others. Keep them in check if you must. There’s no guarantee they won’t try something. If they return, keep them there at all costs."

He held Nol’s gaze.

"I need you to do that."

Nol pressed his lips together, glanced at the Grandmaster, then back to Azriel, and finally gave a heavy nod. Still unsteady, he pushed himself to his feet, turned, and left.

Azriel exhaled and looked to the Marquis. At last, a sliver of clarity settled in the man’s eyes. In a low, weighty voice, he said,

"...You are right. I was... I am a terrible father. Had I taken a different approach to keep her safe, perhaps my daughter wouldn’t have made a deal with the King of Spirits..."

He looked at Azriel. Azriel’s eyes widened as the words sank in.

"...And the Devil wouldn’t have imprisoned us all in this dream world."