Chapter 341: Snow Lionheart (4)

Yosefka Orphanage should never have existed in the Empire’s lands to begin with.

The fact it had lasted this long was a miracle in itself.

The strange truth at the time... was that Yosefka wasn’t the only one. It had merely been a branch—one among many, part of a far greater organization.

The place Snow had lived in was just a single piece of it.

A few days before his escape...

"This facility’s been discovered. The Empire will attack any moment now. Wrap things up and evacuate immediately."

That was what the Director had said before leaving—just like always.

He left behind only Annalise, along with the remaining staff who worked within those walls.

And now... here they were.

The flames devoured the orphanage without pause.

Snow ran straight into the fire, enduring the searing heat as he gasped for breath.

The deeper he went, the more charred corpses he found.

Children and adults alike.

Bodies burned beyond recognition, soaked in fire and blood.

That day, the orphanage was destined to be erased—as if it had never existed.

But Snow didn’t care.

He only wanted to find her.

And after a desperate search through the inferno, he finally saw the back of that woman.

Standing amid the furious blaze ..

Snow reached out and shouted her name without even thinking.

"Mom!"

Annalise turned immediately, her mouth open in surprise.

It looked like she had been searching for him just as desperately.

Without hesitation, she ran toward him and pulled him into a tight embrace.

They held each other in the heart of the inferno.

Even now, Snow still remembered the warmth of her body, despite the hellish flames around them.

For a moment, he felt happy just to see her again.

"Ah, Snow... you’re here. You have no idea how long I’ve been looking for you."

At that moment, Snow felt a wave of relief.

Tears streamed down his face before he even realized it, and he apologized through choked sobs.

"I’m sorry... I’m sorry I left without you. I’m sorry for being a bad boy."

"It’s okay."

Annalise gently stroked his hair as she rested her head on his narrow shoulder.

"It’s okay. You’re a good, obedient boy. Everything will be fine."

Those same words—again.

The same words where it had all begun.

While holding her, Snow suddenly felt something being torn away from him, followed by a burning pain.

Blood trickled from his shoulder.

He turned in shock to face the woman he once called mother ..

Only to find her savoring the taste of his flesh, having taken a massive bite out of his shoulder.

"M-Mom...?"

"Ahh..."

Annalise breathed heavily.

"You don’t understand, Snow."

She slowly licked the blood from her lips and inhaled the scent of the boy in her arms.

"You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this moment."

"What...?"

Snow tried to ask, still unable to grasp what was happening.

But Annalise buried her face into his neck again.

"For Lady Yosefka."

Snow froze in place, his mind blank, as Annalise continued gnawing on his tender flesh.

What kind of cannibals were they? And who was Yosefka?

Those questions ran through his dazed mind—but none of them mattered.

What mattered... was that he had been betrayed.

Betrayed by his only light.

Snow wept bitterly as he kept asking the same question ..

"Why?"

Why had all this happened? That woman had been everything to him.

And now, here she was, devouring him alive.

Perhaps the Director hadn’t been the one to feast on the children.

Perhaps it had been her all along.

The one closest to them.

From the very beginning, he had been deceived.

His body... and his heart... both were played with.

"Unforgivable."

This was unforgivable.

In the end, everything he’d been through had been part of a twisted play. He was just a pawn.

Yes, the deaths of all those children hadn’t been his fault.

But the burning pain in his chest... was deeper than any wound.

"Unforgivable."

It hadn’t been him.

It had been them.

The Director. And her.

"Annalise..."

She had stopped biting ..no, she was forced to.

The boy’s flesh had turned harder than steel.

She stumbled back, staring in shock at Snow’s body now covered in radiant golden markings.

Symbols she couldn’t understand.

Snow Lionheart stood up, his wound no longer bleeding. His golden eyes were hollow and dead.

With a grim expression, he slowly stepped toward Annalise.

"Snow... what are you doing?"

The woman, blood still on her face, screamed and lunged.

"I told you to be obedient!"

She struck him violently, screaming louder—

"I told you to be a good boy!"

She kept hitting him, until a sharp pain surged through her arms.

When she looked at her hands, she saw they were completely broken.

Annalise felt something was wrong.

She was in Class S .. how could a mere boy block her attacks with nothing but his skin?

But what stood before her wasn’t a boy.

Snow Lionheart didn’t even know what was happening anymore.

With a terrifying look, he lunged at Annalise, golden sigils glowing across his skin.

"You were going to kill me just moments ago."

With a brutal blow, he sent Annalise’s body flying through the fire.

"So you won’t mind if I do the same, will you?"

"You wretched brat!"

That day, the two of them clashed.

Snow felt his body sink into the unknown as a strange force took control of him, moving him however it pleased.

Everything had been destroyed...

He had lost her. Lost himself. Lost everything around him.

And so, he no longer cared about anything.

That day, a mere boy with no formal training overwhelmed someone from Class S.

As she lay before him, cursing him with all her might, Snow gave her a sorrowful smile.

"To be honest," he murmured, "I want to try it... that thing you all were so obsessed with. I want to know what it is that drove you to do all this."

Snow pinned Annalise’s broken body to the ground as he leaned closer.

"But unlike you, I’m just an ordinary human... I can’t eat human flesh."

Annalise couldn’t move. After a long and brutal fight, her body was ravaged with injuries—bleeding from countless wounds.

And yet, she hadn’t managed to hurt him even once.

Snow brought his face close to hers and whispered,

"At least... I’ll take a small part."

"What...?"

"Just a small part."

He opened his mouth... and bit into her neck.

"A small part of you will live inside me forever."

The taste of her filthy blood and flesh filled his mouth, and he fought the urge to vomit.

Annalise watched in disbelief, her body broken and her death imminent.

No matter how much she begged her Lady Yosefka for strength, the latter gave her nothing. She was abandoned—left to die.

To think that she would meet her end being eaten by someone else. She, of all people?

Snow cried that day, his face drenched in blood.

"Goodbye... Mom."

It was over.

Later, when the Empire’s forces arrived—led by the former temple director, Raphael Bloodmader ..

They found nothing but ashes.

Amidst those ashes sat a lone child, burned and bloodied, beside the corpse of a woman torn apart by countless wounds.

The child had survived.

The woman had not.

And yet, faintly... Bloodmader felt something strange emanating from the boy’s body.

A power he couldn’t quite comprehend.

"You," he called out.

But Snow Lionheart’s golden eyes were distant—completely lost.

Bloodmader crouched to his level and slowly pulled a thin blade from his coat.

He ran the edge across the boy’s cheek, drawing a shallow cut.

In that moment, Snow grabbed the blade tightly—blood trickling from his hand as he stared directly into Bloodmader’s eyes.

The director smiled.

"Come with me... child born from the ashes."

That day, Raphael Bloodmader covered up the incident and took the boy with him... back home.

Later, Snow would learn that everything he’d experienced was part of something that came from another continent—

The continent of Ultras.

And that day, the boy set a new goal for himself ..

A target worthy of his blade.

The orphanage director, the one from whom it all began...

The Father.

Smough.

Thus began the story of Snow Lionheart.