The Truth

"The legendary mage Cain fought the devil Qliphoth to their mutual destruction to save the enslaved people."

That was the legend Caro Town had told the outside world for three hundred years, but only the locals knew that Qliphoth had never actually died.

Devils possessed extraordinarily tenacious life forces, all the more so for one born from a plant.

Even at the cost of his life, Cain had been unable to destroy Qliphoth. In the end, he had been forced to resort to sealing him beneath Caro Town.

Besides honoring and remembering Cain, the people of Caro Town had stayed to guard the place because they also had a duty to watch over the seal.

After all, no matter how powerful a sealing spell was, it could never withstand the ravages of time forever.

To keep Qliphoth from wreaking havoc on the world again, the dying Cain had selected some people as inheritors and used the last of his life to plant a [Blessing] in them.

The power of the Blessing would merge with their bloodlines and lie dormant within them. They only had to pour their blood into the sealing magic circle during the Blessing Festival to reinforce the seal and extinguish Qliphoth's hopes of breaking free.

The power of the Blessing had been indispensable to Caro Town's survival to this day, and thanks to it, the town had enjoyed three hundred peaceful years.

Just when everyone thought those wonderful days would last forever, an unexpected incident shattered the peace.

Seven years ago...

Caro Town had held the Blessing Festival not long before, and the seal was at its strongest.

By all rights, there was no way Qliphoth could have broken through it then. After all, the people of Caro Town had relied on that method to live in peace for a full three hundred years without a single mishap.

Yet under those very circumstances, a huge, pitch-black magic circle had suddenly appeared in the center of Caro Town for some unknown reason.

Countless vines, thorns, and roots had then begun spreading outward from the church, gradually sweeping across all of Caro Town, just as they had when Qliphoth ruled it.

The sudden disaster had destroyed more than half of Caro Town, reducing the once-prosperous little town to ruins in an instant.

The people had once again fallen into the despair of three hundred years ago. With nowhere else to turn, they could only pray to the legend who had once saved them.

They had thought it was a desperate last struggle, but miraculously, they had survived. The boundless thorns and vines had come no closer. Cain had protected them once again...

"Was it really Cain's protection?" said Erza, who had taken a seat at some point. "Didn't you just say that all that talk of divine protection was a lie?"

"The divine protection seven years ago was a lie, of course, but it convinced everyone in town." Sonia sat down between the two of them. "The blessed aren't Cain himself, after all. Naturally, the restrictions created by reinforcing the seal only last as long as the seal exists."

"From the moment Qliphoth broke through the seal, the blood of the blessed was no longer of much use. Instead, it made them targets for him to hunt down."

"My father and I are the only blessed who survived that disaster."

"Then how did you survive?" Erza asked.

"We survived seven years ago because my father awakened the power of the Blessing dormant within him during that disaster and became a mage... Qliphoth had only just broken through the seal and was weakened, so he grew wary and chose to retreat, allowing us to survive."

"I see." Erza nodded in understanding, then looked puzzled. "But if that's true, you had even less reason to kill your own father, didn't you?"

After all, it was the priest's power that had driven Qliphoth away seven years ago. Now that the priest was dead, wasn't she afraid Qliphoth would come back?

"If I could have avoided it, I wouldn't have wanted to do it either..."

Sonia did not answer Erza's question directly. Instead, she began to explain. "After the incident seven years ago, Caro Town's Blessing Festival gradually changed. What had once been a sealing ritual became nothing more than an occasion for prayer and preaching. My father also began posting requests to the outside world, asking mages to come and stand guard under the pretext of protecting the festival and preventing another tragedy."

"And everyone who lived through the incident seven years ago had come to believe completely in 'divine protection,' so they had no objections."

"From then on, requesting mages to come and guard the Blessing Festival became an unchanging tradition in Caro Town."

"But what no one knew was that my father aimed his requests primarily at low-ranking mages from small guilds and independent mages."

"High pay and low difficulty. Either one was an offer hard to refuse, and together they could easily attract novice mages looking for an easy bargain..."

Erza's expression froze, as if an invisible arrow had struck her. She realized that seemed to be exactly how she had been drawn here.

"While they were secretly rejoicing over the great bargain they'd found, my father would use the payment as a pretext to make them let down their guard, then drain the blood from their bodies."

"!"

Erza jolted, snapping out of her daze.

For humans, blood was the source of life within the body. Lose too much, and a person would quickly go into shock... or even die.

Erza, new to the world, had never even heard of forcibly draining someone else's blood, much less understood why anyone would do it.

"For their magic power, I suppose." As if he had seen Erza's confusion, Yuri spoke up leisurely from the side.

"For... magic power?" Erza was puzzled.

According to Sonia, hadn't the priest already become a mage? Why would he still covet other people's magic power?

Besides, if it was blood he was drinking, what did that have to do with magic power?

A mage's magic power did not flow through their blood; it was stored in their magic source.

"It must have something to do with the magic the priest awakened," Yuri explained. "A mage's body is nourished by magic power over many years, so it's different from an ordinary person's. Not to mention that some rare kinds of magic alter a mage's body. It's no surprise that the priest coveted mages' blood."

"But what interests me more is why the priest awakened that kind of magic." Having answered Erza's question, Yuri raised a hand to rub his chin, his gaze fixed on Sonia like a beast's.

As mentioned earlier, Yuri was the mage Sonia had commissioned to help her. That commission was to assassinate the priest at the Blessing Festival.

Before carrying out the task, however, Yuri had done some investigating.

After all, assassination requests were expressly forbidden by the Magic Council, and legitimate guilds were not permitted to accept them at all.

Faced with such a task, Yuri had naturally been more cautious, rather than blindly taking his client's word for it.

His investigation had ultimately confirmed that Sonia had not lied in what she had just said. Otherwise, he could not have taken an innocent person's life so casually.

But while she had not lied, it now seemed that Sonia had not told him the whole story either. She had likely withheld some crucial information.

The power of magic came from the "heart." In a sense, it could also be called the power of the heart.

There were roughly two ways to acquire magic: one was through "training," and the other was "awakening."

"Training" needed little explanation. It involved learning the magic one wanted after birth, either from a magic book or from another person. It was a relatively gentle method and the most commonly used.

But because of its location, Caro Town's magic industry was far too underdeveloped to provide those conditions.

"Awakening" was different. It was rarer than training and involved forcibly drawing magic out from within the body through intense stimulation.

Unlike "training," "awakening" did not allow a person to freely choose the magic they wanted. However, magic born from "awakening" was usually exceptionally well suited to the mage.

Because it was power that came from the "heart," even if it was not as precise as "training," there were still patterns to follow.

In other words, if a person could control the "heart" precisely, they would have a chance to freely awaken the magic they wanted, just as with "training."

Unfortunately, that was almost impossible to achieve. After all, "awakening" usually required intense stimulation to serve as the key that set it in motion.

Such stimulation would inevitably leave a scar on the "heart," changing the shape of a person's original intent and altering the final result of the awakening. At most, one could only determine its general direction.

It was worth mentioning, however, that people who became mages by obtaining their magic through "awakening" usually shared one trait: exceptional talent.

The most obvious example was the gifted girl Erza.

Cruel as it might sound, that was the reality. People without talent could not awaken magic, no matter how intensely they were stimulated.

Unless...

"I remember you saying that the so-called Blessing contained power belonging to Cain, right? And the priest only began murdering innocent mages after he awakened his magic."

"Then can I venture a guess that he did those things precisely because he was influenced by the [Blessing]... or rather, by Cain?"

Yuri analyzed it frame by frame, his expression turning somewhat playful. "I'm suddenly curious what this legendary mage you worship as a god actually left you. Was it a [Blessing], or... a [Curse]?"

A man who had lived an ordinary life for nearly half his life had suddenly had a revelation in middle age, awakened, and become a mage. And right after that, his temperament had happened to change drastically.

Granted, "awakening" carried immense risks, and a drastic change in temperament was indeed possible. But Yuri did not believe the priest was the kind of genius qualified to awaken magic on his own. Otherwise, he would not have spent half his life accomplishing nothing.

After all, he had borne the duty of watching over the seal. If he had had a chance to become a mage, there was no reason for him to refuse, however one looked at it.

So there was only one truth: the priest simply had no talent for being a mage.

As for why the untalented priest had still awakened magic in the end, that most likely had something to do with the so-called [Blessing].

The power of magic came from the "heart." Controlling the heart meant controlling the direction in which magic awakened.

Although that was almost impossible to do on one's own, what if some outside force were added?

Over three hundred years, Cain's [Blessing] had long since merged with the bloodlines of its inheritors.

If the [Blessing] subtly influenced their "hearts," then became the medium for their awakening when they were stimulated...

It might well be possible to make [awakening] easier, or even guide it in a specific direction.

That was why Yuri believed the priest was no genius and was not qualified to [awaken].

"Gulp!"

Sonia swallowed involuntarily, the expression hidden beneath her veil turning to alarm.

She tried to offer an "explanation," but the oppressive weight of his gaze forced her words back.

Under Yuri and Erza's questioning gazes, Sonia knew that if she did not give them a reasonable explanation, there would be no point in continuing the conversation.

She sighed inwardly.

"About your question..." Sonia coughed lightly and cautioned them, "I'm going to show you both something. I hope you won't be afraid."

With that, Sonia slowly raised her hands over her head and pulled off the headscarf and veil she had never removed in front of anyone for years.

Sonia's true face was revealed, immediately provoking two entirely different reactions.

Erza looked shocked, finding it hard to believe.

Yuri, on the other hand, raised an eyebrow and looked her up and down.

He had heard that Sonia always wore a headscarf and veil because her face had been disfigured in an accident.

He had thought it might have been burns from a fire or cuts from a sharp blade, but now it was clear that was not the case at all.

The girl's face was not ugly, and it bore neither scars nor cuts. It was merely somewhat different from an ordinary person's.

The first impression she gave was one of whiteness. Sonia's skin was very pale, but not snow-white. It was a sickly pallor like that of a corpse.

Then there were the pointed ears on either side of her face, like those of an elf from legend. But against her excessively pale skin, they looked rather eerie.

Last were her eyes. Sonia had a pair of blood-red eyes that stood out even in the dark, but the sockets around them were deeply sunken, as though they had collapsed. In stark contrast to her sickly pale skin, they looked very dark.

As she was now, she might not quite be called a monster, but it was also somewhat of a stretch to call her human.

"Is this... a devil?" Erza asked uncertainly, gradually recovering from her shock.

"More precisely, half human and half devil," Yuri corrected her. Seemingly unsurprised, he gave Sonia a meaningful look.

Half human and half devil: the offspring of a human and a devil.

A child with such blood had powerful magic lying dormant within them from birth. If they could develop it, they would most likely become a mage of considerable strength.

But powerful as that strength was, if they lacked sufficient mastery and could not control the Devil Power within them, it would also produce many side effects.

The most obvious of these was the "Devil Trigger" Sonia was now displaying.

Their appearance would gradually change from human to devil, the transformation deepening as the Devil Power continued to awaken. In severe cases, the Devil Power would even devour their mind and will, reducing them completely to a monster without reason.

Sonia's condition also provided indirect proof that the priest truly had no talent for becoming a mage.

After all, talent was at least somewhat hereditary.

As for Cain, who had given the people of Caro Town their Blessing, he most likely was not a legendary mage either, but a devil.

"That's right. This is the power of Cain, the 'Blood Devil,' and also the truth behind the Blessing."