CHAPTER 7: WHO'S THE REAL MONSTER?

From time to time, Sylvia would squeeze out her breast milk and put it in a bottle. She'd hand it to Julius, telling him to feed it to Dionel. He would accept it but never bothered to feed the baby himself. He found it annoying and would toss it to Lumos.

"What, am I a babysitter now?"

"Would you rather watch me kill someone every time they finish feeding that thing? Besides, didn't you promise to feed him?"

"That was a one-time thing! when I was still waiting for you to figure out how to fix that problem."

Julius didn't say a thing and just looked at him with no emotion

"Ughh, Whatever, just let me borrow that artifact for an extended period"

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The child grew up in that dark room, never seeing a single ray of sunlight. By the time he was five, the only faces he ever saw were Lumos, who fed him and occasionally played with him, and Julius, who came by just to spit venomous words and beat him.

Lumos would treat his wounds with strong ointments since healing magic or potions risked hurting the boy even more.

"Lumos… hic… why does Dad hate me? He gets mad when I call him that. He hits me more if I do. But… you said he was my father, right?"

"Ah… that…"

In Lumos's head:

Crap. How the hell do I explain that his father's a selfish bastard and no medicine or magic could fix that?

"Maybe… your father's going through a hard time?"

Goddammit, that wasn't it.

"A hard time? So he's just sad?"

"…Maybe."

Lumos couldn't bring himself to tell the boy the truth.

"Okay! I'll try to cheer him up next time I see him!"

Lumos looked at the boy, feeling a deep, heavy pity. He knew exactly why Julius loathed the child.

"Alright, kiddo. I'm off. See you tomorrow."

"Bye-bye, Lumos!"

 Dionel beamed, waving happily.

The door slammed shut again, and once more, the boy was left alone in the suffocating dark.

This back room, hidden behind Julius's office, was originally meant to protect the pope from assassins. No magic or brute force could break through its walls, not from the outside, and not from within. Julius chose this place to lock away Dionel — to seal in the constant leak of black magic and bury the existence of his so-called "tainted" son.

After what felt like endless hours of sitting in the dark, Dionel picked up the old lamp Lumos had given him. He stared at its faint glow when the door burst open.

Julius stormed in, seething.

"Those filthy Cathars! How dare they kill my top paladins!"

Dionel, as always, ran to greet him with a smile.

"Hello, Dad! I hope you're feeling okay today!"

Julius's face twisted in rage.

SMACK!

The slap split Dionel's cheek, blood trickling down his face.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?! I don't have a filthy son!"

He started ranting.

"It's those vermin's fault! If their cursed bloodlines didn't exist, my life would be perfect! I should have been the highest man alive, worshiped by the masses! Me! the pope, the embodiment of light! And Sylvia, the purest saintess, belongs to me alone!"

This man had a sick obsession with purity, cleanliness, and control. It wasn't surprising, considering all the former popes action in the name of holy order.

"My sweet Sylvia… why won't you look at me with those warm eyes again?"

Plus His deranged love for Sylvia had rotted into obsession long ago.

After mumbling to himself like a lunatic at the entrance of the room, he turned his hateful gaze on Dionel.

"You look just like her. If only you'd inherited the color of her eyes… you might have been perfect. But no- you had to be a disgusting, lowborn incarnation of demons."

He approached the boy and started kicking him without restraint.

Julius never came to see Dionel out of concern. He used the child as his personal punching bag, a place to vent the frustrations he couldn't show the world. A man who wore the mask of holiness before the people while burying his rage and madness beneath. His obsession with purity, his hatred for dark magicians, and his own self-loathing needed an outlet, and that was the "unclean" boy locked away in this room.

"You foul monster! You're the reason Sylvia won't look at me anymore! You poisoned her, and you defiled me!"

"I, the Pope, blessed with the purest light magic, and Sylvia, the saintess chosen by the goddess, we should have been perfect. But you… you're filth. How can you monster be born from us? There's no way something like you is our son!"

Dionel heard every word, and his small world crumbled. The pain of hearing those words from his own father was something no child should ever endure.

He was smart, always asking questions, always curious, and Lumos would answer as honestly as his guilty conscience allowed. But none of those answers prepared him for this.

Every word Julius spat pierced through his heart, each one heavier than the last. It hurt so much that he wished he could tear out his own heart just to make it stop.

And then… there was nothing.

No sound. No pain. Just silence.

He lay there, empty, staring blankly at the walls as Julius kept beating him. His body stopped reacting. His mind went numb.

And then —

BOOM!