It was a nightmare.

A vicious one.

"On three, you need to take your hands off."

The physician, who had neither the time nor the presence of mind to grind herbs, spoke with a blood-stanching herb clenched between his teeth as he chewed. At his instruction, Hugh and Lady Coco, who were pressing down on Ren’s chest, both nodded. Coco was trying not to cry, but there was no way to stop the hot tears pouring down her face. Right now, pride and everything else meant nothing.

If begging could keep him alive, she wanted to beg anyone.

It was absurd altruism. Something Lady Coco couldn’t understand. All she could feel toward Ren, who had taken the sword in her place, was bitter resentment.

Please live. Because if you don’t, I think I’m going to want to die.

If you wake up, I’m not letting you off easy. I’m going to demand why you did that, and I’m going to yell at you, so you better be ready.

Lady Coco bit at her lips viciously.

The physician finished counting, and Hugh and Lady Coco took their hands away at the same time. Without leaving even a sliver of a gap, the physician slapped the wad of hemostatic medicine over Ren’s chest.

The amount of blood the heart was pumping out dropped sharply.

Which meant there wasn’t much blood left in Ren’s body to lose.

Temar stood there, watching everything.

Silence so tight no one dared breathe wrong. Sweat beaded across the physician’s brow. After carefully packing the medicine into place, he motioned with his hand. Quick on the uptake, Hugh held out the bandage, and the physician wrapped Ren’s chest tightly with swift but meticulous hands.

Then he took his hands off and opened several medicine bottles from the bag packed full of them.

Thank God today had been the day to buy medicine. If it hadn’t, even preserving his life for a moment would’ve been difficult.

Thinking that the rare, expensive drugs that had come into his hands today must have been for this exact moment, the physician pried open Ren’s mouth. So the physician could treat him more easily, Hugh gathered Ren back into his arms and tipped his head slightly back. Yellow and green medicine ran into his open mouth. He couldn’t even swallow half of it and spat it back out, but if Ren could get down even a quarter of that half, it was still something to be grateful for.

Temar’s leg moved.

A bead of cold sweat on the physician’s face slipped down his chin and dripped.

Lante stayed pressed close beside Ren, giving off a faint light. Unlike when it had first appeared, it looked shabby now.

What had just gone into Ren’s body wasn’t nearly enough.

The physician opened every bottle he had left.

"...?"

In the dark cave, barely able to continue treatment by the weak moonlight and the strangely twinkling warm yellow glow, the physician looked up in confusion. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

A huge shadow had fallen over him.

Sweat broke out on the back of his neck.

It was Temar.

The man who had moved like a machine at Luman’s shout and brought the physician here.

After that, he’d stood at the mouth of the hollow like a boulder.

Now he moved, as if he’d finally come back to himself.

Luman, who had been staring at Ren without even noticing blood seeping from the arm that had been cut off and reattached earlier, lifted his head.

Had he come back to his senses?

Temar walked slowly over. The physician, who had been holding a bottle, froze, tense. Every time Temar moved, a bloody footprint stamped the cave floor. Blood that still hadn’t dried yet was running down his leg and dripping off.

Drip. Drip.

In the silence, where even drawing breath felt difficult, the sound of those falling drops rang out with eerie clarity.

"Te... what the hell are you doing, Temar."

"...!"

Luman growled low.

Temar strode over, sat down beside Ren, and grabbed his shoulder.

Hard enough for the veins to stand out across the back of his hand.

"...?! W-what, what are you doing...?!"

The physician jolted °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° so hard his shoulders shook.

He clutched the medicine bottle he’d nearly dropped and tried to steady his pounding heart.

"Temar...!"

"Ren."

But Temar called Ren’s name as if he couldn’t hear or see anyone else’s voice or stare.

Ren.

Because whenever he said Ren, Ren always answered him with "Brother!"

So of course he should answer this time too, and he would.

That had never once failed in all the time since he’d been born.

No matter what had happened between Temar and Ren, if Temar called him, Ren would answer him with a bright, spirited "Brother!" He would look at him with those gentle blue-green eyes. Always.

So of course this time too...

"Ren."

"Let him go...!"

"Calm down."

"What the hell are you doing. I said let go of him."

Hugh seized Temar’s forearm with his blood-soaked hand.

But there was no way an ordinary human’s strength could withstand a Hero’s. Without even looking at him, like brushing off a gnat, Temar twisted Hugh’s arm.

Hugh swallowed his groan and doubled over. His throat bobbed violently with the sudden pain.

"Hugh!"

Coco grabbed hold of him. Shock flooded her purple eyes.

What the hell are you trying to do? Startled, Coco scrubbed away tears that had already dried on her face and glared at Temar. She had been trying not to raise her voice because Ren was unconscious, but the second she saw Temar’s face, she went silent.

Fear filled Coco’s purple eyes.

At Hugh’s silent groan and Coco’s terrified face, the physician started shaking too.

Of course, as a physician, he needed to treat the patient as fast as possible. He tried to move out of sheer professional duty, but before the overwhelming force pouring off the Hero, ordinary humans couldn’t even breathe the way they wanted, like prey animals caught before a predator.

A savage aura rose from Temar’s body.

"Have you lost your mind? Stop."

"......"

Luman gripped Temar’s shoulder hard enough to crush it, but the two of them had never been equal to begin with. In raw strength, no one alive could surpass the Seventh Hero, Temar. Temar ignored even Luman’s hand and cupped the face of the unconscious Ren.

In Temar’s huge, brutish hand, Ren’s shoulder sagged limp, as if it had been wrenched out of place.

Before Luman even had time to draw up his power, Temar moved fast.

He seized both of Ren’s cheeks, snatched the medicine bottle from the physician’s hand with the other, and poured it straight down his throat, then forced Ren’s mouth shut. Ren’s chest heaved as if breathing was difficult, but Temar didn’t care.

"Ren."

As if he believed that if he called him like that, Ren would wake up.

No emotion could be read in Temar’s eyes, seized by obsession.

His face was frozen cold as a statue, and from his split lips, only Ren’s name kept spilling out.

Blood dripped from the wound Luman’s grip had torn back open as it was trying to heal, but Temar seemed not to feel that either.

A threatening aura surged as if it might swallow the whole cave.

It was the kind of moment where one wrong breath felt like it would get your throat ripped open on the spot.

Everyone was frozen under Temar’s pressure, unable to move.

Then a small body slammed into him and tumbled away.

It was Lady Coco.

Temar’s empty eyes shifted and fixed on Coco.

With the indifferent gaze of someone looking at a bug.

The kind of look that said if she got in his way, he could kill her anytime.

The instant Hugh’s unbroken arm went for the dagger tucked against his body, Lady Coco snapped her head up. Her fluttering purple hair clung to her wet face.

If Temar loses control, I’ll devour him even if I have to burn up my life to do it.

Luman condensed his power, aiming at Temar’s heart so he could unleash it at any second.

"If you keep doing that... he really is going to die... If you keep forcing your own way like this... he really might die......"

"......"

"Ren might die...! Because of you!"

"......"

The tears that had dried in her purple eyes spilled down again.

With terrified eyes, trembling lips and lashes, Coco endured the horrific pain and fear and looked Temar straight in the eye. The words she barely forced out on her breath scattered like they evaporated the moment they left her mouth.

She didn’t even notice the pain in the body that had slammed into him and gone rolling.

Lady Coco felt like she was going to stop breathing. At this rate, while things dragged on like this, it felt like Ren’s life would go out.

If you don’t let go of him, I’ll kill you.

"......"

That’s impossible. Ren can’t die.

Blood pouring from Temar spread wet across the floor.

As it slowly soaked outward over the stone, it touched the physician’s hand.

The physician, who hadn’t even been able to part his lips till now, looked at Lady Coco, forcing words out like she was wringing them from her lungs without being able to breathe properly, and clenched his fist.

"Move! I-I c-can’t, b-b-breathe!"

Barely even able to speak, the physician still dared shove the Hero aside and take the place in front of Ren.

Temar’s empty eyes rolled and fixed on the physician’s head. Luman still had a hand on Temar’s shoulder, and Hugh still had his dagger in hand. Coco too braced her legs.

"I-if you force it down him like that......"

I’m going to piss myself.

No. Focus on the patient.

The physician trembled and muttered under his breath as he cradled Ren’s head. Helping him breathe evenly, he felt relieved to find that one of the bottles Temar had emptied by brute force still had some left, and he trickled it in little by little. Even so, half of it soaked the front of Ren’s clothes.

"Ren."

"......"

Luman let go of the arm gripping Temar. His palm was slick with blood.

Lante, who had been staying by Ren’s side, dimmed—

and vanished.

Luman spat up the blood rising in his throat, then glared at Temar.