The flash of lightning disappeared almost the instant Damon recognized the figure seated behind the upper balcony, but that was enough. Duke Arven's hunched silhouette remained motionless in the darkness, partially hidden by the ornate columns of the second floor. Even from a distance, there was something profoundly wrong with his posture. He didn't look like a man observing a battle within his own home. He looked like someone empty. Like a forgotten statue in the dark.

And Morgana saw it too.

Damon realized it immediately by the way she accelerated.

She practically launched herself up the stairs, cutting through the corridor of creatures like a living blade. One of the aberrations tried to grab her leg mid-ascent, but Morgana twisted her body on the last step and buried her father's sword directly in the side of the creature's head before it even touched the ground again. Black blood splattered across the marble steps.

The Duchess recoiled for the first time.

It was only one step.

But it happened. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

And that was enough to transform the entire atmosphere of the mansion.

Because, until that moment, she seemed completely in control. Now, however, Damon saw something different in her eyes. Not absolute fear. Not yet. But urgency.

She hadn't expected Morgana to advance so quickly.

"STOP HER!" The Duchess's voice echoed violently through the hall.

The creatures reacted instantly.

All of them.

Like puppets linked to the same thought.

The transformed guards completely abandoned the veterans of the west wing and brutally converged on the central staircase. The corridor exploded in grotesque movement. Deformed bodies leaped over the railings. Some literally climbed the side walls using broken fingers and distorted limbs.

Cherry's eyes widened.

"Oh, this got MUCH worse!"

She fired three times almost without pause. The first bolt pierced the eye of a creature trying to reach Morgana from the left side of the stairs. The second one ripped part of the jaw off another deformed guard. The third one completely missed and shattered an absurdly expensive aristocratic vase.

"That one was probably valuable!"

"CONCENTRATION!" Cedric roared as he blocked a creature's brutal blow with his own armored forearm.

The impact threw him against the wall.

One of the creatures immediately leaped at him.

Damon reacted first.

He raced across the hall at top speed and intercepted the monster mid-leap, plunging his sword into its collarbone before violently shoving it against a marble column. The sound of bones breaking echoed through the corridor.

But the creature still moved.

Its distorted jaw opened grotesquely toward him.

Damon violently pulled his sword upwards, completely separating the head from the body.

Only then did it die.

Definitely.

The problem was that now there were more.

Many more.

The upper corridors began to vomit forth new deformed figures every few seconds. Guards. Servants. Perhaps even former soldiers of House Arven. All marked by the black runes burned beneath their skin. Some still retained recognizable parts of their own faces.

This made everything worse.

Much worse.

Ingrivid emerged silently behind one of the creatures advancing along the side of the hall. Her small blades pierced the man's nape in a clean, precise movement before she twisted her body and severed the tendons of another monster trying to reach Elizabeth.

The aristocratic strategist had already completely abandoned any refined appearance.

Now she seemed merely irritated.

"She turned the entire mansion into a ritualistic hub," Elizabeth said, observing the runes pulsing on the corpses scattered across the floor. "The markings are connected."

"What exactly does that mean?" Cherry asked, frantically reloading her crossbow. "It means that the more creatures there are…" Elizabeth slowly raised her eyes to the Duchess. "…the more mana she possesses."

Cherry was silent for a second.

Then she made a deeply offended expression.

"That's absurdly unfair."

Another rumble echoed through the mansion.

This time closer.

The fire in the west wing began to spread.

Smoke was already partially rising from the upper corridors as the stained-glass windows trembled under the storm outside. The smell of burning wood slowly began to mix with the odor of blood and corrupted magic.

But the Duchess seemed not to care.

She only watched Morgana.

And Morgana only watched her.

Heiress Arven finally reached the upper balcony just as two creatures emerged from the side corridor, attempting to intercept her. She slid beneath the first blow and pierced the monster's throat in a single, continuous motion before using the still-living body as a shield against the second creature.

Deformed claws tore flesh and tissue.

Blood spurted.

But Morgana didn't slow down.

She simply pushed the corpse against the second transformed guard and continued advancing directly toward her mother.

The Duchess finally raised her hand.

And in that instant, Damon felt it.

The pressure.

The air in the mansion seemed to vibrate violently.

The runes scattered across the dead bodies began to pulse simultaneously.

Cherry literally felt the hairs on her arm stand on end.

"Oh, this is REALLY bad…"

The floor of the upper balcony cracked.

Black lines began to spread across the ornate stones like living roots, running along the columns, walls, and central staircases. The mansion's chandeliers began to sway violently as a grotesque wave of energy coursed through the entire structure.

The corpses.

The corpses began to move again.

Even decapitated.

Even destroyed.

Damon felt his stomach churn as one of the headless creatures began to crawl across the floor using its own broken fingers.

"She's using the entire mansion as a catalyst!" Elizabeth screamed.

The Duchess finally smiled again.

But now there was no elegance in that smile.

Only obsession.

"You don't understand…" Her voice echoed strangely now, as if several voices spoke alongside hers. "All of this is necessary."

Morgana continued walking.

Slowly.

Relentlessly.

"You've gone mad."

"I have awakened."

"You have condemned this family."

"I will immortalize it."

Then the Duchess attacked.

Not with a sword.

Nor with refined magic.

She simply raised her hand toward Morgana—and the corridor itself exploded.

The stones of the upper balcony shattered in a brutal wave of arcane force. Columns cracked. Fragments of marble shot through the air like projectiles. Morgana barely managed to raise her sword in time to block part of the impact before being violently thrown against the side wall.

The shock made the entire structure tremble.

"MORGANA!" Damon immediately charged up the stairs.

Two creatures tried to intercept him midway.

He slashed the first directly through the chest without stopping. The second leaped at him with its claws outstretched, but Cedric emerged from the side and buried a short axe in the monster's neck.

"KEEP GOING!" roared the veteran. The combat had now descended into pure chaos.

The men of the old guard fought desperately to prevent the creatures from reaching the main staircase. Cherry fired relentlessly from the base of the hall, shouting increasingly incoherent obscenities. Ingrivid disappeared and reappeared from the shadows, slitting throats and destroying runes with terrifying precision.

But that wasn't enough.

Because the mansion was alive.

The walls pulsed.

Literally.

The runes scattered throughout the structures began to emit an irregular black glow while strange sounds echoed through the upper corridors. Like breaths. Like something gigantic moving within the building itself.

Elizabeth noticed before the others.

"Oh, by the gods…"

Damon quickly turned his face away.

"What?"

She paled.

"The ritualization wasn't just being performed on the guards." Her eyes scanned the walls of the mansion. "She had bound the Arven bloodline itself to the structure of the house."

The horror of that realization struck everyone at once.

The Duchess wasn't just using forbidden magic.

She was fusing the entire family to the mansion.

Transforming Arven into something alive.

Something eternal.

Something monstrous.

Morgana slowly rose from the wreckage of the broken column. Blood trickled down the side of her face now, but her hand remained firmly on the hilt of her father's sword.

The Duchess observed this in silence for a moment.

Then she spoke almost softly:

"You were always too strong for this world."

Morgana spat blood onto the marble floor.

"And you were always too weak to accept losing control."

The Duchess's expression finally cracked.

True rage.

Violent.

The lights in the mansion flickered brutally.

All the remaining creatures began to go berserk at the same time.

They surged in a grotesque wave up the stairs.

Damon intercepted one of them in the middle of the upper corridor and immediately felt the absurd impact pierce his arms. The creature slammed into him like a wild animal. No technique. No fear. Just strength amplified by corrupted magic.

It tried to bite his face.

Damon pierced its jaw with his sword before kicking it off the balcony.

The body plummeted onto the fighting in the lower hall.

Cedric climbed up right behind him, covered in blood.

"We're losing the corridor!"

Another veteran fell screaming down the stairs seconds later.

The creatures kept coming. And then—

Duke Arven moved.

Very slowly.

Sitting in the darkness behind the balcony, he finally raised his head.

Everyone noticed at the same time.

Morgana froze.

Because this…

This hardly looked like her father anymore.

The Duke remained bound to a chair adorned with black chains covered in pulsating runes. His skin was absurdly pale. Dark veins slowly spread across his neck and face. His eyes remained sunken, exhausted…

But conscious.

Still conscious.

"Morgana…" His voice came out weak. Broken.

She completely lost her breath at that instant.

The world seemed to stop.

Even the fighting around them seemed distant for a second.

The Duke tried to raise his head again.

"Come out…" he murmured. "…from here…"

The Duchess turned violently to him.

"NO."

The word came out monstrous.

Not human.

The shadows of the balcony exploded violently around her as the runes of the mansion glowed even brighter.

And then Damon realized the horrible truth.

She was connected to the Duke as well.

Not just emotionally.

Literally.

The black chains connected to the Duke's body pulsed in sync with the runes scattered throughout the mansion.

Elizabeth paled completely.

"She's using him as the main hub."

Morgana slowly turned her gaze back to her mother.

And Damon realized immediately:

Something inside her just died.