The next day, around noon, a servant came by and informed Ain that he was being summoned by the Queen. Him, specifically, and no one else. However, Ain decided to bring Latela and Senon with him, anyway. Latela protested his decision, claiming it was a diplomatic disaster. Senon could not care less either way, she was just happy to be at Ain's side.

The royal guards at the palace also protested, but they all knew what transpired the day before. There were still bloodstains on their armor, and the screams, no doubt, still echoed in their heads. They couldn't stop Ain from bringing his group with him. They could only protest, like Latela, and claim that it was highly unprofessional.

Ain changed in their eyes. Before, he was a Hero and a traitor, a champion of Humanity and someone who did not champion their particular cause. Now he was something else; none of them wanted him to champion anything, especially not their cause. To them, Ain was a monster. In their hearts, before yesterday, they reached for him as if he was an ideal, and now they realized that his light -- which they yearned for -- was blinding them; it was hurting them.

And in that was also the essence as to why Ain never took the throne of Humanity; why he never decided to lead them from the front lines, or why he never helped them during the Succession Wars. Ain stopped believing that he was still human a very long time ago. Even he knew that he became something else.

Of course, he was still human. But Humanity had an expiration date, even if the body and mind did not. And Ain, at that point in his life, was trying his best to preserve what little of his Humanity remained, while the humans around him constantly kept trying to erode it and to destroy it.

That was the reason behind his act of defiance, and why he chose not to obey the will of the Queen. That morning, he decided he will never again obey her will, or dance in the palm of the likes of Sigurd de Veir.

Never again.

Pushing the double doors open, Ain strode into the foyer, with Latela and Senon at his flanks.

The Queen was not alone. With her was also Sigurd de Veir and another person that Ain did not recognize or see before -- likely an advisor, because he had that look, with greying brown hair, and immaculate robes.

The trio stood up at Ain's entrance, and the Queen's lips pressed into a thin line when she saw Ain was not alone, but she didn't say anything. She gestured towards the seats and then sat down again.

"Good afternoon, Ain," she said, nodding to him and his companions. "Latela, Senon. Would you like some coffee?"

"Yes, please, I would lov--" Latela began but Ain cut her off.

"We won't be staying that long," Ain said, taking a seat. "What do you want?"

Lunaella's jaw dropped slightly, and she pressed her thumbs together, one on top of the other. She recoiled from Ain's words, and though she managed to hide most of her reaction, the glimmer in her eyes was unmistakable; Those were tears.

Sigurd perhaps noticed this, and he cleared his throat and then spoke. "Ain," he said. "I owe you --"

"That is Lord Ain to you, Sigurd," Ain said, and after he was speaking the words, he glanced at the Knight Marshall. His glare was freezing cold.

"Lord Ain," Sigurd corrected himself. "I owe you an apology."

Latela looked more than confused by this approach to 'diplomacy'. She didn't expect an exchange like this even in her wildest dreams. After all, Ain was human, no? Shouldn't he be polite to his brethren? Latela never trusted Ain before, always assuming his allegiances were to Humanity.

"You owed me an apology yesterday, Sigurd," Ain said. "Now, it is too late."

Sigurd frowned. "I had no other choice, surely you understand that?"

"Don't ask for permission, ask for understanding?" Ain queried with a mocking tone. Ain glanced at the Queen. "Is that how you do things now?"

"No!" Sigurd exclaimed. "Don't act like you would've helped us otherwise. You abandoned us during the Realm Wars. You abandoned us during the Succession Wars. You would've abandoned us again. We had no other choice!"

Stolen novel; please report.

"Knight Marshall, please stay your tongue," the Queen said.

"He is not wrong, your Majesty," the unknown man said.

"Who is this?" Ain asked, nodding his head towards the man.

"Ah, yes, he is the Lord General of my army, Felios of Vidar."

"Felios?" Ain asked. "Lord Felios, the Relentless?"

Felios inclined his head. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Lord Ain."

"Your reputation precedes you, Lord Felios," Ain said. "In the Succession Wars, you defended the Vidar Archduchy from an army ten times the size of yours."

Felios smiled politely. "Terrain was to my advantage, that is all."

"So why am I having a meeting with the Queen, with two of her most senior military leaders? Is it just to keep accusing me of treason, or are you somehow planning on using me again to clean up your mess?"

Latela coughed at Ain's words.

"Ain, we need your help," Lunaella said. "We never needed you more than we do now."

Ain stood up from his chair, in no uncertain terms signaling that he was about to leave. "You don't need me, Lunaella," Ain said. "It is about time you grow up. This is your mess, which you created. You will deal with it as if I never even existed, as Humanity has done from the first days of its existence."

"Ain..." Lunaella pleaded.

"You wanted to be the Queen, and to bear the Will of Humanity. You have the Geas of millions of people. You got what you wanted."

"That is not true!" Lunaella hissed, her hands balling into fists.

Latela and Senon stood up as well and Latela in particular had a questioning expression on her face: Are we really leaving?

"Just tell me one thing: Where did you get the Methods? Who reincarnated?"

"No one," Lunaella replied. "And nowhere."

"They just fell out of the sky?" Ain narrowed his eyes. "Those Methods don't grow on trees, Lunaella! Who gave them to you?"

Sigurd and Felios cast a hateful glare at Ain, but said nothing.

"I am telling you! No one gave me those Methods!" Lunaella protested.

"I don't know which is worse; that you don't know or that you are lying to me." Ain shook his head. "And you want my help?"

"She is telling the truth, Lord Ain," Sigurd said. "This wasn't our doing. There is someone out there, spreading those Methods and creating Abyssalized on purpose."

Ain considered Sigurd's words. "A reincarnation?"

Sigurd shook his head. "We believe it is a Monster."

Ain snorted. "A Monster?"

Felios narrowed his eyes, but Sigurd continued on. "It is not an ordinary creature, Lord Ain; it must be a reincarnation or one that has survived since the Great Wars, possibly even the Calamity Wars."

"Monsters cannot reincarnate," Ain said.

Sigurd shrugged. "As far as we know. But there is evidence to support this theory."

"What evidence?"

"Twenty years ago, a star fell from the sky, and a heavenly storm was striking an area deep in the Vidar mountains," Sigurd explained. "Not much different from your reincarnation. It was Felios who was first on site, back then, and he found this. Lord Felios, please show him."

Felios nodded, and produced a bag from within his sleeve. It was a small bag, and within it was something wrapped in paper -- not ordinary paper, either. It was a special paper created from Frostwood; it was extremely rare, and it was cold enough to freeze an entire area. However, strangely enough, it was pleasantly warm at the moment.

When Felios unwrapped the paper, he revealed what it was he was carrying. A red-orange feather. The feather was rigid, and its edges looked sharper than any blade mortal hands could forge.

"A phoenix feather?" Ain asked.

The trio nodded.

Ain furrowed his eyebrows. The reincarnation theory still seemed outlandish, but it was believed that phoenixes could rebirth. In fact, what Ain did was closer to rebirth than reincarnation, because he kept his memories. But the mechanisms were entirely different -- Ain's rebirth, and the rebirth of a phoenix.

Furthermore, the theory that this creature could've survived since the Calamity Wars did not seem that strange anymore; but putting it in the same class as Monsters was ridiculous. There were monsters, and then there were creatures that had intelligence and wisdom -- some of them could even practice internal and external Methods, or even acquire Source Magic -- that kind had a special name.

"An Abyssal then?"

The trio nodded, expressions grim.

"So, the Edict, you don't really want it? That was just an excuse to keep me around? Your true target was..."

Lunaella nodded. "We never wanted the Edict. We are after the Abyssal. We know it is in the Demon Realm. Please, Ain, we need your help."

Ain stared at Lunaella, and to say that he wasn't considering turning her down would be a lie. On one hand, he couldn't have Humanity rely on him; they had to learn how to deal with their problems on their own. This was the most important thing. In Ain's time, if it were not for a crisis every other day, Ain never would've become so powerful. If there was a reincarnated Hero to solve all of Humanity's problems, back in those days, Humanity would most likely have been extinct by now.

But an Abyssal was a different matter. Both the Abyssalized True Demons and the Abyssals shared the same 'race' if it could be called that: Daemons; but Abyssals were the true form of the Daemon's destructive expression.

"I will think about it," Ain said. "Return to the Human Realm, Lunaella."

"But..."

"If there is an Abyssal here, the Calamity Lord will deal with it. Or I will. Your job isn't to hunt it down; your job is to safeguard Humanity. Can you do that?"

This time, it seemed like the Queen's military leaders didn't disapprove of Ain's words. The Queen looked at each one of them, and then sighed.

"Very well. You are right." She swallowed, her disappointment more than obvious. Finally, she stood up. "That will be all. Have a good day."

Ain nodded, and then turned around to leave. "We are also returning to the Capital. Make your preparations."

Senon and Latela nodded. "As you wish," they almost said in unison.