"So fucking cool."
She had stars in her eyes.
"Do it again!"
She demanded.
"Do what? I’ve cleaned everything, there’s nothing left."
"Come clean my house!"
"You think I am a maid?"
"Oh come on! How fun would it be to have a supernatural maid!"
"I am an Incubus, not a beautiful Dragon."
"Wait, did you watch it?"
Naomi’s eyes brightened.
"You told me to, did you not?"
"Then why didn’t you say it?"
"I had no reason to."
"Lucian, I am telling you, I’ll bite your cock off!"
"..."
Lucian’s body flinched at those words.
"Pfft!"
That was when Evelyn laughed out loud.
Lucian and Naomi turned to her. She stared at the two, especially at Naomi, and—
"I am glad you accepted it."
She smiled.
"Maybe even I’ll be able to experience what it feels like to have an actual friend."
That was when Lucian gently held Evelyn’s hand and moved her a little away from Naomi.
"Eve, don’t get too close to her. I am telling you, she has demonic roots, I just can’t prove it yet. I won’t be surprised if she is actually a Demon Sovereign."
Naomi’s mouth twitched at those words.
However, before she could say anything—
"Shoo shoo~
Go, demon, go~"
Lucian began shooing her.
"Fuck you! I go to the shrine every single week!"
"Yes, an abandoned shrine no one else visits! That’s obviously a den for demons."
"It is not! It calms me down, which I needed more of these days because of a certain someone!"
Those words made Lucian pause for a moment.
He stared at Naomi for a moment, Naomi stared back, for a moment, they were both silent, then—
"I apologise for putting you through everything I did."
"You better!"
Naomi snorted.
She tried to keep an annoyed face, but Lucian could see her expression softening. Naomi noticed that he noticed, so she snorted again—
"Whatever! With everything you told me, I need to calm myself even more! I am going there, you want to come?"
"Only you find that creepy place calming, I am not coming."
Lucian snorted as well, trying to keep the atmosphere light.
"It is not creepy! You are creepy!"
"Whatever."
Lucian shrugged.
He couldn’t go anyway, he didn’t have the time.
Naomi understood that, so she just snorted as she stomped her feet and left.
Lucian watched her leave with a slight smile, Evelyn noticed that smile, the smile filled with relief and worry at the same time.
It was strange indeed.
"Should we leave?"
Evelyn asked.
She was supposed to return to the Enclave with him.
"Yes."
Lucian nodded.
And about five minutes after Naomi left, Lucian and Evelyn left the house together with the Enclave guards.
It was time for Lucian to train.
...
"Teacher~"
About one and a half hours later, Lucian was knocking on Vivienne’s training hall again.
He was the only person who knocked on these doors with such a leisurely, even excited look on his face. Lucian was fortunate that Vivienne’s Hall was farther away from the Main Enclave, making it rather isolated, or else more people would have reported him to the authorities and he would have been sent to the psychiatric ward.
"Teacher~ I am here to see you~
Open the door~
Don’t be shy~"
Lucian continued to knock, waiting for his teacher to open.
The door finally opened and the moment it did, Lucian’s smile widened.
"I am here~
Did you miss me?"
Vivienne only stared at him with the usual flat look on her face, then she stepped back. Lucian continued smiling as he walked in.
Vivienne closed the door behind him.
An action that would have made anyone who knew Vivienne flinch. The last thing they wanted was to be alone with Vivienne in a closed hall.
But Lucian—
"Ahh~"
He let out a relieved sigh.
"Just the two of us~
Just like it was in the beginning~"
Vivienne did not say anything, she just walked towards the table where the artifacts they used for training were kept. That was when Lucian noticed a few artifacts he had never seen before and his eyes shimmered with a curious glint.
"What are we going to train today, Teacher?"
He asked with a wide smile and Vivienne—
"Your True Form."
She answered in her usual tone.
"My True Form...?"
Lucian narrowed his eyes, the smile on his face slowly started to fade away. He remembered how Vivienne made it clear that the form he used back then was not a ’True Form’ but something similar to it.
Seeing her now, it was clear she was making no such distinction now. That was only a political play on words.
Of course, Lucian only shrugged at that.
He did not care.
He had more important concerns.
"How are we going to do that?"
He asked.
When his True Form was activated, Lucian was conscious, he knew what he was doing, he knew the speed at which he was moving, he knew that power was no ordinary power—
So obviously, he tried to activate it again, more than once actually.
He simply failed.
He tried to replay the situation in his mind again and again, he tried to feel what he felt before, but it just didn’t happen.
So Lucian stared at Vivienne and—
"I don’t think it will work."
He shook his head.
"I’ve tried it.
I’ve retraced how the form was activated, I remember feeling intense anger and I’ve tried to feel the same anger since then, but it simply doesn’t work.
It is as if...
The form only awakens when it wants to, not when I want it to."
"No."
Vivienne shook her head.
"It is your power.
You should be able to awaken it when you want to."
She spoke clearly.
"I want to do tha—"
And before Lucian could say anything else—
"And you did not feel intense anger back then."
Vivienne interrupted.
"You felt despair."
Lucian’s eyes flickered at those words. Vivienne, on the other hand, picked up an artifact from the table and—
"Now you are going to feel the same despair again."
She commanded.
And for the first time since Lucian started training with Vivienne, he finally started to understand why everyone else avoided her.
"...what?"
He blinked.