# Chapter 107
Suddenly, a strange feeling came over him.
Not only had the warm sensation he’d felt from Claudia completely transferred to the baby, but it felt like another connection had formed as well.
A peculiar feeling, as if he were firmly tied to the child by an invisible string.
Claudia, who had been watching the perplexed Levi from behind, bit down hard on her lower lip.
“Unlike me, that child can become a complete Holy One.”
Claudia’s voice trembled slightly. As if she couldn’t even bear to look at Levi due to guilt and regret unless she spoke those words.
Levi let go of the child’s hand and turned to Claudia. She was crying, her face wearing a forced smile he had never seen before.
“Do you remember when we first met, how I asked you to marry me?”
At that time, he hadn’t known what the word “marriage” meant, but now he understood well what it referred to.
That’s why it was even more perplexing. Why she was bringing up those words from so long ago.
“I… wanted to marry you someday. Do you know why?”
Claudia raised her index finger to point at her child.
“If I gave birth to a child and transferred my power, I wouldn’t need to save people anymore, and I wouldn’t have to worry about being used by someone. I wouldn’t have to be frustrated because of the people who can’t reincarnate because of me after being used like that.”
Even now, her power had completely transferred to Ion. But if that were all, she could have married any ordinary person, so there was no need to specifically mention marriage to Levi.
“But that alone isn’t enough. Otherwise, my child would follow the same path I did.”
Claudia, from the moment she was born, had been forcibly led by the emperor’s hand to heal countless people, whether she wanted to or not. Among them were high-ranking officials from allied nations, but later she discovered the emperor’s intention was to “eliminate” them. Quite naturally, through an unknown epidemic called the Numinel disease.
Originally, not even Claudia could cure the Numinel disease. The worst disease born from the power of life couldn’t accept Claudia’s power even as their skin cracked and became covered in blood. Rather, Claudia’s power made it rot and fester even more painfully.
As someone who knew her power created such a terrible disease, Claudia wanted to rid herself of her power as quickly as possible.
But that didn’t mean she wanted her child to suffer the same way.
So she searched through every historical record and even found the former emperor’s memoirs, discovering Levi’s existence and the “cancellation” effect between his power and hers.
“If I unite with someone who has the black hand and bear their child… I can offset the curse of the Hand of Life.”
The life power containing a curse that destroys the path at the end of life and beyond.
The power of death, which severs breath with just a touch of the fingertips, but in reality arranges a blissful rest and subsequent reincarnation.
When the two powers mix, a child conceived in the womb of one with the power of life accepts the rest, offsetting the curse.
Just like Ion, who stood before Levi’s eyes.
Claudia clutched her pounding heart and raised her voice.
“My child no longer has to fear the curse. They can save and heal as they wish without leaving disease behind, and without interfering with the path of reincarnation after death.”
Claudia’s words sounded as if she were “defending” herself.
“So my child can now be a true Holy One…!”
“This child’s father.”
At Levi’s brief words, Claudia’s voice abruptly stopped.
“He’s one of the black fragments with a human body.”
As Levi spoke of his fragment as if it were a separate entity, Claudia’s distraught face instantly paled, and her red lips trembled.
Levi looked at Claudia, then turned his gaze to the child. Ion, who had been quietly watching Levi without whimpering, curved his eyes and mouth gracefully into a broad smile.
“Levi…”
A voice resembling a sob escaped between Claudia’s lips.
Levi brought his hand to his collarbone. The black core residing within still had several pieces missing.
Those fragments were probably somewhere in the Caron Empire where Claudia had gone, specifically in the imperial palace where she had stayed for a long time.
Now he understood.
The reason she kept apologizing and couldn’t bring back the fragment.
The reason she had to stay there for years.
Levi stroked Ion’s round head and asked Claudia:
“What is he like?”
As soon as he referred to the entity born from his fragment as a person, calling him “he,” a strange ticklish feeling arose within him. He felt such strong curiosity that he wanted to meet him face to face if possible.
After a moment of silence, Claudia roughly wiped the tears from her eyes and spoke.
The brief story of “Theodore Bier Caron,” a fragment separated from Levi, now sitting on the imperial throne of the Caron Empire in the complete form of a human, flowed from Claudia’s lips.
As Levi listened to the story of Theodore, who had been forcibly regenerated in a cold stone chamber beneath the Caron imperial palace, he learned that unlike himself, Theodore had a “lifespan.”
❖ ❖ ❖
While Levi was tracing his memories as he absorbed the “third fragment”…
Emperor Raziel, seated on the imperial throne of the Caron Empire, was lost in deep thought with his pitch-black eyes lowered, devoid of any readable emotion.
‘Theodore Bier Caron…’
Although he knew what Theodore truly was, he had still been forced to end the former emperor’s life with his own hands.
Raziel took out a black fragment from his bosom and looked down at it. Inside his black hand, which was merely an imitation of the “original,” lay another fragment like himself.
The second fragment of Levi, which “had been” Emperor Theodore.
Raziel clutched the black fragment in his hand as if he might crush it.
A fragment that had fallen from the damaged original contained all the memories it had held until then. As if to prevent strain on the mind of the original, who had to repeat regeneration and eternal life, it was forced to remember everything in his place.
Sadly, instead of oblivion, God gave a lifespan to these fragments that unwillingly remembered everything.
Perhaps it was because he harbored resentment toward a God he didn’t even know existed while thinking such thoughts.
Raziel tightly shut his eyes at the terrible pain that spread instantaneously from his collarbone.
“Ugh…!”
The pain was so maddening he wanted to claw out his collarbone with his bare hands. It was so agonizing that even Raziel, who normally wouldn’t flinch at ordinary pain, couldn’t swallow his groans.
This intermittent pain became more excruciating with each passing year, as if counting down his remaining lifespan.
As Raziel pressed both fists against his collarbone, suppressing his groans, his close aide, Marquis Anton Reifley, rushed to him.
“Your Majesty, are you alright?!”
Raziel seemed too weak to answer, biting his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, barely enduring the pain.
The pain didn’t last long. As if it were just giving a warning before retreating.
“…Haah…”
With a face as pale as a corpse, Raziel gasped for breath and slumped back against the throne. The anxious Anton carefully wiped the cold sweat from Raziel’s forehead with a handkerchief.
“It seems more painful than before.”
“…I’m fine.”
Though the pain had subsided, his collarbone still ached. He could feel the tiny black fragment embedded inside trembling as if terrified.
With his eyes tightly shut, feeling the small fragment in his hand, Raziel murmured softly.
“Just endure a little longer. Just a little more…”
Slowly opening his eyes, Raziel asked Anton:
“Still no word from Hest Wesslon?”
“Actually, a report just came in. He successfully found and absorbed the third fragment, but unfortunately, Count Chepel Lance was caught by Ion Verdit and executed.”
“…It doesn’t matter. He would have died anyway, even if it weren’t for Ion Verdit.”
In exchange for being able to return to his senses for just three days, he would have inevitably died when his time was up. The loyal Chepel, knowing all this, would have focused solely on finding Levi’s third fragment for him.
If Levi had absorbed the third fragment as planned, then only two remained.
The fragment of former Emperor Theodore that he held in his hand.
And the fourth fragment containing this terrible pain – himself.
‘Not much longer.’
Raziel reminded himself over and over that only Levi could save him from this pain and the “fear of death.”
‘If you want to become human, I’ll make it happen for you.’
Levi’s long-held desire, which Raziel couldn’t help but know, was entirely different from his own.
‘In exchange, you will…’
Raziel arbitrarily proposed a contract to Levi, who was probably now tracing the memories of the third fragment.
Though the one deciding whether to fulfill this contract wasn’t Levi, the original body, but himself – a mere fragment that had broken off from him.
