From the moment I was chosen by the holy relic

Eileen turned a page of the tattered scroll, her fingertips pausing slightly, as if she had touched a passage of text that held hidden wounds.

She spoke softly, her voice low and slow, carrying a contemplative quality that seemed to come from the depths of an abyss:

"The meteorite transformed into a pendant, and the king used his power to subdue the demon."

"Valon Hirios II never took off the primordial star pendant after wearing it."

"Legend has it that he once stood on the palace tower on a moonless night, with his arms outstretched, summoning seven layers of lightning and fire to fall from the sky; he also once single-handedly rendered five thousand enemy soldiers incapable of fighting on the battlefield."

"But it was from that time that he changed."

She paused, as if waiting for the flames' murmured response, before continuing:

"His eyes became vacant, and he often muttered to himself. He no longer summoned the council, nor listened to the advice of any mages. The laws of the entire kingdom were promulgated by his whispers, and those coded messages are still engraved beneath the floor tiles of the Meteor Hall."

"Initially, everyone still believed that this was the price of power."

"Until he used black fire."

A trace of indescribable sorrow flashed across Eileen's eyes, as if that memory, even if it only existed on the pages of a book, still made her heart tighten slightly.

"The black fire is a power drawn from the pendant. It cannot be extinguished by the wind, nor by water, nor by stone; it only devours, corrodes, and twists."

"He burned down the Old City Library Tower with black fire, ordered all the ancient books that recorded the traditions of mages to be burned, and sealed off the magical heritage."

"He used black fire to execute opponents, burning them alive into a sculpture as part of the square's memorial to loyalty."

"The kingdom was plunged into true darkness, a darkness that had a name, a form, and a master."

Leah hugged her knees tightly, her eyes no longer relaxed, and when she spoke, her voice was so soft it was almost inaudible:

"And then what happened? Who ended his life?"

Eileen looked up at Eric, who remained silent across the fire.

She didn't say anything, but simply turned to the next page.

The pages were yellowed, and on them was drawn a young boy, carrying a longsword and wearing a tattered cloak. He stood before a collapsed tower, with a group of figures dressed in various styles behind him: a dwarf blacksmith, a one-eyed elf, a hooded priest, and a beautiful young girl.

"He has no name," Eileen said softly. "At least, it's not recorded in any books."

"In the Twilight Tower Fragments, he is only referred to as the Starfall Swordsman."

Eric finally whispered, "Is this the boy who resisted magic with a sword?"

"Yes." Eileen nodded. "He's not a mage, he doesn't know magic, and it's even said that he can't accept magical infusions. He comes from the borderlands and travels the world by swordsmanship, yet he can resist magic."

"Nobody knows how he did it. Maybe it was talent, maybe it was destiny."

"He led a team of patriots to infiltrate the royal city. Just before the pendant truly awakened the king's soul, he launched a final surprise attack."

That battle is known in history as the Tragedy of the Conferment of a King.

She closed her eyes, and her voice seemed to transcend time and space:

"They didn't defeat the Demon King. They merely sealed him away."

"The Starfall Swordsman used his sword to draw out spirits and his blood to form an array. Together with his four companions, he dug seven feet into the ground in the center of the royal city and sealed the Demon King. The pendant and sword were buried in his tomb."

"The pendant seals the Demon King's soul, the sword suppresses his will and body, and the five of them intertwine their own souls to form a sealing array."

"And they disappeared from then on."

Leah's eyes widened: "Are they all dead?"

"No." Eileen shook her head, her eyes filled with complex emotions.

"They scattered; some feigned death, some passed away, and some chose never to reappear. Because they knew that as long as someone tried to awaken that power, the seal would falter."

"Their weapons were also sealed away, including the pendant and the gold-embroidered longsword, Huizhao."

Eric murmured, "And then?"

Eileen gently turned the next page.

That page was covered with densely packed runes, the characters strangely written, arranged in a disordered manner, and even some overlapping and twisted, like a vow burned by fire, splattered with blood, and soaked in tears.

She said slowly:

"At the moment the Demon King was sealed away, he used his last strength to shout a sentence into the night sky—"

Eileen's fingers gently traced the page, its surface nearly brittle from the erosion of time. She didn't read it aloud immediately, but instead lowered her eyelashes, as if pondering, or perhaps engaging in some ancient murmur with the blurred handwriting.

The firelight seemed to dim even more in that instant, as if sensing the heavy echoes behind that page. A night breeze swept through the mountains, ruffling the edges of the tent and ruffling a few strands of hair on Leah's forehead.

No one urged them.

Eric stared silently at the fire, his hand long since off the hilt of his sword, yet for some reason, his right arm still felt faintly tense. Leah's eyes, like a crescent moon in the night sky, gazed quietly at Eileen, as if afraid to miss a single word.

Finally, Eileen spoke softly, her voice low and almost a whisper:

"The pendant..."

She paused for a moment, her voice trembling slightly, like the soft sound of a spring flowing over stone at night:

"Retrieve the pendant and break my seal."

The air seemed to freeze between those two sentences.

"But he didn't know how the seal was truly completed; it was a formation that was only completed after he was suppressed."

She turned the page, revealing the next page of tattered illustrations: a rough diagram of a talisman, depicting a sealed door with three layers of sealing runes: a spirit seal, a golden seal, and a blood seal.

Eileen pointed to the last bloodstain: "This is the most crucial seal."

"This seal was completed using the blood of the Starfall Swordsman before it closed. The Demon King has lost his senses and is unaware of this link. That's why he only mentioned the pendant, not the true key to the door."

Eric stared at the diagram and said in a deep voice, "Then what about his men, those Night Whispers? Did they know?"

Eileen slowly shook her head.

"At first, they didn't know. They were simply commanded, 'Bring back the pendant, and the Lord will return.'"

"They began their search. But when they finally found the outer perimeter of the hiding place sealed off, and discovered that 'the pendant was there, but the door was closed,' they realized that there were even deeper restrictions in place."

Leah frowned and said, "And then they..."

"Yes." Eileen's eyes deepened. "They realized that to get the pendant, they had to find the boy's bloodline recipient first."

She paused for a moment, then pointed to the next paragraph, a broken section with charred paper and parts of the text illegible.

However, a few words were circled in red ink:

"The one who responds to the blood seal is none other than their descendants; the blood of that clan is inherited along with the sword."

Eric gritted his teeth and repeated:

"To be inherited with the sword."

He lowered his head, his gaze complex. He didn't want to accept what he had heard before, but now, everything seemed to be closing in:

Hui Zhu's response.

The sealing gate is opened.

The pendant flickered with fire.

The moment the gate slowly cracked open after he dripped blood in front of the ruins.

He wasn't unaware of what this meant. He just wasn't willing to believe it yet.

Eileen looked up at him, her gaze not coercing, but with a gentle yet clear certainty:

"Eric".

"You inherited more than just a sword."

"What you inherit is a seal, the past, and blood."

She slowly closed the page, and the book, "The Twilight Tower Fragment," appeared as heavy as a rock that had not yet cooled, illuminated by the flames.

Eric lowered his head, his gaze falling on his palm, where the firelight drew a faint red shadow.

He remained silent for a long time.

These things sounded so distant, yet it was as if every drop was slowly seeping into his very bones.

He wasn't unaware of all this. He just couldn't accept a larger possibility:

This is no coincidence.

But precisely because of this, he spoke, his voice low and slow, yet carrying a restrained irony and rejection:

"Do you know how absurd that sounds?"

He raised his eyes, his expression no longer angry, but rather one of deeper defensiveness and composure:

"Although I am a knight of Nostria, I am almost the dumbest. I am slow to hone my swordsmanship and always the last in horsemanship. It is illogical for you to say that I am related to the Starfall Swordsman."

Eileen gazed at him, her eyes remaining calm and unwavering. She knew that Eric wasn't angry at this moment, but rather struggling; he needed to maintain the last line of defense for his rational world, even though that line had already cracked.

"Fate doesn't ask if you agree; it simply pushes you into an ancient game of chess that has already been laid in the ground."

"You think destiny has to have omens, prophecies, and bloodshed to be considered fate? No, true destiny is when you think all the paths you freely choose have already been marked with their destinations."

Her gaze was gentle yet firm, like an iron nail firmly planted, fixed on him:

"In the Night Whisperers' records, a coded message appears repeatedly: 'The gate will be closed for a long time, awaiting the return of blood.' They do not know who the one who responds to the Blood Seal is, but they have been searching for the one who responds to the Blood Seal."

Eric didn't say anything more, but simply gripped the hilt of his sword gently.

At that moment, he was not preparing to draw his sword.

Rather, it was to confirm that he still had a sword to wield.

Then he whispered:

"The demon king you're talking about uses dark magic. Fire is hot and something that illuminates. But dark magic isn't fire, is it?"

After listening, Eileen nodded, her eyes finally becoming serious.

She whispered a few words:

"you're right."

She sat up straight, gently opened her palm, and slowly closed the heavy "Twilight Tower Fragment," leaving only the last page.

The writing on that page was blurred and indistinct, with only a twisted and ancient totem vaguely discernible, like an open eye, but without a pupil, only an empty space.

"Fire is not his origin. It was merely the first form of energy he absorbed from the falling star at the beginning of his fall."

"True black magic is anti-order magic, a distortion of the laws of nature, and a means of transforming the foundation of existence into one's own will."