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THE EMPRESS LUNA

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She had her consciousness locked in the prison of this soul, so naturally, she couldn't see things that were outside of her.

Mayhap, it was the cause of Archangel Azrael's power.

He was the Angel of Death himself.

His occupation was to rip people's souls outside their bodies when it was their time to die.

Luna assumed that he would be gentle draw out kind souls but would be merciless to evil, making them suffer from excruciating pains.

She prayed to the Goddess that the angel of death wouldn't be too harsh on her when he started cutting Luxen's cord.

The cord-cutting would probably destroy her because Luxen had been a part of her for a while now, but as long as she would be free, Luna will have to get used to it.

"Something is wrong with her, Azrael." The female raised her voice in a panic.

"Parisia, you must let her go and leave this to me."

"No." The bed shook a little as Luna sensed the lady's footsteps closing into the right side of the bed.

"I just want to see her for the last time." Luna felt the tender brush of cold, sweaty palms on her head, which trembled.

Later, she heard soft whimpers as teardrops fell on her cheeks.

It wasn't Luna's.

"Give me a minute."

"Enough!" Archangel Azrael said with sharp fury. "I have interfered—"

The young lady whispered submissively as she didn't want to anger the Angel of Death, but she was as stubborn as Luna, "Please, Azrael."

Luna heard wings flapping strongly in the background.

She had no idea what Archangel Azrael was doing to her body, but she felt her legs and hands weaken as insensibility began to spread to the rest of her body like slow poison.

"I had kept her safe for you for as long as I could manage." Archangel Azrael commanded in a tone that would make demons scuttle away in abject terror. "Now that you saw her, you should go back to your room and let me handle this if you couldn't bear to watch it happen."

"Wake her up and let me talk to her." The young lady insisted, "You promised me."

"I didn't promise that you can talk to her." The Archangel's tone was final. "God had led her here safely, and if he had interfered in my affairs, it meant that something is about to go wrong if we aren't careful. It's better for everyone if she didn't see you."

"Azrael, Please!" The young lady insisted as the Archangel had pulled her away from Luna. "For the last time!"

There was a hint of menace. "Are you so selfish that you don't care if the Cosmic Laws punish me?"

"I don't want her to suffer, Azrael---"

There was a ringing in her ears before it stopped working.

Her eyeballs move around, and her eyes slit open a little bit.

She wasn't able to talk or hear anything.

She saw the faces of the people surrounding her and the movement on their lips, but there was no sound coming out of their mouths.

As she soaked into the lethargy, Luna turned her head to the side and slowly blinked, her eyes honing in on the young lady who argued with Archangel Azrael.

She had straight silver hair similar to hers, and when she glanced at Luna...

Her fingers trembled when she saw her face—especially her eyes.

The young lady—about seventeen to twenty years old—had the bluest eyes she had ever seen.

The familiar Prussian blues were similar to the Vampire King's.

Luna imprinted the young lady's image in her mind just if Luna wouldn't see her again.

She had this fuzzy feeling that the female was close to what her future daughter would look like if she would survive her predicament, but that would be impossible to see her here at this very moment.

'This wasn't her daughter!' Luna convinced herself.

Luna didn't even know if she and Apollyon would survive from the deep shithole she had gotten herself into.

Staring at the girl with an empty gaze, Luna's chest tightened as tears leaked from the corner of her eyes.

The Archdemon of Envy was determined to kill her baby because she was the only one that kept Lilith from entering her body in the Vampire Realm.

Her soul had adjusted to the blood bond Luxen had initiated on her.

She knew that it would be agonizingly painful to cut it--eerily similar to tearing a person's limb.

Her theory had been proven correct when she felt Archangel Azrael's ghastly hand penetrating her chest cavity as it hollowed beneath his touch.

She could literally feel the Archangel probe her heart, searching for the entangled threads among the veins and arteries of her heart.

During the Blue Moon Lunar Eclipse, she had witnessed three cords ( blue, gold, and silver) attached to her, and even if she was the High Priestess at that time, Luna couldn't cut the connection.

She recalled how stupid it was for her to cut her blue thread with the Vampire King first.

Luna had acted like a cornered animal.

She was forced to marry the Vampire King when she only wanted to be free, so she had seen him as the enemy.

Gaining freedom wasn't easy.

No one was truly free.

Freedom is an illusion because to achieve it; one had to pass through the valley of the shadow of death repeatedly before reaching it.

Luna guessed she would finally figure out how it would feel to cut Luxen's cord without him knowing it—cutting him and erasing all traces of his blood running through her system.

Archangel Azrael had separated the delicate silver thread expertly from the others like he had done cord-cutting a thousand times before.

This was probably why the Highest God tasked him to aid her.

Luna had wondered why the Archangel wouldn't cut the Blood Beast's thread along with Luxen.

Perhaps, the reason why Archangel Azrael didn't cut Ravin's because she might lose the Archdemon magic inside her.

It can no longer feed to demonic energy provided by Ravin's blood.