Lux didn’t know how it came to this. Why was this happening again? In front of her was another monster. The darkness was circulating around it, like a vortex. Why had her father sent her to the labyrinth in the first place?

Over the past couple years she had secretly spent a lot of her time among the common people. She visited the small inn often and helped out whoever she could. Whenever she wasn’t doing that, she was training herself, in both close quarters combat and magic. At this point, she was unrivaled throughout the kingdom in both. Nobody could match her in swords, and nobody could rival her in terms of magic. Yet, she was still striving to improve. The one person she didn’t know whose strength she could match was her father's. But she absolutely knew that if she were to try to fight Noctis again, there was no way that she could last through a single exchange, just like last time. A casual blow from him matched her full strength.

Little by little she began to clean up the kingdom. If she saw soldiers attacking citizens, they’d be dragged off to prison, if she saw nobles using their influence to abuse the citizens, they would die. It couldn’t be helped, if they were imprisoned, they would use their power to get out and begin to do the same things. These nasty people were better off dead anyway.

The king on the other hand, was not a fan of his daughter’s actions. She was a growing thorn in his side, as more and more nobles complained and more and more soldiers would refuse orders from their superiors. The reason for this was all because of Lux. She was a symbol of hope for the citizens, so the soldiers became more rebellious than they ever had before. In addition the nobles were scared of her, and they couldn’t do anything to her because she was the princess, and at the same time stronger than any assassin they could hire.

The king made a choice. Between his daughter that showed signs of being more defiant, and his control over the kingdom, he chose the latter. If she were to die, then their hope would be extinguished and they would be much more docile. Even though he loved his daughter, she was disposable to him. He could always have another daughter and train that one properly.

He came up with a plan to have her killed that wouldn’t cause a revolt. He would send her to the labyrinth for an investigation, since there have been no monsters coming out for the past two years, and then as she went in he would have his personal guard surround the entrance and wait to ambush her. He could then easily claim that she died in the labyrinth.

He sent out the order that Lux and Almitas were to investigate the labyrinth that had been inactive for 2 years. When Lux received this order, she had no idea why Almitas was involved. She had no way of fighting and couldn’t be of any use on the journey. But she knew better than to try to disobey a direct order from her father.

So the two began their journey to the labyrinth. It was mostly smooth sailing. Almitas had the provisions in a bag, and was carried by Lux who flew there with her wings. Every now and then Lux would spot somebody in trouble and rush to help them. For example there were some bandits that were surrounding a merchant caravan. She landed and dropped off Almitas at a safe distance. She proceeded to annihilate the bandits, and went back to pick her up before resuming their journey.

When they found the entrance to the labyrinth they were stunned. Something was coming out of the labyrinth when it suddenly collapsed, and then the darkness began to surge out from its body. She instinctively that whatever it was, was dangerous. The feeling of death being close to her was again there. In the past the only one to give her this sense of dread was Noctis, who was more powerful than her by a wide margin both times they met.

After the vortex was formed, the darkness converged on whatever came out at the sa0me time, and then it disappeared. Leaving whoever came out of the labyrinth unconscious. When they approached, neither of them could speak a single word. It was Noctis once again.

Only this time his body was much whiter, and riddled with scars. More noticeable was that his left arm was missing. His right arm had a deathgrip on a ominous sword that was had a skull that was slightly red. He was wearing a necklace with a pitch black gem that was shining even in the low light.

When they recovered from their shocked state, they took him into the Labyrinth in order to shelter him and begin treatment. They struggled to move him, as he was like a lump of dead weight. His skin was cold to the touch and he was barely breathing at that time. Lux used a spell called Scan which made it so that she could use magic to check the internal condition of whoever she used it on.

She found out what was wrong, and then turned to tell Almitas, when she saw that the strong woman she knew was crying like a baby. She couldn’t help but cry and cry as she saw her child in such a long time, and it had to be in this state. She walked over to her son slowly, knelt beside him, and put his head on her lap and began to gently stroke his hair.

It’s probably better not to tell her. Two fierce dark energies were fusing inside him, overloading the entirety of his body. The only way that she could help him while he was like this was to create an outlet for the excess energy so that it wouldn’t destroy his body. She placed her hand over his heart and let the energy begin to flood into her. The first thing she did was cry out because of the intensity of the energy, but she didn’t remove her hand.

The energy was extremely violent, and tried to destroy her from the inside out. She reacted quickly and instructed her magic to subdue the violent energy by balancing light with dark. That way she could at least survive the torrent of energy. Even though she was attempting to minimize the damage to herself, it was impossible for her to not be damaged. She began coughing up blood which alarmed Almitas.

“Maybe you should take a break honey. If you push yourself too hard then both of you will die.” Her words had good intentions behind them, but she didn’t realize the current situation.

“If I stop now he’ll die.” As she said that a look of shock came across her face. Then Almitas reached to help when Lux reflexively yelled, “NO!”

Almitas flinched at the sound of Lux raising her voice. “If you try to help, the energy that’s rushing out will kill you instantly. You have no protection against it like I do.”

She nodded in understanding and went back to petting Noctis’ hair. After about an hour his condition stabilized and hers got worse. He was sleeping soundly in his mother’s lap as his breathing and heart rate stabilized.

“I’m going to get some fresh air.” Lux was exhausted and wanted to give Almitas some time alone with her son, even if he was unconscious. Her words fell onto deaf ears as she was too preoccupied with her son. It was the first time in 11 years that she had seen her son, so naturally she wanted nothing more than to spend some time with him.

Lux exited and began to cough up some more blood. It wasn’t dangerous, but she certainly wasn’t in any condition to push herself any further. Just then a 9 or so people surrounded her with frightening speed. They were wearing the armor of her kingdom’s knights and had an emblem showing that they were the king’s guard.

Why...? Before she could finish that thought one of the guards approached her and placed a punch square on her stomach. Forcing her to cough up more blood. He then picked her up by the neck. “Hey boys, let’s have some fun before we kill her. It’s not like anybody will find out.”

All she could force out was a quiet, “Help me.” but she never thought it would get her anywhere. She was about to be violated and killed right here. She never would have imagined that her words reached someone. A dark blur passed by the man who was holding her and then she was dropped.

The guard was standing there was a look of hear in his eyes as he fell apart. The man fell apart. The dark blur made another passing and the rest of the guard were killed without being able to utter a noise. Lux had no idea what the dark blur was but could only assume it was a daemon that had ventured out from the labyrinth and killed them all. She thought she was next when she saw the figure with one arm, silver hair, and arctic blue eyes that looked like they had just been reignited with a passion.

In front of her was the one who she had just saved. Noctis was awake already, and she was about pass out. He looked radiant as he was the only thing she could see as he approached her. He picked her up with his arm and was walking back to the cave. Just before she closed her eyes and lost awareness she heard him say something.

“I’ve finally found my real reason for fighting.”