I didn’t want her to do it. I was scared, and I was afraid of being alone again. A large possibility of death didn’t sound too promising either. From what I know I only survived because of her. If it’s the same state I was in after the fusion, then I don’t know if I could help do the same thing that she did for me.

I knew for a fact that if she died, I would lose any motivation I had before. Without any will to suppress my daemon’s blood that was always ready to wreak havoc, it would control me and make me destroy everything around me before I could regain control of myself.

“I’m against you trying it.” I was quick to protest against the idea.

“I think she needs to try. Nothing in this world comes for free. Eventually there will be a point where training will no longer help. My thinking is that the more and more her body gets accustomed to Salus’ magic, the more likely the blood of an Archangel will be rejected.”

“Why do we need more power? Isn’t it enough already?” I tried any reason I could to not have her go through with it.

“Boy, there are things far scarier than that kingdom, and it’s king. You won’t understand right now, but in time you’ll realize that a storm is coming. You’ll need a lot more power to keep yourselves from getting swept away.”

“But how are we survive a storm, if she dies before it even gets here.”

“Like I said, there’s no reward without taking risks. The greater the risk, the greater the reward. If she faces death as a risk then so be it, she’ll become that much more powerful. She might even be able to rival you for the first time.”

Lux knew I wanted her safety first, but she also didn’t want to be a burden, so in the end she was going to do it. “I’ll accept the risk if it means that I have the power to protect people that I need to.” Her resolve flooded the empty space. She wasn’t going to back down no matter what.

Salus let out a deep sigh, there was nothing that she could do to protest. She was completely willing to face death, and already proved herself to the griffin. All she could do was agree and then prepare for the worst.

“We’ll attempt it first thing tomorrow morning.”

“But-” Before I could get another word in, Exidium released the two of them from the Starless world. It was just Exidium and I. There was no wind in this world, but there was something else that was causing a chill to be gripping my spine. Something didn’t seem right with the whole situation.

“Why are you encouraging putting her in danger?” Some anger slips into my voice as I grow louder.

“If you do nothing but try to protect her, then she’ll grow weak, and that’s exactly what she doesn’t want to happen. You want to protect her, but she wants to protect everyone else. It’s her will, stop acting like a child and accept the fact that she’s ready face death. I admit I didn’t see this coming, but that doesn’t mean you have the right to deny her the chance to grow powerful just because it’s dangerous. Do you think that she would have let you go to the labyrinth that day if she knew that you were going to do nothing but fight for two years, and even lose your arm? Don’t think you’re the only one who can take risks, boy.”

I knew that I was acting spoiled already, but I really didn’t want her to die. She was the most important person to me. If she was gone, then I wouldn’t find anyone that could even come close to her. But even still, I had to let her do what she wanted to do.

I was returned from the Starless World, and saw that I was still holding Lux’s shoulder. I guess there was no time lapse, even though she returned first. I didn’t understand how that whole time flow difference worked, and I don’t think Exidium did either.

I could feel her trembling as I was holding onto her. The suffocating sound of her sniffling and attempting to hold back her tears was all that could be heard. This was an almost entirely different person from who was just in the Starless World with me.

“I’m scared Noct.” she turned around and buried her head into my chest, and I wrapped my arms around her instinctively. Scared. I was too, but it was a different type of scared. I feel powerless because there’s nothing I can do to help her in this situation. I can do nothing to comfort the girl trembling and crying in my arms. She’s facing danger and I can only watch. Watching is even worse than not knowing. Because I know that even if she dies, then I can do nothing but keep watching.

“I don’t want to die.” Words that anyone could relate to. Death was the end, even those who claim to welcome death, will tremble at the edge of a blade. The blade that was held against her neck, wasn’t one that could be dodged, because she refused to move. All she could do is hope to survive. She was leaving her life to fate.

“I want to live. I want to have a life without all the fighting. I just want live in peace with you.”

I knew that she hated fighting, but she did because she had no choice but to fight. But it simply wasn’t possible for her to avoid it as long as she was with me. I was like a magnet that attracted all types of trouble.

“I know.” is all I could say as I lightly stroked her soft black hair in an attempt to calm her down. She kept crying and mumbling things to herself, things that weren’t meant to be heard by me. But I heard almost all of them. Things like, ‘I wanted to have kids,’ ‘I wanted to live a quiet life,’ and ‘Who will take care of you when I die?’

I gave her a light kiss on the forehead and a few minutes later she was fast asleep in my arms. Soon after, I laid down, and fell asleep as well.

By the time I rose out of her bed, she was long gone. I went into a panic and left the house, almost fast enough to leave a storm in my wake. She just left, she didn’t want me there. But I chased after her anyway.

“Tread lightly, if you find her and disturb her while she’s attempting to fuse them in a more calm manner than you did, she could lose her concentration and die instantly.” Exidium sent me a warning to stop me from being too rash.

I went to the field that we had used to train the group. There I found her sitting down with her legs crossed. By the time I got there she was already in the middle of the process of awakening the full power of the griffin, but not the fusion just yet. I let out a sigh of relief. She wasn’t in any danger yet. I couldn’t tell whether she would succeed or not, but I was hoping that she would be able to live on with me.

After another 10 minutes the contract marks that were originally on her arm began to glow, and her back was almost literally on fire. It seared her clothes away, revealing her beautiful figure. The more important part, was that a pair of glowing white-gold wings was now etched into the entirety of her back. I covered her with my coat, leaving me with only my bare chest, exposing my pitch black arm that was laced with light. I sat her up against a tree, because it seemed to be more comfortable than face in the dirt.

She didn’t wake up though. Instead an intense light was radiating off of her. It caused my daemon blood to boil, and not in the ‘I’m fired up and ready to kill anything that moves,’ kind of way. It was the physical boiling of my blood. Angels were the beings that opposed daemon most directly. Especially since I had the blood of a Sovereign of Hell, the reaction to an angel appearing was that much stronger.

I went to help her, to try and take the excess magic out, like she had done for me. But before I could get too close my blood began to boil more and more.

“Boy, if you try to take the slightest bit of that magic into your body, it’ll act like acid to your system, and erode everything within you.”

“How come she could take the daemon magic into her?” I didn’t understand anything.

“Her Archangel blood was dormant, and didn’t have a reaction to the daemon blood. If you try to mix those two directly into your system, you’ll die. There is nothing else that could happen other than death.”

His words brought me back to reality. I really couldn’t help her. If I tried, then I wouldn’t be there for her after she succeeded. So I could do nothing but watch on. The feeling of powerlessness was something that I was no longer used to, because over the past 7 years I gained an insurmountable level of power. But now, I, who was oh so powerful, could do nothing but watch as the person I loved was going through the most difficult challenge of her life.

As she was going through this process, there was a sudden shock that caused the earth to reverberate. The earth began to crack apart and it was close to impossible to stand up.Her eyes flew open. They were the same red color, only they showed no signs of life. Lux had died.