Silver stood in front of the mad woman who laughed like a doll without any sense. Alice's enraged laughter was a desperate attempt to contain her emotions. She was angry. How dare this intruder stop her from killing the worm named Thanatos.

"Hahaha, this is so funny, I can’t hold my amusement. You think you can protect that useless worm. The only thing you are going to do here is die a pathetic death like him."

"Then I suppose that you aren’t going to surrender. You leave me no choice. I won’t allow you to kill this man or any other person." Silver didn’t have any doubts about taking her life. Protecting good people was always the mission of a Knight.

"She can use some type of illusion magic and also create explosions with her clones." Thanatos spoke to Silver while sitting on the floor.

"Understood. Please stay in this spot. I promise I’ll protect you no matter what."

"I´m not thrilled by that, but I can’t fight right now either. So, you better put those skills to use here." Still annoyed, Thanatos knew well he couldn’t defeat that woman right now. His life depended on Silver's strength.

"How creepy, hearing you talk like that. You guys make it seem like you will survive this night. I'll show you pain. The lives of disgusting creatures like you are nothing compared to mine." Alice vanished in an instant.

She appeared right in front of Silver, brandishing her daggers with a wicked smile. Silver struck at her as soon as she got close, a powerful swing that cut right in the middle of the woman. She turned to smoke, leaving nothing behind. Three more clones surround Silver and attack him at the same time. He tried to block them, but the clone’s movements were too fast for him.

Two cuts on his left side made him bleed. They weren’t profound, but still painful. "Is this the best you can do? Ahaha, you can’t even keep up with me." Alice continued her attack with the clones.

No matter how Silver defended himself, the clones combined with feints always managed to cut him. On his legs and arms, on his chest and back, the small wounds began to accumulate. Before the damage could get any worse, Silver planted his feet in the ground and the mana within him began to concentrate in his skin. "[Iron skin]" A light shone for a second before Alice's daggers could hit the body of Silver.

She managed to cut the white uniform, but she didn't cut the skin. Silver skin turned a shade of pale grey. All of his body was covered in hard armor, defending him against Alice's attacks.

"Uh, interesting. You aren’t that weak. Using a spell to cover your weakness is good, but still. You just spent a lot of mana to cover your whole body, and you can’t even hit me. You're only prolonging the inevitable hahaha."

Alice jumped at Silver once again with her clones. Silver's swordsmanship was not bad; better than Adel's, that was what Thanatos thought while seeing the countless attacks from both. Alice was fast enough to pass his defenses and cut at the clothes. She was correct, the mana used to cast [Iron skin] was useless if Silver couldn’t hit her. That was when things began to change.

Little by little, the time Silver was being hit began to take longer and longer. At first, he was being hit once every 10 seconds. Now he was only being hit once in a whole minute. Thanatos tried to discern what was happening. How is he doing it? His battle style is still the same, so what is he doing?... Reading. Yes, Silver was reading Alice's attacks like a book. In just a few minutes, Silver had completely adapted to Alice's style.

That’s why he cast that spell, he was buying time to learn the woman's combat capability. In quick successions of attacks, Silver was hitting all the clones, and finally managed to block the real Alice's attacks.

"…!"

One hit from his sword sent her flying to the other side of the room. Without giving her a chance to recover, Silver jumped at her like a hound hunting a fox, while a glow appeared on his sword. "[Slash]!" He used his special ability once more, and the white slash of energy cut through the air.

Alice's eyes opened in shock as the slash cut her in two. She only left the smoke behind as the clone disappeared once again.

"You think it was that easy? I can change my position with any of my clones in an instant. That’s the true power of [Reflection]. They're not mere illusions; they're mannequins who can take my place whenever I desire. Of course, I can use a bit of magic to do this [Reflection: Explosion]."

When Silver turned around, three clones exploded at his side.

BOOM... Only smoke remained where Silver was standing. His skin turned black, most of his uniform was torn and burned. A bit of blood from a few wounds covered his body, giving the impression that he was a chunk of meat carbonized.

"Oh my, it seems that your magic is already failing after a couple of weak explosions. I have plenty of mana, but you're already reaching your limit. How sad hehehe." Alice grinned while mocking the soldier.

"True, I can’t take too many attacks like that. But you are wrong if you think I have shown you everything." Silver ran at Alice. The clown woman turned to smoke, and five clones emerged in her place.

The exchange continued as Silver managed to block all the attacks. Thanatos was surprised, to keep against so many attacks of that speed was impressive, of course if Thanatos were healthy, he also could do it. That didn’t take anything away from the praise he had for Silver. The jealousy disappeared as he only felt admiration for this man's battle prowess.

Silver almost pierced Alice's shoulder, but she changed places with a clone just in time. At that moment, Silver sword shone again. He only used one hand while the other began to gather mana. Alice's instincts told her that something dangerous was about to happen, so she jumped in the air backwards. That was her mistake.

"[Silver cloud]!" The mana in his hand exploded into a sticky cloud that covered the four remaining clones. The clones soon dissipated as they were covered in a toxic silver substance that melted their flesh.

That worm should be affected by the spell as well?! No, he's still under the effect of [Iron skin]. She was correct. Silver body was covered in the substance, but since his skin was iron, he didn’t melt.

"[Slash]!" Silver swung his weapon with all his might, and the slash traveled directly at Alice. She was still falling in the air, and all her clones were destroyed a moment ago. She didn’t have enough time to cast the spell again before the slash reached her. Alice turned her entire body to dodge the hit, but a part of her face was touched by the attack.

Alice fell gracefully to the floor. The sound of something else hitting the floor reached Silver's ears a second later. It was the mask that had broken in two.

"How dare you! How dare you break my mask you piece of shit! There's only one person in the world who can see my face. ONLY MY MASTER, HE´S THE ONLY ONEEEEEEEEE!" Her piercing scream was full of hate.

Thanatos and Silver saw her face. She was bleeding from the cut, but her skin had burn marks, and her left eye socket was destroyed. It looked like her eye was about to fall out at any moment.

Alice's early life was like that of many people: humble. She was born of humble parents in a humble village in the northern part of the Kingdom. She lived peacefully with her parents and her four siblings. She loved her family and helped with housework. Nothing out of the ordinary happened to the young girl until a fateful day when she was 14 years old. Alice's latent magic abilities manifested in the worst way possible.

Alice burned half of the village, including her entire family. Without knowing the how or why? Alice became a murderer. After her mana ran out, the remaining villagers captured and tortured her.

She begged for mercy. She told them she didn’t know what happened, but they didn’t believe her. A village so far away from the Capital meant that nobody there knew how to deal with magic users. If someone capable were there instead, he would have taken Alice to the Court of wizards in the Capital to help her control her magical abilities. She didn’t have such luck on her side. Like many other magic users, Alice was about to be killed for fear and ignorance.

They cut her, punched her, kicked her, spit on her, and threw rocks at her for a whole day. They call her a murderer and remind her that she killed her own family. A crazy killer was the only thing she was in their eyes.

In the morning of the next day, Alice was tied to a wooden post and burned in a pyre. Her painful screams filled what was left of the village with dread. Death by fire was the punishment they gave her. This turned out to be a mistake. The terrible pain of being burned alive and the guilt of Alice's broke her heart. She was pushed beyond the point of insanity, and she unleashed a hell trying to free herself.

The villagers retreated in fear of being burned along with the witch, but Alice survived. She ran away into the forest as far as she could. Until her legs gave up and she fell into a river.

She looked at her reflection, her face and body covered in scars and burn marks. She cried for hours. A look befitting of a murderer, she thought. Alice then lived alone in the forest, where rumors about the existence of a witch with a mask were passed down in the area for a couple of years. Until the happiest day of her life, when she was 16, she met Ennis.

"You don’t have to hide yourself. You have quality. The heavens gave you power. You have the potential to seek your heart's desires. Come with me. If you work for me, I'll give you everything you want. You can fill the void in your heart by following me."

She didn’t have any reason to believe him, but something in Ennis's eyes caught her attention. "I want to kill everyone in a village. Can you give me that?"

"Of course, shall we go now?" Ennis's expression didn’t change in the slightest.

Ennis applauded as Alice finished burning the last villagers. The town was hell. All around were only flames and corpses. No one was able to flee as Ennis mercenaries formed a circle of fire around the village with barrels of oil. The few that were brave enough to cross the flames were killed by swords and arrows.

"Beautiful Alice, you have a lot of potential. Have you considered learning to fight with a weapon?"

"Maybe. Can I ask you something? Why don’t you feel anything after helping kill so many people?"

"Should I feel something when I step on a worm? No, that’s futile; the quality of a worm and a mere commoner is the same in my eyes." Alice didn’t sense he was lying.

"Then what do you want from me?" She asked.

"Ah, correct. I haven’t told you." Ennis got closer to Alice, touching her face. He removed the mask and grabbed her face.

"Beautiful." He caressed her face tenderly. "From now on, you won’t hide your face as a sign of shame, but because I'm the only one who is allowed to see it."

With those words, Alice's heart was mended back, but mended into a twisted and obsessive love.