The darkness, thick and suffocating, that once swallowed Rae when she first died, returned now, consuming her once again. She felt as though she were floating in the center of an endless abyss. Had she died once more? The events leading up to this moment were blurred, only fragments of Trina's relentless attacks and the final, brutal strike remaining in her mind. Was it Trina who killed her?
No... Rae shook the thought away. She hadn't been killed—just overwhelmed. It felt more likely she had simply passed out, her body succumbing to the exhaustion of their fierce duel. If anything, it seemed Trina had claimed victory. The realization hit Rae with quiet certainty: Trina was the Queen now.
"Liza! Can you hear me?" Rae's voice echoed in the silence, frantic and desperate. "Hello! Liza!"
There was no response. The absence of the familiar AI's voice unsettled her further. The bond they shared, the one that should have kept them linked, was gone. Had something happened to it, too? She strained her senses, but only a faint flicker of light began to emerge from the depths of her mind. Gradually, the dimness began to thin, giving way to a brighter presence. A scene materialized before her: a lush woodland near a river, serene and quiet.
How had she ended up here?
She saw a woman in the distance, clothed in black, drinking from the river. She had crimson hair and glowing red eyes, but she seemed unaware of Rae's presence. When Rae tried to move, she realized she couldn't. Was she paralyzed? It made sense; after all, she had been fighting Trina, and perhaps she had just fainted from exhaustion. That would explain why she was lying down.
Suddenly, there was a rattling noise from a nearby bush. Without warning, Rae's body began to move, though she wasn't in control. The movement was odd—like she was moving on all fours. It dawned on her that she wasn't in her own body at all. But how had this happened?
Rae, now moving toward the crimson-haired woman, watched as she got closer and could finally see the woman's features clearly. But just as she reached her, everything went black. What had just happened? Had the animal body Rae inhabited died?
When the light returned, Rae found herself no longer on the ground. She was floating in the air, and the surroundings had changed. She was no longer in the lush woodland, but at the entrance of a cave, surrounded by thick vegetation. What was going on? Why was she still following the crimson-haired woman?
The woman entered the cave, and Rae followed, still unable to control her movements. The cave was dark, but Rae could sense the environment around her, likely through echolocation, as the animal's body produced an annoying series of sounds. She flew through the cave, again reaching the woman's proximity, only to die once more. What was it about this woman that caused animals to perish when they got too close to her? And why was Rae inhabiting animal bodies?
When Rae woke again, she was no longer in an animal form. She was human once more, and the location had shifted again. She was no longer in a cave but inside a castle. This time, she was able to move freely, and getting close to the crimson-haired woman didn't cause any issues. The woman appeared to be of high importance, perhaps royalty or nobility.
"My lady, I come with good news. The Elven King has been located. How do you wish to proceed?" a servant asked.
"This is good. I can finally get my revenge on you, Eren. We will make sure that he goes, just like we did with his father and his brothers," the woman replied, a dark smile curling on her lips.
"Okay, my queen, as you wish," the servant responded.
The name "Eren" rang a bell in Rae's mind. She remembered it now. Eren was the first love of the vampire progenitor. If this woman was speaking of him, then she must be Lucy. Rae realized, with a start, that she wasn't just witnessing the past; she was reliving it. Somehow, she had traveled back in time, able to witness the events as they took place. If this was true, then it could only mean one thing: Rae was the current Vampire Queen.
But how? She thought she had been destroyed in the duel with Trina. At least now, Rae knew she wasn't dead. But how could she return to the present? Trina hadn't explained how one might travel back after slipping through time.
As Rae mulled over the events, she was struck by the power of dark magic. What exactly was dark magic? Trina had told her it was the most versatile form of magic ever discovered. Many in their society still didn't understand how it worked. Rae reflected on what she knew: dark magic and light magic might as well be considered forms of arcane magic. Light magic, as Rae understood it, controlled photons via light spirits. If dark magic was the opposite of light magic, then dark spirits must control the counterpart to photons: anti-photons.
Anti-photons were theoretical particles, and Rae wasn't sure how they functioned. But if light photons were massless and traveled at the speed of light, could it be that photons didn't travel through space but through time? Rae speculated that photons moved forward in time, while anti-photons moved against the temporal flow, traveling backward in time. This could explain how memories were relived—anti-photons carried the energy and frequencies of the past, allowing brain patterns to be sent back through time. But even with this theory, Rae still had no idea how to return to the present.
Days passed as Rae continued to ponder her predicament, unsure if she would ever return to her own time. Then, one day, everything changed. A being descended from the heavens—winged, radiant, and awe-inspiring. He had the appearance of a celestial, a race Rae had never heard of before. He descended from the sky with the majesty of a being from another realm, and in that moment, Rae realized she was witnessing something far beyond her comprehension.