The woman stopped trying to give the boy a cake when he didn't take it. She looked at her sleeping baby and smiled as she ate the cake.
The man sat next to the boy in the snow, seeing the bread and the blood on the boy's hands. He looked confused.
"Lana, there's blood on his hands…"
Lana glanced at him and waved her hand.
"Don't worry, it's not his. He's calm in this mess, maybe he can help us when we're not here…"
"No, you won't die! You and our baby will make it. And I… I'll make sure of it!"
The man's face showed he was upset and determined. The boy saw the man's skinny hands were just like Lana's, and he was bleeding from his mouth.
Lana didn't say anything else. She just looked at her baby, who had pink cheeks and was sleeping, giving her parents hope.
But that night, a bigger snowstorm was coming.
How long could people last in such a bad snowstorm?
Then, the snow started to blow harder. The man felt danger and pulled out his fancy sword fast. Lana moved behind him quickly.
"Are they here?"
"Yes. There's a lot of them, and we're trapped."
"Lana, what do we do? We can't get to the Elk Empire now, can we?"
The man began to doubt whether he could keep them safe or not. If not, at least...
"Ugh… If it weren't for this poison… If we hadn't been tricked… We could beat that 'Key' group!"
The boy heard them and felt scared. He wanted to run away as fast as he could.
The snow got worse, and fireworks lit up the sky. The man's sickness got worse, and he coughed up a lot of blood.
Their time was running out. The poison was deep inside them, and it was amazing they were still alive. The woman saw her husband fall and coughed up blood too. She kneeled next to him, scared in desperation.
Their blood dripped onto the cold snow, freezing into red crystals. The man, seeing his wife's fear, stood again.
He stuck his fancy sword into the snow and reached for another sword on his belt, the one wrapped in layers of chains…
"No! Byron, not that sword," Lana cried out in fear.
The man said, "We can't die. Our baby can't die. I need the power to keep you both safe!"
"But that sword is…"
They focused on the fight coming, his hand on the dark sword's handle, ready to free the overwhelming power beyond the storm around them.
"I can control it. I won't let it win. Lana, I will take us away from here, and we will rebuild our home!"
His arms showed his effort as the black sword shook. But the dark chains still kept it locked no matter how hard he tried.
"Unsheathe now! As your master, I command you, unsheathe! The Sword of the Devil Emperor, Hallelujah."
However, he only coughed more blood and fell as the poison hurt him once more.
The sword didn't move. The chains ignored their "master."
"Is it… still not possible…?" he whispered, wiping the blood from his lips, eyes sorrowful upon the sword.
"Why!? Why I'm not worthy… Why am I not the one? Who in this world holds the right to draw you and wield your power??? Answer me!!!"
They tried to leave through an alley, but were too weak from the poison to escape. They could hardly walk and might die soon.
The woman saw the beggar boy trying to run, she used her almost exhausted strength to pull him back and then she gave her baby girl to him, entrusting seriously.
"Please… protect her… take her…"
The beggar was shocked, but he was still holding the baby at the urgent moment. The man, seeing his wife give their child to a street kid, was also shocked, but finally gave the boy the chained black sword that he failed to unsheathe.
"Take care of my daughter with this sword. Go to the Elk Empire, to the Saint Grace Royal Academy… Give them to schoolmaster Kampas. Please… it must be done. We will thank you, even in heaven."
The black sword was heavy, and the baby was also not light for a ten-year-old boy. The beggar wanted to say no but before he could act to refuse, the woman took out a letter from her arms and put it into the baby girl's swaddling clothes, and gave the little beggar hugging her baby a push.
"Run fast with my daughter… run!"
"They're here! We found them!"
"Tell the boss!"
"Get them!"
Voices shouted out. The beggar, nervous, ran with the child and sword, hiding in a trash can.
As he closed the lid, the sound of a fight and dying screams filled the snowy night.
The night smelled of death, now colored even more with blood. Snowflakes and blood mixed as the man and woman fought back to back.
They were surrounded by many enemies' corpses, but more enemies were coming.
They were slow and weak from blood loss and poison, close to death…
"Amazing," a voice said. A man in a black cloak came out of the crowd, holding a skull in his hand.
"You fought against my poison for five days and killed many of my subodinates. Well done," he mocked them.
The man tried to fight, yelling, but he was too tired and the cloaked man dodged.
"Byron Wood, 'The Sword of the Void'. Among the young, you were unmatched. Even among the veterans, you were also a great force to be reckoned with."
The cloaked man tripped Byron, and his men pinned Byron to the snowfield with spears.
Blood colored the snow. Lana screamed, seeing her husband hurt. She used the snow to make ice spears and killed the men.
She tried to help, but the cloaked man hurt her with the power from his mysterious skull just holding in his palm, and she fell. His men pinned her down like Byron.
"The woman who wields mysterious powers, as pure and beautiful as an orchid. Can you imagine? Once the beauty that drove a continent to madness, the one who incited wars easily between kings, the woman whose casual joke led to countless deaths, now lay here, unable to move and dirty like trash."