Chapter 333: A Victory Without Celebration

Location: Above Libeus City

High above Libeus City, Erza tore through the sky.

Her enormous wings drove her forward with enough force to split the clouds apart behind her, each beat carrying her across kilometers in moments. She wasn’t following any Agency route, satellite map, or calculated search pattern. She was relying entirely on her own senses, sweeping across the land for anything that might belong to Yuuta.

His scent.

His presence.

Even the smallest trace would be enough.

Erza’s violet eyes moved constantly across the world beneath her as she flew. Cities passed below one after another, reduced to clusters of lights from her altitude, while forests, highways, mountains, and rivers vanished behind her almost as quickly as they appeared.

Where are you, Yuuta?

Her heart refused to settle.

Every possibility her mind created only made it worse. Allen had gone through an entire invasion simply to take Yuuta. He had known about her, known about Isvarn, and even known enough about the Law of Deity to turn Isvarn’s strength against him.

That wasn’t the behavior of someone acting impulsively.

This had been planned.

And Erza had no idea for how long.

She lowered her altitude as another city appeared beneath her, closing her eyes briefly and allowing her senses to spread through the air. Thousands upon thousands of scents reached her at once—humans, animals, smoke, machines, food, rain, countless things mixed together across an entire city.

Erza ignored all of them.

She searched for one.

Yuuta.

Nothing.

Her eyes opened again.

"No..."

Her wings spread.

"He isn’t here."

BOOM!

The air exploded behind her as Erza accelerated again.

She crossed another city.

Then another.

And another.

Whenever she detected something unusual, she descended enough to confirm it. Several times her heart jumped when a strange presence entered her senses, only for disappointment to follow seconds later when she realized it wasn’t Yuuta.

Eventually, Libeus disappeared behind her entirely.

Erza had crossed multiple cities and reached the end of the country without finding even the faintest trace of her husband.

She didn’t stop.

The coastline appeared ahead, followed by the endless darkness of the Atlantic Ocean.

Erza flew straight over it.

The moment she saw those waters beneath her, memories of what had happened earlier returned whether she wanted them or not. This same ocean had been where Allen’s plan had successfully kept her occupied. While she fought Leviathan, believing she was protecting people from a catastrophic threat, Yuuta had been fighting for his life somewhere else.

She had wasted precious time.

Erza knew blaming herself wouldn’t bring him back, but knowing that didn’t stop the thought from hurting.

This time, there was no enemy in front of her.

No Leviathan.

No army.

Nothing mattered except finding Yuuta.

Her wings opened to their full span before driving backward with tremendous force. The ocean below distorted from the pressure as Erza shot forward like a projectile, moving so quickly that her figure became little more than a pale streak crossing the night sky.

She searched while flying.

Every island.

Every vessel.

Every unfamiliar presence she could distinguish from above.

Whenever she sensed demonic energy, she changed direction immediately, descending to investigate before continuing. Each time, however, the result was the same.

Demons.

But not Allen.

Not Yuuta.

The Atlantic stretched endlessly beneath her until even Erza’s patience began giving way to desperation. She had crossed an enormous distance and still had nothing—not a piece of cloth, not a trace of Yuuta’s aura, not even the faintest scent she could confidently identify as his.

"No... He’s not in the ocean either."

Erza’s jaw tightened.

"Where are you?"

There was no answer.

Only the wind rushed past her as another coastline finally appeared on the horizon.

South America.

Erza entered Brazilian airspace without slowing.

Her search became even more aggressive now. She crossed enormous stretches of land, repeatedly changing altitude as she examined cities and isolated regions alike. Her senses continuously searched for Yuuta while simultaneously identifying every demonic presence that stood out from the countless humans below.

Then she caught one.

Erza’s head immediately turned.

"Demonic presence."

Her wings changed direction, and within moments she was hovering high above a remote compound hidden away from the populated areas surrounding it.

The demonic scent was strong.

For the briefest instant, hope struck her.

"Yuuta?"

Erza focused.

Her expression changed.

No.

It wasn’t him.

The presence belonged entirely to demons gathered below.

Several of them finally seemed to notice something above their compound. Figures began emerging from the buildings, looking toward the sky as alarms spread through the stronghold.

They never received the chance to understand what they were seeing.

Erza raised one hand.

Her magic formed above the compound before crashing downward.

The demonic stronghold disappeared beneath the impact.

Erza didn’t descend to inspect what remained.

She was already gone.

Her mind was too consumed by Yuuta and after everything Allen had done, every demonic stronghold she encountered felt like another possible place where he might have been taken. Each time she detected demonic energy, she investigated it. Each time she discovered it had nothing to do with Yuuta, whatever demonic force occupied the place was destroyed before she resumed her search.

Brazil passed beneath her.

Then other regions of South America.

She found hidden gatherings, cult sites, and places saturated with demonic traces. Some were small enough that only a handful of demons occupied them; others were far better concealed and protected.

None contained Yuuta.

Erza destroyed them and moved on.

Hours of distance meant almost nothing at the speed she was traveling. Borders that divided human nations were invisible from the sky, and she paid no attention to them as she pushed northward through Central America.

Still nothing.

Every failed search tightened something inside her chest.

By the time Erza entered the United States, desperation had begun overwhelming the cold focus she had regained after speaking with Isvarn. She slowed above another enormous city and searched once more, separating millions of scents and presences as carefully as she could.

Nothing.

"Yuuta..."

His name escaped much more quietly this time.

Erza hovered thousands of feet above the city, her white hair moving around her face as she stared at the lights below. Somewhere on this planet, Yuuta was alive. She had to believe that.

But Earth was enormous.

And Allen had left almost nothing for her to follow.

Erza closed her eyes again.

Think.

She knew Yuuta’s scent better than almost anyone. She knew the feeling of his presence beside her, the rhythm of his breathing when he slept, and even the tiny differences in his scent after fighting or being injured.

She didn’t need to find Yuuta directly.

She only needed one trace.

One place he had passed through.

One fragment of his scent carried through the air.

Anything.

Erza’s eyes opened.

She moved again.

Another demonic presence appeared within her senses some distance away. Erza immediately changed direction, crossing the distance before the demons below could possibly know something was approaching them.

Again, no Yuuta.

The demonic structure beneath her was destroyed moments later.

Then she continued.

Country after country.

City after city.

Demonic trace after demonic trace.

Erza refused to stop.

She searched from the skies, descended whenever something caught her attention, and destroyed whatever demonic presence stood in her way before immediately returning to the hunt. She didn’t celebrate any victory or even look back at the destruction she left behind.

Killing them wasn’t her objective.

Finding Yuuta was.

And until she caught even the faintest trace of her husband, Erza had no intention of returning empty-handed.

_______________________

Location: Agency Underground

Base: Libeus

Meanwhile, inside the Agency, the situation was far more chaotic.

Fiona entered the underground base wearing her full combat uniform, expecting to find the usual emergency response after a large-scale attack. medical teams rushing between rooms, commanders shouting orders, and surviving divisions reporting their losses.

Instead, the moment she stepped into the main hall, she stopped.

Her eyes widened.

Bodies.

There were bodies everywhere.

The enormous hall had been turned into a temporary collection point for the dead recovered from the battlefields. Rows upon rows of fallen Agency soldiers had been brought back, their bodies covered beneath white sheets while identification teams moved silently between them.

There were too many.

Fiona had already known the casualties were severe. Her own squad had lost people during the invasion, and she had personally watched soldiers she knew disappear into battles they never returned from. Yet knowing the numbers and actually seeing the dead gathered together were completely different things.

Hundreds of soldiers had died.

Some of the bodies had already been identified and prepared to be returned to their families. Others still had Agency personnel checking damaged identification tags or comparing records because their injuries made immediate identification difficult.

The atmosphere inside the hall felt heavier than any battlefield Fiona had entered.

There were no celebrations despite the invasion having been stopped.

No one spoke about victory.

Medics continuously carried injured soldiers toward the underground treatment facilities, while those who could still walk sat against walls with bandaged limbs and exhausted expressions. Some stared silently at the covered bodies of their teammates. Others stood beside them with lowered heads, unable to bring themselves to leave.

Fiona slowly walked farther inside.

Then she noticed Erika and Elga.

Both women stood several meters away, staring down at something in complete silence. Neither was speaking, and something about their expressions immediately made Fiona’s stomach tighten.

She approached them.

"What happened...?"

Neither answered.

Fiona followed their gaze.

And froze.

Raven.

For several seconds, her mind simply refused to accept what her eyes were showing her.

Captain Raven lay among the dead.

"No..."

Fiona’s lips parted as she stared at the Shadow Corps Captain. Raven—the woman who commanded the Agency’s most feared shadow unit, who wielded that strange and barely understood shadow power, who had survived battles that would have killed almost anyone else—was lying completely motionless before her.

Dead.

Fiona slowly raised one hand to cover her mouth.

Her vision blurred.

She had already seen enough death tonight that she thought there wouldn’t be anything left capable of shocking her, but Raven’s body broke through whatever defenses she had built around herself.

Tears began rolling down her cheeks.

Around them, the hall continued moving because it had no choice. More wounded were brought underground. More bodies arrived. Officers moved between divisions collecting casualty reports, while exhausted medics worked without stopping.

Yet beneath all that activity was grief.

Sara stood several feet away, silent and motionless. The Agency Chief said nothing as she watched her people mourn, her expression controlled even though the weight of the losses was impossible to hide completely.

Nearby, Sister Mary knelt beside several wounded soldiers. Her prayers mixed quietly with the sounds of the medical teams as healing magic passed from her hands into those who could still be saved.

Fiona’s fist tightened.

She looked back at Raven.

Before she could say anything, hurried footsteps came from behind them.

The head of the Shadow Corps Monitoring Division entered the hall.

She was the same officer who had first reported the disappearance of Raven’s heartbeat during the battle. Back then, she had been sitting behind a monitor, forced to announce the words every member of the Shadow Corps had dreaded hearing.

Captain Raven is dead.

But seeing a biometric reading disappear from a screen was one thing.

Seeing Raven’s body was another.

The woman stopped.

Her face crumbled almost instantly.

Unlike Sara, Erika, or the others who were struggling to maintain some form of control, she couldn’t.

"Captain..."

She rushed forward.

Dropping to her knees beside Raven, the woman reached out with trembling hands and gently held Raven’s head. Tears immediately fell onto Raven’s face as she bent over her, desperately staring at the closed eyes as though they might somehow open again.

"Captain..."

Her voice broke.

"Captain, please open your eyes."

No response came.

The woman shook her head repeatedly as more tears fell.

"Please... we need you."

Her fingers trembled against Raven’s hair.

"Captain..."

No one stopped her.

There was nothing anyone could say that would make the sight easier to accept. Many of the people standing nearby had served beside Raven, received orders from her, or watched the Shadow Corps return from missions that should have been impossible.

Tonight, their captain hadn’t returned.

Fiona wiped her own tears before slowly kneeling beside the woman. She didn’t try to pull her away from Raven or tell her to stop crying. Instead, Fiona simply placed a hand on her shoulder.

A small gesture.

The woman continued weeping quietly.

Fiona kept her hand on her shoulder, allowing her to grieve without trying to pull her away from Raven. She understood better than most why this loss had shattered the Shadow Corps. Raven wasn’t simply their captain. She had saved many of them personally, pulled them out of places where they should have died, and given them somewhere to belong.

Eventually, the Monitoring Division Head’s sobs weakened enough for her to breathe properly, though her hands still trembled as she held Raven.

Sara had been watching from a distance.

After several moments, the Agency Chief remained where she was. Then she finally walked toward them, her footsteps causing Fiona to glance up. Erika and Elga noticed her approaching as well, but Sara’s attention remained fixed on Raven and the woman kneeling beside her.

Sara stopped in front of them.

Her lips parted, but for once, the Agency Chief seemed to struggle with what to say.

In the end, she simply lowered her head.

"I’m sorry."

Fiona’s eyes widened slightly.

So did Erika’s and Elga’s.

Sara rarely allowed herself to speak from emotion in front of her officers, especially during a crisis. Yet now there was no attempt to hide behind her position.

"This is my fault."

The Monitoring Division Head slowly looked up at her through tear-filled eyes.

Sara’s gaze moved toward Raven.

"I was the one who assigned Raven to that location. I ordered the Shadow Corps to protect Yuuta and his daughter." Her jaw tightened. "And this was the result."

Fiona’s expression went blank.

"Yu...ta?"

The name barely left her mouth.

Fiona slowly rose from her knees.

"Raven was protecting Yuuta?"

"Yes."

Sara didn’t hesitate.

"We knew the Supreme Commander’s family could become a target during the invasion. Raven and the Shadow Corps were among the strongest units available, so I placed them around Yuuta and Elena. At the time, I believed it was the safest decision."

Sara’s expression darkened.

"But we misunderstood what the demons were actually doing."

Elg’s eyes narrowed.

"What do you mean Chief?"

Sara remained silent for a moment, almost as if saying the truth aloud made the scale of their failure more difficult to accept.

"The attacks on our cities. The demons appearing in multiple locations. The Leviathan forcing the Supreme Commander away. Even the forces sent after Yuuta..." Sara’s hands slowly clenched. "We thought we were dealing with an invasion."

Fiona stared at her.

Sara slowly shook her head.

"We weren’t."

The atmosphere around them seemed to change.

Sara looked directly at Fiona.

"The entire invasion was a diversion."

Fiona felt something cold settle inside her chest.

"A diversion... for what?"

Erika’s answer came quietly.

"To kidnap Yuuta."

Fiona’s eyes widened.

For a moment, the sounds filling the underground hall seemed to disappear. The wounded soldiers, the medics, the grieving officers everything around her faded beneath those few words.

All those demons.

All those attacks.

Hundreds of dead Agency soldiers.

Raven.

It had all happened while the enemy pursued one objective.

Fiona’s lips parted.

"Then Yuuta..."

Sara didn’t look away.

"They took him."

Fiona’s entire body stiffened.

"Yuuta... was kidnapped?"

Sara slowly nodded.

For several seconds, Fiona could only stare at her. She had already witnessed the destruction left behind by the invasion, seen the bodies of hundreds of fallen soldiers, and now stood before Raven’s lifeless body. Yet she still couldn’t understand why the demons had gone to such lengths just to capture Yuuta.

Her lips trembled slightly.

"But... why?"

Sara remained silent.

Fiona looked at her, waiting for an answer, but the Agency Chief seemed unusually reluctant to speak.

"Chief... why would the Demon King want Yuuta?"

Sara lowered her gaze for a moment before finally answering.

"For a ritual."

Fiona froze.

"...A ritual?"

To Be Continued...