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Arc I: Dawn Was Never Meant for the Guilty.
(William’s POV)
Dawn spilled across the Clover Kingdom in a warm, radiant orange. Small birds had already begun leaving their nests to greet the new day. The early sunlight here looked like shimmering golden ribbons, eagerly sweeping over cliffs and painting the capital in a soft, honeyed glow. It was a scene Julius always said was “beyond compare.” Yet to William Vangeance, that beauty only made the damp, hidden corners of his soul stand out even more sharply.
William stood motionless before a tall mirror, its surface dulled by dust in a forgotten corner of the room. Through a gap in the window, a playful ray of morning light danced across his shoulder, but it quickly swallowed by the shadow wrapping around him. He looked into the mirror, where refined features were torn apart by uneven, raised scars - an unerasable reminder of betrayal, and of the souls he had once trampled without meaning to.
Outside, the world was slowly waking in excitement, while William chose to begin his day by calmly putting on a cold mask. The sharp click of its fastening echoed dryly, sounding like chains locking tightly around their owner. To him, dawn did not bring hope. It was only repayment for a debt he believed he could never clear, even if he spent his entire life trying.
William left his room, his footsteps so light they made no sound, as though he feared his presence might stain the pure air around him. He did not head toward the Magic Knights’ meeting hall, but instead turned down the corridor leading to the Wizard King - the true and only sun of his life.
Everything began with terrifying precision, as if the one performing it would not allow even a single mistake.
In the small kitchen, William carefully measured each slice of ginger. He knew Julius preferred the gentle sweetness of forest honey over refined sugar, and the ratio had to be three parts ginger to one part honey so that its warmth could soothe the exhaustion from another sleepless night. He personally checked the bathwater temperature, making sure it stayed at exactly 40 degrees Celsius - no more, no less - so his lord’s skin would be properly comforted.
Now, William stood before an intricately carved wooden door, with a tray of steaming tea in his hands. He watched the morning light dance across the patterns on the door, feeling strangely out of place within such beauty.
He had never seen himself as, and would never become, an equal to the Wizard King. In his heart, the scarred man was nothing more than a “guardian deity,” willingly chained at his lord’s feet. Someone who did not need freedom or sunlight, but only permission to exist in the shadow beside him, serving quietly.
William knocked softly. A respectful, steady sound echoed through the corridor.
“Lord Julius, it’s time to wake.”
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Arc I-II: Light That Cannot Warm the Heart.
(Julius’s POV)
Behind the heavy wooden door, Julius had already been awake for some time. He sat quietly on the windowsill, small legs swinging in the air, gaze drifting toward the horizon where the first orange light of morning burned bright. In his childlike form, Julius looked small and adorable, but the stillness around him still carried the authority of a Wizard King who had weathered countless storms.
The steady knock came. A sound he could predict down to the rhythm of the man’s breathing outside.
“Come in, William.”
The door slowly opened, and a familiar warmth of ginger fragrance filled the room. Julius turned his head and smiled gently at the man who entered. There he was - in his cold mask hiding every trace of emotion, a tea tray held steadily in his hands.
Julius watched silently as William placed the tray down, then bowed so deeply his silver hair nearly touched the floor. Every movement was careful, precise, but it only made Julius’s chest feel heavier. To him, every fragrant cup of tea, every act of meticulous care, was not an honor, but an unspoken confession.
For a brief moment, watching that unwavering posture, Julius’s thoughts drifted back to long ago.
Back then, the child with the disfiguring scar had looked at him with admiration mixed with faint fear. In Julius’s eyes, he had been gentle and close, yet burdened by overwhelming insecurity. Still, that had never stopped his desire to live, to prove his worth in a world full of ugly prejudice. Julius had once loved that quiet stubbornness, because it was proof of a living soul. He had once believed that if he simply reached out, if he gave the boy an equal place beside him, those scars would eventually become nothing more than the past.
But, Julius now realized he was wrong.
The higher William climbed in rank and power, the longer the shadow of his inferiority seemed to stretch, growing in direct proportion to the blind loyalty he offered. Julius could not help but feel a quiet ache, seeing how what had once been a spark of life had turned into roots of rot, binding William’s soul tightly.
He would rather see a William who occasionally resisted, who demanded something for himself, than a perfect “guardian deity”, slowly erasing his own existence just to shield him.
Julius stepped closer, small hands lifting the steaming teacup. Warmth spread through his palms, but his gaze remained fixed on the long shadow William cast on the floor.
“William… didn’t I tell you that you don’t need to do all this yourself?”
Julius took a sip. The gentle sweetness of forest honey and the sharp warmth of ginger blended perfectly, so perfectly that he knew William must have spent hours adjusting every detail. He looked at him, sensing the overwhelming devotion radiating from the man kneeling before him.
“It’s alright, my lord. I wish to serve you with my own hands.”
Julius knew, while he was trying to lead this kingdom forward, toward a future where everyone could choose freely - the most loyal guardian at his side was instead imprisoning himself inside a cage called “atonement.”
He placed a hand on William’s hair. The light touch made the man tremble slightly. Julius let out a silent sigh. He was grateful for this loyalty, but it also pained him deeply. He wanted to give William wings strong enough to fly on his own, yet it seemed William only wanted to turn those wings into a carpet laid beneath his feet.
You have prepared so much for me, William… but what have you prepared for yourself?
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Arc II: Your Command Is My Exile.
(William’s POV)
This afternoon, the light spilling into the Wizard King’s office felt harsher than usual. Fine dust particles drifted restlessly through the silent room, where only the steady rustle of turning pages could be heard.
William still stood there, in his familiar position beside the bookshelf, unmoving like a statue carved out of devotion. He kept enough distance not to intrude upon his lord’s privacy, yet remained close enough to step forward at any moment should Julius need a touch of honey in his tea or a fresh pen. He had stood in this exact place for so long that even his breathing had begun to sync with Julius’s rhythm, a form of symbiosis he considered the sole meaning of his existence.
But today, that rhythm felt strangely out of place.
This sense of displacement had, in truth, been slowly taking root over months of what seemed like “special assignments.” In various ways, Julius kept sending him away on missions framed as support or recovery work. Sometimes he was dispatched to the eastern hot springs to “study mana-based healing for squad recovery,” and other times he was sent to distant magic academies to “share experience and serve as a model for the younger generation.”
In William’s eyes, Julius had always been a noble Wizard King with boundless compassion. He accepted those orders with unwavering loyalty, reassuring himself that a ruler recovering his strength would naturally require someone with the “broader perspective” of the Golden Dawn Captain to handle important matters in his stead. Above all, it was merely the inevitable busyness of a king regaining his power.
He depart eagerly, pour everything into completing the mission, and return with only one desire: to once again stand in that familiar corner of the room.
Yet after each journey, a faint doubt grew within him. William realized with quiet alarm that the time he was allowed to remain beside Julius was shrinking, while the intervals between assignments were growing longer. Anxiety began to gnaw at him as he felt himself slowly turning from a trusted attendant into nothing more than a “research instrument.”
He feared Julius’s gentle indulgence. He feared that his absence did not create longing, but rather that his lord was simply growing accustomed to a world without him. Worse still, William painfully realized that his habits of service no longer fit seamlessly into Julius’s new rhythm. He felt like an old gear desperately clinging to a machine that had already learned to function perfectly without him.
Julius did not take up the pen. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, violet eyes fixed on the hourglass on the desk rather than the reports before him. The falling grains of sand seemed to quietly accumulate into a heavy barrier between them. William could sense something unusual in the way Julius adjusted the rim of his glasses - a small gesture that suggested hesitation, as if he were weighing a decision William’s instincts already feared would not be kind.
Normally, Julius would turn to him with a smile, sharing some new discovery or a magic he found fascinating. But this time, he spoke without looking at him.
“William, Marx reported to me yesterday about an ancient ruin survey in the northern region… I believe you are the only one with enough precision to assess it. Prepare to depart at the end of this week.”
William’s hands, clasped behind his back, stiffened slightly. His breath faltered for a moment, a dull ache spreading through his chest.
“Yes, my lord. I will assign Vice Captain Langris to temporarily oversee operations and coordinate with the guard unit -”
“No need.”
Julius cut him off. His voice remained gentle, but it carried the stillness of a frozen lake in the depths of winter. He still did not look at William, instead brushing a wilted flower on the desk aside.
“I want Langris to focus on the squad. As for here… I’ve used to handling things myself. Just go, and don’t rush back. William, take this chance to look at that land with your own eyes, not through the eyes of a captain. Think of it as a rest I’m giving you.”
The room fell into a suffocating silence.
The hourglass sounded unnaturally loud, like chains cracking apart, or perhaps like something within William himself beginning to split.
He stood frozen, feet seemingly rooted to the ground. The shadow of his mask stretched long across the floor, concealing his expression entirely. Julius was clearly speaking of a “journey,” yet to William, every word sounded like severance.
“Don’t rush back.”
“Handle it yourself.”
Each phrase twisted in his ears, sharp and distorted. They no longer sounded like care, but like precise cuts, severing the carefully woven threads he had spent his entire life binding to this shining throne.
William’s gaze fixed on Julius’s cloak - the fabric belonging to the man he worshipped above all else. Only now did he fully perceive the distance between them. What had once been a few steps now felt like an immeasurable abyss.
He came to a realization, this seems not a military order.
This was an unobtrusive exile.
Julius was, piece by piece, with all his patience and kindness, undoing the bonds William had spent his life forging to the throne. He was gently pushing him out of orbit, casting him into something called “freedom” - and for someone like William, a creature that survived only by attachment, it felt no different from a death sentence.
Everything William had believed to be his worth, all the devotion he had offered as atonement, had apparently become a burden in Julius’s eyes.
Rejection did not strike him like a slap, it seeped in slowly from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, numbing his senses and thoughts.
He lowered his head, forcing his chaotic breathing under control.
“Yes… I obey your command.”
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Arc II-II: The Northern Expanse Burdened by Thought.
(William’s POV)
At the northern border, where endless white storms devoured every trace of life, William Vangeance existed like a lost phantom drifting through reality.
He never stayed long in any shelter. Instead of seeking warmth or the “rest” Julius had promised, William deliberately ventured into the most unstable mana zones. Amid the howling blizzard, he stood silently, snow clinging relentlessly to his golden cloak - the pride of the Golden Dawn, now feeling like nothing more than a cruel mockery pressed against his eyes.
He did not find the “wide horizon” Julius spoke of. Only a bottomless abyss surrounded him.
William worked with maddening precision. He recorded, surveyed, and purified ancient ruins at a speed that unsettled those who might have observed him. His hands turned red, fingers trembling as they gripped his quill in the freezing cold, yet he stubbornly refused to use warming magic. He wanted to feel the cold completely, to let physical pain drown out the screaming in his chest. Yes, William was punishing himself. Punishing himself for not being perfect enough to stay, for possessing a broken soul that forced his king to push him away.
Each time a ruin was purified and documented, he looked at his own hands with faint disgust. In his distorted self-reproach, he “translated” Julius’s kindness into something else: The king had sent him away not to broaden his horizons, but to cleanse his sight of a disgraceful burden.
Desperation drove him into reckless battles with aggressive monsters, as though he were inviting punishment itself. Sometimes deep cuts across his arms, blood soaking into his clothes, yet he only stared at them with empty eyes. To William, these wounds felt “cleaner” than the stained past he carried. Maybe, if he returned with flawless reports while utterly exhausted, perhaps his lord would still find him… “useful”.
Still worthy of standing beside him.
On sleepless nights inside frozen caves, William did not sleep. He simply sat in silence, carefully cleaning his mask under the flickering light of a mana lamp. He looked at his reflection in the cold metal, searching for the noble captain he once was, but all he found was a pathetic man clinging to fragments of loyalty.
Every step across the snow became a form of self-inflicted penance. He was not searching for the freedom Julius desired, their definitions of “freedom” were never the same. William was instead carving himself into something sharper, colder, building a prison out of duty and pain.
The only hope left within him, was that this suffering might be the price required for his return to Julius’s side.
Even as William remained tangled in the emotions he could not fully understand toward the Wizard King, he was still clear about one thing: he did not need wings to fly, nor did he desire any distant horizon.
He only needed a chain, so long as the other end remained in his king’s hand.
All he wanted was to remain a useful tool, quietly placed in the corner of the Wizard King’s room, waiting to be called upon once more.
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Arc II-III: The Gambit of Uncrowned King.
(Julius’s POV)
The fracture did not begin with an order, it began with Julius Novachrono’s solitary nights.
For many days, Julius often stood on the balcony after the entire royal palace had fallen asleep. In the form of a child, he looked down at his small hands - hands that held a limited amount of time, not to mention time that had to be borrowed. It felt as though this small body of his was no longer enough to bear the weight of fate. From the perspective of one who stood above the river of time, he did not merely see the present, but also the clearest outlines of a devastating future.
Julius saw a Clover without Julius Novachrono, and he also saw a William Vangeance broken apart, withered as if uprooted from an ancient tree.
His gaze lowered slightly. He gently brushed through the floating dust particles, feeling the careless drift of time and space. Only then did he realize that over the years, he had unknowingly built a paradise for William called “obedience,” when in truth it was a prison without bars.
Julius had given William a place beside the “throne,” but forgot to teach him how to stand when that throne collapsed.
He looked into the void, where the future was already burning to ashes, and William knelt among the ruins of Clover - hands scraped and bleeding as he tried to gather fragments of Julius’ time. There was no expression on his face, no cry of despair. He simply repeated a meaningless motion, as if his soul had been trapped the moment he lost Julius.
Forever unable to end. Forever unable to move forward.
William’s devotion had once been a balm for Julius’ wounds, but somewhere along the way, it had turned into a poison that stripped away William’s own independence.
Dangerous. And unpredictable.
Julius feared that if his own time ever truly ran out, William would not merely lose a king. He would lose his very sense of self, and collapse completely, unprepared for a world without him.
So Julius wanted to build him an “immune system” against loss, even if the price was being resented by William himself. Because once that day truly came, no lesson would still be in time.
From the deepest part of his heart, Julius knew how much he also “loved” William’s presence. At times, the “human” part of him would surge up, urging him to be selfish: just keep William there, let him remain as a shadow by his side until the very end. Julius was captivated by the way William’s eyes always followed him, captivated by that absolute trust and devotion.
But because he “loved” him, he could not allow it.
The love Julius held for William was greater than his own need for comfort. He wanted a future for him - a future where William would become a towering tree, capable of sheltering Clover on his own. Every night, this contradiction carved into Julius’ heart; he was forced to choose between keeping William close for a moment, or pushing him into crisis so he could learn to survive forever.
Julius understood clearly: to save William’s soul, he had to be the first to plant doubt and distance within him. He had to learn to become a ruthless king before time turned him into something “illusory,” eventually erased him into oblivion.
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Arc II-IV: Offering Illusions, Crushing Faith.
(Julius’s POV)
When William entered with the afternoon tea tray, the faint clink of porcelain against wood echoed softly - an entirely respectful sound. Julius remained turned away, but every sense in him was stretched tight, acutely aware of the presence behind him. He knew that if he so much as looked into those steadfast eyes, the calm mask he wore would shatter instantly.
“William, Marx reported to me yesterday about an ancient ruin survey in the northern region… I believe you are the only one with enough precision to assess it. Prepare to depart at the end of this week.”
Julius immediately felt a surge of mana ripple through the air, like a lake suddenly struck by a falling boulder. William’s breathing faltered for a brief moment, a deadly silence.
Deep inside, Julius felt a piercing ache as he sensed the hands behind William’s back tightening so hard that even the golden cloak creased under the pressure.
He knew what William was thinking. He knew he was searching his memory for where he had gone wrong, or whether some lingering ghost of betrayal had made Julius unable to tolerate his presence any longer.
Every word Julius spoke next felt like a surgery performed without anesthesia - where he was both the surgeon and the patient who felt every cut.
“No need. I’ve used to handling things myself.”
The phrase “used to” tasted bitter, like cold ginger tea. It was the clumsiest lie he had ever told, it carried the weight of rejection. Even so, despite his heart bleeding, the “blade” in the king within him had to strike cleanly and decisively. If he hesitated now, William would remain a fragile sprout doomed to wither alongside him.
Immediately, guilt surged so strongly that Julius could barely breathe. He realized in agony that he was stripping away William’s only “home,” forcing him to build a fortress of his own. By refusing that tea, he was also taking away the child’s right to be cared for, the right to be redeemed. His so-called “sacrifice” was, ironically, built upon the psychological destruction of the one he valued most.
Julius could feel William’s shadow collapsing on the stone floor, his head bowed so low that Julius could almost imagine the shock spreading beneath that mask.
He felt restless. His small hand hidden under his sleeve clenched tightly against the windowsill, preventing himself from turning around to comfort the man behind him. He forced himself to stay rigid, to act like a king who had grown “weary” of his subordinate’s loyalty, just to sever William from dependence on him.
Julius longed to grant him “freedom” - but not the freedom of being discarded. Rather, the freedom to own his own fate. He wanted William to realize that even without his guiding light, he remained a complete and living being. He wanted him to learn to see the world with his own eyes, to decide right and wrong, instead of constantly searching for approval in Julius’ expression.
When William finally turned to leave, the heavy sound of his footsteps crushed the last remnants of Julius’ calm. Though Julius kept his gaze toward the window, his heart twisted painfully as he realized:
His kindness had become the cruelest form of sin.
He would accept being hated - so long as, when his time eventually ran out, William could still stand beneath the vast sky without needing Julius Novachrono as an anchor.
The door closed, leaving the room in a suffocating silence. Only then did Julius dare to turn around. He reached out toward the porcelain cup, but stopped midway, as if burned. He did not allow himself to drink it.
He stood there, staring at the tea that had once symbolized their bond. He let it grow cold and stagnant, just as he forced his own heart to freeze in the face of William’s pain.
The punishment he bore was not in some distant northern land. It was right here - in the bitter aftertaste of forgotten tea, where he was forced to learn how to survive the emptiness he himself had created.
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Arc III: The Final Offering of a Rejected Follower.
(William’s POV)
William did not knock. He turned the handle, stepped inside with a wave of cold air from the frontier, stirring even the half-burned candle on the desk. Julius did not need to look up to know who had returned. But unlike usual, William no longer hurried forward to report, nor did he silently replace the teacup. He stopped right at the threshold, standing where the room’s light could failed to fully reach him, letting half of his face sink into the corridor’s shadow.
“I have completed the survey of the northern ruins. This is the detailed report.”
He stood there, his left shoulder slightly slumped under a bandage already dried stiff with blood, staining the noble golden cloak into something blotched and unrecognizable. He did not hide it, nor did he use magic to heal it. He exposed his disheveled state openly, an almost deliberate display. Deep inside, he harbored a fervent hope: that His Majesty would flinch at the sight of his injuries, that he would scold him for his recklessness, or at the very least - show some pain for having pushed him into the storm’s eye.
Yet, in response to his trembling anticipation, Julius merely set down his pen. When he looked up, those deep violet eyes briefly swept over the bloodstained shoulder, calm as a breath, before settling on William’s face with the same serene stillness as an unfathomable lake.
“Good work, William. How was the trip?”
That perfectly standard question struck William like a fatal blow. It felt as if his chest was about to explode, bitter rage surging up and burning through the last threads of his patience. How was the trip? Was he supposed to say he went for a stroll in the royal gardens? William stepped forward, but instead of standing beside him like before, he stopped at the opposite edge of the desk and placed the report down with a bit too much force. A dull “thud” echoed through the thick, suffocating air.
Julius quietly pushed his chair back and stood. The scraping of wood against stone was piercing, abruptly breaking the oppressive atmosphere. He walked around the desk, bringing with him a familiar warmth that tried to seep into the ice forming around William.
“This wound… let me take a look.”
His hand slowly reached toward the stained cloak. But the moment Julius’s fingertips brushed the rough fabric, William immediately stepped back, one decisive retreat that left Julius’s hand suspended in empty air. William lowered his head in a bow - a perfectly obedient posture, yet distant beyond reach.
“I am fine, Your Majesty the Wizard King. Thank you for your concern.”
He deliberately emphasized the honorable title, using it like a blade to dissect their relationship, returning Julius exactly what he had once demanded: a strictly professional distance. He hid his trembling hands behind his back, gripping them so tightly that the wound on his shoulder began to seep warm fresh blood again. Yes, William was using his own physical pain to provoke Julius's composure, forcing him to see, to smell the metallic stench of blood slowly filling the room.
He wanted to see how long that “composure” could last.
But Julius did not withdraw.
He stepped forward again, firmly breaking the distance William had painstakingly rebuilt. This time, he reached out directly, grasping William’s wrist and pulling him slightly toward the flickering candlelight.
“Stop being stubborn, William. I sent you on that mission, then I should be the one to examine the wounds it left behind.”
Just that touch, just those slightly softened words - and the walls William had built over days were already beginning to collapse. A warm electric current spread from Julius’s palm, making William shudder. He hated himself in this moment - hated how his shattered pride melted so easily under the smallest trace of concern.
And yet, a twisted satisfaction rose in his chest. He was… happy.
Yes. He was happy. That bitter, aching joy of seeing that even this man unable to ignore him anymore, finally forced to admit that he cared about his body state.
William let himself be pulled closer, but he still did not lift his head. His eyes, hidden beneath the mask, remained still. He no longer retreated, but his body remained tense, guarded, quietly savoring the tingling sensation of Julius’s hand against the blood-soaked bandage. No matter how painful it was, this was still the most real connection he had felt in days of solitude.
“I already said… there’s no need to trouble yourself.”
He muttered, his voice hoarse with weakness. At this moment, William was like a small beast just barely driven away, yet still greedily clinging to every bit of reluctant warmth, even as pain throbbed in his chest from unhealed wounds. That guilty joy made him feel both pathetic - and victorious, in his own collapse.
He had forced the king to act, forced him to touch the abyss he himself had once pushed him into.
William stood still as Julius carefully removed the torn golden cloak. When the fabric slid off, it revealed a pale shoulder, its fragility forming a stark contrast against the bloodstained bandages on the table. He could feel Julius’s breath close by, a presence he had once craved like madness during sleepless nights at the border. And yet now that he finally had it, his heart ached unbearably.
Julius said nothing.
Slowly, he used time magic to loosen the bandages that had dried and fused to William’s skin. Every movement was gentle to the point of cruelty. William trembled, not from pain, but because this gentleness was the very poison he feared most. It melted his anger away, forming something like suppressed tears deep within.
“Does it hurt?” Julius asked softly, his voice barely more than a whisper.
William did not answer immediately. He pressed his lips together, eyes fixed on the dark corner of the room. He wanted to say he was in so much pain he wished he could die. That every cut on his flesh meant nothing compared to the wound this man had carved into his soul. But in the end, he only replied quietly:
“I’m used to it.”
That sentence was like a slap thrown back at Julius.
William felt it - he felt how cruel he had just been, and how satisfying it was. He saw Julius’s hand paused for a brief second before continuing.
The silence that followed was no longer mere punishment. It had become a painful tension between two beings locked in conflict.
When the final bandage was removed, revealing a deep wound still refusing to close, Julius let out a faint sigh. He placed his hand over it, and a soft blue light of healing magic began to glow. William closed his eyes, letting that warmth seep into every inch of his skin.
In his weakest moment, he almost leaned into him.
Almost wanted to discard this damned mask, this mechanical obedience, to become the William he once was.
But resentment rose again, cruelly reminding him of the “freedom” Julius had given. He shifted his shoulder slightly, a small refusal, but enough for Julius to understand: he was refusing complete comfort.
“That’s enough, Your Majesty the Wizard King. The rest… I can handle it myself.”
William slowly pulled his arm free from Julius’s grasp, straightened himself, and covered the wound with his inner garment. He did not look at him. He only bowed, then turned away.
With every step toward the door, William felt the invisible chain between them tightening - until it was about to snap. William thought he had won this confrontation - because he had made Julius care, made him touch his pain.
But when the heavy wooden door closed behind him, sealing away the lonely figure by the dying candlelight, William realized, the most defeated one… was still himself.
He had obtained his master’s attention, but the price was the collapse of an innocent faith, and a heart that had learned to weaponize pain. More than anything, he could no longer return to what he was.
A price too high, far too high - so high that even after leaving, neither of them could ever return whole again.
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Arc III-II: Severed Red Thread.
(Julius’s POV)
The faint turn of a doorknob, followed by a sudden wave of freezing air from far beyond the borderlands, suddenly rushed in, made the candle on the desk sway violently. The solitary flame flickered restlessly, casting a grotesque, dancing shadow across the wall.
Julius did not look up.
Though, his time magic - the proud authority that allowed him to perceive all things - had already caught a strange rhythm approaching. The footsteps of his attendant, who had always understood every silence of him, had lost their former lightness and grace. Now they were heavy, sluggish… thick with dried blood and damp frost.
It was the walk of someone who had just crossed through hell to return.
When Julius finally lifted his eyes, a sight shock struck his senses so hard that his chest tightened for a moment in stunned silence.
William stood there.
But that figure was no longer the bright young man, overflowing with devotion, whom Julius had pulled out of mud. What stood before him now was a withered statue - pale, fragile, wrapped in hastily bound bandages like a funeral shroud.
With vision honed through countless tides of history, Julius did not merely see the blood-soaked shoulder under the candlelight. He pierced through the fabric itself, seeing the truth beneath the wounds, and slowly realized a brutal fact:
Those injuries were not battlefield accidents. They were too precise, too “well-timed,” too deliberate to be negligence. And more importantly, they were placed exactly where Julius’s magic used to touch whenever he offered him praise.
So, that was the result of a sanity pushed beyond reason - a deliberate act of self-inflicted punishment, a flesh-carved erasure of memory.
He read William’s intent as clearly as an unspoken verdict: The boy was bargaining with his own life. Using his own flesh and blood to question, whether the “freedom” Julius had granted him was worth anything at all without Julius’s presence beside him.
A sharp pain twisted through Julius’s chest, stealing his breath.
Too late, he realized he may underestimate the devotion - and the distorted love - of this child.
He had wanted to give him wings, so he could stand on his own even after Julius disappeared into the flow of time. But he never expected that every act of letting go would drive William into a corner of despair, so absolute that he chose to destroy himself just to keep the faintest trace of connection.
Julius saw himself as someone watching a child stab his own heart just to earn a single glance of pity - a desperate exchange, one that he himself had caused.
“Good work, William. How was the trip?”
Julius’s voice echoed, calm and clipped, so steady that even he could feel a slow wave of nausea rising at the back of his throat. He hated his own indifference, hated the perfect monarch’s mask he was forcing himself to wear.
And yet beneath that lake, the icebergs had already collided, shattered into sharp fragments, the surface still had to remain undisturbed.
William stepped closer, dropped the report onto the desk. A dry “thud” echoed through the empty room. This “respectful defiance” of his - the way he used absolute obedience to maintain distance - struck Julius like a fatal blow to the selfish part of his humanity. Only now did he realize he had been pushed aside entirely, reduced to nothing more than a distant, untouchable authority in the eyes of the one person he cherished most.
And then came the answer. A retaliation so deserved… yet so bitter it sank straight into his bones.
“I have completed the mission, Your Majesty the Wizard King.”
Those words “Wizard King” fell like a hammer into Julius’s already unstable composure.
He no longer called him “Julius.” That title alone felt like an exile order, casting him completely out of William’s world.
Julius searches desperately through his eyes behind the mask, trying to find the smallest crack. Some resentment, some hurt, even hatred. Anything that would give him an excuse to step forward, to cross the boundary between sovereign and subordinate and pull him into an embrace.
But there was nothing.
Only an empty abyss, constructed from reverence.
He had succeeded in forging a perfect captain of the Magic Knights. In doing so, the door to William’s heart had been locked shut forever.
The sensation of standing on a throne, being utterly empty-handed when surrounded by power… made Julius feel wretched beyond words.
When Julius stood up, the chair scraped against stone with a piercing sound. He saw that shoulder trembling from cold, heard the suppressed cough trapped in William’s chest. His hand almost reached out instinctively - to hold him. To reverse everything with time magic.
But reason, his kingly reason - was an iron chain, dragged him back down.
He knew that part of William too well. If he gave in now… everything William had endured would become meaningless. Worse, he might learn the wrong lesson: that by hurting himself, by tearing open his own flesh, he could once again earn Julius’s attention. Then he would continue destroying himself until nothing remained.
So Julius had to be crueler.
To keep wearing the mask of a king - even as his heart screamed apologies in silence. A kind of self-inflicted spiritual death. This cruelty… was also a form of self-destruction he imposed upon himself.
When he reached out to examine the wound, William immediately stepped back. That single retreat left Julius’s hand suspended in empty air.
The refusal carried more weight than any physical wound.
It drew a merciless boundary: “You were the one who pushed me away. You were the one who demanded my independence. Then do not reach for my pain anymore. You no longer have that right.”
But Julius did not withdraw.
In one final, selfish act of human stubbornness, he stepped forward, seized William’s wrist, pulling him toward the dim glow of candlelight.
William trembled violently under his grip.
And in that moment, Julius saw it - an emotion flickering beneath the surface.
A twisted satisfaction.
He was… pleased.
That bitter kind of joy, seeing the great Wizard King finally unable to look away, finally forced to abandon his composure and touch the abyss he had created.
He would rather endure this forced contact than receive any distant, polite words from above.
“Does it hurt?” Julius asked absently, his voice light, too light - barely hiding the pressure building in his throat.
“…I’m used to it.”
That sentence landed like a slap across his entire being.
“Used to it”?
Since when did his child become used to pain just to survive?
Julius froze for a heartbeat, condemning his own failure.
He stood as a king who had forged a blade for the kingdom… yet failed to notice when everything around him had become ruins of affection.
He was the great ruler of Clover.
And, at this moment, perhaps the most unforgivable person in William’s world.
When William finally pulled his hand away, bowed in formal distance, and turned to leave, Julius remained alone in the room’s oppressive silence. He clenched the bloodstained bandage, the only remnant of their exchange, in his hand, let the scent of iron sink into his skin like an unerasable sin.
He stared at the empty corner of the room - where that ever-diligent knight used to stand - and understood the cruel truth of a seer:
He could see a future of peace for Clover ten, twenty years ahead. He could see the brilliance of the kingdom’s dawn.
But he could not turn the clock back to the afternoon when he planted the seed called “freedom” in that boy’s heart.
He could reverse time itself…
But not the fracture of a soul.
He had won the creation of an unbreakable fortress for the kingdom, but lost utterly in protecting the only heart he had ever truly loved.
To be continued.