Chapter 5
With a thud, Moira fell hard to the ground, coughing up blood.
She suppressed the coppery taste of blood on her tongue, her voice cold and emotionless.
"Lady Lowell has already jumped from the Divine Culling Altar. Her spirit is gone. She's dead." Her voice was icy and final.
"Impossible!" Jacob shouted, his anger boiling over.
But then, something struck him.
He remembered Alison came from a little village. She always said it was her true home, the one place she'd always belong.
But that home was reduced to ruins when Rosalind went on a demon hunt.
"Jacob, that was my home. My home!" Alison cried, her voice cracking with pain.
"Even if you don't love me anymore, how can you just turn your back on them after everything they did for you?" she pleaded, tears streaming down her face.
"They saved your life. Why did they have to end up like this?" she shouted, her voice shaking with anger and heartbreak.
A spy from the Demon Clan had escaped to the mortal world, and Rosalind claimed there were traces of it in Alison's village.
Rather than risk the demon's escape, Rosalind chose to purge the innocent—unleashing holy fire that turned the entire village to ash.
That was the first time Alison had ever lost her temper at him after she lost her sight.
Her once bright eyes were now empty, hollow, as if all light had been drained from them.
And yet, somehow, she still seemed to see. The sorrow on her face was unmistakable.
"Back when you were lying there half-dead, it was Mr. Duke from next door who poured out every last drop of his treasured wine—saved for years—just to clean your wounds," Alison said, her voice trembling.
"When we had no money for food, Nellie would sneak over and tuck some bread into the corner for us," she went on, her words thick with gratitude.
"You were always so frail, and every time Tommy went hunting in the mountains, he'd make sure to bring us a portion," she added softly, her heart aching with every memory.
"The village chief saw you could read, so he went out of his way—always smiling, always bringing gifts—just to pull some strings and get you a job as a scribe at the town school..." Her voice was soft, thick with memories.
The people in that village were honest and close-knit.
Jacob had spent the best and most peaceful days of his life there.
But Rosalind just sneered, "Jacob, everything from your mortal days is just a blemish on your name as Celestial Lord."
"Wasn't it better for me to just burn it all away?" she added, her voice cold and dismissive.
Now that it was all burned down, no one would ever know he'd relied on his wife just to survive in the mortal world.
No one would ever remember how pathetic and helpless he once was.
Too bad for the villagers, though.
So when Alison confronted him, Jacob just answered her with icy indifference.
"They're just mortals—utterly insignificant," he said coldly, his tone dripping with disdain.
"Jacob, you've changed," Alison whispered.
Her tears had long since dried, and now she looked at him, as if he were a complete stranger.
She spoke softly, "Maybe I never really knew you at all."
After that, she stopped fighting back.
No matter how close Jacob and Rosalind became, Alison just turned a blind eye and a deaf ear, as if none of it mattered anymore.
The little village was gone.
She had nowhere left to belong.
Jacob had eyes everywhere in the Celestial Realm. He knew Alison wasn't hiding. She couldn't.
But the village was gone too.
There was no going back for Alison.
Jacob wondered if she was really dead.