Grey's gaze shifted, slow and deliberate, to Dante.
His voice, when it came, was glacial.
"This is how you repay me? You sleep with my wife, under my roof?"
Gasps echoed like shattered glass. Goblets trembled in hand. Cutlery stopped mid-air. Servants stilled mid-step.
Nike kept her head bowed, lips trembling. Her silence was louder than any denial.
Caesar's heart dropped through his ribs. His breath caught, shallow, sharp. He looked at his mother. Her expression and silence were confession enough. His eyes widened. The floor seemed to vanish beneath his feet.
Dante exhaled, like he'd been holding his breath for years. "So...you found out." His tone was oddly calm. "Your wife came to me. She was lonely. And you? You married your sword before you ever married your women. Just like our father."
Nike's eyes widened, not in guilt, but betrayal. As if he'd twisted the tale.
And me? I took a sip of my tea, today, it tasted sweeter than usual.
"He's right, you know, Nike," I thought. Neither of you knew the truth of that first letter. You both thought the other sent it. Funny how ruin is often seeded by misunderstanding.
Grey leaned forward slightly, eyes never leaving Dante. "Shall we clash swords for old times' sake?" he said quietly. "Winner takes it all."
Dante's eyes sharpened. "So it's a duel, then?"
Grey raised his goblet and drank.
"I prefer to call it a sentence."
Dante chuckled, rising from the table.
"So I'm just reclaiming what's mine."
He tossed his napkin onto the plate like a flag of war and met Grey's gaze.
"You sure you're up for this? You've grown soft, playing politician. Too many councils. Too many treaties."
Grey didn't dignify it with a response. He rose and walked away.
"The courtyard. Half an hour."
The other wives stared at Nike with quiet disgust. My siblings, too. She looked smaller than I had ever seen her. No one said it. But their eyes did.
Caesar stood, trembling. His mother called after him, her voice cracked with guilt, but he didn't look back.
Her words meant nothing now.
"Did I go too far?" I wondered, taking another sip of tea.
"Nah...She tried to kill me. And the other would've brought ruin to this House. That makes me the hero. Right?"
Half an hour passed. At the courtyard behind the Wolfhard estate, the household had gathered, wives, children, knights even the lowest servants. All were silent, waiting.
Nike stood among them, trembling. Her heart caught between two men. One, her husband. The other, her mistake. And one wouldn't walk away.
Reginald stepped forward, standing between the two brothers.
"Bear witness, all gathered at this courtyard. Today, House Wolfhard may see a new Patriarch. This is no spar. This is a duel for everything. Winner takes all. Loser meets death."
Grey and Dante stepped forward.
Dante drew first. A greatsword from his back, the same blade that had split armies in war. His aura radiated like heat on scorched stone.
Grey's blade slid free from it's sheath.
The instant it left the sheath, his aura erupted, air bent inward, gravity distorting.
Dante charged.
Grey didn't move, not until Dante was an inch away.
Their blades ignited with dragon-like auras, coiling and writhing as they clashed.
—BOOM.
The impact shattered the left wing of the palace. Columns fell like matchsticks. Statues split. Windows exploded.
They clashed, again and again, too fast to follow. their strikes a blur. Sparks erupted as their blades met, and shockwaves rippled with every step. Only the aftermath was visible.
Rooftops cratered.
The earth cracked.
Trees were torn from their roots.
The skies began to fracture.
Then, they froze. Locked in a stare heavier than steel.
Two brothers. Two swords.
The world held its breath.
"How long, Dante?" Grey growled. "How long have you been crawling into her bed?"
Dante's face twisted, not in defiance, but in grief.
"I don't know what to say. I wish I did. Somewhere along the way…it stopped being betrayal. It became love."
Grey closed his eyes, then opened them again, darker.
"I trusted you. Even when father cast you out, I stood by you."
Dante looked at Grey with sadness, his grip tightening on the hilt.
"You think I killed her? I didn't. I loved our sister, more than either of you ever did. While you worshipped your blade, and Iskira chased suitors and status, she…she was the only one among us who never cared for the title of Patriarch.
She gave love, freely, where none was given to her.
Liora was the youngest, yet she carried herself like our mother, because she believed she killed the real one.
She never knew a mother's love. Mother died giving birth to her. And still, Liora spent her life trying to give us the love she thought she'd stolen, the love she believed belonged to us, not her.
The nobles called her cursed. They blamed her for Mother's death. And yet...she loved us. All of us. Fiercely. Unconditionally. She gave everything she had, even what was never given to her."
Grey's lips parted, but no words came. He had never wanted any of his children to suffer the way Liora had. That was why he'd taken many wives, not for power, not for status, but to ensure that if one mother were lost, the others would still be there to care for the children. But life, he'd learned, was never that simple.
They looked at each other.
"Shall we finish this?" Dante asked, quietly.
Grey nodded.
They sprinted toward each one for the last time.
A memory flashed in both their minds, Liora laughing, younger, full of light. The past bled into the present.
They saw themselves as children, sparring. Liora stepped between them, her voice stern yet warm, scolding them to make peace.
That instantly extinguished the killing intent in both of them.
They continued only to bring this to an end.
They moved as one, a blur. Blades clashed. Space trembled. The sky threatened to crack.
Grey lunged.
Dante twisted mid-air, spinning into a brutal kick that shattered Grey's ribs and launched him backward.
Then—
SHINK.
As soon as Dante's leg collided with Grey's ribcage—
SHINK.
Before the pain could register, his arm was already gone.
The moment Grey's back hit the pillar, his blade had already sung.
What had happened was, Dante's strike left him open, just long enough. In that blink, steel flashed. Grey's sword severed Dante's arm clean at the shoulder.
Then came Dante's kick.
But Grey's counter had already connected, sending Dante's dismembered arm spiraling through, blood splashing like spilled wine.
Grey rose slowly, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. He spat it out, light blazing in his eyes.
Dante gasped, finally realizing what had happened.
Then the pain arrived.
He screamed.
They both staggered. Bloodied. Breathing hard.
Grey raised his sword for one final strike.
Despite the searing pain from his severed arm, Dante lifted his remaining one, mirroring the motion.
Their eyes blazed with raw aura.
This blow would decide everything.
They struck, perfectly in sync and the sky itself tore apart.
Dust surged. Winds howled. The palace crumbled further.
When the dust and wind finally settled, one figure stood alone.
Grey.
His chest heaved. Clothes torn. One eye bleeding.
Dante lay shattered, unmoving, his blood a quiet full stop to the battle.
Grey approached him.
"Any last words, dear brother?"
Dante coughed blood, laughing.
"I always hated you...Father's favorite."
Another cough.
"Tell me...Am I still a Wolfhard? Or just a knight who gave everything for a House that forgot him?"
Grey knelt beside him.
"You'll always be a Wolfhard."
Dante smiled faintly.
"Then…one last favor. Not as a rival. As your older brother. Bury me beside her...beside our sister, Liora van Wolfhard. And leave Nike be…it was all my fault."
Grey nodded.
"That's not a favor. That's two."
Dante smirked weakly.
"I was never good at counting…"
Grey bowed to his fallen brother, who stood at the edge of life and death.
"Goodbye, Dante van Wolfhard," he whispered, not to a rival, not to a traitor, but to his brother.
One of the few who still remembered the boy he once was.
Dante breathed his last.
His eyes grew cold.
Silence fell.
And Dante...was gone.
Grey swept his palm gently over Dante's face, closing his sightless eyes. A breath caught in his throat, a final farewell to his brother.
The moment Dante had drew his final breath, Grey's sword flared, not blue, but crimson.
From Grandmaster...to Mythic.
A realm just beneath the Founder himself, Arthur Romaeus van Wolfhard I.
The blood on his blade matched the glow of his aura. Crimson. The same color as Dante's, still warm on the steel.
Grey had ascended.
He rose beyond the rank where one could cleave mountains, stepping into the mythic tier. Not through training. Not through glory.
But through fratricide.
By slaying his own brother.
He stood still for a heartbeat longer.
Then, without a word, he flicked the blood from his blade—
and sheathed it.
A single tear fell from his right eye.
"Am I crying?" he whispered.
Rain began to fall.
"Oh...it's just the rain."
Dante wasn't just a traitor.
He was family.
Father—gone.
Mother—long buried.
Liora—stolen by cruel fate.
Now, Dante too.
Only Iskira and Grey remained.
Everyone watched in silence.
They had just witnessed a family member die.
They had just witnessed the birth of a new Mythic.
Grey's gaze shifted to Nike.
She was trembling, terrified.
"NIKE!" he roared.
She flinched, tears streaming down her face.
"The only reason you're still breathing…is because you're the mother of my son."
In the web novel, he had killed both Nike and her lover—
which meant that, in this timeline, Grey had grown softer for some reason.
As the time to bury Dante drew near, Grey sent a letter to his remaining sibling, Iskira van Wolfhard, inviting her to attend the funeral. But she neither replied nor appeared, after all, she despised Dante, believing he was responsible for the death of their sister, Liora.
No one knew about Dante's attempt to overthrow House Wolfhard. The Wolfsbane had been cut at the root before its poison could spread. Dante did not die a traitor, but a man disgraced, marked by infidelity with his brother's wife. Unlike in the web novel, he died not as a knight, but as a Wolfhard.
In the aftermath of the battle, the estate's halls lay in ruins. Repairs took months, yet gold was never scarce for the Wolfhards.
Grey kept his promise. We stood together in the Graveyard of Swords, where every Wolfhard was laid to rest. Each blade, once wielded in battle, now served as a tombstone. Dante's greatsword had joined them, its hilt rising proudly beside their sister Liora's.
But Grey wasn't just burying a brother.
He was burying his past.
One of his last blood ties. One of the final tethers to the family that once stood proud in this estate.
Now, only the living legacy remained, his wives, his children, and his last sibling, Iskira, along with her child.
The rest were swords in the dirt.
Grey and I lingered after the others had gone, standing silently before Dante and Liora's blades.
"I hold nothing against you, Dante," I whispered. "This was for the people I've learned to love."
"As for your grimoire, I'll keep it hidden. No one will know the darkness that nearly consumed you. As the uncle of this body of mine, that is the last promise and favor I can grant you."
Goodbye.
Funny. In the web novel, I made him a villain.
But in this world…he was just a broken man trying to love.
Grey turned to me.
"Let's go back, Arthur."
I nodded and followed.
And in my heart, a single scripture rose to the surface:
Genesis 4:9:
And he said, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?
The answer, I think, is yes.
Even when it hurts.