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  Long after the Lich perished, Mistral was dead.

  The once-white castles lay split and hollow, their towers crumbling into skeletons of stone. Nothing grew. The rivers dried into cracked veins of earth. The air itself smelled like rusted death. In the streets, people fought over handfuls of dirt, hoping it might still contain a memory of moisture.

  No king.

  No heir.

  No hope.

  Only rot.

  And yet—

  in the ruins of the shattered castle, a single woman moved like a stubborn flame refusing to go out.

  Estel.

  Half elf, half human.

  Light brown hair tied in a knot, sunburned shoulders, cracked lips—but eyes that refused to dim.

  Every morning, before dawn’s ghost even touched the horizon, Estel stretched sheets of cloth across broken beams. Mist gathered on them in thin pearls. She wrung every drop she could gather into a bucket, and with that meager water she washed wounds, cleaned fevered foreheads, or simply let a dying child taste coolness again.

  She never complained.

  Never slept enough.

  Never stopped.

  And the heavens noticed.

  One night, when even the moon hid behind smoke, two angels descended upon the ruins of Mistral. They came as silhouettes of gold and white, wings neither feather nor light but something in between—as if sculpted from dawn itself.

  Estel dropped her bucket in shock.

  “Child,” one angel murmured, voice like wind inside cathedral halls, “your compassion has reached the heavens.”

  A vial materialized in his palm—the glass carved with runes older than elven memory. Inside, liquid shimmered like melted stars.

  Holy Water.

  A cure said to exist only in prayers.

  Estel did not even think.

  She took it.

  She ran.

  House to house, ruin to ruin, battlefield to battlefield—she poured a single drop on each dying person’s tongue.

  Curses unknotted.

  Sores closed.

  Eyes regained color.

  Voices returned.

  For the first time in years, Mistral breathed.

  And when the angels saw her joy—when they watched her run barefoot through rubble just to save another stranger—they offered her something no mortal had ever been offered:

  “The Manta’s Blessing.”

  A pact with Heaven.

  Estel accepted.

  Wings of light burned across her back.

  She rose, radiant—

  the first Angel Manta, savior of a fallen land.

  For centuries, Estel served Mistral.

  Under her care, the seeds the angels gifted sprouted into crops that grew even in drought. Wheat with golden stalks. Rice that shimmered faintly. Herbs that cured sickness with a single leaf.

  Regions began seeking food from Mistral again.

  But immortality weighed on her.

  When she walked the city, her people bowed, but none dared approach. On festival nights, she stayed above, watching lanterns float into the sky without her.

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  Until one day—

  she met a man.

  A simple Mistralan.

  He made her laugh.

  He listened.

  He treated her not as a goddess, but as a woman.

  She fell in love.

  They married in secret.

  They had children—beautiful, bright children.

  And Heaven burned.

  The angels descended in fury.

  “You broke the vow,” one thundered.

  “Manta may not marry. Manta may bear no heirs.”

  They stripped her wings.

  The blessing drained from her like sand through fingers.

  Estel weakened—

  then withered—

  and finally died.

  Mistral grieved, but grief was brief.

  For Heaven’s next punishment came swiftly.

  The angel raised his hand.

  The mountain behind Mistral cracked open like an egg.

  A wall of water—

  cold, ancient, roaring—

  fell upon the land.

  Half the population drowned.

  Fields vanished.

  Homes dissolved into broken driftwood.

  When the flood finally receded, Mistral was once again a land of mourning.

  In the central hall of the ruined castle, a lone woman stepped through the wreckage, soaked to the bone, a farmer’s daughter with mud on her face and a sword trembling in her grip.

  Fauna.

  She faced the angel—the one responsible for the flood.

  Her voice cracked, but it held steel.

  “You killed my people,” she said.

  “You killed our land.

  If you seek a reason to destroy us further, here—take it.”

  She thrust her sword straight into the angel’s shoulder.

  Steel sank into divine flesh.

  The hall gasped.

  Time froze.

  The angel did not retaliate.

  Instead, he looked down at the blade protruding from his radiant form.

  Then at Fauna.

  “A mortal who dares wound a being of heaven… fascinates me.”

  He stepped closer—not removing the blade—cupping Fauna’s chin with a cold hand.

  “You fight for your land,” he said quietly.

  “You are worthy.”

  He placed a vial of Holy Water in her palm.

  “With this, heal Mistral. With my blessing, lead it.”

  He touched her forehead.

  Wings of light erupted from her back.

  Fauna became the second Manta, and under her leadership the fields rose again, lush and plentiful. People sang her name. Regions looked to her for food during the volcanic calamity that devastated Brook, Valley, Canarium and even parts of Glory.

  And then—

  They begged her for aid.

  But Fauna refused.

  “My people starved.

  My land drowned.

  My duty is to them first.”

  Her refusal was absolute.

  Heaven’s fury was absolute.

  They descended again.

  They removed the blessing once more.

  Her wings dissolved petal by petal.

  Her heartbeat followed.

  Mistral decayed again—

  water dried, soil died, morale perished.

  Years later, in a starving Mistral where hope was dust, another woman emerged.

  Elysia.

  A cook.

  Nothing more.

  Every morning she boiled rice with nothing but a pinch of salt and remnants of herbs.

  Every evening she served it to the starving.

  Somehow—

  despite the lack of flavor, despite the scarcity—

  her food tasted warm.

  Alive.

  People cried while eating it.

  Their morale rose.

  Children smiled again.

  And the angels noticed.

  One descended, stepping into the hall where Elysia stirred a pot.

  “I smell… something divine,” he said.

  Elysia offered him a bowl.

  The angel raised it, inhaled—

  —and froze.

  Memories flooded him.

  Gentleness.

  Peace.

  A warmth he thought the heavens had lost long ago.

  Tears ran down his face.

  Actual tears.

  “This food…” he whispered.

  “…awakens the soul.”

  He offered her the Manta’s blessing.

  She bowed politely.

  And refused.

  The hall went silent.

  “You refuse Heaven?” the angel roared.

  “Do you reject sanctity?”

  Elysia did not kneel.

  “My people need a cook,” she said.

  “Not a goddess.”

  The angel raised his hand—

  preparing to curse her straight into the underworld—

  when someone leapt between them.

  A young man.

  Swordless.

  Fearless.

  Vergilius Boyy.

  “If someone must be punished,” he said,

  “punish me. Not her.”

  The angel’s wrath cracked the stone beneath his feet.

  Vergilius did not flinch.

  He stepped backward into the shattered cliff behind them—

  and jumped into the abyss, the entrance to the underworld.

  The angel gasped.

  A mortal sacrificing himself…

  for love.

  He dove after Vergilius, caught him before the abyss swallowed him forever. They ascended back onto land, the angel trembling with emotion unknown even to heaven.

  “Very well,” the angel whispered.

  “Let it be him.”

  He placed the wings upon Vergilius.

  The blessing surged through him in blinding light.

  Then he turned to Elysia.

  “You have refused the heavens.

  So let your life be measured.”

  A glowing mark formed on her back—

  a pair of wings with eight petals.

  “For each petal lost,” he decreed,

  “your life shall fade.

  When the last petal vanishes,

  so shall you.”

  Elysia vanished soon after—

  whisked away to another world,

  where she lived quietly…

  and where she met Durante.

  Mistral recovered slowly.

  Vergilius Boyy rose as the third Manta and King of Mistral, ruling with calm wisdom and the memory of the woman whose cooking once made an angel cry.