A Villain's Survival Guide

’The feeling disappeared. Somehow, they had vanished. Was it Emerald? Or perhaps her ally?’

He frowned.

’Don’t tell me it’s them. The Crimson Order?’

The pain was gone. Leomaris dropped to the floor, taking care not to disturb the sword still lodged in his chest.

With what he decided was his final act of stubbornness, he turned toward the collapsed upper floor.

’Did Hazel come to save me?’

He turned, and his expression darkened. Raine. She was frozen, rigid, as if something had terrified her. He didn’t know what.

’Did she see a god? Have I become one? Hm... that wouldn’t be so bad. Immortality sounds nice... unless she’s just seeing a ghost.’

’Oh, I get it. It’s the curse.’

He watched, and his heartbeat slowed, and his blood left him. But enough was enough. He had to rest. Just a little.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

But then, he frowned.

’Wait... Is it still alive?’

Einstein was alive. Leomaris watched him rise and charge toward Raine. Only then did Raine stop standing still and act.

She ducked Einstein’s attack and sent him flying with a powerful one of her own. Rather than concentrate on the fight, she spared Leomaris a few words.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

"Don’t you dare die here! Did you forget our contract?! You’re my fiancé!"

Already zoning out, Leomaris felt her words shake him awake. It didn’t last. The blood loss was mounting, the injuries were stacking, and whatever fight he’d had left in him was gone.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

’Easy for you to say... You think I don’t want to survive? What do you think all this fighting is for?’

Like his life was flashing before his eyes, he remembered Ezra. The pain and agony of that past life.

The stage four cancer he could do nothing about, and how often he’d wished for death because of it! To him, death had been a mercy.

Now, in this life, it had come down to the same helplessness all over again​​​​​​​​​​—

’No! It isn’t...

’Not hopeless...

’I can’t die again.

’I can’t give up, can I?’

As though he were nothing but a controlled puppet, he dragged himself to his knees again, coughing out every last bit of blood in his throat.

’I don’t have much left...’

His swollen hand. He watched it breathe, the skin already crawling with blood veins, pale enough to pass for a ghost.

’If I have a minute left, then I should at least try something.’

Thinking was slow work. But he pushed from one desperate point to the next and landed on something. He’d seen situations where people actually stopped their own hearts, just for a while.

’If only I could solve that skill... at least then I could buy some time.’

But the thought had barely landed before his body gave out and his head neared the floor.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The trance, brief as it was, gave him what he needed. Breaking down a skill like a puzzle always came down to the same things — understanding, the mental and psychological side, and body anatomy.

Right now, he was practically dead. Forceful movements weren’t part of the equation.

A faint smile tugged on his lips, hardly visible.

’...Death Trance.’

He allowed death to take him, holding onto nothing but his consciousness. He knew how dangerous this was. The slightest mistake meant dying for real, and if he missed the window to activate his ability, that was death too.

But he did it anyway. He was already dying, failure and inaction led to the same end. He had everything to gain and nothing to lose. And he didn’t intend to die. Not again.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Holding too dear to his life would only lead to its demise. He had to loosen up. Let it be free. But do not let go.

His heartbeat slowed, his senses faded, and the fight between Raine and Einstein grew too distant to reach him.

Slower. Slower. Until even he himself couldn’t register it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

’So—

He tried. The word wouldn’t form. Almost as though his brain was already dead.

He failed.

—

Raine’s POV:

’Is he moving? Why isn’t he moving?’

Fighting someone whose strength far exceeded hers, Raine still couldn’t keep her attention on it. Her Divine Aura blanketed the area. Moments ago, she’d felt Leomaris breathing.

It was faint, but present. Now it was gone.

Gritting her teeth, she ducked a poison attack from the serpent circling Einstein’s body. Her blade cut through the air, directly for his head. He avoided it without hesitation.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Her heart beat hard and fast. She knew little about Einstein, but she knew he was a black mage. Someone she couldn’t defeat alone. And Leomaris... she needed to check on him.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

She charged toward Einstein like a madwoman and grabbed him by the collar. The serpent bit her before she could blink. She didn’t mind.

She tossed him into the upper floor, immediately healed herself with her Divine Aura, and followed after him. Einstein never made it back to his feet, she sent him to the next floor before he could.

She delivered a powerful blow to his throat, and sent him crashing into the ground, and the moment she spotted Lucius and Warner, she hesitated. Just for a moment. Then she asked for their help.

"That’s the Lord. Destroy him!"

Worry etched across his face, Lucius hurried to Raine’s side.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

"Are you okay?"

Raine nodded firmly. "I’m not the one who needs help right now. Leomaris is."

Her crimson eyes darted to Lucius’s blue ones as she took a deep breath.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

With a heavy heart, she added.

"He’s dying, or perhaps dead."

Lucius’s eyes widened in shock, but it soon turned to something positive.

"Go check on him. We’ll handle the ones here."

Raine gave a firm nod and made her way back to Leomaris.

Her heart beat differently as she stared at Leomaris, as she felt something she wasn’t familiar with.

He was on his knees, the blade still through his chest, violently twisted. Head against the ground, golden eyes fixed on the floor, all the blood in him seemed clotted.

She approached and crouched beside him, reaching for his pulse. His body was cold and stiff, and her throat felt heavy the moment she registered it. Everything about him said he was gone.

Her brow furrowed under her fingers as she massaged it. She was shivering. Chest aching, breathing heavily and slowly.

And somewhere inside her, quiet and unbidden, was a wish. A wish to hug the corpse and cry out loud.

She knew Emerald had planned to kill Leomaris today, but it hadn’t been Emerald. She’d already seen Emerald’s severed head.

Dressed in a military uniform. This person was a Calamity. A person Leomaris was very familiar with.

—

At Helios Imperial Academy’s campus, the infirmary overflowed with injured cadets struggling through treatment while those crushed by exhaustion slept wherever they could find space. In the morgue, the dead rested in cold silence, more than a dozen bodies laid side by side, waiting for the burials they would never witness.

Across the academy, countless pinboards had been covered with the names of the fallen, written carefully in dark ink as if neat handwriting could soften the weight of death. Cadets gathered around them in silence, some staring, some refusing to look for too long.

And at the very top of every list was the same name.

Calamity Leomaris Runerth.

The name lingered on trembling lips and spread through the halls in hushed voices, carrying disbelief, fear, confusion and something heavier no one could quite bear to say aloud.

Even the wind that passed through the campus seemed quieter now, as though the academy itself had yet to accept that the boy who once shook wielded the Mercy of Death had finally fallen still.