Luvel’s Attack on Theo is the assassination attempt that brings the hidden danger around Theo’s bond with Luc directly into Theo’s woodland refuge. What begins as a nearly invisible strike against an isolated healer becomes a revelation of Luvel’s allegiance, a test of Theo and Malthios’s shared control, and the moment when Malthios personally reasserts the overwhelming power of the former Demon King.

Causes and Background

Theo is gathering moss from a tree with a new harvesting knife when he senses a cold, prickling warning at the back of his neck. Malthios immediately commands him to move, but Theo can shift only slightly before a weapon pierces his shoulder just above his heart. The wound is serious enough to draw blood, yet Theo’s green healing magic rises at once and begins closing it. The attack therefore establishes both the precision of the assassin and the unusual resilience provided by Theo’s healing ability and Malthios’s warning.

The attacker has not approached openly. The surrounding trees and rocks appear empty until the air shimmers ten feet away and a tall figure materializes. Theo recognizes the intruder as a demon from their appearance: ivory-white horns curl around the ears, pale feathers resemble dead flesh, long blond hair frames a narrow face, and a skeletal body is concealed beneath black clothing. Blue light burns in the slitted pupils of their black eyes. Malthios identifies the demon as Luvel, once his best assassin and the Lord of the Invisible Blades.

Luvel’s presence implies that Malthios’s concealment inside Theo has become vulnerable to the wider demon world. Theo had believed that demons would have found them earlier if Malthios had somehow been tracked, but Luvel reveals that the attack is not random. Luvel has been gathering information for Lord Tyraz, and the assassin escaped an attack by the Hero’s party carrying something that could lead directly to Theo.

The Pendant and the Threat to Theo

Luvel displays the fluorite pendant hanging from a chain. Theo had given it to Luc when Luc departed, choosing a stone that matched Theo’s eyes. In Luvel’s possession, the intimate token becomes a tracking device and a weapon of psychological intimidation. Luvel explains that a tracking spell led from the pendant straight to Theo, turning Luc’s keepsake into the physical link by which the enemy found him.

The pendant also allows Luvel to infer Theo and Luc’s relationship. Luvel remarks that the Hero is not known to have a lover and concludes that only a lover would give him such a token to remember its giver. The assassin threatens not merely to kill Theo but to leave his body strung up for Luc to discover. This transforms the attack from a private assassination into a deliberate attempt to injure Luc through Theo and to expose the danger created by their attachment.

Theo’s response marks the scene’s first reversal. Fear and anger seize him when Luvel demonstrates knowledge of Luc, but the threat also clarifies what Theo is protecting. Instead of remaining the wounded target, Theo allows his control over the shared body to slip. His smile and defiant reply signal that Luvel has mistaken Theo’s vulnerability for helplessness and has failed to understand what is contained within him.

Malthios Takes Control

When Malthios takes over, his mana floods Theo’s body. Horns and wings grow, a black sword appears in their hand, and blue flames lick across their limbs. Luvel’s shock and fear reveal that the assassin recognizes the transformation as the return of Malthios’s power. The encounter is no longer an attack on a solitary healer; it is a confrontation with the Demon King inhabiting Theo, temporarily acting through Theo’s body.

Malthios greets Luvel as an old subordinate and recalls that Luvel had crawled back to Tyraz despite the two demons never having got along. Luvel rejects the claim that the figure before them is truly Malthios, arguing that a genuine Demon King would not be weak, controlled by a mere mortal, or turned away from the destiny to which he had been crowned. Luvel further threatens to kill Malthios and carry his head to Tyraz, believing that such a victory would force Tyraz to bow.

The fight immediately disproves Luvel’s assessment. Luvel gathers mana and sends half a dozen invisible blades slicing through the air, but Malthios deflects every one with an effortless sweep of the black sword. The blades cut into the earth and the branches overhead rather than Theo’s flesh. Malthios identifies Luvel’s dependence on concealment and distance as a weakness, recalling that the assassin had always run and hidden instead of meeting him in direct combat.

Malthios then launches himself with his wings. The sword and mana strike with enough force to leave a crater and cleave several trees in two, although Luvel dodges and loses part of a wing to the edge of the attack. The landscape records the difference between Luvel’s method and Malthios’s: invisible weapons rely on surprise, while Malthios answers them with visible, overwhelming force.

Luvel’s Death and Immediate Consequences

Luvel continues to condemn Malthios for allowing a mortal to control him and for hiding behind the mask of Theo’s lover. Malthios refuses to treat the accusation as a present concern, answering that tomorrow’s problem can wait because Luvel is the problem of today. He also judges Luvel’s weakness as evidence that demons generally have become too careless to withstand the Hero and the Hero’s party.

The final exchange turns the attack into an execution. Malthios dives toward Luvel as the assassin hurls another barrage of unseen blades. One blade cuts across their cheek, but the magic surrounding them deflects the rest. Blue flames engulf Luvel, whose scream is quickly cut short when Malthios severs their head from their body. Both body and head dissolve into shadows before falling to the earth, eliminating the assassin and preventing any ordinary recovery from the wound.

The fluorite pendant survives the destruction. Malthios finds it glittering in the grass after the battle and picks it up, mocking Luc’s involvement by remarking that he had warned Theo that the boy was trouble. When Theo resumes control, he rejects the implication that Luc is to blame. The pendant consequently returns to Theo not as the tool that enabled Luvel’s victory, but as the recovered evidence of Luc’s connection and the object through which that connection nearly cost Theo his life.

Narrative Significance

The event combines pursuit, discovery, and rivalry. Luvel’s tracking spell discovers Theo through an intimate object, while the attack forces the concealed truth of Theo’s shared body into the open before an enemy who knew Malthios from his former reign. The assassin’s attempt to exploit Theo’s love for Luc instead gives Malthios the occasion to defend Theo and demonstrate that his power has not disappeared simply because his existence is now bound to a mortal host.

The scene also stages a conflict over control. Luvel describes Malthios as a Demon King controlled by a mere mortal, but the battle shows a more complicated arrangement: Theo can permit Malthios to take command, and Malthios can act with devastating force, yet Theo remains able to reclaim control afterward. Their shared body is therefore neither simple possession nor simple domination. It is the condition through which Theo survives the attack and Malthios defeats a former agent of the demonic order.

The pendant supplies the event’s central irony. A gift associated with Luc’s departure, memory, and affection becomes the means by which Luvel locates Theo and threatens to turn Theo’s death into a message for Luc. Yet the same pendant is recovered after Luvel’s defeat. Its meaning shifts from vulnerability to continuity: the relationship it exposes creates danger, but it also helps define what Theo and Malthios choose to protect. Luvel’s death closes the immediate assassination attempt while leaving the broader danger of Tyraz, the demons, and the Hero’s response unresolved.