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Albtraum reaches his breaking point and has a very important choice to make. He’s spent too long in the world of humanity and can longer live as the daemon child of Lucifurius and the person that he is becoming in Sylva. It’s one or the other. And when Mianna reveals the truth of Lucifurius to him, he must confront what exactly it means to be Lucifurius’ child. 

Chapter 9—Human Trivialities 

Lucifurius is growing tired of the ruse of humanity that he and Albtraum have been maintaining while in Sylva—not only as a matter of his nature but also because Albtraum is slowly developing an identity apart from him and his control over Albtraum is waning. While Albtraum agrees with Lucifurius about human triviality he does so on a much shallower level, his ruse is beginning to become about his nature as a daemon more than it is about his nature as a person. We then meet Jaoquin Harlan, who will become a very important figure in Albtraum’s life, but at the moment he gives Albtraum his first bath. And it is here, at the hands of Jauquin that Albtraum is baptised into humanity, the dirt of his time with Lucifurius washing off of him and giving him a clean slate to move forward with.

After his bath, Albtraum sees his reflection and for the first time he sees it as his reflection rather than a reflection of Lucifurius’ tool. As he cements his identity more, Albtraum makes more choices about the clothes and fabrics he wishes to wear and more and more he acts without Lucifurius’ guidance.  This is also where Albtraum begins to be bothered by people seeing him as a daemon.

As Albtraum goes to take a proper bath, at Jaoquin’s behest because despite his best efforts he can’t quite clean Albtraum of all the filth he carries with him, Lucifurius chides Albtraum for relaxing and for dulling his perception, but as Mianna joins Albtraum in the bathhouse she encourages him to relax and to allow himself peace. And now, having bathed himself and with Mianna—the symbol of salvation—appearing before him, Albtraum has truly been baptised into humanity.

Chapter 10—Choices

We start chapter 10 with Ismaire who still distrusts Albtraum and feels as though Mianna is acting foolishly towards him, but here it’s revealed that at the core of that, it’s because she sees Albtraum as a chance to prove that she has atoned for her past. To prove—mostly to herself—that she has changed and is worthy of the love that her parents and Mianna extend to her. She sees Albtraum as a daemon, the incarnation of evil for her to slay to prove her righteousness and if Albtraum changes then Ismaire loses that ontological evil to overcome. So Albtraum can not change, not if Ismaire is to atone for her past.

Back with Albtraum, after his bath and having received his clothes he prepares for a meal with Mianna, and he sees only his eyes as evidence of his monstrous nature. Lucifurius laments at how many human meals Albtraum has consumed, warning him that if he does not eat as daemon should soon his nature will be lost. 

Brunhart leads Albtraum to Mianna for the meal, where Jaoquin has joined them. The leading figures in Albtraum’s rebirth then offer him a place within The Order, and Albtraum reaches his breaking point. He’s not entirely free of Lucifurius and the last remnants of that influence flare up. He yells at Mianna that humanity has cast aside the blessings of daemon children that Lucifurius has bestowed upon them and that he will not join them. The oldest aspect of Lucifurius’ influence is the last to fall, just as Albtraum’s eyes are one the first things we learn of him.

Mianna has guards restrain Albtraum and tells him that she does not blame him for believing this but he needs to know the truth. A truth she will show him the next day.

Chapter 11—Freedom

Albtraum takes a bit of comfort in being treated like a prisoner again but simultaneously he longs to be free of his prison and in the wild with Lucifurius once again. As Albtraum is taken beyond Sylva’s walls Albtraum, with Lucifurius’ encouragement, looks for an opening to flee. An opening that Mianna and her guards will not give him.

When they arrive at their destination Mianna presents to Albtraum the truth of Lucifurius. The village they have arrived at has a rift connecting the Dark World of Lucifurius to this world. The rift has sucked the life from the village and the villagers who remain there are sickly and struggling. And no longer can Albtraum deny Lucifurius’ parasitic nature. All his strength is stolen and he is not the great bastion that Albtraum has believed him to be.

It’s now Lucifurius’ turn to have an outburst. As Albtraum asks Lucifuruis if what Mianna has revealed to him is the truth he explodes screaming at Albtraum that he has always known this to be the truth and he should not care as he does now. Albtraum resolves to live as his own person and Lucifurius tries to rob him of even that agency by rejecting Albtraum and telling him that he will have to live among the humans he so clearly loves.

Albtraum has freedom now, not of Sylva but of Lucifurius and as he returns to the city he accepts Mianna’s offer to join The Order and crosses the threshold into humanity, with Lucifurius slamming the door behind him.