Melissa

Melissa is the name most often used for the younger sister of Archmage Zen and the soul made into Araxys's anchor. The supplied story explicitly associates Eunah, Abyss, Selena, Melissa, and other lives as different names, roles, and incarnations of the same soul, while still presenting those personae as distinct characters with different memories and choices. Recovered history shows Melissa's voluntary attempt to save humanity, the cost imposed on her by Zen's ritual, and centuries of reincarnation that eventually leave her seeking release from remembered loss. (Chapters 199 and 296–320)

Biography

Role in the Supplied Story

In the recovered ancient past, Melissa is Zen's rapidly improving younger sister, playful enough to handle a strange artifact he intended to make into a necklace for Jihyeon. The object releases Araxys's cold black flames, spreads markings across Melissa, consumes her mana, and attempts to use her as a vessel. Zen and Jihyeon suppress the immediate possession, allowing Melissa to live outwardly normally with the seal still inside her. When catastrophe later threatens humanity, Melissa accepts Zen's vessel ritual because people will otherwise die and she wants to take even a small chance of saving them. Her consent covers that risk, not the later use of her as a weapon to suppress civilization, a distinction Jihyeon treats as Zen's defining betrayal. (Chapters 296–300 and 311–312)

More than a century later, Melissa is born into a mage family without memories; fragments return at sixteen, and by tracing the anchor that connects her to Araxys she finds Zen again. They begin carrying memories through repeated lives while everyone around them dies and is replaced. In one life, as Mary, Melissa becomes an orphan adopted by the Dragunov household, chooses the comparatively ordinary work of a maid despite enormous accumulated potential, and forms a rare attachment to Fyodor Dragunov. Her death in that household's massacre helps drive Fyodor's vengeance, while Zen secretly saves him in her memory. Across subsequent cycles, Melissa avoids most attachments because their expiration has become unbearable, making her feelings for Fyodor an exception rather than a simple recurring romance. (Chapters 313–316 and 318)

After more than five hundred remembered years, Melissa discovers that Zen keeps killing or resetting her whenever her refusal obstructs his plans, and she becomes exhausted by a relationship that repeatedly converts love into control. Araxys offers the possibility of forgetting, Melissa disappears from Zen's cycles, and a later Saintess carries her soul without their shared memories. Chapter 199 identifies the same soul behind Eunah, Abyss, Selena, and Melissa, but the recovered account does not make those identities interchangeable in personality or knowledge. The latest material ends with Zen recognizing a familiar smile across incarnations rather than independently establishing Melissa's final conscious state, so her endpoint remains deliberately unresolved. (Chapters 199 and 316–320)

Appearance and personality

Melissa has no single stable appearance because her body, name, age, and social position reset across reincarnations. The original younger sister is shown as a young mage; Mary is physically ten during one argument despite carrying centuries of memory; and a later Saintess looks almost identical to Melissa while lacking her remembered identity. Those changing embodiments make any fixed hair or eye description misleading within the supplied scope. (Chapters 296–297 and 313–319)

Across remembered lives, Melissa remains energetic, mischievous, affectionate, and more interested in ordinary experiences than Zen's relentless pursuit of greatness. She pranks with the artifact, runs to introduce Fyodor, and chooses work as a maid because it sounds fun. Her willingness to risk herself for humanity grows from compassion and trust, but centuries of death and repetition make her avoid attachment and eventually reject Zen's control. Forgetting is therefore not simple abandonment; it is a boundary sought after accumulated grief and repeated loss of agency. (Chapters 296, 311, and 313–317)

Magic and abilities

Magical talent

The original Melissa learns magic at an unusually rapid pace, comparable enough to Zen's improvement for the narration to remark on it. An early demonstration nearly sends sparks into the walls until Zen disperses them with wind, showing talent without polished control. Later reincarnations preserve intelligence, experience, and adaptability, and Zen believes she could become a renowned mage or scholar if she chose. These judgments establish exceptional potential and accumulated knowledge, but the corpus provides no personal formal rank, stable elemental profile, named combat spell, or later duel that measures her independent power. (Chapters 296 and 313–316)

Araxys anchor and reincarnation

Melissa's anchor is acquired through contact with Araxys's artifact and then formalized through Zen's vessel ritual. At first, black flames spread over her, consume mana from inside, and create pressure as something tries to enter reality through her body. Those flames are explicitly Araxys's signature, not a controlled innate attack belonging to Melissa. After reincarnation, the anchor persists beneath lost memories; memories begin returning in adolescence, and Melissa can follow the connection back toward Zen, whose own higher-order experiments repeatedly expose him to the same thread. (Chapters 296–300 and 311–313)

The resulting reincarnation preserves memory across lives once awareness returns, allowing Melissa to accumulate centuries of experience while her physical age and social identity reset. It does not make each life invulnerable: Melissa dies in the Dragunov massacre, can disappear from Zen's search, and may be born again without conscious knowledge of him. Araxys can offer release or forgetting, while Zen's soul magic can violently end a cycle; the exact division of control among Melissa, Zen, and Araxys remains incomplete. By the latest revelation, shared soul continuity is demonstrated, but persistent personality, complete memory, and post-Araxys survival are not. (Chapters 313–320)

Relationships

• Vanitas Astrea: Melissa's recovered brother is Archmage Zen, whose later cycle culminates in Vanitas. She trusts him enough to accept the vessel ritual and repeatedly finds him across lives, but his determination to control outcomes turns that bond into repeated coercion. Her eventual disappearance forces him to confront the harm hidden inside his idea of protection. (Chapters 296–320)
• Jihyeon: Jihyeon protects Melissa during the first Araxys eruption and loves her as family. Her enduring anger at Zen centers on the difference between Melissa's willing sacrifice to save lives and the weaponized existence produced afterward. (Chapters 296–300 and 311–314)
• Araxys: Araxys first attempts to enter through Melissa, whose compatibility makes her an anchor and vessel. The bond follows her across reincarnations, returns memories, and lets her trace Zen, but also gives Araxys leverage to offer forgetting or release when the cycle becomes unbearable. (Chapters 296–300 and 311–320)
• Fyodor Dragunov: As Mary, Melissa grows up in the Dragunov household and makes Fyodor the rare attachment she wants to preserve across lives. Her death helps set him on his path of revenge, and Zen later saves Fyodor because he remembers how genuinely Melissa loved him. (Chapters 315–318)
• Selena: Chapter 199 identifies Selena among the lives or roles attached to Melissa's soul, while the recovered past describes a Saintess who carries that soul without Melissa's memories. Their connection is therefore continuity of soul, not proof that every action, memory, or allegiance of Selena belongs to the conscious personality called Melissa. (Chapters 199 and 317–320)

Items

• No notable item associated with Melissa meets the scoped item-manifest criteria.