Velvet opened her eyes for the third time that evening. She stared at the ceiling for one second, then two, then three…

It was slightly different. Way more to the left that she was before. Did someone move her?

“Hyde…” Velvet hummed through a smile of gritted teeth. He was probably the culprit, since, if it had been anyone else, he would’ve woken her up. And, if that wasn’t enough proof, the remnants of spiderwebs clinging onto her clothes were.

Strong enough to drag a human across the ground… How fast did her little, fragile, smart spider grow?

Her call didn’t go unanswered, as skittering noises approached her. “Awake and rested? Good, come here.”

Pushing herself up, Velvet dusted off her clothes. “Rested is a stretch, I didn’t even get-” She closed her mouth shut, the sight of what Hyde had been doing stopping her sentence.

She stared in silence, raising one hand to her chin in a pondering motion. “How did you… wait.” Moving her hands through her pockets and the containers shaping her bracelet, she checked their contents, or lack thereof.

Frenese’s book, gone. The Devil? Also gone.

Her mind raced as she checked the remaining containers and her surroundings, her heartbeat jumping. Asides from Frenese, the container with the dead, mostly dissected mermaid wasn't in her person, with nothing else lacking.

She then checked the symbol ingrained around her Esca, the one representing Frenese’s Deal.

It was still there, and, through reaching inside it with her Esca, she could feel Frenese’s presence and their bond.

That means Frenese got unsealed as a side effect of Andras Apolyon’s summon, and yet, just like he said, the pact wasn’t broken by Him.

Even so, that doesn't mean he will cooperate for no reason.

That last thought was because, right in the middle of the temple, at the same location she was previously, was a pool made of stomach flesh and guts. A very familiar type of flesh and guts.

A pool of guts which ran across the ground and emerged out of the temple through the door, the slithering organs losing themselves in the distance, pumping slowly every few seconds, filling the pool with red, dirty water, until it spilled from its edges, painting the floor a watery red.

Under the pool, remnants of a formation made with Hyde’s golden thread linked the artifact still nailed to the ground that syphoned Dianthus’ magic to the pool, or, more explicitly, to the thing inside.

Because, floating inside the flesh pool, was a living, breathing mermaid.

“How long was I asleep?” Well, first things first, she needed to unpack the details, not that there were many, since what had happened while she napped was pretty damn obvious.

“Twelve minutes.”

“Such a hard, fast worker. Are you sure you are a spider, not an ant?”

“Spiders are hard working too.”

“Twelve minutes Hyde, how did you even convince Frenese to help?” He couldn’t trade Velvet’s petitions without her permission, which meant that he traded something else.

“I gave him the location of quite a few hidden delicacies.” A voice, not belonging to the demon spider, wormed itself into her mind as she squinted in Hyde’s direction.

“You shut up until the questions are for you. And I have several.” She said, approaching the pool while glimpsing at the spiderweb formation, memorizing it. It was different from all the formations she had seen previously, using more straight lines than curves.

So it breaks down Dianthus magic before using it? Remembering the paper piece she tossed at his leaking magic previously, which didn’t stop growing leaves until she “killed” it once again, she suspected it was to prevent the mermaid from doing exactly that.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

Yet this formation isn’t any like I’ve seen Hyde using before, so its origins are probably from the voice of corruption… Hyde, sure you should be listening to it? Even when thinking that, Velvet was sure that if it had been her, she would’ve also tried to do the formation to revive the mermaid.

Both of them were from the knowledge Paradigm, no chance for them to ignore an opportunity like that.

Grabbing the mermaid’s wrist, Velvet checked her pulse, before moving her hands to her face, tilting the mermaid’s face to the left and then right, before putting her fingers under her chin and raising her face, looking into her eyes. “She has no reaction… can’t the soul be healed? Or is it because the link between soul and body broke, and that’s what can’t be fixed?”

“I’d assume it’s the link, since in principle Dianthus can heal from soul attacks.” Hyde answered, having asked himself the same thing before.

The mermaid did breathe, and, when Velvet touched the fins on her ears, those flinched away. “She’s alive, but only because of muscle memory.” So a completely comatose revival. Velvet couldn’t be feeding the mermaid in that state, so, unless there was a way to fix the missing soul, the mermaid’s end would be to be dispatched for ingredients once again.

It wasn’t that she lacked access to souls, since they were abundant in the Death Realm, but from that to capture, modify and insert one into a body… she lacked both the knowledge and the skills.

Maybe with Frenese’s help? The Devil surely knew some tricks, right?

“Dianthus can use soul magic.” Once again, the Corruption of Fate interrupted her thoughts.

“I am going to free him, it’s part of my plans, stop insisting. In fact, I would be on my way to him right now if you two hadn’t been messing with my mermaid.”

“That’s a lie. If we hadn’t advanced with this, the first thing you would’ve done upon waking up would be experimenting with trying to revive the mermaid. We simply worked so you wouldn’t.”

… It got her.

Velvet clicked her tongue, not denying the undeniable accusations. “Fine. But that’s not all.” Since she didn’t have someone to look at when speaking, she strolled around the pool, after lowering the mermaid back into the water. “You were the one preventing me from hearing the Chained Man’s true name, right? Why?”

“That name no longer belongs to him alone, you can even think of it as wired.”

“Wired?”

“Like infected, parasitized by someone else.” The voice explained. “To gods, Deriliams, and several other beings, names carry a connection, you know that.”

“I do, yes.” Like Lothrigern, just saying His name once was enough for Him to locate her.

“That isn’t really a problem, since most of them can’t appear at your position, their powers and sizes too immense to cross the Material Realm, or any Realm without breaking space and reality while doing so, aftermath of which you’re about to see.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“That grasshopper is more delicate than… than…” The voice fell silent for several seconds, and Velvet sweared hearing an annoyed groan. “Give me a name for the other one.”

“... The Devil’s Father?”

“Not offensive enough.”

“He almost killed me, I’d rather not. Also, instead of a grasshopper, Lothrigern looks more like a mantis.”

“He hops and it’s green enough. Anyway, Devil’s papa made a mess across all the Realms between him and him.” It made emphasis on the second him, clarifying that it referred to the Chained Man. “Just to reach the dreamy prison. And then left without fixing anything.”

“He can afford to do so, no one dares to send any complaint after all. But, usually, most beings with a linking name won’t bother crossing Realms. If you know their names, they will know about you, they will know your exact position, and they will get access to your body at best, your mind at worst, yet they won't make the effort to chase or punish you. Usually.”

“Lothrigern is an exception then.”

“A big one, he knows how to have his avatars cross Realms and dimensions without making a single ripple, and abuses the hell out of that privilege. A transdimensional plague, that’s what he is.”

Ignoring the insults directed to the Deriliam that could appear next to her in this exact moment, Velvet continued the conversation. “But He isn’t the only one, I assume?”

“Indeed. You should be grateful I stopped that name from reaching your mind, because soon, our annoying Father of Devils it's going to snitch on that bastard, and he is going to come hunt down everyone that knows his name.”

“And if that grasshopper is an insect plague, then that mutt is a one-eyed, rotten curse.”