Tap. Tap. Tap.
The Demon Emperor was frowning at the ground as he leaned his chin on a hand, deep in thought. Lucille remained silent and waited patiently for him to say something as he tapped his fingers against the armrest of the couch. He looked up and gave her a dismissive wave.
“Put that away,” he ordered, returning to look at the floor.
She nodded, using her will to interact with the shared Title screen in front of them.
[Lucille Goldcroft’s Titles:
Activated: Regressor – Unique, Overachiever – Unique, Beginner Ascendant – Common
Inactivated: ]
[Do you want to close this screen? Yes/No]
Selecting [Yes], she waited for him to say something as the screen disappeared. The fact he hadn’t killed her yet was… good, but at the same, the tense silence was really irritating. And she was pretty sure he was doing it on purpose, for the same reason he had turned up in a dressing gown, called her a little girl when he should easily be able to see she wasn’t young and had also been straightforward with his questions. He was testing her, trying to see what her reactions would be. Or maybe he was just being lazy and didn’t bother to get changed, but considering individuals with high mana density could materialise their clothes with only a thought, that was unlikely.
He returned his blood-red gaze to her. “And why would I need to care about this?” he asked.
“Because of his class’s first primary skill,” she replied, her face still expressionless. “One of its subskills is capable of bending the situations around him to always be in his favour. It’s called Deus Ex Machina.” She lowered her gaze to the floor. “If I tried to kill him, he’d always survive, stronger than before. Those around him would also benefit. He also has extremely high Fate, so he’s lucky too. And his class itself gives him strength much higher than anyone else.”
“I sense no lies, so you believe what you are saying,” he stated, watching her intently. “Class name?”
“Hero of Light,” she said.
The Demon Emperor paused, his hand falling from his chin as he stared at her. “Hero?” he repeated.
She shifted in her seat. “+50% bonus damage to undead, demonic, and dark-affinity users. It increased by another 50% each time he ranked up. He also has immunity to demonic mental debuffs.”
He gazed wordlessly at her for a while, making her feel a bit nervous. She moved the hair itching the back of her neck. She knew why he was staring at her, as ‘Hero’ was an extremely specific term with a deep correlation to the Demon Emperor’s own class, but it was still nerve-wracking.
He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. “You said you want to involve yourself with this cycle’s disorder,” he stated.
Lucille nodded. “To my understanding, it is the responsibility of the Demon Emperor to introduce chaos within the realms to ensure progress does not stagnate. Especially when it comes to the reveal of the next realm.” She prevented her body from stiffening when his eyes narrowed, and continued, “The Hero won the Demon King vs. Hero Battle. I am aware the Mystical Realm needed to win, and it was arranged so that the highest-ranking hero would win. But the Hero’s existence ended up negating most of the disorder because his Deus Ex Machina skill meant any force or Faction he supported, would gain benefits in turn.”
She stopped her thoughts on that matter from showing on her face. “He supported the Empire and the Citadel. And that meant his delusional decisions ended up ruining my home world when he tried to ‘help’ it. The Supreme Institutions were too stable and unified, walking right over my world and turning it into an inhospitable wasteland.” Her gaze didn’t waver as she looked straight at the Demon Emperor. “I want to make the chaos bigger this time,” she said, pushing forward the violet pocket watch on the table between them.
He tilted his head slightly. “And yet, this does not explain how you know of the cycle, or why you seem to know more about me than you should,” he replied icily.
She blinked. “I am an adept System Scholar. Finding out about the existence of the cycle was easy enough. As for the latter…” She hesitated. “I use soul power and spiritual energy, so I have a good memory. Once I tried to find and memorise the 666,666 characters of Demonic Script, which was when I found out that even if a demon grows stronger, or their bloodline changes, the first several hundred characters of their ‘True Name’ are always the same.”
She paused, making sure he wasn’t angry or looking like he was about to kill her, then continued, “On the Demon King vs. Hero battlefield, you cast a demonic spell that used your True Name. I recognised that it matched up with the recorded True Name of an ancient Primordial Demon from just when the Demon Realm assimilated into the Tower. I became suspicious, and found that the same True Name was recorded for almost all the Primordial Demons before you as well.”
“The True Names of the Primordial Demon are hidden within the deepest confines of the Daemonium Palace’s Crypt,” he replied, narrowing his eyes. “It’s forbidden for all.”
“……I snuck in,” she said awkwardly.
One of his eyebrows twitched. “You snuck in,” he stated flatly.
“The rules said you would be killed if you were caught being in there, not-” She coughed as she realised she shouldn’t be saying this to the Demon Emperor, the one responsible for the rules in the first place. As he stared at her with ruby-red eyes, she hastily moved on. “This was during the time when there was no Demon Emperor, as you had ‘died’ or gone dormant or whatever it is you do before you reappear as the ‘new’ Demon Emperor. I wasn’t found.”
There was a tense moment where she didn’t know how he would react, but it seemed he wouldn’t press, the edges of his lips barely curled in a faint smirk as he gazed at her. “Why do you want to ruin this man?”
Lucille’s expression instantly turned cold. “I get to see him at his lowest, of course. I want to see him helpless, isolated, and distraught as every one of his egotistical, ignorant plans fail to the many ‘coincidences’ that I’ll engineer around him until he finally realises he can never have what he’s always wanted.”
“It’s personal then,” the Demon Emperor replied, giving her a calculating look. He turned his head to gaze at something in the distance with furrowed eyebrows, contemplative. After a while, he sighed and snapped his fingers. With a flutter of noise, a blank sheet of paper dropped onto the table between them, while a black pen appeared in one of his hands. He leaned forward and pointed at the sheet.
“I will inform you of any major plans, and request your aid if required. Satisfactory?” he asked, looking up at her.
She nodded, and so he raised the pen. “We will meet in person every 6 months until the Demon King vs. Hero Battle, and then once after. The Aurelian Commission will not be oppressed by the four Demon Duchies if it expands into the Demon Realm.”
He stabbed the pen into his palm with an unnaturally swift movement and dragged it, cutting open a deep wound. Fresh blood welled from within as he held his hand above the paper and then clenched it, turning his fist so a long stream of blood flowed down to soak into the sheet.
“In the name of Vitis Exolvuntur Imperatoris-Daemonium, the Primordial Demon and Demon Emperor of the Demon Realm, I make a pact to uphold the provisos and boons agreed upon by the contractor and myself through the essence of my primordial blood. May the oathbreaker’s gage be forfeit shall they test the promises set by this vow,” he announced with authority, the air around them vibrating with his words as his blood shone with black light.
The blood that was on the page seemingly disappeared at once, turning the sheet back to white. He opened his palm, the flow stopping as his wound resealed. He gestured to the seemingly blank page.
“25% of your soul until after the Millennium Chapter,” he stated.
She hesitated. “I think blood would be better in my case….”
He tilted his head questioningly. Blood was the harsher form of collateral because it could potentially kill you if you broke the contract while losing 25% of your soul wouldn’t. She pointed to her head. “I have 7,000 SPRT right now,” she said by way of explanation. “I’m not certain the paper can hold 25% of my soul.”
The Demon Emperor eyed her for a moment, and then threw her the pen with an inhumanely precise, strangely fluid movement, which she caught. She peeled off a glove, and without hesitation, she stabbed the pen into her own palm, sliced across, and also dripped her flowing blood onto the sheet of paper.
“Lucille Adrienne Goldcroft accepts the boons and provisos decided upon through this pact. I offer my life force as a gage for a blood pact,” she stated, her blood sinking into the white sheet of paper. The sheet of paper slowly darkened with the sound of sizzling ashes, becoming as black as charcoal. A light stream of smoke began to trail from one of its corners.
When she was done, the pen teleported from her hand into the Demon Emperor’s, and he touched the tip of it to the page, causing dark red text of the glowing, ominous Demonic Script to bloom and spool from the tip of the pen, unfurling to arrange itself into a spiral structure on the black sheet. She blinked as a searing sensation emerged from her injured palm, and she looked down to see a single black character glowing with dull red embers seemingly burnt into her flesh. She looked up to see the Demon Emperor had a matching symbol on his own palm.
[Gained Secondary Skill: Mark of the Primordial Demon]
I should probably check that before I leave the Obelisk.
“Until three months from now, you will hear nothing from me,” he stated, leaning back on the couch. He crossed one leg over the other and gazed at her. "Is there anything else?”
Lucy shook her head, so he gestured to the door of the room. “Then leave,” he said with finality, not looking at her anymore.
She stood up, picked up her pocket watch from the table, gave a short bow, and made for the exit, leaving the room. She was eager to get out. For some reason, Lilith wasn’t outside, but she remembered the path and quickly walked towards the direction of the throne room.
When she was some distance away from the room, she slowed her pace, less anxious to get away before anything could go wrong. She idly ran a hand along Apophis’s short pommel.
So, immunity to the forces of chaos and order doesn’t apply to anything that is just pure soul power, with no mental afflictions. I’ve…. very rarely had to deal with such overpowering soul pressure from a soul larger than mine.
She shuddered slightly as she wrapped her arms around herself for a moment, slightly speeding up her pace.
And it was demonic power, too. I think I have minor soul damage from the conflict. If he had imbued even the slightest bit of mana into his aura, he would’ve lacerated all the skin from my flesh due to the abrasiveness. Without my current soul power, my soul would’ve been torn to shreds. But the fact the contract worked proves my ‘pseudo-invulnerability’ doesn’t defend against soul abilities.
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She looked down at the mark on her left palm, appearing like someone had seared it into her flesh with an iron rod. Wondering if she could hide it, it suddenly sunk into her pale flesh, with no sign of injury besides the silvery scar tissue from the cut. She pulled on her black glove.
Now, she had completed the most important step of her first phase of plans. Namely, negotiate a deal with the Demon Emperor so she doesn’t get killed by unknowingly and unintentionally messing with his plans. The high-level element of Disorder was one of the few things not even Fate essence could prevent, and she would rather have it pointed far, far away from her.
It was the last week of September. On October 1st, Adrianna would enter the White Squall Fortress at the Distorted Depths Region to complete the elite navy cadet course. There she would meet the Hero. Lucy turned a corner and entered the throne room.
In the past, because of her outstanding performance in battlefield manipulation, Lucille as Adrianna had been assigned to be the Squad Leader of a cohort of young individuals all from the elite training camps over the last three years who had completed it with top marks. This included nobles from different realms who had come to the navy for an exchange program. She had eventually firmly solidified her position as their superior over time, but it had been intense and full of conflict during those times. Conflict she was sure the Hero intended to repeat so he could persuade some of her talented subordinates to leave with him when he left the Navy.
And while he was wasting time within the Distorted Depths, she would rile things up in the upper echelons of the Empire, so everything would go wrong for him when he left. Although she wished she could engineer his death while he was under her command, she had to be patient and wait. It was her job to be there when he made mistakes, and then she could widen the cracks so he would ruin himself once he realised his Hero class wouldn’t protect him any longer. She dearly wished for his destruction, but watching him slowly succumb to his own wrongdoings might possibly be more…. enjoyable to watch.
With light steps she left the Daemonium Palace to descend its stairs, whistling tunefully as she made her way back to the Obelisk, and ignoring the stares of the two demon guards as she exited the gate, alive.
…
A black-haired person with scarlet red eyes was leaning forward on his couch, rubbing his temples as he gazed solemnly at the table before him with a frown. The Demon Emperor didn’t look up as the door to his room was softly knocked on twice. The door slowly opened as Lilith the Abyssal Duchess meekly peeked in, an awkward expression on her face.
“Um… Your Majesty? I have the cycle plans you requested….” she spoke up nervously.
He gestured disinterestedly to the table with a hand, where she hurriedly walked forward to deposit them, and then quickly dashed back outside.
There was silence in the room. The Demon Emperor went completely still, not a single movement to be seen. He went as still as a statue as even his breathing paused. Then it happened.
BOOM!
A shockwave burst out from the demon, an all-encompassing wave of angry red energy enveloping the room. Quicker than the eye could see, and with the sound of roaring winds, the aura expanded to fill the entire palace.
Smash!
Glass throughout the entire building shattered as the pressure built, and the rolling waves of aura turned into a giant warped beacon that lit up the palace in glowing scarlet and black light, a haze of wrath writhing and twisting around the massive structure like some primeval demented halo. The brilliance and chaotic, abrasive presence of the energy climbed higher and higher with each second, and the blood-red sky of the Demon Realm became tumultuous and dark, shifting with red and grey storm clouds as the harsh winds stirred up booming thunder and searing red lightning.
Whenever lightning flashed, the entire sky lit up with the wrathful bright red aura, the ground beginning to tremble as the energy emanating from the palace refused to stop increasing, the earth quaking over and over again. Every demon within the Stronghold and even the Dominium shuddered and avoided looking directly at the awe-inducing sight of the palace, the intensity of the anger that was felt deep within their own souls sending chills down their spines.
The Demon Emperor had a frigid expression on his face, a snap of his fingers turning his clothes into a blood-red, black, and gold royal jacket and cloak. His hair billowed out behind him as it crackled and popped with hostile raw power, the rippling waves of red energy distorting the light and sound within the palace, and the tense, stifling sensation of static building with every second as the air pulsed and resonated with the emotions of the Primordial Demon. The glow from his ruby eyes soared with wrathful intensity as he spoke.
“Dion. Explain.”
…
[Secondary Skill: Mark of the Primordial Demon | Type: Soul/Contractual ]
Rarity: Mythical
Desc: You have faced an incomprehensibly powerful individual from myth, known to be the hardest to meet and leave with your life intact. You have returned alive and even negotiated a deal with the Paragon Anomaly of the Demon Realm. Who stands to earn the most from this deal remains to be seen though.
Ability:
Branded – The sign of a contractor of the Demon Emperor.
* Through the sealing of a blood pact, the Demon Emperor will always have an innate awareness of the User’s location and health.
* Grants the User the limitations of a demonic contract, and will be released when the contract has satisfied its purpose.
[ ]
I’m not sure what to think about this.
Lucille had teleported back to the Gilded Dome plane of the Mystical Realm, reducing her available realm teleportations to none. She had decided to sort some things out while in the Obelisk though. One was the new skill. It was… interesting, in that it was a very high rarity for a secondary skill. She guessed only skills given by the classes of the other Paragon Anomalies would have the same rarity while only being a secondary skill.
She wondered what would happen if she used it as a subskill for a primary skill, but considering her contract didn’t grant her any power, it would likely be rather useless in that situation. If she had a demonic lineage, then she supposed she would’ve had the chance of earning a powerful demonic contract skill by entering into a contract with the Demon Emperor.
The innate awareness section was expected. All demons had the same ability with their contractors, so that wasn’t an issue. The health thing wasn’t normally there, but because she had used her own life force as collateral, she supposed it extended to her well-being as well. She didn’t have much choice. 25% of her soul included her soul density too, which wasn’t accurately shown through the Status screen. If the entire palace could contain a quarter of her soul, she would be lucky. And besides, if worse comes to worse, breaking the contract would hurt her, but life force treasures could heal her. A contract that called for 25% of her soul would normally only cause a 25% reduction in life force if she broke a blood pact.
She just felt a bit iffy about the skill description. ‘Who stands to earn the most from this deal’ sounded decidedly ominous. Still, it was highly unlikely that the Demon Emperor would make a move to get rid of her after the Demon King vs. Hero Battle because in what little she discovered about the 300,000+ years demon in her research, he was very apathetic. He only did his duty, stirring up chaos every now and then when the Supreme Institutions were getting a bit too cocky, and then not a word was spoken from him afterwards. And unbeknownst to the Demon Realm and the realms in general, he did this again, and again, and again. All under the guise of being a ‘different’ Primordial Demon each time.
He was actually 242 years old though. His new body reformed almost two hundred and a half centuries before she entered the Tower, and then he took up the mantle of the Demon Emperor again, which was why he went by Vitis Exolvuntur Imperatoris-Daemonium, rather than any of the other names. She didn’t really know much about him at all though. He just seemed to… appear, randomly becoming found in the Demon Realm’s records after a certain point in time. She wasn’t sure any True Demon even knew that there used to be Primordial Demons, as the reigning bloodline, rather than just a ‘Primordial Demon’.
But very hidden secret past of the Demon Realm or not, it was none of her business. She had a whole six months before she had to see that terrifying demon again, which she was going to enjoy to the fullest.
There was another thing she wanted to check up on though. She looked at another screen she had opened.
[Available Secondary Skill: Greater Illusion Manipulation (Neutral)]
She didn’t bother expanding it, just holding her chin as she contemplated accepting it or not. In all honesty, she didn’t really need it. Sure, the skill was the sign of a talented mage when they could begin to form spells out of their element without a mana-circle, but she could do that already, and didn’t even require a runic model to do so. While she might get a marginal efficiency and effectiveness bonus for accepting it, and potentially reduce the mana cost… she used atmospheric mana, so her ‘mana pool’ was fully dependent on the quantity of mana in her immediate surroundings, and her spells were normally highly efficient when she used her thought strands to compute them anyway.
Even if her internal mana could benefit from the reduced mana cost, it was so pitifully small that why should she even bother with it, when she had atmospheric mana? And there was a risk if she accepted the skill: it could potentially replace her no elemental affinity with illusion affinity, given enough time and utilisation. When she had bonded Scytale in the past, that was what happened, his mana fusing with her own, which she absorbed and reflected in her black, indigo, and blue hair that glowed like the night sky in the dark. It had annoyed her to no end. Her body was incredibly susceptible to mana, but if she wanted a decent mana manipulation skill for the second primary skill, she needed to keep her no elemental affinity.
With a flick of will, the screen collapsed. She could always select it later. In fact, gaining the greater manipulation skills for each of the essential elements might be a good idea for her second primary skill. Mid-level elements were a combination of the essential elements anyway, so gaining manipulation skills for the mid-level elements wasn’t necessary.
But she had one more thing to do before she left the Obelisk. Reaching into her dimensional bag, she pulled out a round white token, which gently lifted itself above her palm after she pressed it.
[Skill book – Rare has been identified. Open Rare skill selection? Yes/No]
The projection of a holographic open book appeared above the floating token next to her, slowly rotating as it shimmered with semi-translucent light.
She had only searched through the Founder’s vault once, and it was to obtain this item. The vault had roughly 30 blank, non-soulbound skill books that had randomly been deposited over the years. With how expensive they went for, she was unsurprised to see that for a Faction of just over 1,500 years, they wouldn’t have many. If a force donated a skill book, it meant they were running out of methods to pay the required 5% of their annual profit, and needed to substitute it with something else of value.
Most of the skill books weren’t that high rarity. One was Epic, 7 were Rare, 9 were Uncommon and the rest were Common. She planned on using them carefully and wanted to use her power as the Commission Head to find more, but for now, she wasn’t using a skill book token in the Obelisk for herself. It was a gift.
Using a bit of mental manoeuvring after pressing [Yes], she managed to bring up the [Complete Authorisation: Skill Selection – Rare] screen like last time. She found the skill she wanted, and selected it, pleased. The holographic book glitched with grey light, but instead of activating the skill, she picked the token up. The grey open book projection snapped shut and was sucked back into the token. She placed it back into her dimensional bag and then spoke to the System.
“I want to exit the Obelisk,” she said. The System’s emotionless cold voice replied in the empty silence of the Obelisk cube.
[Do you want to exit the Obelisk? Yes/No]
With a tap on [Yes], her body was whisked away into scattered shards of white light, her vision disappearing once more.
…
A sneaky silver, white-gold winged snake was silently slithering along the corridors of the 19th floor, trying to avoid being found by a certain aide of his bond. After misinforming Vincent of Lucy’s location a few times, he had taken to just outright avoiding the man. All the staff who saw him would come up to him to inform Scytale that Vincent was looking for him, and he was sure the staff would inform Vincent in turn if they spotted him, but for the last hour, it had been working. Unfortunately, he couldn’t use his spells, as the movement of mana would set off several magic arrays placed to detect strange mana movements.
He had actually managed to hide with Sedric for some time because the mana-detecting arrays weren’t found within his workshop, but when the crafter found out from Vincent that Scytale was hiding, he got suspicious and sadly found him in his room.
Scytale had definitely not tried to scare him and released his illusion purely for fun, no siree.
When he finally felt the presence of Lucy in the Headquarters, he dashed towards the spot where he would intersect with her. He slid around a corner, very happy he finally had someone else to take on Vincent’s wrath.
“Lucy, Lucy, Lucy! Thank the System! You’re finally back from the- woah.” He skidded to a stop, flapping his wings to slow his momentum as he saw the girl. “Dude. Fix your face.”
She paused and put a gloved hand to her completely blank, cold expression. “What’s wrong with my- oh.” She blinked once and then rubbed her temples as her expression became more natural and alive, if still her emotionless default. “I didn’t turn the expression regulator back on.”
“That bad, huh? Well, be glad it was me who saw you! If anyone else did, they’d call it creepy!” he announced proudly.
“You still call it creepy,” she said in a deadpan voice. She sighed and pinched her nose between the eyes. “And yes, it was bad. I swear I can still feel my soul fraying at the edges due to that aura.”
“You’re alive, so I’ll take it that it wasn’t the end of the realms?” he replied, coming closer.
“Hopefully.” She peeled off a glove to show him a small black mark emerging from her left palm’s surface. She pulled it back on. “I got it done. Now I’ve made sure I’m not going to accidentally ruin one Paragon Anomaly’s evil plans, I need to make sure I don’t ruin the other’s.”
Scytale hesitated. “Wait. The others?”
She shook her head. “I meant that one other one. You know who I’m talking about.” She held her chin in contemplation and then grinned at the snake. “Would you like to meet him?”
The amphiptere shuddered and backed away. “Oh hell nah. Sure, the Paragon Anomaly you met today is incredibly dangerous and more powerful, but him? He’d be the more likely one to kill me.”
“Hmmm…” she replied, observing her bond with amusement. “Only if you have a reason for him to kill you. Are you hiding something from me?” she said, playfully narrowing her eyes. She smirked slightly and began walking. “He’s not that bad.”
“Lucy, there has never been a time where I have thought you weren’t a special person,” Scytale stated flatly. “But calling that guy an acquaintance was when you surpassed the limit of being ‘special’ and entered a whole new other level called universal impossibility.” He paused when he had a thought and sped up to follow her. “And did you plan on getting to know him again this time?”
Lucille slowed and then let out a long sigh. “No, I didn’t. But I have unfinished business I need to solve with him.”
“Unfinished business that does not involve me,” the silver snake pointed out. “Anyway, can you check where Vincent is? I don’t want to be here when he starts interrogating you. I’ll be caught in the crossfire.”
She nodded and stopped walking, both of them pausing near a large spiral staircase that took people down to the next level below. “I haven’t expanded my spiritual perception field yet since I came back. Let me see where he…..”
She stiffened.
Scytale narrowed his golden eyes at her, taking in her rigid expression, and froze too as he had a thought. He quivered. “He’s not…. here, is he….?” he asked fearfully.
“I do believe I am,” announced a dry voice.
They whirled around to see Vincent, gazing at them both with crossed arms. Scytale slowly began to hide behind Lucy’s legs.
Lucy put on a bright, cheery smile and spread her arms. “If it isn’t my dearest aide! Where have you been this last day? I’ve spent ages looking for you.”
Vincent didn’t say anything and just gazed at Lucy. Her expression didn’t change as he raised a hand to his chin contemplatively. “You know…” he began. “I think I get it.”
She tilted her head, still smiling.
Vincent pointed a finger at her. “You make that expression when you have to talk to someone you really don’t want to talk to.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but Vincent’s face changed, and with a stormy expression he marched up, glowering down at her. “Where have you been?” he hissed, his expression furious.
She leaned back slightly as she put her hands behind her back, avoiding eye contact. “Oh, you know, just here and there-”
“Don’t you dare give me that!” he growled, his angry glare intensifying. “Do you know how stressed I’ve been this past day? The Commission Head disappeared into smoke!” he said, throwing two hands up in the air. “And then I’ve been running around all over the place thanks to the directions of this bond of yours,” he continued, glaring at Scytale who was ducking behind Lucy.
He ran a hand through his hair and sighed, crossing his arms when she didn’t say anything. “Can you tell me why you couldn’t tell me?” he asked.
She shook her head, making him pinch his nose bridge in frustration. He took off his silver glasses, letting them hang around his neck, and then grabbed Lucille by the shoulders. “Lucy, I am your aide, right?” he asked.
“Yes, you are,” she replied, her expression neutral.
“So, as your aide, I need to be informed of all the important decisions my lord decides on, right? Right?” he questioned impatiently. Not waiting for her to answer, he shook her. “Then could you please, please tell me where you went, for all of our well-being sakes’?” he pleaded. He slowly straightened up.
She narrowed her eyes at him, thinking. There was a beat of silence. Then she opened her mouth.
“Nope,” she stated flatly.
He stared at her, incredulous, and with his expression slowly darkening, while Scytale peeked out behind her. “Listen well, Lucy’s aide. The personified irritation device named Lucille has innate immunity towards all guilt-tripping. Take this wise advice and use it as you see fit,” he proclaimed grandly.
“Guilt-tripping?” he replied, switching his glare to the snake at her feet.
That was when Lucy took her chance. She ducked out of his grasp and dashed towards the staircase. In one swift movement, she jumped onto the handrail and slid down it, descending to the lower floor. Scytale slithered after her with wide eyes. “You are not leaving me alone to deal with this!” he cried.
At the bottom of the stairs, they could hear the angry shouts of an incensed aide with silver hair yelling “Hey!” as they ran to find their next hiding spot.
It wasn’t until three days had passed and a sneaky snake was tied to a balcony edge that he was able to find Lucy doing work normally in her study.