In the same moment Risitro came to his senses, he started examining the surroundings. The library as he knew it was entirely gone, and the ceiling above it had caved in violently. It didn’t take much effort to connect the dots. He was sure that the Mythrills, as strong as they were, weren’t capable of the kind destruction surrounding him. It had to have been the Blight Lord’s doing.

He hoisted himself up out of the floor his legs had been trapped in and stumbled to his feet. After that, he was started trying to leave the palace, which proved to be a difficult task the sheer amount of debris in the way.

After a few minutes of struggling with the path, he made it to a wall. Injured as he was, a regular stone wall wasn’t much of an obstacle. A well-placed punch pulverized it like wheat under a pestle. He climbed through the hole he’d made and slipped out into the courtyard—what remained of it, that is.

The thoroughness of the castle’s obliteration gave him goosebumps. It was as though Madison’s monster had taken extra care to leave nothing undamaged. Fallen towers, crumbled facades, and crushed trees consumed the scenery that had been there shortly before.

He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious, but judging by the fact that it was night, it had to have been a long time. It occurred to him that Madison might be dead, and the realization sent him to his knees.

“Are you alive?” He used telepathy magic to find out what had happened to her.

The response came slowly, and Madison’s strained voice was buried in a storm of pained screams, “You… need to get out of here… Risitro…” Each word sounded like it caused her pain.

“W-where are you?” Based on the screams, a macabre notion took hold of his mind. His issue was the fact that there were multiple voices in the transmission. The spell they used didn’t rely on actual auditory signals, it was based on pure thought. It shouldn’t have been possible for there to be background noise and yet, there it was.

Madison didn’t give a response, which was louder than any response she could have given. She had become a part of the Blight Lord.

It was a contingency plan she’d mentioned on the day before. The idea was that because she was the creator the Blight Lord and its master, it would be possible to become a part of it and retain her mind and therefore, control of the monster.

There was only reason for doing so, and it was an undoubtedly bad one. From inside, she could ‘cannibalize’ the other souls that made up the Blight Lord. With enough ‘fuel’, Maddy would become a Litch. A threat so great that multiple Adamantites would be needed to deal with it.

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He made it out of the palace grounds and looked at the rubble that stood in place of Barnock. The whole city had been flattened, and all the people in it were dead. Absorbed into the Blight Lord. Not a single building remained intact.

If she really did choose to try to become a Litch, the process of becoming one would require absorbing nearly all the souls in Barnock. It meant that she’d chosen her own survival over that of her people and that the promises she’d made with him were all lies.

The nation of Barnock was now a piece of history; and, the absence of his horns revealed that his status as royalty was in the same bucket. In just a day, he’d gone from being a prince and a general to a nobody.

Of course, what would become of him didn’t matter to Risitro. He was more concerned with the fact that all the Demons Madison had sworn to help protect were dead. Not just the Demons, but everyone in Barnock too. All because Madison didn’t want to die.

“Piece of shit.”

Risitro kept walking along the street, venturing out toward the city walls. He understood why Alissa had chosen to disappear now and wanted to do the same thing she’d attempted. To vanish from the world and never reappear. Even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t go back to Sundenspur. His father would have him killed as soon as he found about Risitro’s horns. Along that path he walked for some time, trying to think.

He came to the place on Barnock’s wall that he and his army had used to enter the city some time ago. The place he’d met the peculiar Ronny McKitty. Risitro wondered if the guy was still alive, or he’d died in the chaos like everyone else. His gut told him that Mr. McKitty was out there still, but he had no clue where.

Just as Risitro began to venture into the Dural Forest, he noticed a body laying on the ground.

“Odd,” he thought, “Did the Blight Lord miss this one?”

He went over and flipped it over. Immediately, he recognized the face. Theodemir Thelza, the young patriarch of the Thelza family. The boy was still breathing, somehow.

“Looks like he collapsed from exhaustion as soon as he got out of the city. Must’ve been running from something.” Risitro picked up Theo and started carrying him into the forest with him, “Might as well try to save someone if I can.”

♦

Ronny awoke Well Rested and rose to his feet. Still in the City Hall. He checked for Alice and Enzi, both of which were already up and cooking something.

Alice caught him moving in the corner of her eye, “Good morning. We’re having Silverback.”

He walked over to them, “We’re having what?”

“I went hunting this morning because I wanted to get you guys something fresh. I just so happened to bump into a pack of Silverbacks first, so that’s what we’re eating.”

“How many were there?”

“Not many. I think there were 12 of them? It was a small pack.”

“Twelve!? You single-handedly beat 12?”

“That’s not a lot. Most packs have more than 40.”

“…O-oh. I see. I forgot that you’re supposed to be stronger than most Mythrill adventurers.”

She gave him a cut of tenderloin, which he received the ‘Well Fed’ buff from. It was a good slice of meat.