“Master Vlad, do you remember what I said to you before I left with Caliburn after I woke up?” Morgan asked.

Vlad frowned. Usually, his demeanor was a peculiar mix of eccentricity and unsettling gentleness. Most assumed he was senile; in reality, he was an expert at performing the role of the benign old man, all while plying guests with sickly sweet beverages.

“You told me your father died,” Vlad answered.

Gasps rippled through the hall. Clearly, this news had not made its rounds, and shock painted their faces in shades of pale.

Burn had caught the sentence at the time but had tucked it away in the back of his mind for a long time. At first, it was due to a lack of curiosity; now, it felt like an unapproachable elephant in the room—one he wished Morgan would reveal without him asking.

But his thoughts were yanked back to the present by Isaiah’s abrupt inquiry, “Lord Merlin has passed away?”

Burn immediately turned to Morgan. Merlin…?

They had resumed their seats, but Burn found himself wedged between Vlad and Morgan—much too close to her.

“He might not die yet, but to me… to us, he’s as good as gone,” Morgan replied, her chill slicing through the air.

Burn couldn’t help but notice her hand clenched tightly, her long nails digging into her palm, while her complexion seemed to rival that of a ghost. Ignoring the frowns from the table across, he focused on Morgan’s expression—void of emotion, yet heavy with meaning.

“He betrayed us. A traitor not just to us, but to this entire wretched world.”

For millennia, Morgan had tirelessly endeavored to purify the other four continents, one painstaking inch at a time, borrowing God’s divine power. But let’s face it: the amount of divine energy one can conjure all at once has its limits, much like a poorly funded charity drive.

It took Morgan and the other saints a solid century to cleanse the last continent—this continent, the last fortress for souls not yet tainted by the Demon Lord’s influence.

This land was only mildly corrupt—think of it as the least-stained shirt in your closet. Imagine the monumental effort required to clean up the rest of those continents that were absolutely drenched in corruption.

Spoiler alert: it was like trying to scrub a grease stain from a white couch.

Understanding the uphill battle ahead, Morgan decided to hoard her Infinite Soul energy like a squirrel preparing for winter and began her research on that how to purify the land with her mana or if there was a magic she could create to help the world.

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After countless sleepless nights and a few too many hermitage-fueled revelations, she ultimately concluded that holy energy could be kicked into high gear with a bit of magic. Who knew?

So, armed with optimism and an overabundance of soul energy—two things even more powerful than her borrowed divine energy—she set her sights on crafting a ten-circled magic spell.

This masterpiece would utilize all that accumulated energy she’d been stockpiling over the ages. The goal? Purify the entire world in one fell swoop. Because, obviously, what could possibly go wrong with that kind of ambitious plan?

She was on the brink of perfecting her magic circle design when suddenly, Merlin betrayed her.

“Noticing my accumulated energy over hundreds of years, he attacked me, drained my power to open a dimensional gateway, and vanished into thin air. That was three years ago,” Morgan concluded her story.

The reason for her disappearance… and—“The reason for the crack in the sky?” Burn suddenly asked.

Morgan cast her gaze downward.

“This world… was actually hidden from other worlds. Our galaxy’s location was so hard to detect, surrounded by thousands of glaring stars and shrouded in curtains of nebulas, dark matter, and a whole host of radio-disturbing nuisances, we were practically invisible from all sides,” Morgan explained.

She pressed on, “And as if that wasn’t enough, Romeuf once asked me to create a formation in the sky, something like an illusion barrier, to keep our world safe. Apparently, God told him to do it.”

It was the first time she had created a ten-circled magic circle.

“When Merlin opened the dimensional gateway, you can likely guess what followed. The surge of magical energy he drained from me not only flung open the gates but also managed to attract those… outsiders,” Morgan whispered.

Burn’s eyes faltered.

Morgan Le Fay was precisely the treasure those outsiders sought. And it was she who inadvertently invited them in.

“Everything… can be linked to me and my weaknesses,” Morgan said as she turned to Burn. “You might’ve noticed by now, but I am what they call the Original Saint.”

Burn frowned, but there was nothing else to hide here.

“The Elysian Kingdom has been searching for me for hundreds of years. While those boys suffer, I couldn’t reveal my identity partly because of human greed and partly because my father—no, Merlin—threatened to disown me if I exhausted any more energy on ‘useless things,’” Morgan explained.

She elaborated that over the years, Merlin had criticized her methods of ‘fixing’ the world. Whether through her magic or her unconventional approaches, her judgment regarding humans and other creatures was just, but it often required her to demonstrate excessive strength.

Moreover, she still had to purify this world while hiding her identity. Just look at the other saints. Once they were born and crowned as the new saints, they were bound by their kingdoms and couldn’t freely go on expeditions to purify the world.

That was how she became the Infinite Witch rather than the Original Saint.

“I thought he was just asking me to remain calm-minded when solving things, but apparently, he was trying to cultivate my power over the years so he could use it himself,” Morgan recounted.

As she spoke, everyone wore expressions of disbelief. Merlin… that Merlin…?

“There must be… a reason for him to suddenly…” Wekkoun softly asked, looking at everyone at the table, hoping for a thought or insight.

“I did hear from Romeuf once that Merlin was not of this realm’s birth,” Isaiah suddenly said.

Now, all eyes turned to him.

Isaiah shook his head and offered his speculation, “Perchance he didst open a gateway of dimensions to return unto his own world?”