As of right now, there was a lot happening all at once: the great assembly, the demon lord problem, the whole Inkia thing, and, of course, those pesky outsiders. Burn and Morgan didn’t change much, except for one particularly noteworthy detail—about the demon lord.
“After I pried into this guy’s mind, I’m pretty sure he felt me probing around in there. The abyss stares back,” Morgan remarked dryly, as she and the great assembly circled the unfortunate slave sprawled on a gurney beside the ever-watchful world tree.
“Which is precisely why I insisted we clear everyone out of Princess Shorof’s room,” Morgan continued. “We should lock off that corner of the Elven Palace to quarantine the corrupted trinkets.”
They didn’t fully understand what this demon lord was capable of, but Morgan had a rather vivid idea. He could confine her to a mind prison, all thanks to some corrupted artifacts festering in Soulnaught’s treasury.
The thought of him wielding the same power using Shorof’s trinkets left a sour taste in her mouth. Taking any chances felt like playing poker with a magician—utterly foolish.
After all, in the last loop, the demon lord had presumably been plotting against her the very moment Shorof slipped from his clutches. It was as if he was sitting back, popcorn in hand, fully aware of her growing awareness. The second those trinkets were lifted from Shorof, it was game on.
Now, stepping into the treasury—the sacred vault of a king long since fallen—was Morgan’s opening. Too bad for her, the demon lord was ruthless enough not to let this opportunity vanish into the ether.
It was a classic case of “you snooze, you lose,” except in this case, the loser would find themselves locked away in their own mind, courtesy of the demon lord’s insidious curse. Quite the poetic finale, wouldn’t you say?
And Burn would be forced to take her life again, restarting the loop.
“This is a rather stark departure from the demon lord we used to know, Miss Momo,” Vlad grimly said. “A mind prison? Cursing you through some long-dormant corrupted artifact from afar? Just how powerful is this demon lord?”
“Let’s not forget that the sands of time don’t just creep on us; they frolic in the abyss, too. If they were never really vanquished, five hundred years is ample time to build a veritable empire of corruption,” Morgan said.
“Just like how I’ve accumulated my soul energy to cleanse this world, it seems they’ve been biding their time, sharpening their claws for the perfect moment to pounce,” Morgan gritted her teeth, the weight of her past bearing down.
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If Merlin hadn’t stripped her of her power—
“Fair Miss Momo, let us not tarry overmuch in self-reproach,” Isaiah intoned with gentle gravitas. “It doth seem our newly risen demon lord is a master of cunning, ensconced in shadows as he doth orchestrate a grand game of chess, whilst we merely flail about in the simplicities of checkers. He presents a far more intricate menace than any we have encountered heretofore.”
“This is my inadequacy,” Morgan said. “I am not fit for sainthood.”
Burn’s eyebrows immediately twitched. He narrowed his eyes, not even hiding his displeasure at her statement. “Ah yes, let’s chalk this all up to negligence on your part again,” he said, his frown deepening. “Just what we needed—extra guilt on top of our ever-growing list of ominous problems.”
“Caliburn,” Morgan helplessly sighed.
The man turned his face away in irritation.
“Whoever this demon lord is,” Burn said with a resigned sigh, “he’s managed to poison my father with that corrupted mana and play puppet master with the minds of the elven youths.”
He continued, “Other than that, I can also list a few suspicious deaths of important folks scattered around the globe a few years back, not counting my father.”
“The pope of Luminus, for instance, conveniently expired from ‘old age’—he was the same age as my father, not young, but not old. Inkia’s former prime minister, who had an accident, because, you know, those just happen. Wintersin’s crown prince was killed in a civil war...” Burn frowned, his nonchalant expression fading into gravity as he continued, “Yvain’s father.”
A heavy silence descended, the kind usually reserved for funerals—
“And my husband,” Tashr suddenly added, her voice trembling like a wavering candle flame. She began to sway from the weight of the revelations and speculations. Isaiah, quick on his feet, caught her before she became a human rug, saving her from a rather unceremonious fall.
“At this point, we’re clueless about what method he used to execute them—whether it was the same technique or with various dark usages of corrupted mana,” Morgan muttered dryly.
“But the demon lord resorting to such tactics means he realized he couldn’t just bully his way through this world like the first demon lord,” Burn replied. “Even after you’ve lost all your soul energy, Morgan.”
“No,” Morgan retorted, shaking her head. “Yes, perhaps it was I who kept him in check before. But then we had those outsiders—and especially you.”
Burn’s march of conquest across the continent had given the demon lord more than enough reason to play hide-and-seek in the shadows. Why charge out with swords blazing when you have a very real chance of tripping over Burn or rubbing elbows with those unlimitedly resourceful outsiders?
And given how things have unfolded, it was painfully clear why the demon lord opted for the quiet life while Burn was out there, bravely (or brashly) trying to rewrite the rules. The darkness tends to take a low profile when the spotlight is on a show-off.
“Your presence forced him to stay hidden. Until...” Morgan glanced at the unfortunate soul on the gurney. “Until we inadvertently stumbled upon the beast.”
The butterfly had flapped its wings.
Morgan had speculated about the demon lord’s emergence in the previous loop—and let’s not forget her delightful little soiree in his curse—but only now was the confirmation settling in like a particularly bitter tea.
“Today,” she declared, her voice deepening, “I, Morgan Le Fay, hereby proclaim the commencement of the second Holy War.”
“Let’s begin the Crusades.”