“They’ve been hit hard, Caliburn. Let’s finish this swiftly,” Morgan said, her voice calm but carrying the weight of finality.

Tristan and Yvolt exchanged a quick, uneasy glance. They weren’t sure what felt worse—the fact that they’d gotten their asses handed to them by this grotesque monstrosity or the fact that Burn was here to witness it.

Burn—Emperor Caliburn, the epitome of perfection wrapped in strictness and an endless supply of terrifyingly high expectations. The man could turn a minor critique into a life lesson you’d regret for years.

And now they had to face him after struggling to deal with some random monster? It stung. It burned.

Yvolt muttered under her breath, “He’s gonna roast us alive, isn’t he?”

Tristan winced, already imagining the lecture. “Do you remember how he scolded Galahad? Galahad, Yve. I still have secondhand trauma from that.”

Ah, yes. The time Burn gave the walking nightmare himself a verbal thrashing for failing to meet his impossibly high standards. If Galahad couldn’t avoid Burn’s wrath, what chance did the Love Potion Duo have?

“I mean, we could’ve done worse,” Yvolt added halfheartedly.

Tristan snorted. “Yeah? Like what? Accidentally helping this monster grow a second head?”

Morgan’s sharp gaze cut through their whispered exchange, and the two knights straightened instinctively, swallowing their fear. They’d survived worse than Burn’s scolding. Probably.

Well, of course, they knew Galahad was strong. The man wasn’t called a nightmare incarnate for nothing. And that strength? That’s precisely why Burn’s expectations for him were sky-high.

It was only natural, really. When you were a six-star Force Master practically teetering on the edge of enlightenment, people expected you to work miracles—or, in Burn’s case, act like the Absolute Tyrant himself.

Achieving the seven-star only needed one decisive choice after all—to abandon everything he knew and mold his body to follow his intention.

Which made it all the more terrifying that Burn still managed to find fault with Galahad. But Tristan and Yvolt? They were nothing compared to Galahad. They weren’t nightmares; they were… well, nuisances at best. Surely Burn couldn’t hold them to the same impossibly high standards. Right?

Then again, knowing Burn, he probably could—and would.

After all, like how they had each other to protect, Galahad had Landevale to—

A pair of eyes suddenly materialized on the swirling black portal, and the air grew heavier, as if reality itself recoiled at their presence. They were grotesque things—vast, lidless orbs that seemed to pulse with a sickly, uneven rhythm. The sclera wasn’t white but a murky gray, veined with black like cracks in decaying stone.

The irises burned with an unnatural glow, a molten red that churned and flickered like embers in a dying fire. They didn’t simply look—they pierced, their gaze carrying the weight of a thousand unspoken horrors.

Around the edges, dark, fleshy tendrils writhed and slithered, connecting the eyes to the portal’s swirling surface as if they had grown directly from it.

The pupils, narrow and inhuman, shifted erratically, never settling, as though scanning for something unseen. And then, they blinked—a slow, wet motion that sent a ripple through the portal, the sound akin to flesh tearing and reforming.

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“Greetings.”

The voice slithered from the portal, unpleasant and cloying, like oil dripping down Burn’s spine. His eyes narrowed at the sound, sharp as a blade poised to strike.

“What a pleasant surprise to finally meet you,” the voice continued, its mockery barely veiled beneath a tone of feigned civility.

Burn sneered, the corner of his mouth curling into something between disdain and amusement. “Luck seems to favor me these days,” he said coolly.

“First, one of your disposable pawns had the audacity to cling to my leg in the middle of the road. Then there was your sloppy scheme for the first elven princess. And let’s not forget the unmistakable stink of your interference in my father’s regalia.”

His gaze hardened, his voice lowering into something colder. “Frankly, it’s a surprise I hadn’t noticed your presence sooner.”

But as Burn let the pieces settle in his mind, the memories started to click together. The whispers and rumors that had shadowed him since his teenage years—the kind that painted him as something monstrous before he’d even earned the title. Could those have been this man’s handiwork?

His jaw tightened. Considering no one but himself, his father, and God knew he had killed the old man personally—and even fewer knew about his hunting the unicorn or the merfolk king—this man had a knack for digging up secrets best left buried.

Not just digging them up—spinning them, spreading them like poison through the veins of society, twisting truth into slander.

“Quite the talent for intel you’ve got,” Burn murmured, his voice calm, yet laced with venom. “Pity you waste it on such petty schemes.”

“If you’d been more interested in scheming than ransacking the realm, we might’ve met just a moment sooner,” the voice mused, its tone equal parts mockery and menace. “But sooner or later, our paths were bound to cross.”

Burn’s lips twitched, but his gaze remained steady. He knew the real reason they were meeting now—Morgan’s little “curse” on the timeline. But still, it didn’t matter. If they had met later, he’d still find a way to destroy him.

Unless... Morgan died.

She was the only one with the power to stop the creeping corruption, to purify this rotting world. Without Morgan, the corruption would devour the realm, and Burn’s competence would amount to nothing but ashes in the end.

He could fight, he could scheme, he could bring down gods—but without her? This world would fall to ruin, and there would be nothing left but a decaying husk of people and land.

As these thoughts twisted in his mind, the gurgling portal grew louder, sucking in the remains of Ahlgrath’s broken form.

The gurgling portal churned violently as Ahlgrath’s ruined body began to dissolve into its swirling depths. His grotesque, shifting form was dragged inch by inch into the black, a sickening sound filling the air—half a wet squelch, half the agonized screams of something not entirely alive.

Tendrils of black sludge snaked out from the portal, latching onto the remnants of Ahlgrath like parasitic veins. Yet, amid the grotesque spectacle, the monster laughed—a sound that crawled under the skin like nails on glass.

His broken form twisted unnaturally as he turned his gaze to the four humans before him. His mouth stretched wide—horrifically wide—splitting his face horizontally in a grotesque grin. Fangs, jagged and shifting, writhed atop blackened gums lined with thorn-like protrusions. The sight was enough to unnerve even the bravest.

“When we meet again, humans… when we meet again—”

The portal began to drag him in fully, his form distorting and twisting into the churning darkness. But just as the abyss was about to consume the last of him, Burn moved.

He strode forward without hesitation, his expression cold and unflinching.

“Caliburn!” Morgan’s voice rang out, her eyes wide with alarm as she reached to grab him. But it was too late.

Burn thrust his right hand into the portal, the black sludge eagerly swallowing his arm as if devouring prey.

GRAB—

A moment of stillness hung in the air, sharp and taut as a blade. Then, from the swirling depths, Burn’s arm emerged. His hand clamped tightly around something.

The man on the other side—the one behind this entire twisted spectacle—stiffened, his eyes widening in astonishment as he felt the iron grip on his collar.

“You—”

Burn burst out laughing—a deep, resonant sound that carried a chilling edge. “So there is someone behind this portal,” he said, his voice sharp and triumphant, his grin a wolf’s snarl. “Well, aren’t you a pleasant surprise?”

The man’s hand instinctively shot to Burn’s wrist, his grip testing the strength that held him. For the first time, the portal rippled with something other than malice—it wavered, as though startled by Burn’s audacity.

The tension crackled in the air, a moment suspended between triumph and terror.

“How does it feel to have your asshole fisted?” Burn asked. “Blame your slow outro.”