Burn didn’t dare blink. Not even once. Because what if, the moment he did, he found himself hurled back into the cursed past? Again. And honestly, he was done with that.

Sure, Morgan wasn’t weak—far from it. He believed she wouldn’t fall for the Demon Lord’s tricks a second time. But that didn’t mean he trusted fate, or whatever cosmic joke had been playing on him lately. So no, blinking was out of the question.

Instead, Burn coated his eyeballs with Mana. Practical and efficient. It kept them moist while he bolted across the city rooftops like a deranged cat burglar. Finn trailed behind, doing his best to keep up, though "best" was clearly relative in this scenario.

This whole mess had started with Finn sending his men out to prepare for the arrival of the two royals. He wanted everything to be properly dignified—a rare goal in a world that thrived on chaos.

But then his men had returned with the minor inconvenience of a report: the First Prince and the Elven Princess had just been kidnapped. From their royal chariot. No big deal, right?

And now here they were, chasing shadows and unraveling a fresh disaster. Well, Burn was. Finn, bless his heart, was just doing his best to follow along without dying.

Burn didn’t waste time interrogating witnesses or following obvious trails like some amateur. No, he took one glance at the overturned carriage and knew. A single moment of analysis, and he had deduced exactly where the royals had been taken.

He paused for a fraction of a second—just long enough for Finn to wonder if he was having some kind of epiphany—and then took off in a decisive new direction. Finn, being a man of sense, didn’t question him.

Why would he? This was the man who, not metaphorically, ate the sun for breakfast. You didn’t question Burn unless you had a death wish—or a talent for getting spectacularly ignored.

“Your Majesty, is this the Demon Lord again?” Finn asked, his voice edged with the kind of unease that came from knowing the answer was going to ruin his day.

Burn didn’t respond immediately, probably because acknowledging it out loud felt like giving the universe permission to make things worse. But after a pause, he finally said, “Everything happening in Inkia right now is the Demon Lord.”

Finn narrowed his eyes, grimacing like someone who’d just realized the pit was deeper than he thought. So it was true, then. Inkia wasn’t just floundering—it was circling the drain under the looming shadow of a Second Demon Lord. Lovely.

To be fair, the writing had been on the wall for a while. Ever since that cursed night when they’d sent the Love Potion Duo to dig up documents about the Vision Resonator, things had only gotten worse.

Turns out, the Resonator wasn’t just a random magical device causing headaches; no, it was connected directly to the Demon Lord himself. Because of course it was. Nothing less dramatic would do.

The deeper they dug, the more tangled the threads became. Hours of Yvain, Morgan, and Burn tossing around jargon-heavy sentences Finn could barely follow had painted a horrifying picture of just how much of a shit Inkia was neck-deep in.

One more leap and they left the capital behind, where a dense forest greeted them like an uninvited guest that might be hiding something murderous in its depths.

“I’m going full speed now that we’re outside the city. Can you keep up?” Burn asked over his shoulder, his tone almost conversational—if you ignored the underlying good luck keeping up, mortal vibe.

The only reason he hadn’t been going full throttle before was, apparently, because he didn’t feel like leveling half the capital’s architecture. Generous of him.

“I’ll follow your Mana trace and catch up!” Finn shouted back. He got it. He really did. As the head of his family and a formidable Force Art user—a fully fledged four-star practically brushing against the fifth—Finn was no slouch.

But keeping up with the strongest man on earth? Yeah, no. That was like racing a thunderstorm.

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“Okay,” Burn replied. And then—

BLAAAAAAAAAST!!!

The shockwave tore through the air with such violent force it might as well have been a declaration of war. Finn froze mid-step, his jaw dropping as he stared at the sheer destruction Burn left in his wake.

The trees? Snapped like twigs. The ground? Ripped apart like paper. And the air? Probably traumatized for life.

“I won’t even need to follow your Mana…” Finn muttered, still staring at the carnage, half in awe and half wondering how he was going to spin this mess into something even remotely manageable.

But of course, this kind of chaos came with a price. Broad daylight. A clear trail of destruction. Witnesses, because why not. Covering this up was going to be about as easy as hiding a dragon in a haystack. Finn sighed deeply, already preparing himself for the inevitable damage control circus.

Then again, Burn probably didn’t care. In fact, Finn had the distinct impression that Burn had already accounted for everything—and decided it didn’t matter. After all, who could possibly cover up the fact that the First Prince of Inkia had been kidnapped in broad daylight in the middle of the capital?

Yeah. Subtlety was clearly off the menu today.

Still, Finn couldn’t help but feel a twinge of surprise at how much Burn actually seemed to care about the First Prince and the Elven Princess.

Sure, it was probably just a calculated move to gain some sort of advantage—Burn wasn’t exactly the poster child for sentimental heroes—but there was a glimmer of something in his actions. Something that almost looked like genuine concern.

Then again, the girl they’d invited wasn’t just anyone. She was the First Prince’s beloved baby sister, and the Elven Princess? Well, she was the Elven Princess. And given Morgan’s close ties with the mythical community, letting anything happen to her would be bad business. Catastrophic, even.

It had been a few days since the last minor inconvenience—you know, the one involving the demon. On the surface, it might have seemed like nothing was happening in the Sator Family or Wilderwood March’s side.

Outsiders would see the same calm, collected facade they always did. But behind the scenes? They’d been working overtime, compiling information from every corner of the world. Because that’s what you did when the apocalypse knocked politely on your door.

Today, though, they were expecting nothing more than a royal visit. Maybe a bit of polite chit-chat about political alliances between Yvain’s school friends and the royals. Nothing outrageous. Definitely not a freaking royal kidnapping with a side order of princess-induced mayhem.

And as if that wasn’t enough, they’d almost finished building a new faction—one with enough influence to rival both the First Prince’s and the Prime Minister’s. Almost. Because of course chaos had to strike just as things were coming together.

But panic? Hesitation? Finn didn’t see an ounce of it from Burn or Morgan. The two of them moved like seasoned players in a deadly game of chess, splitting up and tackling the mess without so much as a blink. Literally, Burn refused to blink.

As for how they’d come to the conclusion that Prince Lance Inkor was the Demon Lord? Well, Finn couldn’t say. That particular revelation had almost gone over his head, buried under layers of cryptic chatter between Morgan, Burn, and Yvain. But honestly? He wasn’t even surprised.

That man—Lance Inkor—had always been dangerous. And now? Well, now he was just dangerous with a title.

***

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!”

Blair roared again, her voice raw and guttural, her face twisted in agony as another glob of that black, mud-like sludge erupted from her body, splattering onto the ground like the bile of nightmares.

Above her, the grotesque pair of hands—those blackened, monstrous things—twitched unnaturally. Their sinister fingers tugged at the threads binding Blair’s neck and limbs like a macabre marionette.

Then, as if this horror show wasn’t unsettling enough, a pair of eyes cracked open in the palms of the hands. Wide, round, and unblinking, they locked onto Morgan’s presence and narrowed instantly, as though they recognized something—or someone—they hated.

Morgan’s lips curled into a smirk, her tone casual in the face of the utterly horrifying. “Ever heard that phrase, ‘The abyss stares back’?” she asked, her voice dripping with mockery. Her expression hardened, her eyes blazing with unshakable resolve. “Well, guess what? The heavens... never sleep.”

SLASH!!!

Yvain shot through the air like a bullet, his blade gleaming in the corrupted light as it sliced clean through the red threads binding Blair. One strike, and the sinister cords snapped, recoiling violently like severed nerves.

A radiant crown of light flared into existence, encircling the grotesque black hands in an instant, binding them as if they’d been shackled by divinity itself. The light pulsed, tightening like a noose, and the hands twitched violently against the restraint.

Morgan pulled Blair close, cradling her trembling form against her body as if shielding her from the very essence of corruption itself.

Her wrist flicked with practiced precision, and the crown of light responded, constricting further until the hands spasmed under its pressure, the grotesque eyes in their palms bulging unnervingly.

The present had shifted, bent under the weight of their actions. This time might not be just another mind prison spell.

She glanced briefly at Nemo, standing firm in case the unexpected struck. And her own mind? It was steel, fortified against tricks, or anything else the Demon Lord might throw at her. She wouldn’t be blindsided again.

Her voice dropped to a low, venomous velvety growl, each word a deliberate threat. “You took my husband’s arm. Now I’ll take both of yours.”