In the midst of the Imperial Hospital, an extraordinary scene unfolded.
“How long do you intend to obstruct me! Do you fiends truly wish for death?!”
“Your feeble tricks are futile, you wretched fool!”
“Your petty schemes won’t work, you despicable creature!”
Ashley Betcher was in a frenzy, angrily ranting and mocking all by herself, seemingly in a state of delirium on her bed.
Masain, holding his sword anxiously, quietly asked Logan.
“Is it a demon… Your Highness?”
Ashley’s face, or rather the entity using Ashley’s form, was contorted in a demonic fury.
Her eyes were so bulging with rage that the blood vessels seemed to burst, turning the whites into blood-red. She looked like a vengeful demon just risen from hell.
However, Logan, observing her intently, shook his head.
“It’s different from the aura of a demon.”
“What do you mean?”
“It seems like another soul, perhaps. It’s as if multiple spirits are fighting inside this student’s body.”
Jonathan, shivering behind the group, whispered in a trembling voice.
“Then we should perform an exorcism…”
“That seems necessary. However, these spirits don’t seem entirely malevolent, so I’m not sure if they’ll be susceptible to holy power.”
In the midst of this grave conversation, Seongjin alone was sweating profusely, his eyes darting around.
Wait… am I the only one thinking this way?
Aren’t some of the spirits possessing Ashley Betcher those twins, Herna and Gades?
How they ended up here, I don’t know, but should we really just exorcise them like this?
“Aargh!”
“Uugh!”
Ashley Betcher now appeared to be strangling herself, groaning in pain.
Her lips turned blue, and her eyes rolled back in her head, looking dangerously close to suffocating.
Seongjin involuntarily swallowed hard.
‘Wow, this is intense…’
This isn’t a horror movie, but her self-convulsing behavior is seriously spine-chilling.
Then the Demon King scoffed.
[Heh, you’re a demon possessing Morres, and you’re scared of this?]
‘…Shut up!’
Isn’t it natural to be creeped out? I can’t even fight it with fists!
Besides, it’s unfair to treat me the same. Even if I am a spirit, I am officially recognized by the Emperor!
“Your Highness! Please hurry! If we don’t act now, she might truly die!”
At Jonathan’s tearful plea, Logan steeled his expression.
He released the hilt of Arjuna and slowly approached Ashley Betcher, extending his hand enveloped in sacred white light.
“I’m not a formal exorcist, but I think I can mimic one poorly enough. Sir Masain, just in case, could you request support from a real exorcist?”
As Masain nodded and quickly left the room, Ashley, still strangling herself, rolled her eyes to glare at Logan.
“In the name of the Holy Emperor, I command you. Release this girl and return to where you belong.”
“…….”
Ashley, who had been calmly observing Logan’s increasing divine energy, suddenly grinned maliciously, her eyes gleaming a strange yellow.
“Hahaha, you fool! There is no name for the great Holy Emperor here!”
Yet Logan remained undeterred, stepping closer with a firm voice.
“The Holy Emperor’s power is the evidence of His presence in this world and His name!”
“Don’t waste your time! The will of a nameless being is as hollow as the non-existent!”
“The will of the Sovereign exists clearly through His vicars. Lost and pitiful spirit, vanish!”
“Kuhh……”
Ashley gritted her teeth and glared at Logan.
Seongjin watched them with wide eyes.
The Holy Emperor had mentioned that the deity of Delcross wasn’t a personal god, and now it seems they don’t even have a name?
Seongjin made a belated resolution to actually read the introduction to theology sometime.
“I, I am…”
Ashley Betcher’s momentum seemed to falter under Logan’s unwavering demeanor.
She let go of her own neck and staggered back a step on the bed.
“I am not a mere spirit! Not a petty human soul! I am a demon!”
But Seongjin had doubts about that claim.
Though the entity claimed to be a demon, it seemed unaffected by Logan’s increasingly bright holy power. Unlike the demon in Seongjin, who is terrified of holy power, Ashley’s reaction was distinctly different.
Logan pressed on her but kept his distance, observing, likely for this reason.
“By the power of the Sovereign, I command. Disappear from here, spirit.”
“I’m not a spirit!”
Suddenly, Ashley screamed violently.
A strong shockwave blasted through the room. The bed curtains fluttered, and the windows burst open rattling. Startled, Jonathan screamed and tumbled backward.
Angry over something, Ashley glared at them with furious eyes and spat out.
“I am the great Demon King that rules all of the demon world! The Demon King of Dreams who will become a great tale!”
“…….”
“You all can struggle to erase me, but I am not one to be trapped in a mere psychic scar like a spirit!”
Suddenly, Seongjin flashed back to a past memory.
The Demon King of Dreams aspiring to become the king in the tales.
And the masked puppeteer who calmly narrated that story.
[What? The Demon King of Dreams?]
Not only Seongjin reacted. The demon roared in his head.
[Seongjin! Could that be the same one from the puppet show you mentioned?]
‘Uh? I’m not sure… Hey, hey! Wait!’
Before Seongjin could say anything, the demon’s presence vanished from his head.
Then, the next moment.
Ashley Betcher, who just flinched, started moving even more bizarrely.
“Grrrrr…”
Now she was holding her own collar with one hand and shaking her head violently with the other.
“Is it you? You little rat, did you launch that pathetic attack on me?”
“Who’s this now! Why would a demon be wrapping itself in a holy barrier?”
“Alright, you! Let’s settle this today!”
“Ah, it’s you? You’ve become so insignificant I hardly recognized you! What are you doing still alive, suddenly showing up like this!”
“What, who are you? Do you know me? What are you?”
Ah, another voice has joined the chatter from Ashley’s mouth.
They are now distinctly split into sides, engaging in a brawl with each other.
“Yeah! Go, our Red!”
“Wow! Hang in there, our Red!”
“Who’s calling me Red?!”
It was an unprecedented chaotic mess.
Fortunately, this chaos didn’t last long.
Just as Seongjin was tilting his head, wondering if the temperature in the ward had suddenly dropped…
[…Eek!]
The demon king in Seongjin’s head returned, utterly terrified. Trembling and barely able to speak, its reaction was oddly familiar. Could it be?
Logan also seemed to sense something unusual. He looked up, puzzled, and said, “…Where is this holy energy coming from all of a sudden?”
Ashley Betcher, too, noticed the anomaly.
She stopped her soliloquy and blankly stared into space. For the first time, a look of fear appeared in her wide-open eyes.
“You… You are!”
Cough.
At that moment, Ashley spat out blood and collapsed to the floor.
* * *
Cough, cough.
In a dark basement, a man hunched over and coughed. Small droplets of blood sprinkled on the floor along with a metallic smell.
“…This is indeed a spectacle of self-destruction.”
A girl watching the man crawling on the floor scoffed.
She was a petite girl, probably not yet ten, with long golden hair tied in twin braids, looking quite adorable.
However, her expression was excessively impassive and dark, as if she bore layers of sediment from countless years.
Romaine, the masked man, after struggling on the floor for a while, finally stopped coughing and wiped the blood from his mouth, smiling.
“It’s alright. I did take some damage, but that’s because I’m still not adept at this trickery.”
“Trickery?”
“Yes. A certain clan’s secret technique of creating phantoms by detaching a part of the soul.”
He had used a technique known to the Cornsheim clan, adept in handling souls.
They created phantoms by detaching unnecessary parts of their souls, using these phantoms to channel while preserving the individual’s ego.
It was a method that allowed the clan, which otherwise could have been engulfed in a collective consciousness like channeling monsters, to maintain their humanity.
The fragment of the soul that had possessed Ashley Betcher and then died was just a tiny part detached by Romaine, imitating the Cornsheim clan.
Ha. The girl let out a hollow laugh.
“No wonder it was floundering like a fish out of water. It wasn’t even a proper soul fragment.”
“Well, not exactly. That was still a part of me, albeit a clumsy one. I too had my emotional moments in my youth.”
Romaine shrugged nonchalantly.
“Of course, it was insufficient to deceive the Holy Emperor of Delcross. I attempted to divert his attention, but the moment he realized the channel wasn’t connected to my main body, he immediately destroyed the phantom without a word.”
“Thinking of deceiving him… I wonder whether that’s bold or foolhardy…”
The girl shook her head in disbelief.
The Holy Emperor of Delcross.
How could such a being exist among humans? She still couldn’t comprehend it.
Just when she thought she had almost successfully eroded the continent, he suddenly appeared in the Imperial City, swept away her forces, and became its sole Holy Emperor.
And since then, for a considerable time, he has successfully held Delcross under his influence. A feat unthinkable for the previous Holy Emperors.
Under his protection, demonkind couldn’t even approach Delcross. It was so severe that even though she was in a human girl’s body, she dared not enter the Imperial City, merely lurking around.
Currently, Romaine was the only ally capable of freely moving in and out of the Imperial City.
He was an enigma, making her hesitant to keep him close, but she had no other choice.
“It’s truly a man without any openings. For now, all we can hope is that Prince Leonard will play his part during the Birthday Celebration. If he really manages to seduce the princess, it would be ideal.”
Romaine, nonchalantly dusting off his robe, seemed remarkably calm, a stark contrast to his earlier anger over their foiled plans.
“Yes. But was it necessary to enter the Imperial Palace using the last semi-bloomed seed?”
The girl’s question was legitimate.
Ashley Betcher, had she been left alone with the egg, might have eventually blossomed. Even in its premature state, she could have been a valuable asset for the next plan.
But Romaine shook his head.
“The Grey Plague plan was already exposed to the Holy Emperor. It’s impossible to execute a failed plan again. While I could exert influence, I needed to see someone with my own eyes.”
The Third Prince, Morres.
For the first time, Romaine had clearly seen the true nature of the prince the Holy Emperor had been hiding in the Imperial Palace. A self-assured smile unknowingly spread beneath his half-mask.
The girl stepped forward, gently wrapping her hands around his chin.
“What did you see? You seem quite certain. It’s good to see.”
“Indeed, it’s an honor.”
“Your voice is also very pleasing. Tell me more, Romaine.”
Her small, cherry-like lips exhaled a sweet breath.
“At least you can tell me, can’t you? Where is the labyrinth? Where is your main body now?”
But Romaine gently pushed away her [Temptation], smiling.
“That’s a conversation for when we’ve made more progress. Oh, Sovereign of [Greed].”
