"Have you been well, trash?"

The demon with her hair like the first blossoms of spring shuddered as my voice echoed through the underground chamber. The pool of water collected at the bottom rippled as I took a step ahead.

Like an old door creaking open, an inch at a time, the demon turned its head to face the voice that had called it out.

"H-how…" the demon muttered. The demon, the true body of Dantalian, was now in front of me again.

Was she planning to bring backup from above? It was useless, there was nothing up there we couldn\'t crush in just a minute.

It was also useless to try and read our moves now.

I could always put Noa back in my spatial storage and use her like a Pokemon.

I took another step.

The demon quivered.

"Aren\'t you happy to see me? I am a little hurt."

"Hah…"

Dantalian, still trembling, let out a laugh.

"Hahaha… hahaahahaha…."

I took another step.

She flinched but didn\'t stop laughing.

"Aaaaaa…" Dantalian covered her face with her hands and screamed. "I should have known. I should have known. I should have known."

I was cautious with every step.

Was she just going mad?

Surprise attacks from the likes of hers would never get me.

Buying time was useless as well.

What was she planning?

"You… no matter how things change, you\'re still \'her\' son in the end. It\'s only natural… Yes, as long as that blood is in you…"

"Did you go mad after seeing me? I won\'t be that rude, it\'s a lovely reunion that will end with just separating your head from your neck."

"Oh, you yap you so much!"

Dantalian leaned ahead and smacked her head on the edge of the coffin, the hands on her face quivered and soon loud sniffs spread through the room.

I looked back at Noa, and she nodded.



We were prepared for anything. Whatever she may be planning.

I walked closer yet, now just an arm\'s reach away from Dantalian.

She seemed to have continued crying, tears spilled through her fingers and dripped into the water below, between her sniffles, she giggled out loud.

My nervousness shot through the roof.

What was she planning? I couldn\'t figure it out.

I took in a deep breath. It seemed having lost myself once, I was afraid.

Useless emotion.

As I let out the air, my mind cleared up.

I took bold steps ahead and stopped right in front of Dantalian.

Before I could reach out, she suddenly looked up.

"You want these?" She asked, pointing at her horns.

"I\'ll take them myself," I answered, my voice cold. "Tell me, is that woman still alive?"

"Who?"





"Charlotte."

"Haha… who knows? She\'s way beyond me."

Annoying.

She answered all my questions readily as if the crying just now was useless.

"I never should have made a deal with her. When I had her captured, I should have killed her."

I felt my brows furrowing. Charlotte was captured by Dantalian? And the deal, that must mean Charlotte promising to hand over Eugene to her.

"You made a deal with her to let her go?"

Dantalian meekly nodded.

"I wanted to use her, but she was too powerful. Even if I used up all of my authority, I could never even be able to scratch her psyche."

Those words left a bitter taste in my mouth. My psyche was weaker than hers…

"She was just 10, so she was naive. She readily promised me her firstborn, in return for the lives of everyone in this city."

"… Not her own?"

"Who could kill her? I? Don\'t make me laugh, Eugene. I couldn\'t even kill an ant like you, how can I touch that woman?"

Absurd. Her every word sounded absurd.

Charlotte was caught, but not in danger. She made a deal, but not for herself. She was in a disadvantage, and yet Dantalian couldn\'t control her.

I had learned more about that person in this single exchange than what Maria and the Marquis had ever told me. No. This simply threw all of their words out the window.

I grabbed Dantalian\'s hair and yanked her up. She leaned over on her knees and stared back at me, laughing yet again.

"Outer gods. How do I get them out?"

"Hahaha… just like her… in the end you\'re just like her."

A deeply unsettling feeling gnawed at my mind again.

Just how many times had I been told that I was just like Charlotte. Even if I didn\'t want to, a large part of life was somehow being dictated by her.

"You already that\'s not the case," I said. "I am not related to that woman."

The one person who understood that fact as well as me was Dantalian, the person who had peeked into the deepest corners of my mind.

"You are the one who doesn\'t know," Dantalian said. With her hair still in my hands, her head slightly turned up.

"Ah…" she said. "You even look like her, don\'t you?"

I slapped Dantalian with the back of my hand. Then, I pulled her up again and shook her.

"Don\'t waste my time now. Tell me about the outer gods and just die, I care not for your bullshit."

Dantalian grinned.

"They\'ll come. Nothing we can do will stop it from happening… Ours is not the first world they have set off for."

"So you were lying when you said you knew how to bring them out?"

"Waiting was the method—"

I slapped her again.

Dantalian fell over the coffin and slumped down, her fingers touching the pool of water below.

I grabbed her and pulled her up yet again. Cackling once more, Dantalian\'s eerie voice spread through the chamber.

She slowly raised her hand and placed it on her horn.

"Here, take it. Didn\'t you want it? Go ahead now, it\'ll be of use."

I placed my hand over hers and gently pressed down. Using my Ki, I increased the strength in my fingers.

"AAAH!" A screamed resounded as the bones in Dantalian\'s palms crushed under my grip, followed by the cracking of her horn. "HAHHA! HAHAHA!"

I had approached her boldly for but one reason.

This bitch.

She was not planning anything.

Even as her fingers were reduced to dust and as her horns snapped apart, she didn\'t resist at all, instead she only laughed.

Noa looked away, and my brows furrowed even further.

A loud snap echoed as the first of her horns broke.

Tears, blood, snot and saliva, all of it spilled out of every orifice on her body, yet she laughed.

A melancholy laugh of one that had accepted their fate.