Xaldreth kept staring at for a long second, his abyssal eyes remaining utterly unreadable as the air between us crackled with a dry, static tension.
...Then he lashed out.
His entire hand slamd flat against my chest, fingers splayed wide where his single claw had been monts before.
The effect was instant.
A crushing pressure, far heavier than the one before, fell on . The pain wasn’t sharp this ti, it was vast and overwhelming like the entire weight of a leaden sky had been lowered onto my ribcage.
My breath left before I could do anything to catch it.
I doubted he was trying to kill .
But I didn’t doubt for a second that he was trying to put in my place.
The cramping agony sank straight into my core, dragging sothing ancient and cold across my soul.
It was too much. My knees gave out and I finally crumpled to the ground... well, not quite to the ground, since I was still floating a few inches above the floor, but I was definitely groveling now, caught in the throes of organ-rending pain.
"Careful," Xaldreth said softly, sounding almost pleasant as his many voices aligned in a discordant harmony that scraped like shards of glass against my eardrums. "You’re beginning to mistake my restraint for rcy."
I felt like my heart was about to burst.
It wasn’t enough to induce cardiac arrest, assuming I could even get a cardiac arrest while still outside my own body, but it was more than enough to make the warning unmistakable.
Still, I didn’t look away.
Even on my hands and knees, even as my face contorted under the sheer weight of his malice, I forced my gaze upward to et his.
It was difficult, not only because his very presence demanded absolute submission — though it certainly did — but because every primal instinct I had was telling to lower my eyes, to fold and yield and submit.
My body clearly understood the hierarchy of power here, even if my mind stubbornly refused to acknowledge it.
Xaldreth tsk’d, looking down on with the sa disdain one might afford a cockroach that refused to crawl away even after being squashed.
Then his smile returned, looking far more amicable than the situation was. "It’s fine. I suppose I could put up with you a little longer. Do you know why?"
My brows knit together in a pained wince. What was he getting at now?
Xaldreth exhaled leisurely, still beaming and still keeping his heavy hand pressed firmly against my chest. "You seem to know many things. For instance... did you know I can tug at a person’s desires? Not like my brother, Asmodeus. I cannot bend wills as he can. But I can push soone toward what they already wish for."
I tried to steady myself, pushing up just enough to rise from my knees... only for the pain to spike viciously and slam back down.
Indifferent to my struggle, he didn’t even spare a glance and continued his idle ramblings as I squird at his feet. "But that boy, Michael, resisted my push. I sensed his hunger for power clearly enough, yet he rejected every promise I offered him. That righteous mortality of his sickened , but he was the perfect vessel for due to the potential growth of his soul. So I really wanted him. And... that was when I tricked him into revealing my na to that girl he was so smitten with."
My face darkened.
I could hear the oily smirk of satisfaction vibrating in Xaldreth’s voice. "You know who I’m talking about, right? Once she said my na, it was far easier to push her. The poor girl didn’t even know what ca over her, and Michael was elated! I just had to make sure to ti it correctly... ensuring you arrived just in ti to witness that fateful scene."
His many distorted voices harmonized perfectly to let out a chortle that grated against the inside of my skull.
"And you went off exactly as I had predicted! You made that boy’s life a living hell!" he guffawed like he was reliving a particularly fond mory. "You did everything that I wanted you to do! That boy already disliked you. He feared you, even though he aspired to be you! But after what you did, I turned all those emotions into pure hatred. And then I turned that hatred into wrath! And wrath into resolve. You beca the villain in his story, and I beca the wise old ntor offering him the strength required to defeat you."
I sucked in a sharp breath through barred teeth... and lifted myself up. The pressure on my chest amplified until I thought my ribs would fracture, but it was no longer enough to keep pressed down.
My legs shook weakly as they took my weight, but I refused to fall.
Xaldreth’s hand was still there on my body, and his toothy grin remained wide and mocking.
Slowly I brought my hands up together... and I started to clap. "You must feel so tough, manipulating a bunch of kids, huh?"
The demon’s smile dimd a bit and his dark eyes turned darker still, clouded perhaps by a flicker of surprise that I wasn’t more shocked by his revelation.
But of course I wasn’t.
Because truthfully, this was a possibility I had already thought of.
Way back when Asmodeus told about how all Demon Princes learn from one another and pick up tricks from their more perfected siblings, I had begun to wonder then whether Xaldreth could control desires.
Unfortunately, back then, the Prince of Temptations interrupted before I could fire off my query. Perhaps it was intentional on his part. Perhaps he was just being a bitch.
Regardless, I’d had my doubts.
I suspected Xaldreth might have been the architect behind isolating and breaking Michael, because under normal circumstances, a boy like him was never going to accept the power of that cursed sword.
There had to be a catalyst.
The Prince of Broken Swords had simply manufactured one.
This also explained why, on that day when we were all taking a bath together, Michael said that it wouldn’t be right for him to get close to Lily.
Because by that ti, thanks to the fact that I had told all of them about the influence of higher entities’ nas, he had understood what had truly happened.
He had understood that Lily had been unknowingly compelled by Xaldreth.
After that, maybe Lily felt him distancing himself. Maybe Michael was questioning the genuineness of their relationship. Maybe Lily sensed sothing was wrong, but Michael refused to tell her what.
Maybe that’s why they fought.
Really...
What a cheap, despicable ruse.
"Emotional sabotage was your grand master plan? You broke an orphan boy, a boy who already had a history of abuse and no one to rely on, then used as the monster that I won’t deny I was, and crowned yourself his savior. Truly, a ploy worthy of a deity thousands of years old!" I let out a breath that trembled lightly, caught sowhere between a sarcastic laugh and a growl. "Now, why are you revealing all this to ?"
Because there had to be a reason for his monologue.
The sharp, cutting edge of Xaldreth’s smile returned for the briefest of monts before he tilted his head slightly to the side.
I followed his gesture until my party was in view. All of them were frozen like the world around them.
...But the one that caught my attention, even among the others, was Lily.
The rest of them— Alexia, Juliana, Vince, Ray, and Kang— were standing there like lifeless statues.
Only Lily had a glint in her eyes. While she could not speak or move a single muscle, I just knew she was listening to every word.
...Gods.
Forget what I said about his manipulation earlier.
This was the truly cheap, despicable ruse.
Since Lily had already spoken his na once, even without knowing what it actually was or the consequences it carried, Xaldreth could now reveal himself to her at his whim.
Just as he was doing now.
He was intentionally making her listen to the truth of how he had used her to break Michael.
I could already picture the horrific implications this would have for their future...
But oh well, Michael and Lily’s relationship problems were not mine to deal with. My problem right now was to save him so he could have those problems at all.
I turned back to the towering entity in front of , looking at the myriad of broken blades embedded in his flesh like so macabre work of art.
"Accept my deal, demon. This is the last ti I’m asking you," I concluded with finality.
Xaldreth’s grin turned condescending, his multi-tonal voice sounded like he was enjoying this bargain. "No comnts? No moral outrage?"
"No. I won’t bother," I said. "I’m way too weak to back up my words as of now. I will, however, enjoy your death when we finally kill you. Oh, and make no mistake — we will kill you."
Xaldreth laughed loudly — so explosively loud that it made the frozen surroundings tremble. "This is the second ti you have threatened to kill ! But what do you know of such things? You speak of death as though it is a destination I have not already walked through."
After a mont of silence, when he saw I wasn’t going to rise to the bait or offer further comnt, he continued on his own. "Still, you have given sothing entertaining. Leverage rooted in sheer audacity was not what I expected from you."
I returned his smile. "Funny. A Demon Prince hiding behind teenagers and emotional trauma was also not what I expected, but here we are."
For a split second, the air grew heavier again. I reminded myself to keep breathing, refusing to show the strain.
Then, Xaldreth removed his hand from my chest and straightened to his full, imposing height. The dozens of shattered blades lodged within his torso shifted with a tallic whisper.
Thump—!!
And just like that, I was back into my body, unable to speak, move, or shift even a single muscle.
"You really do test my patience," the Demon Prince murmured, clicking his tongue. "I wanted to almost kill you when you started throwing information about us around so casually— information I still have no idea how you got your hands on. I cannot read the source of it in your thoughts. But it is fine, because patience is sothing I possess in abundance."
Yeah... I doubted that.
He turned around, presenting his back to . "In any case, I’ll be going back now. Your deal is accepted, with the exception of the final condition. I am not taking God’s mask off or saving Michael... yet. I shall do so only after he kills you all and wallows in the resulting self-pity. If you can, save him yourself. I will show you the direction where God is. Think ’yes’ if you agree."
...Wow.
This absolute bastard!
I could deduce his reasoning.
My entire leverage was balanced on the fact that Xaldreth wanted to keep Michael safe. To ensure that, he had to keep alive, because if I died, the truth about his cursed sword would be automatically revealed to the Monarchs.
But Xaldreth was instead betting on a specific scenario where — if Michael, under the control of the God Who Eats Is, kills us all, he would break down completely upon coming to his senses.
In that shattered ntal state, breaking Michael’s will and taking full control of his body would be easy. From there, Xaldreth could effortlessly find a solution to my proposed threat... assuming my bluff was even real, which it wasn’t.
But if it was real, then he had switched the terms so he’d still be safe if I agreed to this deal — which I absolutely had to.
As much as I was beginning to truly loathe this guy, I had to admit he was a master negotiator.
Poor Asmodeus was ill-fad as a vile manipulator for nothing! This scoundrel was the real devil in the room!
I wanted to clench my jaw, unable to curse, unable to even blink, trapped inside the cage of my own body as his presence still lood over like a mountain of steel and ridicule.
In the end, after a long, bitter thought... I projected the word into the silence of my mind:
Yes.
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