“Good morning, Your Majesty.”
When the door opened and she saw the tall, mysterious woman with a black veil over her face standing outside, Katy’s brain didn’t even have time to process the signal of fear.
Her body simply followed the instinct carved into the bloodline of the Demon Race, dropping to one knee and lowering her head in a standard demonic audience salute.
“Rise, Lady Noctiluca.”
The woman stepped slowly into the room.
Behind her, the wooden door seemed to take on a life of its own, silently closing and locking itself.
Katy swallowed hard.
She knew that before the Demon King left, the number of people in the entire Kala World who could force their way into this room could probably be counted on one hand.
“Your Majesty, I… have a question.”
Katy plucked up her courage, but her voice still trembled slightly.
“Ask, and you may receive an answer.”
The Demon King did not look at her.
Instead, she surveyed the living room with interest, as if she were a noble traveler who had just checked into a cheap inn, despite the room being undeniably shabby compared to the grand underground palace.
“If… I find your question interesting, that is.”
“The scene you showed Mammon and me earlier in the Eternal Vision I manifested… is that an inevitability dictated by fate?”
“Inevitability?”
The Demon King gave a soft chuckle.
She walked to the table, picked up the glass of milk Katy had half-finished, and gently swirled the liquid.
“What is the definition of the ‘future,’ Lady Noctiluca? My Authority does indeed allow me to glimpse the fragments about to be woven by the loom of time upon the threads of fate, it is just that…”
She suddenly flicked her wrist, and the milk in the cup splashed out.
However, the white liquid did not hit the floor.
Instead, it eerily froze in the air, turning into countless suspended, milky-white spheres.
“I once pulled back the veil of the future for you alone. Did the future you saw then come to pass?”
Katy looked at the floating beads of milk and swallowed, shaking her head subconsciously.
At least until now, she felt her monitoring of Lobelia had been quite successful.
The scene she had seen in the crystal ball — where that girl used some kind of magic to control Gray and kill her amidst roaring flames — should not happen.
‘Wait, will Gray be the one to do it?’
The girl’s pupils contracted.
The scene from the Judgement Square of the Lothric Cathedral a few days ago flashed before her eyes again.
At that time, wasn’t the condition Gray proposed to Lobelia for saving her life that “if Katy is found to be a demon, he would be responsible for her execution”?
Cold sweat rolled down her temples.
As she struggled to remember, the background of the prophetic scene she had seen in the crystal ball that day aligned more and more with the execution square.
The giant iron cross, the slate-gray floor, and the roaring flames…
“I believe that only a future which must happen can be called fate.”
The Demon King’s slender fingers danced in the air.
Following the movement of her fingertips, those milky-white droplets shifted into complex geometric shapes that Katy could not understand at all.
“However, that future which was so tragic for you did not happen, did it?”
“Those who are good at scheming die by their schemes, and those who toy with hearts die by the heart. If fate is truly a grand play, I would favor such an ending.”
The blonde girl looked up in shock.
She suddenly realized that although the being before her had always shown her favoritism, she was still the Demon King.
She was the strongest existence who viewed all things as mere grass and all living beings as chess pieces.
‘If Her Majesty is just someone who enjoys the show and likes chaotic endings, isn’t my situation incredibly dangerous? I was placed among a group of humans who might be the strongest Heroes just to be a sacrificial lamb that could be discarded to amuse her!’
A bone-chilling cold rushed from the soles of her feet to the top of her head, and she shivered slowly.
Then, Katy’s eyes met the Demon King’s soul-capturing purple pupils.
Although her face was obscured by the veil of cognitive interference, Katy still felt the Demon King was wearing a smile that terrified her.
“Do not be so nervous, Lady Noctiluca. I still quite like you — at least for now.”
The woman reached out and brushed her hand under Katy’s chin, her fingertip sliding across her lips, signaling the girl to open her mouth.
Katy did not dare to delay and obediently opened her mouth.
In the next second, the milk beads suspended in the air were sent directly into her mouth by magic.
“Next, you may face some things that are difficult to handle, even for a Calamity Pillar, Lady Noctiluca.”
The Demon King reached out to seal the girl’s lips, gesturing for her to swallow.
“With a small gift from me, perhaps you can try to avoid the future you do not wish to see. Of course, that is provided you can withstand my power.”
The girl did not hear the last sentence clearly because she was currently in agonizing pain from the massive and pure Mana belonging to the Demon King that had suddenly flooded her body.
“Ugh… Ahhh — !!!”
Intense pain exploded instantly, as if someone had shoved a dozen or so red-hot iron rods into her body at once.
That was not “a little” mana at all.
It was a terrifying energy as vast as the sea and as violent as thunder, crashing through her veins as if to burn every cell to ash before reforming them.
“It hurts! My head hurts!! Ahhh — !!”
Blood poured uncontrollably from her nose, mouth, and ears.
The girl’s round pupils, which had been disguised as blue, were instantly forced back into bloodshot, vertical demonic slits.
Katy clutched her head in agony, her fingernails digging deep into her skin from the force.
Blood stained her blonde hair into messy clumps until she was covered in red.
Watching the Calamity Pillar’s suffering, the Demon King simply pulled over a chair and sat down.
She tilted her head with interest, looking like a female eagle that had just thrown its chick out of the nest.
Amidst the extreme pain, a thought actually flashed through Katy’s searing brain:
‘So, is this the pain the Demon King, whose Authority is over the future, must endure every day?’
This thought seemed absurd no matter how one looked at it, yet it appeared in her mind even as it was being sliced by a thousand blades of pain, as if it had been deliberately planted there by someone else.
Looking at the girl’s struggling eyes, a hint of a daze flashed within the purple pupils beneath the Demon King’s veil.
Ten minutes later.
The girl’s struggling gradually ceased.
As if she had finally endured the torture, she lost consciousness.
“…Sigh.”
The Demon King sighed and snapped her fingers.
Snap.
The foul bloodstains on Noctiluca’s body vanished instantly, as if she had never been injured.
The woman reached out and gently stroked the pale cheek of the unconscious girl, her voice barely audible.
“On every thread of fate, there is a Hero destined to destroy the Demon Race…”
“Having become a demon yourself after the sword you personally created was broken, what kind of future will you bring to us?”