Burn didn’t dare blink. Not even once. Because what if, the moment he did, he found himself hurled bato the cursed past? Again. And holy, he was doh that.
Sure, Man wasn’t weak—far from it. He believed she wouldn’t fall for the Demon Lord’s tricks a sed time. But that didn’t mearusted fate, or whatever ic joke had been pying on him tely. So no, blinking was out of the question.
Instead, Burn coated his eyeballs with Mana. Practical and effit. It kept them moist while he bolted across the city rooftops like a deranged cat burgr. Finn trailed behind, doing his best to keep up, though "best" was clearly retive in this sario.
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 invenience of a report: the First Prind 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 g 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 fra of a sed—just long enough for Finn to wonder if he was having some kind of epiphany—and then took off in a decisive new dire. 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 fetting spectacurly ignored.
“Your Majesty, is this the Demon Lain?” Finn asked, his voice edged with the kind of uhat came from knowing the answer was going to ruin his day.
Burn didn’t respond immediately, probably because aowledging 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, grimag like someone who’d just realized the pit was deeper thahought. So it was true, then. Inkia wasn’t just floundering—it was cirg the drain uhe looming shadow of a Sed Demon Lord. Lovely.
To be fair, the writing had been on the wall for a while. Ever sihat cursed night when they’d sent the Love Potion Duo to dig up dots 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 ected directly to the Demon Lord himself. Because of course it was. Nothing less dramatic would do.
The deeper they dug, the more tahe threads became. Hours of Yvain, Man, and Burn tossing around jargon-heavy sentences Finn could barely folloainted 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. you keep up?” Burn asked over his shoulder, his tone almost versational—if you ighe 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 trad 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 stro man oh? Yeah, no. That was like rag a thuorm.
“Okay,” Burn replied. And then—
BLAAAAAAAAAST!!!
The shockwave tore through the air with such violent force it might as well have been a decration of war. Finn froze mid-step, his jaw dropping as he stared at the sheer destru Bur in his wake.
The trees? Snapped like twigs. The ground? Ripped apart like paper. And the air? Probably traumatized for life.
“I won’t eveo follow your Mana…” Finn muttered, still staring at the age, half in awe and half w how he was going to spin this mess into something eveely manageable.
But of course, this kind of chaos came with a price. Broad daylight. A clear trail of destru. Witnesses, because why not. C this up was going to be about as easy as hiding a dragon in a haystack. Finn sighed deeply, already preparing himself for the iable damage trol circus.
Then again, Burn probably didn’t care. In fact, Finn had the distinct impression that Burn had already ated 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 Prind the Elven Princess.
Sure, it robably just a calcuted move to gain some sort of advantage—Burn wasly the poster child for seal heroes—but there was a glimmer of something in his as. Something that almost looked like genuine .
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 Man’s close ties with the mythical unity, letting anything happen to her would be bad business. Catastrophic, even.
It had been a few days sihe st minor invenience—you know, the one involving the demon. On the surface, it might have seemed like nothing was happening ior Family or Wilderwood March’s side.
Outsiders would see the same calm, collected facade they always did. But behind the ses? They’d been w overtime, piling information from every er of the world. Because that’s what you did when the apocalypse knocked politely on your door.
Today, though, they were expeg 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 eous. 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 fa—oh enough influeo rival both the First Prince’s and the Prime Minister’s. Almost. Because of course chaos had to strike just as things were ing together.
But panic? Hesitation? Finn didn’t see an ounce of it from Burn or Man. The two of them moved like seasoned pyers in a deadly game of chess, splitting up and tag the mess without so much as a blink. Literally, Burn refused to blink.
As for how they’d e to the clusion that Prince Lankor was the Demon Lord? Well, Finn couldn’t say. That particur revetion had almost gone over his head, buried under yers of cryptic chatter between Man, Burn, and Yvain. But holy? He wasn’t even surprised.
That man—Lankor—had always been dangerous. And now? Well, now he was just dangerous with a title.
***
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!”
Bir roared again, her voice raw and guttural, her face twisted in agony as anlob of that bck, mud-like sludge erupted from her body, spttering onto the ground like the bile of nightmares.
Above her, the grotesque pair of hands—those bed, monstrous things—twitched unnaturally. Their sinister fiugged at the threads binding Bir’s ned limbs like a macabre marioe.
Then, as if this horror show wasn’t uling enough, a pair of eyes cracked open in the palms of the hands. Wide, round, and unblinking, they locked ontan’s presend narrowed instantly, as though they reized something—or someohey hated.
Man’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 bzing with unshakable resolve. “Well, guess what? The heavens... never sleep.”
SLASH!!!
Yvain shot through the air like a bullet, his bde gleaming in the corrupted light as it sliced through the red threads binding Bir. Orike, and the sinister cords snapped, recoiling violently like severed nerves.
A radiant of light fred ience, encirg the grotesque bck 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.
Man pulled Bir close, cradlirembling fainst her body as if shielding her from the very essence of corruption itself.
Her wrist flicked with practiced precision, and the of light responded, strig further until the hands spasmed us pressure, the grotesque eyes in their palms bulging unnervingly.
The present had shifted, bent uhe weight of their as. This time might not be just another mind prison spell.
She gnced briefly at Nemo, standing firm in case the ued 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.”
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