“Two,” Burn noted in his mind. “?”

  Finn nodded. “The former Prime Minister’s death a few years ago was beled an ‘act’—vely after he secured his son’s position as his successor. People say Queen Celia had a hand in it.”

  “After that, Lankor became the current Prime Minister’s chosen didate,” Yvain tinued.

  “Three,” Burn leaned ba his seat, tossing the dot onto the table with a flick of his wrist. “Princess Willow and her old man died in the Wintersin Civil War. If the Prime Minister put his trust in Lahen Lance must have been the one who pulled it off.”

  Silence fell over the room.

  “What about Queen Celia? The First Prince’s Fa’s biggest involvement this whole time was the death of the former Prime Minister,” Yvain remihem.

  “Four,” Burn said, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees. “The former Prime Minister had to die because he’d never allow an illegitimate prio rise to power. That was his whole grudge against Rafaye in the first pce—he barely escaped illegitimacy himself. The former King only married his mother after she was already pregnant.”

  “You’re saying it was Lance?” Finn asked, spelling it out pinly. “Lance helped Celia kill the former Prime Minister?”

  No matter how one looked at it, Lankor was the ter of it all. All of the deaths were there to give him advantages.

  “Don’t you see?” Burn said, tapping the dots Tristan and Yvolt had brought in. “The ior of the Vision Resonator was hidden so securely that eveook out the heavy gun to eliminate all leaks.”

  He didn’t wait for a respohe trihe Demon Lord sent to Shorof, the regalia that poisoned my father—those all be categorized as artifacts, intricate designs with a purpose. And then there’s the Vision Resonator, a device capable of trolling Mana without Vision.” He turo Yvain. “You felt it, didn’t you? Something… off.”

  Yvain stiffened, his unexpinable disfort. “I—I thought I was imagining it,” he admitted. “We were supposed to focus on invading Inkia, but I kept getting distracted by something I couldn’t expin.”

  “Well, it wasn’t nothing,” Burn said. “And in the end, it’s all ected.”

  “Thank you for trusting me, Masters,” Yvain said, his voice steady but tinged with relief. He knew her of his masters had ever doubted him.

  “You’ve ear,” Burn replied. “Sending spies out so quickly, prioritizing the right leads—it’s no small feat. And in uhree days since we left you? That’s impressive insight.”

  All this information wasn’t avaible to him before. It’s either he didn’t care, or it slipped between the cracks. After all, in the previous loops, he was fog only on the urgent, bigger view.

  Yvain smiled, brushing off the praise. “With your resources, what ’t I find?”

  Maed beside him, ruffled his hair with an affeate grin. “You’re too modest,” she said, her pride in him unmistakable. Burn’s expression, though more restrained, carried the same se.

  “Now,” Man said, snapping her fingers.

  The dots rose into the air, ly anizing themselves to make way for the transparent ss she’d jured. Images of the Vision Resonator, the regalia, and Shorof’s tris floated into view, glowing faintly with magic.

  “Even with all my knowledge, these devices feel... fn,” Man mused. “Not Outsider fn, though. More… modern.”

  Burn’s gaze hardened. Modern. That word carried weight ihermere, a world caught in the awkward flux between tradition and the influx of Outsider teology. The tter, powered by the sun itself, dwarfed anything mana-based in scope and efficy. But the Vision Resonator? That was local. A breakthrough born of this world, corrupted or not.

  “If the Outsiders hadn’t arrived,” Burn muttered, “the Vision Resonator could’ve triggered a eological era for hermere.”

  Man sneered. “A, it turns out to be a creation of the Demon Lord.”

  Her words hung in the air like a storm cloud. Burn could feel the weight of her unspoken frustration—the turies she’d spent purging corruption from this world, the betrayal she’d endured. For a moment, a shadow passed over her face, a thought too dangerous to share just yet. She kept it to herself.

  Burn didn’t press her. He leaned forward, eyes fixed on the images before him, already pieg together the move.

  “Anyway, as we all know, we might as well lump the suspicious deaths of ret world rulers uhe Demon Lord’s handiwork,” Burn said, his to but ced with dry icism.

  The former Prime Minister of Inkia’s death? Sure, they had their theories. But without the Vision Resonator tying Lankor to any of this chaos, it would’ve been impossible.

  “Wintersin’s Prince died during a civil war a few years ago,” Yvain began, leaning forward as the pieces started falling into pce. “And guess who just happeo witness his death? Lankor’s uncle. Princess Willow’s full-blood brother. Oh, a’s not fet—it’s the same war that killed her and her father.”

  Burn didn’t flinch. “Five,” he said, nodding. “Go on.”

  Yvain tinued, “King Lazarus Lumine rose to power in Luminus Kingdom after years of being stifled by the Pope of Luminus. With the Pope out of the way, he had free rein to steer the kingdom’s political tides. He even married his daughter, Bianca Lumio Duke Padparadscha. She then became Saint Lucia’s headmaster too.”

  Finn frowned. “But doesn’t it seem odd? Princess Bianca marrying into a ral fa?”

  Burn’s eyes darkened, his gaze drilling into Yvain’s hesitant expression. “Six?”

  Yvaiated, then shook his head. “It fits the pattern, but I don’t believe Princess Biand Duke Padparadscha are…”

  “Don’t let personal ties cloud your judgment,” Burn snapped. “Just because you’re friends with their so mean they’re exempt.”

  Yvain stiffened uhe reprimand. “Uood, Master.” He swallowed, then added, “And… she’s also one of the founding members of the Democratic Teachers. They’ve been supplying Princess Nahwu with her tris.”

  Finn jumped in, brows furrowed. “The Democratic Teachers? They’re a group of educators friendly with the Outsiders. No clear ties to Lankor… until…” he paused, letting the gravity of the statement sink in. “Turns out, they’re sponsored by a gentlemen’s club. A club owned by Lankor.”

  Burn exhaled sharply, closing his eyes as his thoughts coalesced. In three years, the Loneborn Mert Group—the group Lance was deeply tied to—would be revealed as the Outsiders’ rgest er. Larger even than Veryon.

  And he couldn’t fet: the dest of the White Dwarf—the world-destroying oo kill him—wasn’t random. It was triggered because he’d seized trol of Inkia and Luminus, the base of the Loneborn Mert Group’s operations.

  “Six,” Burn cluded, his voice heavy with finality. “There’s your answer.”

  Lankor. The sed Demon Lord. The web of power, death, and manipution? It all led ba.

  But him specifically?

  It all came down to oail: Burn remembered Lankor should’ve been dead. The moment he quered Inkia, Lance’s death was so utterly unremarkable, so pathetically unfshy, that Burn barely spared it a sed thought in any of his loops. The name simply slipped through the cracks every time.

  And that was the point, wasn’t it? The sed Demon Lord had been hiding from him all along—iionally, meticulously. It was almost funny in hindsight. The clues were there, sure, but just vague enough to slip by unnoticed.

  After all, if he was the Demon Lord, ging his identity wouldly be a challenge. Faking his age? Child’s py. Killing his own people? Barely worth a mention. No, the hard part was staying unremarkable. And he had mastered it.

  How exactly had Lance mao kill the Pope of Luminus? Stage the “actal” death of Inkia’s former Prime Minister? Ehe Prince of Wintersin’s demise in the middle of a civil war?

  And what about Yvain’s father? The te Elven King? Was the demon king someoh specialties in cursed artifacts and devices and used it to quietly assassihem?

  The questions hung in the air, heavy and damning, until Gawain finally broke the silence. He raised his head, his expression twisted into something dark and ugly.

  “Your Majesty,” Gawain said, his voice quiet but cutting, “I uand why you called me now.”