Chapter 357: I Knew You Knew I Knew!

Asmodeus was far from stupid. Obviously he knew there was a very high probability that it was a trap.

He just didn’t care.

If there was even the smallest chance that I had truly slipped up, then he had no choice but to see it through.

...Which turned out to be a mistake.

Because it was, in fact, a trap.

I felt it before my mind could even begin to process what was happening.

It was as if something was trying to force its way into my skull, pushing aside

my

thoughts to carve out space for itself.

The sensation was disturbingly familiar — very much like the one I had felt when Xaldreth tried to pry into my memories.

Only this time, it was far stronger.

And I mean

faaaar

stronger.

Unluckily (for him), the moment Asmodeus attempted to breach my mind, the darkness around us rippled violently and then ebbed away all at once, receding out of view to reveal a grassy field under our feet.

The plants and shrubs around us were monstrously overgrown, their leaves unnaturally thick and swollen. And there was a tangy scent of salt in the air, likely drifting in from a nearby sea.

High above us stretched the same fractured sky and the same crimson moon of the

Noctveil Wilds

, an alien firmament I had long since grown accustomed to.

So that scenery didn’t catch my attention.

What

did

catch my attention, however, was the green-haired young man lying a few paces away, leaning back against the trunk of a tall tree while gazing past a cliff in the distance, toward an expansive silver sea.

The boy was Jake Mel Flazer.

The real one this time.

He didn’t react to my presence in the slightest, which immediately told me that he couldn’t see me.

That made sense. I wasn’t

actu

ally here, after all. I was still dreaming all of this.

Asmodeus, on the other hand, gave a comparatively good reaction. He was standing right beside me, staring at this sudden change of view that wasn’t initiated by him this time.

"Ah, damn it," he cursed, pressing a hand to his face. "You clever brat. You used the Mask, didn’t you?"

What he was referring to was the Mask of Nobody — the same featureless, plain white mask I had retrieved (totally not stolen!) from the

God Who Eats Is

.

And he was right.

I did use it.

That Mask was a powerful artifact with two active and one passive enchantments, if I was remembering correctly.

One of its active abilities allowed the user to become completely invisible to all forms of perception, even memory, by placing them on the very fringes of reality when worn.

The other allowed the wearer to change its shape and color, which was very useful in its own way.

But what made the artifact truly terrifying was its passive enchantment. It granted absolute protection and counter-revelation against all forms of divination and mental intrusion.

In other words, if someone attempted to divine anything about me or launched a mental attack on me, as long as the mask was on my person, it would

immediately

respond by revealing the origin of that probe in the form of a dream-like vision.

Now, I know what you’re thinking.

Wait, Samael. The Mask isn’t on you. Then how did its enchantment activate?

Because, my silly little listener, the Mask was indeed on me.

Before my battle with the

God Who Eats Is

started, I had informed Juliana about some of the items in his possession. And the most prominent among them was, obviously, the

Mask of Nobody

.

Then I had given her very specific instructions.

It was that if I somehow, by some holy-unholy miracle, survived that encounter against the

God

, she was to find the Mask and place it on my unconscious body.

Why? Because I knew I was going to meet Asmodeus again. I needed something to trap him.

Just like how I did.

I said his name and baited him into poking into my mind. The Mask registered that intrusion as a mental attack and immediately activated its enchantment, revealing the source of the probe and basically showing me his live location.

...Only it didn’t just show me Asmodeus.

That was because Asmodeus was technically dead. He was living as a ghost bound to a Card within Jake’s soul, being hosted by my former

friend

.

Oh, and it was also because the Prince of Temptations had tried to bypass my mental defenses while we were still

connected

through the dream.

So the Mask had dragged Asmodeus’ consciousness —

and

mine — into the one place he currently held a tether to in the waking world: Jake Mel Flazer’s mind.

Which meant we were no longer inside my head.

We were inside Jake’s.

Asmodeus looked visibly diminished, his crimson eyes had now dulled in their intensity and were flicking across the grassy field with a mixture of irritation and genuine wariness.

"That Mask," he hissed. "Vahn made it to hide from the heavens themselves. I should have guessed you’d know about it."

I think he said a few more things after that but I wasn’t listening anymore. Instead, my gaze was now focused on Jake.

It was the first time I had seen him since the massacre. And he looked... different.

He looked beaten and battered, clearly from whatever he’d been doing in the meantime to level up.

Because yes, he

had

leveled up.

I could sense that his soul was now B-rank.

Wrapped in ragged clothes, I could see his body littered with cuts and bruises, black and blue and red layered over one another like a work of art. His jewel-like green eyes were tired, hollowed by exhaustion, yet their edge had only sharpened since the last time I peered into them.

He sat with one knee drawn up, one arm resting lazily over it, staring out toward the

Lake of Grief

with a quiet, distant expression. I couldn’t tell what exactly he was looking at because my movement in this place was limited.

Which was fine in its own way, because what drew my attention after him was the creature

next

to him.

Perched on sharp talons right beside Jake was a majestic bird, blacker than black like the darkest of night skies.

Its wings were folded neatly against its impressively tall and lean body. The tuft of feathers atop its head shimmered faintly in the diffused moonlight. Its beak was a curved spike of polished jet, and its eyes were a bright red.

It

was a

he

, and

he

had changed a lot.

He

was Kevin.

"Wow," I said flatly, dramatically clutching my chest as though I had been grievously wounded. "Never thought it would hurt this much to be betrayed by a friend."

Asmodeus frowned, clearly misunderstanding whom I was referring to. "I didn’t know you still considered him your friend."

"Oh, no. Not the piggy," I said, pointing lazily at Kevin. "I meant the bird."

The Prince of Desires was visibly taken aback for the second time in a row.

But instead of dwelling on that, he chose to prioritize voicing another equally important question. "So... when did you figure it out?"

Hmm.

When

did

I figure it out?

I shrugged. "There were too many coincidences for it to be anything else. For example, the Clone Worms told us we could take the

Valley of the Forgotten

because the

God Who Eats Is

was supposedly sleeping. But to reach that valley, we

had

to pass through the Caldera of the Moon Eater. And at our level, that should’ve been nearly impossible, since the pressure radiating off of Vaeghar was

so

overwhelming that we couldn’t have even gotten close to the Caldera without freezing in terror. Unless, of course, we had a way to dampen that terror..."

I lifted a finger. "And voila. Just as I was brainstorming ways to solve that problem, we conveniently got Kevin."

Asmodeus didn’t interrupt. He was listening intently now.

"Then, during our battle," I continued, "it clearly felt like Vaeghar was holding back. Sure, he was weakened by the restraints of the Monarchs’ will. Ridiculously weakened, even. But still, everything felt... too easy. And not just that. He had so many chances to infect others the way he infected Alexia."

The subtle curve of Asmodeus’ lips told me I had hit the mark.

"But he didn’t push it," I said. "He didn’t even try very hard. He let us escape almost willingly. That’s because you only needed Alexia removed from the board for what was about to happen next. So she wouldn’t make the upcoming fight too easy. And whom were we fighting next? The

God

. Turns out, the

God Who Eats Is

wasn’t

sleeping. If anything, it felt like he was

waiting

for us to leave the Caldera. Which meant someone had woken him up. Someone had set the stage."

I looked straight at Asmodeus. "I just had to connect the dots. And once I did, everything became painfully clear. Someone was manipulating the events. Manipulating us. Now my only question is... why?"

Asmodeus sniggered.

For a moment, I expected him to evade as he usually did or make one of those unfunny jokes he liked to hide behind.

But to my surprise, his answer was pretty straightforward.

"The Needle," he said simply. "I wanted the

Extraction Needle

. But Vahn’s fate was not to die yet. So I needed a Chosen One to interfere and alter destiny."

He tilted his head slightly. "Since Chosen Ones also can’t die without fulfilling their fate, unless something drastic happens, they are the only ones capable of altering destiny if put in the right situations. Think of it as an immovable object versus an unstoppable force. One would

have

to cave in eventually. So if you put two opposing fates against each other... well, you can guess."

Makes sense, I guessed.

The Seventh Demon Prince continued, "At first, I thought that

you

were one of the Chosen Ones. So I asked Jake, who had been teleported to this shore instead of deeper into the forest like the rest of you, to tame a beast with the power of my Eyes. I also had him meet Vaeghar, so I could get in contact with him. Then I woke up Vahn... or whatever thing he had become... from his slumber. I set the whole chain of events in motion."

He sighed, a sound that carried genuine disappointment.

"But I was wrong. Completely wrong. I realized much later that you were

not

a Chosen One. The more closely I studied the intertwining of our fates, the more clearly I saw it. You were supposed to die. Your Loom was collapsing entirely. There were... peculiarities about you, yes. Your Shade Mark, for instance. But you are not Destiny’s Favorite."

He paused before continuing, his gaze shifting back to Jake.

"Still, I realized that someone in your party had to be. Because no one survives the savage depths and hellish crests of this forest without being favored by fate. So I decided to stick with the plan. And lo and behold, you did it. You killed Vahn. Now I can take his Needle."

A disdainful scowl found its way onto my face.

Do all these ancient Demons only know how to manipulate little kids who aren’t even a fraction of their age??!

I shook my head. Regardless, he had unveiled some good bits of information that I would need to unpack later.

For now, there was only one question that mattered.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why what?"

"Why do you want that needle?"

Asmodeus laughed softly. "Oh, why would I ever want a needle that can thread out the strings of fate from a creature?"

...Yeah. Okay. That was a stupid question.

"Vahn, in his fallen and corrupted form, used the needle to extract the fate strings from living beings and consume them," Asmodeus explained. "Those strings are made of divinity. Every time he devoured them, he recovered fragments of his former power. That is how he kept the corruption confined mostly to his flesh. But even that was not enough."

He gave a small shrug.

"I, however, can use it in many innovative ways. For one, I can refine and retune the runes of its enchantments. Then I can use it to thread out the restraints binding Vaeghar," he said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "That would take time, though. So perhaps I will simply have Jake present it as a gift to the Faceless One instead."

My ears practically twitched. "What?! The Faceless One? He’s here? Already?!"

The Faceless One, also known as the Nameless King, was the leader of the

Syndicate of the Nameless Lords

— an illuminati-like cult devoted to reviving the False God.

I didn’t know much about him.

I didn’t know much about the Syndicate either, except that they controlled the world from the shadows and were going to be responsible for a number of events down the story.

You could never tell who belonged to them. They had millions of sleeper agents scattered everywhere in the world.

Even in the game, they were a persistent problem, a constant headache lurking in the background.

It didn’t help that Michael wasn’t an influential figure for a long time in the plot, which meant the Syndicate remained largely unexplored in the earlier storylines.

But one thing I did know was that the Syndicate — or rather, its leader — had visited the

Noctveil Wilds

at some point.

Because sometime after the Assassination of the Royal Twins, the Reflection Beast had been unleashed upon the

Golden Sanctuary

.

Their goal had been either to kill my father, Arthur Kaizer Theosbane, or gather enough sacrifices to unseal the Hollow Harbinger.

However, what shocked me now was the implication that the Faceless One

himself

was coming here to retrieve the Reflection Beast. I had believed he would send one of his underlings for a troublesome task like that.

...No. Wait.

Stop.

Asmodeus never said the Faceless One himself was coming here. I had just

assumed

it.

My eyes widened. I snapped my head up... and found the Prince of Temptations smiling at me with clear satisfaction.

"Things are going to become very interesting from now on," he purred. "You have no idea how much I hoped you would accept my offer. Well, don’t regret it later when we have to kill you. And thank you, Samael. You’ve been a wonderful little puppet."

"W-Wait!" I shouted as the world around us began spiraling back into darkness. "Is the Faceless One on the move?! Where is he?! Where is—"

Everything vanished.

The last detail of that dream that I could remember was Asmodeus’ creepy grin stretching far too wide on his inhumanly pale face, revealing far too many teeth that distorted his countenance grotesquely out of proportion.