Chương 138: Look at Me

Maelor had vanished. But his final barrier still held. A blue vault covered the capital, thinner than before, crossed by luminous cracks that sealed themselves every time the wind widened them. It was no longer fed by a man, nor even by a soul. Only by one final decision. Protect. Even absent, Maelor continued. Zayn stood for several seconds before the broken staff. The College courtyard was silent around him. The stones were still smoking. Burned pages drifted between the collapsed columns.

Every breath tore a little more at his chest, and every beat of his wings sent pain shooting into his spine. He had barely slept since entering the demon realm. Voragna. Drakhar. Cassiel. Nhaless. Lyséa. Vaelthor. The Throne. The crossing of the continent. Maelor alive. Maelor dead. His body kept going only because it had forgotten how to stop. The forge-blood burned too slowly to kill him and too fiercely to offer him rest. Voragna's stolen regeneration closed some wounds while leaving others open.

His right palm no longer resembled a hand, only an assembly of black flesh and fractured golden lines. He should have collapsed. He looked at Maelor's staff. Then at the stairs descending toward the underground chambers. And he moved. The fused scythe dragged behind him, its blade scraping the stone in a metallic scream.

"They're still there," it murmured. Zayn did not answer.

"He isn't. They are." This time, Zayn spoke.

"I know." The highest leaders were waiting behind Maelor's final defenses. The underground chamber had been built to survive a siege, a rebellion, a magical assault, or the collapse of the palace itself. Walls of enchanted stone surrounded it. Three sacred-metal doors sealed the entrance. Clerical seals covered the ceiling. Mechanisms from the Circle of Ash slumbered beneath the tiles. None of it reassured anyone anymore. They had heard the battle for days. They had felt Maelor die. Then return. Then disappear.

The chief prelate, Aster Vaudren, knelt in the center of the chamber, hands clasped around his holy symbol.

"The barrier still holds," he kept repeating.

"Maelor left a barrier." A woman of the Crown stared at him.

"Maelor is dead."

"He knew what he was doing."

"He died to buy us a few hours." Vaudren snapped his head up.

"He died for the kingdom." Commander Sareth, the woman from the Circle of Ash, gave a humorless scoff.

"No. He died to protect those still behind him. Do not make it nobler for your own sake." A minister slammed a hand against the table.

"That's enough. We need to reach the western tunnels."

"The tunnels are locked," an archivist replied.

"Then unlock them!"

"The controls aren't responding anymore." The minister went pale.

"Why?" No one needed to answer. The first lock dropped. The sound echoed through the chamber. Sharp. Final. All eyes turned toward the door. A second lock gave way. Then the third. The Clergy's seals lit up, tried to react, then withered like paper left in the rain. Aster Vaudren rose to his feet.

"Prepare yourselves!" Sareth drew her weapon. The guards formed a line. The minister retreated behind them. The first door opened. Then the second. The third did not move. For one second, hope returned. Then it split from top to bottom. Not under a blow. As though the material had aged several centuries in an instant. Ruined Time. The two halves fell inward. Zayn stood behind them. No one spoke. He no longer had anything of the prisoner they had glimpsed behind the College windows.

His mask was split on the left, revealing one eye ringed in black and dried blood. One of his wings had regrown with too much bone showing. The other still burned at the edges. Red scars crossed his torso beneath torn clothing. The mark of Lust pulsed above his heart. The Demon King entered slowly. The tip of his scythe carved a furrow into the stone. The guards stepped back. Sareth was the only one who did not move. She raised her gray blade.

"Zayn Veylor." He looked at her.

"So now you finally know my name."

"I already knew it."

"No." He kept walking.

"You knew a file." Aster Vaudren raised his holy symbol.

"Stop!" Zayn turned his eyes toward him. The prelate swallowed, but kept going.

"Maelor gave his life to protect this capital. Every murder committed here insults his sacrifice." Silence fell. Then Zayn smiled. A smile so faint it seemed almost human.

"You think his death belongs to you?" Vaudren clenched his teeth.

"He chose to defend the kingdom."

"He chose to defend even those who didn't deserve it." Zayn stopped a few paces from him.

"That's not the same thing." The prelate tried to hold his gaze.

"You do not have the right to judge who deserves—" You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. The scythe moved. Too fast. The blade went through the holy symbol, split the blessed metal, the hand holding it, and stopped a few centimeters from the prelate's face. Vaudren screamed. Zayn tilted his head slightly.

"Did you say that when you were deciding whether I had the right to live?" The prelate trembled. His hand still hung pinned inside the severed symbol.

"We were afraid."

"So was I."

"We didn't know what you were."

"Neither did I." Zayn pulled the scythe back. Vaudren's hand fell with half his symbol. He collapsed, screaming. All the others instinctively looked away. The mark above Zayn's heart burned. He saw them. He saw the fleeing eyes. The faces turning toward the walls. The eyelids squeezing shut. The bodies still trying to find some way not to witness the consequence. Something tightened inside his soul. Not Wrath. Not Pride. A deeper desire. An uglier one. That they would finally look at him.

The system appeared before him. [Depravity of Lust stabilized.] [Derived skill available.] [CENTER OF THE WORLD.] [Designated consciousnesses cannot voluntarily avert their gaze, attention, or perception from the user.] Zayn inhaled. The mark on his chest opened like a black pupil. The air changed. The leaders felt a pull in their eyes, in their necks, behind their thoughts. Those staring at the floor raised their heads against their will. Those who had closed their eyes opened them again with groans.

Even the guards trying to watch the exits turned toward Zayn. He became the center. Not because he was the brightest thing in the room. Because everything else had just lost the right to exist outside him. Zayn spread his wings. Black and red blood ran down along their bones. Then he screamed:"LOOK AT ME!" The chamber shook.

"LOOK AT ME! ME, THE MONSTER YOU CREATED!" No one could look away. Commander Sareth attacked first. She knew she was going to die. That made her faster. Her gray blade aimed for Zayn's throat. Three agents of the Circle of Ash lunged with her, each targeting a different mark: the palm, the clavicle, the heart. They had studied his reports. Maelor had given them time. They used it. Zayn parried the first blade with the shaft of the scythe. He took the second in the shoulder. The third entered beneath his ribs.

Pain folded him. Sareth shouted:"Now!" The runes in their weapons activated. White ash spread through Zayn's wounds, seeking to block regeneration. For one second, it worked. Then Zayn raised his head. His visible eye shone red.

"You had this from the beginning?" Sareth pushed harder on her blade.

"We prepare against all threats."

"Except the ones you make yourselves." He placed his right palm against the flat of the weapon. Right of Seizure. The ash-runes left the blade. Not all the magic. Only its ownership. They turned against the agents who had activated them. The white ash entered their own wounds, their eyes, beneath their armor. They screamed. They could not look away. Zayn ripped the blade from his ribs and drove it into the first agent's throat. The second tried to retreat. Ruined Time crawled over his armor.

The metal aged, split, and collapsed around him. Zayn seized him by the neck and hurled him against the wall hard enough to break stone. Sareth remained. She struck again. Zayn took the hit. Her blade entered his thigh. He barely seemed to feel the pain anymore. He caught her wrist.

"You're the one who signed the transfer." Her face froze.

"I carried out an order."

"You reread it three times." She went pale. Zayn had seen her name. In Maelor's archives. In Cassiel's copies. In the memories torn from human rooms.

"You requested the convoy pass through Rhel-Fosse because it was more discreet." Sareth tried to pull her arm free. Impossible.

"I didn't know what lived beneath that place."

"You knew no one would look for a body." He broke her wrist. She screamed. Zayn forced her to her knees.

"Maelor protected you until he no longer had a name." He placed the edge of the scythe beneath her chin.

"And you hid behind a door." Sareth looked at him. She had no choice.

"Do it." Zayn watched her for one second. Then he cut. Her head rolled in front of the others. Their eyes followed it despite themselves. Center of the World would not allow them to look anywhere but Zayn. But Zayn was moving with death. So they were forced to see everything. The Crown minister tried to negotiate.

"I have a family." Zayn crossed the room toward him.

"I thought I had found one."

"I can repair certain decisions. Compensation. Land. Official recognition—" Zayn gave a raw laugh.

"You want to give me land?" The minister backed all the way to the table.

"Everything can be negotiated." The mark of Avarice burned in Zayn's right hand.

"Cassiel said the same thing." The minister opened his mouth. Zayn placed his palm against the man's chest. Right of Seizure. He did not take his heart. He took the office-seals sewn into his clothes, the delegation rings, the magical marks that proved his authority. All of them left his body at once. The jewels tore through flesh. The seals ripped skin away. The enchanted threads emerged from his coat like metal veins. The minister screamed. Zayn closed his fist around that bloody mass of authority.

"This is what's left of you without your office." Then he forced it into the man's mouth. The minister choked. Zayn kept him upright until his body stopped fighting. The others watched. Still. They could not even shut their eyes. Aster Vaudren crawled toward a wall, clutching his mutilated arm to his chest.

"You are a demon," he whimpered. Zayn turned a face splattered with red toward him.

"Now, yes." He approached.

"But you'd already chosen that word when I was still human." The prelate began reciting a prayer. Zayn let him. He waited for the final syllable. Then he used Ruined Time on the symbol still hanging around the man's neck. The sacred object rusted. The chain rotted. The blessing collapsed. Vaudren stared at the remains in horror.

"Your god has not abandoned me." Zayn seized him by the hair.

"No." He set the blade against his throat.

"It's Maelor who isn't here anymore." He pulled. The scythe opened the prelate from neck to belly. Zayn let him collapse in front of the others. An archivist vomited. He could not look away from Zayn. So Zayn stepped directly above the spreading pool, exactly at the center of his vision.

"You're the one who altered my report." The man shook.

"I removed unverified elements."

"Lena's visit." The archivist shut his eyes. His lids tore open again by force.

"Maelor's objection."

"It had insufficient legal value."

"The request to delay the transfer."

"The Council had already voted." Zayn crouched in front of him.

"You removed everything that proved someone had tried." The archivist was crying.

"I was following conservation rules." The scythe spoke in its two voices:"Liar." Zayn did not smile.

"Why?" The man broke inside before he answered.

"Because… if Maelor had been right…"

"Then what?"

"Then we all would have had to admit we were afraid of a boy." Silence fell. Zayn stared at him. The man had finally told the truth. It did not save him. But Zayn gave him a quick death. The blade went straight through his heart. The massacre continued. Not like a battle. Like a reading. Zayn knew who they were now. He had seen their signatures, their seals, their votes. Maelor had protected their bodies, but his Archivium had preserved their decisions. Zayn read their crimes one by one.

The military officer who had proposed staging an escape to justify an execution. The taint-reader who had lied about the stability of his soul. The royal adviser who had recommended never informing the heroes in order to preserve morale. The magistrate who had chosen the word "object" rather than "person" in the transfer protocol. To each of them, Zayn returned something. To the officer, the fear of being hunted. To the reader, a corruption he could no longer classify. To the adviser, the silence she had imposed.

To the magistrate, a death without a name. The chamber turned red. Center of the World continued. The skill was devouring Zayn as it spread. Blood ran from his eyes. Every forced gaze entered his skull like a needle. He felt their terror, their hatred, their incomprehension. And beneath all that, the desire. They were seeing him. At last. Not the way Maelor had seen him. Not with sorrow. With fear. Zayn realized that was not what he had once wanted. But it was all that remained now.

The last high official still alive was an old woman of the Crown. She had not fled. She stood at the far end of the chamber, surrounded by the others' bodies, her clothes covered in blood that was not her own. Zayn approached. She looked at him because Center of the World compelled her to. But she did not tremble.

"What was your role?" Zayn asked.

"I voted against your execution." He stopped. The scythe fell silent.

"And for my transfer."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I thought Maelor might still be able to protect you away from the prelates." Zayn studied her face.

"You were wrong."

"Yes." No excuse. No justification. Only the word. Zayn felt his hand tremble around the scythe.

"You knew Rhel-Fosse was on the route?"

"No."

"You should have."

"Yes." That answer irritated him even more.

"You think acknowledging your fault is enough?"

"No."

"You want me to spare you?"

"No." The old woman looked at the blood around them.

"But Maelor did not die so we could be innocent. He died because he was more innocent than we were." Zayn clenched his teeth. She continued:"And you did not kill them to do justice to Maelor." Her gaze remained fixed on him. This time, Center of the World barely needed to force it.

"You killed them because his death left a void, and you didn't know what to put in it." The mark over Zayn's heart burned violently. He raised the scythe. The old woman did not move.

"Do it." Zayn remained there. One second. Two. Then the door behind him exploded. A wave of light tore through the chamber. Elias entered first. His armor was split from the battle against Lyséa. His sword still carried a great crack through its center. His hero's cloak was little more than a scrap of scorched cloth. Lena appeared just behind him, exhausted, her hands already wreathed in healing light. Jonah came in on the left, shield raised. Mira stopped in the doorway. Her gaze passed over the bodies.

Then to Zayn. Soren Vale slid into the room with his daggers, already searching for attack angles. Garron Tels advanced more slowly, still held together by support plates beneath his ruined armor. Ivara Solenn held her forbidden book to her chest, several pages already ready to be sacrificed. And Nahr was there. At the back. Hood low. Silent. No one spoke at once. They had imagined the Demon King. They had fought Lyséa in her dragon form. They had seen monsters. But none of them had imagined this room.

Zayn at the center. Blood up to his ankles. The smoking scythe in his hand. Burned wings. The black mark open above his heart. Maelor's broken staff visible beyond the doors. A body too exhausted to stand and a presence too heavy to fall. Mira tried to analyze him. The window before her crackled at once. [Zayn Veylor.] [Title: Demon King.] [Soul Strength: unstable reading.] [State: critical exhaustion.] [Depravities opened: 7 / 7.] She stopped breathing. Elias saw the last line. His face emptied.

Lena, though, did not look at the wings or the title. She looked at the piece of face visible behind the mask.

"Zayn…" He slowly turned his eyes toward her. Center of the World wavered. Almost all the high officials were dead. The desire fueling the skill shifted for an instant toward the new arrivals. His former companions. Or rather, those whom the world had decided to bind to him through the same summoning ritual. Elias took one step.

"Where is Maelor?" Zayn looked toward the broken staff in the courtyard. Elias followed his gaze. He understood. Lena raised a hand to her mouth. Mira closed her eyes for a second. Jonah went deathly pale. Ivara whispered,"No…" Garron lowered his head. Even Soren stopped looking for an angle of attack. The old Crown woman used their arrival to step back. Zayn raised the scythe. Elias instantly raised his sword.

"Stop!" Zayn turned an empty gaze toward him.

"You came too late again." The blade came down. The old woman's head rolled. Lena stifled a cry. Elias lunged forward. But someone moved faster. A black shadow passed beside him. Nahr. He took no order. Gave no warning. He crossed the chamber with a speed that tore tiles out beneath his feet. His claws came out in a gray flash and aimed straight for Zayn's throat. Zayn turned. The scythe intercepted the claws. The impact drove him back several meters. He was too exhausted. His legs almost gave out.

But it was not the strength of the attack that froze him. It was the form. The way the attacker lowered his shoulder. The twist of the wrist. The fraction too long spent on the back leg. The breath held just before impact. A movement learned in a mistbound forest. A movement he had already seen dozens of times. Nahr attacked again. Zayn parried. The hood tore under the spectral edge of the scythe. A face appeared. Thinner. Crossed by scars. Eyes filled with a hatred that should never have been there.

Zayn stopped breathing. The scythe lowered by a single inch.

"Narek…" The beastman drove his claws into Zayn's shoulder.

"Don't say my name."