Chương 71: The Season of the Minotaur (20)

The Muse's freedom spelled Whispermire's demise. Simon had foreseen that there would be a disaster following her escape from the seal, but he had underestimated its sheer scale. He had anticipated a quake or something conventional, while missing a more insidious possibility. A dryad was the soul of her manatree, and the Darkwood's one had finally resumed its natural lifecycle after centuries of interruption.

It gorged itself on all the wayward souls lost in its miasma, on all the pain and memories of hundreds of thousands victims. Energy stored across centuries of stunted growth was suddenly released into the tree. And thus it bloomed. Simon could only observe the ongoing madness with horror through his throne room's crystal ball. Black flowers had appeared all over its branches and its roots had spread all across the region, tearing apart hills and houses in a tide of hungry wood.

This unchecked growth caused tremors and quakes that could be felt all the way from the Halls of the Minotaur. The Darkwood expanded outward until it swallowed Whispermire and its surrounding farmlands in minutes, bathing them in massive quantities of poisonous miasma.

"Help us, Lord Belias!"

"My children can't breathe!"

"They're buried alive!"

"The miasma caught up to us, please help!" A flow of telepathic messages continued to buzz in Simon's mind at such a frantic rate he had to focus to even think. Each of them felt like a dagger to the heart, doubly so since his plan to evacuate Whispermire was swiftly turning into a fiasco. His people's efforts to leave the city for the countryside simply meant it took half an hour for the Darkwood to reach them rather than minutes.

His cult might have been in control of Whispermire, but it only covered a fraction of the population, and not all of them had been blessed with Brands of Gluttony to avoid possible discovery. This meant most of the population had no protection against miasma's poisonous effects. This was a disaster.

"Stop this!" Simon commanded the Muse.

"Stop this madness right now!"

"I… cannot…" the Stone Muse hissed, black veins straining beneath her skin.

"This is… my nature… all I can do is… redirect the miasma…"

"Then do it!" Simon ordered sternly.

"Create breathable hollows for my followers and keep the miasma away from the Goetia Research Center."

"I fear nothing short of burning down the miasma tree will halt its blooming, Your Majesty," Duchar warned him with his usual detachment. He had spent the last few hours or so constantly casting analysis spells to better understand the process.

"It is catching up on several lost centuries of growth in mere hours."

"The Darkwood will engulf half of Magvolia at this rate," Hector rasped. Maybe all of it once the comet crosses the Minotaur constellation and empowers the Muse further, Simon thought grimly. The sheer scale of the chaos and death toll weighed heavily on him. Thousands are dying. Simon telepathically commanded his cultists to lead the survivors to pockets of air safe from miasma, but he knew in his heart that most were already condemned. The Muse's return would be paved with so many corpses.

There was no way the War Party wouldn't react to this sudden threat either. A fleet of airships might be on their way to bombard the Darkwood as they spoke. Simon had mentally contacted Shabram to serve as an intermediary and sent gargoyle messengers west, asking for a peaceful meeting and promising his support against Euphemia, but he had no idea whether Lauriane and Louis would listen or even believe him. Could they even establish communications in time? This won't stick, Simon told himself to assuage his guilt.

This will all go away. One day, I will wake up with the tools to stop this. I will soon have the knowledge I need to prevent this disaster from ever happening again. This had to be worth the cost. It had to. Thankfully, there was some cause for rejoicing amidst all this nonsense. Simon looked up from his crystal ball to see a familiar, loving face ascending up the sanctum's stairs.

"So this is the Halls of the Minotaur," Cassandra noted as she looked around, her fellow witches following in her wake with Nora carrying a magical lantern in hand. She smiled at Simon and her family.

"I am glad to see you safe and sound, Simon. I had feared I would find this place in ruins, with you alone among the ashes."

"As you can see, your fears were unwarranted," Simon replied upon greeting her.

"The Halls of the Minotaur will become a much better place to live with you in it."

"Thank you kindly." Cassandra spotted the Muse and honored her with a respectful bow.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, milady." Her kindness was wasted on the Muse.

"You treacherous priestess, a false friend you have been." She then glared at Simon.

"I can smell his scent on you, bedwarmer. Even his promises of bliss and union were lies."

"Says the creature who intended to betray her liberator from the very beginning rather than hold up her end of the bargain," Simon replied scornfully. How could such an ancient and powerful being be so petty?

"You lost. Accept your defeat with grace."

"There has to be a loophole," the Muse replied, clearly not taking the hint.

"I will study the contract until I find a flaw, overlooked and deadly."

"You don't have enough time to waste, Beloved." Simon turned to the demons and cultists in the room.

"Clear the sanctum." The dust left behind by the four treacherous cultists in the room did wonders for discipline, and everyone except the Muse and the Honorius family left the throne room. This would be for the better. Gaining control over the Muse's power was secondary to compelling her to answer questions too important for minions to overhear.

"I need answers you alone can provide," Simon said.

"I have waited for them long enough."

"I will tell you no–" A surge of pain coursed through the Muse, the mere thought of disobedience punished by the contract and replaced with meek obedience.

"What do you wish to learn, Beloved?"

"I am not talking to you, Muse. Not yet, at least." Simon glared at the miasma crystal embedded in her forehead.

"Answer your master's call, Minotaur." The Muse stared at him for a moment, her expression torn by incomprehension. Her face twisted as she tried to make sense out of the request. Perhaps she had forgotten where the dryad ended and where the demon began after sharing their essence for four centuries. But then the fiend answered. The Muse was wracked with pain as the crystal in her forehead shone with a baleful, otherworldly orange glow.

The dryad screamed in agony in a way that caused Cassandra and even Simon himself to wince in brief sympathy, followed by disquiet as her skull morphed and changed in the most hideous of ways. Her face ripped open along her nose like two halves of a mask sliding away to reveal another visage beneath; one without beauty nor any hint of humanity.

"I just had the longest of dreams," said a deep and terrible voice. The creature whose face had emerged from the Muse's bore its title of Minotaur well. Two great bull horns each capable of skewering a man whole framed a demonic visage of exposed white bone and purple flesh. Orange glowing eyes radiated evil over a maw of sharp dagger fangs.

"I dreamed of you, wicked knight," the archfiend said with a voice that echoed in both the sanctum and inside Simon's own skull.

"I dreamed that we were one, casting this world into discord… your father's blood dripping down our horns and watering our mouth with joy." The same feeling of longing that had taken Simon over when he first saw the Muse briefly returned; the sensation that the crystal called out to him, that it had been made for him, and his destiny had always been to join with it since he was born under the Minotaur's stars.

It didn't last long before Indomitable Crown cancelled out the effect, but Simon could see that Cassandra seemed slightly unnerved by the crystal upon feeling its call. Simon took her hand into his own, his touch drawing her out of her trance. He is rather verbose for an archfiend… and intelligent too, Simon thought. He had half-expected a savage personality similar to the creatures his constellation took its name from, but the Minotaur Zodiac Fiend sounded ancient, almost wise. This is no bull-headed brute.

I'd better tread carefully, even with the contract. Moreover, that dream of his… was it a previous reign? Did the Minotaur receive flashes of past possibilities like Simon had dreamed of his father's various deaths?

"You remember it, don't you? That dream of what should have been." A black tongue slithered between the demon's fangs.

"It was foretold that you would come here to merge thy spirit and flesh with mine. You would have shattered my chains, and I would have freed you in ways you cannot fathom. We would have been magnificent together." Simon recalled that his father's list of deaths explicitly excluded Simon from Zodiac Fiend-related deaths. Considering how his mother had taken him close to Magvolia in his youth, he must have ended up meeting the Minotaur more than once. What does that say of me? Simon thought grimly.

That I had the potential to become the Paladin in one reign, and to sell my soul to a demon for revenge in another?

"That possibility is long past." Simon could feel the possessive revulsion of the Overlord's spirit inside him, like a dragon breathing smoke at a thief approaching too close to its hoard.

"I can tell my Class would not allow such a union. We've met too late, I'm afraid."

"Yes… yes, I know that." The demon let out what could pass for a sigh of sorrow.

"Mardok cheated me once again. He stole you from me, corrupted you as he corrupted this entire world and cast its future into darkness." Was he aware of the reigns? Or could he simply sense that something was wrong with the timeline?

"Fascinating," Duchar muttered, having spent minutes looking at the spot where the Muse's face turned into the Minotaur's own.

"It is my first time seeing a demon and its host forcefully coexisting without merging. Do you have to take turns, or does your host suppress you unless forced to relinquish control?" The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"This tree is a prison," the Minotaur lamented.

"I have dreamed for so long, trapped between the past and the future, reaching out for one without ever reaching either. The chains you put on us dragged me out of my slumber for a time, but I will soon fade away again. This is torture, for both my host and myself. Our spirits ache to join, but there are bleeding wounds where our minds should meld together." A brief flash of compassion flared in Cassandra's eyes. Only she could feel empathy for a sealed demon.

"What is your name, great archfiend?"

"I am Asterion, the Minotaur. The spinner of the wheel of death and rebirth, he who presides over cycles of violence." The Minotaur turned his loathsome gaze onto Cassandra.

"You too could become my soulmate. What is it that you seek, daughter of demonkind? Immortality? A loved one's rebirth? Life and death are mine to command."

"Do not dare," Hector threatened upon drawing his axe.

"Or I will chop your wooden vessel low…"

"The contract prevents you from touching her without my say-so," Simon reminded him. He and Duchar had covered their bases.

"Stay in your place, Asterion, unless you want an early return trip to the Abyss."

"I wouldn't mind merging with him, Simon," Cassandra replied with far too much aplomb for the situation.

"If we could free the Muse and have the contract transferred over to me, I could help you both."

"It would be a most wonderful experiment, my daughter, but I would advise caution," Duchar decided.

"This entity is clearly a unique fiend unlike any others I have ever encountered. It warrants further study and observation before practical study."

"Father, sister…" A rather aghast Hector shook his head.

"You cannot be serious… this is madness."

"You are being far too hasty with this," Simon agreed, glaring at the Minotaur.

"Try to deceive us at your own peril." The demon's eyes dimmed.

"It doesn't matter," he said with a quieter voice all of a sudden.

"None of this matters."

"What do you mean?" Cassandra asked, a frown on her face.

"This universe is…" Asterion hesitated on the word a moment." Wrong. I can feel it. A wrongness … and you are at the center of it all." He glanced at Simon with an emotion he didn't think an archfiend could be capable of: unease.

"What have you done to the world, Simon?" Simon's spine stiffened as he sensed phantom fingers on his throat. His hand reached out to his neck and found nothing, yet he continued to feel an ominous, invisible presence pressing against his skin.

"Simon?" Cassandra asked upon sensing his unease.

"Is something wrong?" This is like that time, Simon thought as he recalled his second reign, when he had made the mistake of mentioning the reigns to Lauriane. The memory of invisible hands suffocating him to death remained vivid in his mind nearly a dozen loops later. Not a death sentence… a warning. Asterion could sense the reigns, or at least their impact on reality. He couldn't understand the truth, but he was getting close enough to risk triggering the Crimson Throne's failsafe.

It was warning Simon to either silence the archdemon if it got too close to figuring out all or suffer the consequences.

"Wrongness?" Duchar inquired, unable to suppress his curiosity.

"Could you elaborate?" Simon had to change the subject now before he wasted this reign.

"I require other and more urgent answers, Duchar," Simon said sternly as he quickly moved on to some of his many questions.

"Was Mardok one of you? A Zodiac Fiend? What even are you?"

"We are lords of the Abyss, the tears of the great Abraxas," Asterion replied calmly. Simon immediately felt the pressure on his neck vanish once the conversation moved away from the time-loop.

"Thirteen we were, children of the darkness between our stars."

"Abraxas?" Duchar inquired, not recognizing the name.

"Is that the comet's name?"

"That is what your elven astrologers called it when we graced this world, two revolutions past," Asterion replied, his eyes glancing at the comet's glow.

"Our crystals were born of it; shards called down to this world by those who stared into the sky and reached out to us with their fears, giving us shape and reason."

"You are fragments of the comet?" Simon quickly put two and two together.

"The comet is a miasma crystal?!" The true horror of the situation quickly dawned on him. Simon finally realized why monsters and miasma were growing rapidly all across the world; the same reason why a small crystal of his own creation could steadily transform an entire temple or castle into a monsters' den. The comet Abraxas was turning the entire planet into a Dungeon.

"I never imagined there existed a crystal of such size and purity that mere shards could spawn archdemons," Duchar muttered to himself, his eyes gleaming with excitement. He pulled out a piece of paper from inside his sleeve and began to write down notes.

"Where did it come from? Since when has it existed? Was this comet born from the Dark itself, or the final remnant of a lost world destroyed by magic?"

"I do not know," the Minotaur answered honestly.

"I gained purpose when men looked at the stars that gave me life with fear, and remember nothing of what came before. Perhaps I am the demon of the constellation drawn from the Abyss by mortal desires, or the embodiment of mortal dread and nightmares given shape by Abraxas' glow. I do not care either way. I know what I am and what I was born for… or at least, I used to." Simon scowled.

"And what is your purpose?"

"To cast this world into bloodshed and discord." Of course, what else should Simon have expected?

"I am the archfiend of cycles. Of passing seasons, of life and death, of war and endless violence." Strangely enough, he uttered those words not with pride, but weariness.

"But I have dreamed for so long… it all seems so pointless now. I do not know if there is a point to despoiling a world so ruined." His imprisonment has ground him down, Simon thought. The contract compelled Asterion to speak the truth, so he was genuinely exhausted. Let's hope the other Zodiac Fiends will be in the same boat, though somehow I doubt we'll be so lucky.

Come to think of it, was Asterion's ability to sense the reigns the result of his unique domain over cycles or something all the other Zodiac Fiends shared? Simon had to find out the answer, if only to ensure the other archdemons wouldn't adapt to his actions.

"Do all Zodiac Fiends seek destruction?" Cassandra asked, her enthusiasm suddenly lessened. Simon guessed that she was now finding the prospect of merging with a demonic warmonger far less appealing.

"No," the Minotaur replied, much to Simon's surprise.

"We are each an island bound by our whims' tides. Others seek to rule, to revel, or to hunt and destroy. The Maiden would rather be worshiped, to blind mortals with the light of adoration, when I only ever sought solitude."

"Then maybe some demons could be open to negotiation?" Cassandra suggested hopefully, her head turning to Simon.

"Some of them might be reasoned with." Simon somehow found it an unlikely prospect, especially since the Noble Heroes had sealed them all away rather than attempt any form of coexistence. Even if some might be less destructive than others, the fact that their mere awakening caused cataclysmic devastation made them intrinsically dangerous to mortalkind.

"What about Mardok?" Simon inquired.

"Was he your leader? The thirteenth and strongest Zodiac Fiend?" The mere suggestion caused the Minotaur to give out a dark, spiteful grunt.

"Mardok was a traitor. None of us acted against each other, for we were siblings born from the stars… except for that viper, who exceeded us all in cunning and wickedness." I knew it, Simon thought.

"He helped the Heroes defeat and seal you, didn't he?"

"Yes. He hid and walked among the mortals, secretly teaching our weaknesses to our enemies to ensure he alone would rule this world awash with evil." Asterion glared at Simon's shadow, as if he could see something unseen.

"I sense an echo of him in you… alongside a foul dragon's stench and the most rotten human heart I have ever heard beating." Simon's hands clenched into fists.

"Some part of them remains in their successor, don't they? The same way Noble Crestones remember their past holders."

"It is the nature of shadows to be drowned in deeper darkness. They have returned to the Dark, as we all shall." Asterion's eyes flickered.

"I wonder… was that his goal from the start?"

"What was Mardok's relationship with my ancestor, Elios Magnos?" Simon asked Asterion.

"The Librarian? He was one of the heroes who sealed you, wasn't he?"

"A traitor's blood runs through your veins," Asterion replied.

"I dreamed of this man and the walking corpse he became. So full of fear and grief he was when I slew his comrades before his eyes and showered my horns in their guts. He called me many names when he sealed me away."

"Yes, I figured you met on bad terms," Simon deadpanned.

"When and why did he leave the heroes to join Mardok?"

"I am not certain," Asterion admitted.

"When I awoke again, he had sworn allegiance to Mardok, shedding his humanity for withered undeath. They shoved me into this prison and then departed. My vessel might be able to tell you more." And Simon would be sure to ask, after confirming one last critical piece of information.

"How can I destroy you and your fellow fiends?"

"That, I do not know… but it is possible," Asterion confirmed warily, the contract compelling him to answer.

"Your predecessors failed to shatter the crystals hosting our spirits many, many times, yet I sensed Mardok's destruction centuries back. The shadow that follows your steps is but an echo of what once was."

"So his crystal was permanently destroyed?" Simon pushed.

"When? When Gargauth slew him, or earlier? Can you Zodiac Fiends survive without one?"

"I… I cannot say. Old yesterdays often blur together." Asterion hesitated.

"Why are you asking me this?" Because Lauriane had pointed out that she could never find a miasma crystal of sufficient purity to channel a Dark Class. Simon was wondering if Mardok had somehow used his own to create the Overlord, sacrificing his own immortality for power. Alas, it seemed Asterion didn't know the answer to this question either, nor did he have any idea how Gargauth even managed to slay Mardok permanently.

"We are fears made manifest, the many voices of the Dark," Asterion declared.

"So long as the stars we draw our powers from remain, we will endure in one form or another."

"If I understand correctly, your powers will reach their apex once the comet crosses into your constellation," Simon pointed out.

"What will happen to you then? To this land?"

"When Abraxas shines on the Minotaur, I shall shed this prison of bark and sap." Duchar immediately noticed a key detail.

"Without a vessel of your own?"

"There would be no need for one," Asterion replied wistfully.

"Once Abraxas imbues me with its strength, I shall be able to manifest a new body shaped from miasma rather than feeble flesh. I will be truly reborn." Simon scowled as he recalled Elios Magnos' statements that the Scorpion crystal could only tempt and entice for now, but that he would not interfere with its escape attempt. It simply wouldn't matter if the Zodiac Fiend failed to find a host by that time. It would emerge in full, like it did in ancient times.

"Nonetheless, a powerful soulmate magnifies our strength," Asterion said, his eyes staring at Cassandra with longing.

"There are things we could do together that none of us can achieve alone."

"Why me, Lord Asterion?" Cassandra inquired.

"There are many who bear your sign. What makes me or Simon special to you?"

"Only mortals who have an affinity for the Dark in their souls can harmonize with my spirit. Those who bear the blood of demons or those you mortals call 'visionaries' can house my spirit too, so long as they bear my sign." Simon scowled. On one hand, it explained why the Muse had contacted so few people to serve as hosts in Whispermire. Cassandra had demon blood, Lorimor had likely stained his son with the Dark by mere proximity, and Simon descended from a visionary lich.

On the other hand, so did the entire Magnos bloodline. If a drop of visionary blood was enough, then all of Simon's siblings—even Euphemia herself—could potentially become Zodiac Fiend hosts in the wrong circumstances. That didn't bode well for the world. Could the comet produce more demons of the Zodiac Fiends' strength? Or would it be far enough away from the planet that no new shards would reach the surface? Simon wondered if recovering some of those might let him create Dark-aligned Vassal Classes…

"Duchar, do we have any telescope powerful enough to observe the comet more closely?" Simon inquired immediately.

"I'm afraid not," Duchar replied with a sigh. He sounded just as eager as Simon to observe this colossal miasma crystal up close, and just as frustrated by the lack of proper equipment.

"The lenses we pilfered from His Late Majesty Balzam's inheritance are insufficiently precise. I would have confirmed the comet's true nature sooner otherwise."

"Where could we find such a telescope then?" Duchar gave it much thought.

"The Church's Lighthouse, mayhaps?" he suggested.

"It is the heart of the Church of the Light's astrological research. The country of Muse probably has one in storage, courtesy of the Crafter." Both of which were currently beyond their reach, to Simon's frustration. He still made a mental note to investigate that in a future reign.

"Lord Overlord?" a gargoyle called out to him in his mind, drawing him out of his thoughts.

"A fleet is flying at us from the west." Simon froze.

"Airships from the Goetia Research Center?"

"Not just those." The gargoyle sounded hesitant.

"I think they have a dragon." A dragon? Vouivre? No, that didn't make any sense. She would never ally with the War Party and had been in Uyo, according to his latest information. Was that the same creature he had received sightings of in the past months? Whatever the case, Lauriane wouldn't dispatch such a force for mere negotiations. Either their entreaties had failed to reach or been disbelieved.

"A fleet is coming our way," Simon warned his allies before looking at Asterion.

"Let's see if you were worth the trouble of freeing…"