Understanding each other without words—in other words, familiarity.

As a personal maid who had served Young Master Muen for more than ten years, An only needed one small movement from Muen to guess what he was thinking. Simply put, the moment Muen lifted his ass, An already knew what kind of position he wanted.

Of course, that familiarity had weakened a lot over this past year, after Young Master suddenly became outstanding. After all, some of Muen’s bad habits had changed. But compared to petty habits, An felt that after everything they had been through back then, the blending and tacit understanding between their souls had reached a higher level.

A level that could not be cut away—a level where water and milk fused together.

The only flaw in an otherwise perfect picture was that there were always some annoying pests coming to disturb them, leaving her extremely irritated.

Like a certain seductive little wildcat who loved to tease Young Master.

And like a certain silver little wildcat who looked proper on the surface, but was actually still teasing Young Master.

An didn’t know whether any new pests had appeared while she was gone, but it didn’t matter. As long as she found an opportunity to shark all those preening pests, she would still monopolize everything about Young Master.

After all, that was her purpose for coming to the Abyss, wasn’t it?

An met Muen’s eyes again. She only felt the emptiness of the past half year instantly filled by quite a bit, like a parched field being moistened again.

But it still wasn’t enough. She wasn’t satisfied with this shallow drizzle. She already couldn’t wait to have a deeper exchange with Young Master, to receive the soaking downpour, to soothe the loneliness of all this time.

Only...

Before that, she needed to deal with some things first.

Things she didn’t want Young Master to know.

"Understanding each other without words? Hahaha—what a lovely ‘understanding each other without words.’"

This time, the Enchantress Grand Duke truly had rage rush into her heart. She hadn’t expected that she, a dignified demonfolk Grand Duke—the succubus king—would be toyed with by an ant.

Especially Zagu’s look off to the side—that expression that seemed to say, “See? You got tricked too. What right do you have to lecture me?”—made her even more humiliated and furious.

For a hundred years... or longer—so long she’d already forgotten—when had she ever suffered such an insult?

"I didn’t expect that you, of all people, would actually flirt with a human here, playing some ridiculous little drama of deep affection... Truly disappointing."

The Enchantress Grand Duke’s eyes gradually turned cold.

"But it doesn’t matter. I will correct all of this. After all, as Divine Will said, you concern the future of our entire demonfolk."

In an instant, the pink fog trembled.

Terrifying pressure swept out. The few people present were like they had been thrown deep into a dark, dead seabed, even their breathing involuntarily stopping.

Muen felt an even more suffocating pressure on the soul level. The buzzing of a death omen nearly tore his consciousness apart, yet he helplessly realized he had no means he could use at all right now.

He couldn’t resist. Couldn’t fight back. Could do nothing.

This was the wrath of a Crowned One!

"Fuck... I was just joking. Is this really necessary?!"

Muen hurriedly looked to An with desperate hope.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry! An, this thing you worked so hard to control should be able to get us out, right? Hurry up—this old woman’s gone crazy!"

"Escape?"

But An only shook her head lightly.

"I’m very sorry, Young Master. The ancient relic in my hands doesn’t have a function that can carry the two of us away together, because it is also in a half-damaged state. Only here—only at the center of this Gutongs Castle—can it exert its effect."

"What?"

Muen’s face went pale.

"Then what the hell were we working this hard for?"

I trusted you enough to sacrifice my manly dignity—was it just to help the Enchantress Grand Duke build a rage bar?

Then wouldn’t it be faster if I just pointed at her nose and called her an old woman a hundred times?

After all, my taunting skill is something even an Evil God would give a like to!

"Don’t worry, Young Master."

An held Myriad-Age Cycle in both hands, staring at that complete, simple circle. Her dignified little face was still calm.

"At the end of the day, we don’t need to run."

"Don’t need to run?"

As An’s words fell, Muen blinked, suddenly noticing something that didn’t feel right.

Strange. I’ve already said three whole sentences to An—why am I still not dead?

A Crowned One wants to kill him at point-blank range, and it’s completely her home field. Does it really take three sentences?

No. Now it was four sentences.

With time like that, forget killing someone—someone fast could do a whole set in bed.

Muen reached up and touched his own neck. Good. His head was still there. This wasn’t some last hallucination before dying.

Then why...

Muen turned his head.

His eyes slowly widened in shock.

Because in that moment, he didn’t see death. He didn’t see blood. He didn’t even see a shred of killing intent.

He only saw a terrified face.

A face twisted with fear and disbelief—yet you could still vaguely make out that alluring beauty that could make even a soul feel numb.

The Enchantress Grand Duke’s face.

But on that face, the anger from just now was already gone without a trace.

"Wh... why?"

The Enchantress Grand Duke trembled all over, staggering as she stared at her own hands.

"Why is it like this..."

Her hands were supposed to be slender jade hands, like peeled scallions.

As the succubus king, she possessed the most outstanding beauty of the entire succubus race. Even though today’s succubi, due to aberration, only had a small number that still retained that former peerless figure, her beauty was still beyond question.

But now, her hands looked as if they were melting. Skin and flesh dissolved into a nauseating liquid, dripping down bit by bit.

No. Not right.

Not only her hands—her originally flawless face, her originally swanlike pale long neck, those originally awe-inspiring layered peaks—her lower belly, her thighs, her calves...

All of her flesh. All of that perfect shell.

It was rotting at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Rotten holes opened one after another across the Enchantress Grand Duke’s body. Fat worms went in and out, wriggling back and forth, as if reveling wildly inside a corpse...

Disgusting.

Muen shivered again.

But as his scalp tingled, strangely, this horrifying scene didn’t make Muen feel much dissonance.

It was as if...

The Enchantress Grand Duke was supposed to be like this.

"Demonfolk are an extremely strange race. Low-ranking demonmen are twisted and grotesque—many don’t even have human shape. But high-ranking demonmen are almost no different from humans. Yet when high-ranking demonmen reach the realm of a Crowned One... they become twisted again, and far more terrifyingly twisted."

That information he’d once seen surfaced in his mind. And when he combined it with the Ghostblood Grand Duchess he’d seen before, and that distant glimpse of the Magic Mountain Grand Duke after leaving the imperial frontline...

Sure enough—this corpse-rotting look was the Enchantress Grand Duke’s true face!

The thought that he’d almost been delivered to the Enchantress Grand Duke’s bed like a little white rabbit, welcoming her “favor,” made Muen shudder again.

A seductive succubus, he might barely be able to accept.

But a rotten old woman’s corpse full of maggots—who the hell could take that?

Still...

Why had the dignified Enchantress Grand Duke suddenly become like this?

Could it be...

Black flame flowed deep within his pupils. Muen opened the black-flame viewpoint and finally saw it clearly—something invisible, hazy, faint strands of mist were drifting out of the Enchantress Grand Duke’s body, slowly floating, floating, and finally flowing into...

That circle in An’s hands.

That extremely simple circle, as if it were just a single complete line, its ends connected to form a ring.

"This... this thing is this insane?"

Even Muen’s voice carried a tremor.

A Crowned One he’d just spent a few ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ hundred words hyping up—kneeling this easily in front of this thing?

He’d thought this thing—no, this respected ancient relic’s function—was to carry them away and escape or something.

But it was directly slaughtering a Crowned One?

"No—why... why is my soul... Divine Will never said anything about this!"

The Enchantress Grand Duke howled in pain, trying to break free of Myriad-Age Cycle’s control in An’s hands, but it was all useless.

Soul?

Muen’s brows lifted at that word.

So this Myriad-Age Cycle suppressed the Enchantress Grand Duke through the soul?

If so, those drifting strands of mist really did look like fragments of soul.

But then again, she was still a Crowned One he’d hyped up for a few hundred words—was her soul really that easy to control?

"Hm... wait..."

Muen suddenly remembered that after he came to the Abyss, he’d used black flame to devour the souls of several demonmen in a row... and they’d all been on the verge of shattering.

Could it be that even the Enchantress Grand Duke was...

"You really don’t know Myriad-Age Cycle’s true use."

An looked at the Enchantress Grand Duke—at her painful struggling—and showed no pity.

After all, she was such an ugly thing she didn’t even qualify as a pest.

"If that’s the case, then you’re no different from every other demonfolk. You’re nothing but a consumable."

"Nonsense! I am the Enchantress Grand Duke! I am the succubus king!"

The Enchantress Grand Duke roared, her not-yet-rotted hair whipping wildly.

A faint glow descended.

From above the pink fog. From above the Abyss’s year-round dim clouds.

That was—

"A crown?"

A dazzling crown, shining in all directions. Sun, moon, and stars were engraved upon it, and beneath it was holy radiance.

Damn it!

A heaven-bestowed crown!

Muen’s heart lurched.

A crown descending meant the Enchantress Grand Duke was going to fight to the death.

No matter how powerful that ancient relic’s suppression was, this was still—

"A crown..."

But at that moment, An suddenly let out a wistful sigh.

"This thing doesn’t belong to you."

She raised a hand and beckoned. The brilliant crown that should have fallen onto the Enchantress Grand Duke’s head actually...

Spun in midair and flew over.

The Enchantress Grand Duke froze.

Muen froze too.

"An... y-you... what are you—"

"Young Master doesn’t need to panic. I’m not some incredible figure. I can temporarily affect this crown because it never belonged to the Enchantress in the first place. The Enchantress... or rather, the demonfolk Grand Dukes today—their crowns are all merely inherited."

An gave Muen a gentle smile.

"Inherited?"

Muen was stunned. In just these few minutes, his worldview had been struck over and over.

"A crown can be inherited?"

"Of course not. What I mean by inherited is... huh? Strange. Why? Since it can’t be inherited, why would I say something like that? Is it because they’re still them, but... but...?"

An frowned slightly, falling into confusion. She seemed not to understand why she’d said something so self-contradictory.

Forget it. Whatever.

Lately, the strange things that popped up in her head were already more than enough. There was no need to fixate on it.

For now, don’t worry about it. Just deal with the Enchantress Grand Duke, then hurry and reunite with Young Master.

She was already starving for it. The moment she thought about what she’d do with Young Master afterward, heat rose across her body.

An lifted Myriad-Age Cycle and, following those control methods that surfaced in her mind, continued to drive it, suppressing and siphoning the Enchantress Grand Duke’s soul.

Myriad-Age Cycle trembled slightly. A familiar warmth flowed into An’s palm.

At this pace, in less than three minutes, the Enchantress’s soul would completely enter Myriad-Age Cycle, and then...

And then... and then... and then?

Her head hurt a little.

An shook her head, trying to drive away those headaches that had been coming more and more often lately. But in that brief daze, she realized the scene in front of her suddenly changed.

"This is... Gutongs Castle?"

It was still Gutongs Castle.

But no longer broken. No longer ancient. No longer dim. Only the towering spires that plunged into the clouds still stood.

"We will... resist!"

An heard someone speaking, so she lifted her eyes to look.

The sky was blue, the sunlight clear, so she could easily see the surging crowd ahead.

"We will resist, resist those people..."

Who was speaking?

"Once, we had no chance of victory. But now it’s different. We will receive the support of that existence. Look—that existence is watching us from atop the high tower..."

Such a familiar voice.

"And I..."

This voice... she’d heard it somewhere before.

"And I will become your king, and lead you..."

Who was speaking, exactly?

"To true freedom!"

At this moment, the perspective drew closer, and An finally saw the one speaking under countless fervent gazes.

"The one speaking..."

An lifted a hand and touched her own face.

"It’s me?"