Chapter 128: A Day To Forever Regret

IT, wearing Mariam’s body, stood before Malik with an unchanging smile, despite the fact that he had survived whatever spell IT had cast upon him.

The face was his mother’s, but the eyes were not.

They were black and depthless, like holes punched clean through the world.

The smile was wrong too, stretching far too wide.

Behind IT, the children shuffled forward.

There was no hope in saving them; their eyes were the same blank dark as IT and Mahdi.

They were mere moving corpses, nothing more. Malik could only help them by sending them away with his fire.

"Go on..."

IT finally spoke, sounding sweet.

"Thank him. Without the Sultan, you wouldn’t be here. He saved you."

The children turned their hollow gazes towards Malik.

"Thank you."

They did as IT ordered all at once. One flat voice that wasn’t really theirs anymore.

Malik kept looking at them, unable to stop his eyes from trembling.

IT tilted its head, the gesture almost playful, like a mother teasing a sulking child.

"What’s wrong? Do you not like children?"

Despicable.

That was the only thought Malik could hold onto.

Because yes, this was despicable.

Again, these weren’t children anymore.

They were puppets, corpses reanimated by Corruption, hollowed out and filled with nothing but ITs will.

IT had taken them, twisted them, and now wore them like jewelry to show off.

"Angels similar in status to the one you killed have been sold before."

IT stepped closer.

"Their remains fetch quite the price. Powerful buyers from powerful factions."

ITs gaze drifted around the hall, at the nobles still watching the dance, completely unaware of the darkness among them.

"But you’re magnanimous, aren’t you, Sultan? You only want to defend your home, not profit from death."

Its eyes slid sideways.

To Scheherazade.

She was the only other person in the hall looking anywhere near IT. Not directly—she couldn’t see IT, not truly—only towards the space where IT stood.

Her brow was furrowed. Her fingers tapped, absent, against the arm of her chair.

Scheherazade felt something.

IT smiled wider at that.

"I will participate in your auction. I will buy the Angel’s remains. For a fair price, of course."

IT’s voice dropped low.

"You wouldn’t want anyone else to ruin them, would you? Such delicate things. It would be a shame if they were... damaged."

The threat sat there in the open, plain as day.

IT would buy the remains cheap. And if Malik tried finding another buyer, IT would see to it that those remains never made it to anyone’s hands intact.

There was nothing he could do about it.

At least not now, and especially not with so many lives sitting in the room as collateral.

"I will still buy them..."

IT raised a hand, almost reassuring.

"I am not a thief. I am merely... negotiating."

The implication needed no spelling out.

IT could’ve simply taken the remains, demanded them for nothing, and Malik could’ve done little to stop it in the moment.

But IT didn’t.

Because the second IT crossed that line, IT’s hold over the room would slip. Scheherazade might not be able to kill the thing behind the mask, not the real IT, but she could tear this borrowed body apart without blinking.

And that would be inconvenient.

IT wasn’t all-powerful.

"Hm. Surprised? I came here to play."

Malik took a long moment before nodding.

There wasn’t much he could do here.

IT coming to his banquet, wearing his mother’s face, dragging along the ghosts of children he’d failed to save... the guardian he killed, making them bombs of Corruption ready to be set off.

That was far too devious.

He could try to kill IT first, sure. But by the time he reached IT, half the hall would already be dead.

The children and guardian in front of him were already gone, already past saving twice.

His family wasn’t.

His daughter wasn’t.

His wife wasn’t.

So he surrendered.

"Fine, the remains are yours."

Mariam’s face twisted into something that had never once belonged to a human being.

"You are learning, Stranger."

And then IT was gone.

The Corrupted corpses dissolved with it, sinking into the shadows like ink into water.

The air in the hall grew warmer. The music sounded louder, somehow, like it had only just remembered it was playing.

The nobles blinked, shook their heads, and slid right back into their conversations as if nothing at all had happened.

Scheherazade’s brow stayed furrowed a moment longer, until her tapping finger went still.

She looked over at Malik.

He gave her a small nod, nothing more.

Once IT was well and truly gone, a smile crept onto Malik’s face.

It was a cold smile.

This wasn’t what he’d expected at all.

After the memory attack, he’d been bracing for a follow-up strike. Another attempt on his Soul, another push to break him, Corrupt him, and claim him for good this time.

But no, it only cheated him out of money.

This only confirmed what he already knew.

There was a limit.

God-like beings couldn’t just walk into the physical world and do whatever they pleased. Not without a cost attached somewhere.

Even IT, as old, vast, and rotten as IT was, couldn’t bypass that limit completely.

If IT could’ve crushed him where he stood, IT would have. If IT could’ve simply ended him right there in front of his own people, IT would have done that too.

Instead, IT borrowed a body, made threats, and negotiated... IT played games.

A petty being, when it came down to it.

Malik needed money. That was the plain, boring truth underneath all of it.

The strongest of his people needed the strongest gear, and Holy Relics didn’t come cheap.

Enchantments from Divine Forgers didn’t come cheap either, and even with most of those forgers under his own banner, the raw materials still had to be shipped in from distant corners of Devil’s Maw, sold at prices that made his treasury groan every time a ledger crossed his desk.

Potions. Labor. Food. Horse feed. Housing.

It all stacked up.

Every soldier needed a blade.

Every blade needed sharpening.

Every sharpening needed a whetstone.

And every whetstone came from some quarry clear on the other side of the continent.

On top of all that, he’d just started a new operation.

A massive one.

Operation Our Promise.

His campaign against the factions wasn’t cheap by any measure. Moving armies drained gold faster than any Demon wave ever did, and keeping those armies fed and armed drained it faster still.

Now, with IT buying up the Angel’s remains for copper on the gold, his treasury was about to take yet another hit.

That was the real play here. Cripple him financially, chip away at the war chest one negotiation at a time.

Malik had genuinely expected worse.

A Corruption wave crashing through the hall, perhaps. Or an Arch Demon crawling up through the floor mid-dance.

But no.

It had come to haggle.

That was how nobles fought each other. With coin and contracts, not fire and the endless hunger of the Abyss.

It had well and truly hit its limit.

Malik’s cold smile widened further.

He’d make sure IT regretted this day for a long, long time.