Chapter 478: A New Ally

Much later that night...

Inside the Demon King’s private chambers, Morgana was still sitting exactly where the Mistress had instructed her to remain.

She had been sitting there for more than eight hours without standing even once.

The lights illuminating the room cast the shadow of a nearby table across the floor.

Then that shadow began to move.

It slowly expanded across the floor, darkening the surrounding area before rising upward into the form of Isabella.

Morgana’s eyes turned toward her. A devious glare appeared on her face as she stared at her approaching Mistress, displeased by the fact that Bella’s command had kept her confined to her seat for a good part of the day.

Dark Bella walked closer, flicking her wrist in tandem.

The shadow underneath one of the nearby seats suddenly moved, pushing the chair forward until it came to a stop in front of her.

Bella sat down and said. "You’re a pain in the ass, you know that, right?"

Morgana rolled her eyes.

Bella shook her head. "If you weren’t immortal, I’d probably have you kill yourself."

Morgana retorted, "I wonder whose fault that is."

"Well..." Dark Bella sighed. For a moment, neither of them said anything.

Then Dark Bella spoke again. "Listen, Morgana. There’s no need for this animosity toward Nathan, toward me, or any of us."

"I know I can achieve that by issuing you commands to behave," Dark Bella continued, "but I don’t want to do that. However, I would go with that method if talking to you fails."

Morgana narrowed her eyes, then made a face of curiosity and uncertainty, as though she were genuinely puzzled by what she had just heard.

"You, Mistress..." she began, then paused for another moment before speaking again. "You would rather seek dialogue than issue your decrees?"

Dark Bella raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"Does this change come with your current... status?" Morgana asked. "Or is it..."

She hesitated, seemingly struggling to find the right words. "I’m sorry. I’m a bit confused."

Dark Bella sighed. "Are you reminding me that I am not as powerful as I used to be?... you are plenty irritable, Morgana."

Morgana laughed lightly. "Tell me, Mistress. I’m curious."

Then her eyes suddenly widened. "Oh, I see."

She leaned slightly forward, a devious smile appearing on her face. "Or perhaps being married to a human has softened you?"

Dark Bella shot her an angry glare.

Morgana then sat back, raising two of her hands in surrender while looking amused. "All right. Let’s hear this talk, Mistress."

Dark Bella relaxed into her seat before making a pointing gesture at her.

"First off, you have it wrong about Nathan’s intentions," she said. "That man doesn’t care about your throne. He doesn’t even care about the seat at the head of a province."

"He truly does want his wife back. And to do that, it might require him to kill the Dragon Emperor. So everything he has done so far has been towards that goal. Every single thing, including our arrival on this continent."

Morgana laughed. "Mistress, I told you already. I played a fool to these claims, and I have grown tired of it."

"Do you not think me above lies?" Dark Bella replied.

Morgana instantly stopped laughing. Her eyes narrowed as she looked toward Dark Bella’s serious expression.

In truth, she knew that her Mistress had never been the type to be dishonest. She might withhold the full truth or refuse to reveal certain things, but she had never been one to deliberately lie.

Perhaps it was even that nature of hers that had caused the Blessed to be bound by a covenant that forced them to always tell her the truth.

After a moment of silence, Morgana finally spoke. "But if that were to be so... then it is a fool’s errand. I assumed that Izzgur would have known this by now."

"Hmm..." Dark Bella muttered. "I’ve never paid attention to the lives of lower beings, but it seems that you know something about this Dragon Emperor that I don’t."

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "So tell me, Morgana. What is it?"

"The Dragon Emperor," Morgana began. "The one Izzgur intends to kill."

She paused.

"He will fail at doing that."

Bella said nothing. At this point, she simply waited for Morgana to continue. Her words suggested there was more to what she knew about the Dragon Emperor.

Morgana’s gaze slowly drifted into the distance.

Then she spoke again. "During World Cataclysm, this planet was cleansed of almost its entire population."

As the words left her mouth, her eyes remained fixed ahead.

And suddenly, the scene around her seemed to disappear; Morgana was reliving a memory from the distant past.

She appeared slightly younger than she was now, her long hair disheveled and covered in dust. Smoke drifted around her as she walked through the ruins of what had once been a world filled with life.

The ground beneath her feet trembled constantly.

Every few steps, the earth lurched violently enough to throw her off balance, forcing her to catch herself before she fell.

The world around her had been reduced to devastation.

The sky was almost completely obscured by enormous clouds of smoke and ash. Through the darkness, flashes of fire illuminated the horizon, revealing vast sections of the landscape that had been torn apart.

Mountains had been shattered, entire regions of land had collapsed into enormous chasms, their depths glowing with the intense orange light of molten rock.

Lava poured through the broken terrain like rivers, flooding valleys and swallowing whatever remained in its path.

The surface of the planet itself had been torn open.

In some places, the destruction ran so deep that the heat from beneath the crust erupted directly onto the surface, sending fountains of molten material into the air.

And beyond the ruined landscape, the devastation continued into the sky.

Massive fragments of the planet had broken away from the surface, some of them larger than entire cities.

They drifted through the darkness of space, surrounded by smaller pieces of rock and debris that had been ripped from Charvis.

Most of the world had already been destroyed, leaving only a broken shell.

-

"The Druids were the only ones exempt from the annihilation," Morgana continued.

"I had my immortality to thank for protecting my life when I could not protect myself. But the Dragon Emperor... he lived through it all."

She paused, her eyes still distant as she recalled the past.

"Of all the existing dragons at the time, he alone was the last surviving one."

"We had crossed paths a few times," Morgana continued. "And I tell you this, I was lucky he didn’t have an appetite for me. If he did, I would not have been able to protect myself from him."

"Now, that dragon has been alive for all that time, even till after the Wheel of Fortune remade the world. That makes the Dragon Emperor the oldest existing dragon."

Her expression became more serious.

"Dragons are creatures that grow stronger with time. Do you really think Izzgur could possibly come up with a means to kill a dragon that has lived for more than a thousand years?"

"Hmm..." Dark Bella considered her words, then smiled. "Well, I’m glad you’re here, then."

Morgana looked at her with a puzzled expression.

"Because that brings me to my real proposition." Bella continued, leaning back slightly. "I came here to strike a deal. I want you to come on board with Nathan’s plan, and I want you to directly aid us against the Dragon Emperor."

"When it is all done, I will grant you the thing you want the most."

Dark Bella looked directly into Morgana’s eyes.

"Your freedom...You will no longer be my Blessed."

Morgana’s expression changed slightly, but said nothing at first. Then she scoffed and shook her head. "And what makes you think that even with me, we could possibly fight the Dragon Emperor and his dragons?"

Bella smiled. "Oh, come on, Morgana. I can very well tell that there is almost no difference between you and a lower deity."

Her eyes moved over Morgana for a moment.

"And from what I can tell, you don’t even need to depend on my blessings anymore for immortality. I know you’ve found your own way."

Morgana smiled but said nothing, letting the Mistress finish up.

"If there is any reason you might intend to refuse, it isn’t because you lack the power....No. Far from it."

"Perhaps it’s only because even such an outcome may not be a victory for you, and you don’t want to risk everything for it."

Dark Bella tilted her head. "Am I wrong?"

Morgana stared at her hands for a moment. Then her expression suddenly became serious as she looked back at her Mistress.

"Give me your word, Mistress, that you will not change your mind on a whim once this is achieved."

Dark Bella’s expression softened slightly. "You, of all people, should know that I always keep my end of a bargain."

"Although, you probably know this but I must still remind you...I still need to recover much of my original status to keep my end"

Morgana stared at her for a moment longer, then sighed." Very well, then."

She looked down at the seat that had kept her trapped for the better part of the night. "Now, allow me walk off this damn seat."

Dark Bella laughed. She stood and turned around, then motioned with one finger for Morgana to get up.

For the first time in more than eight hours, Morgana was finally free to stand.

Bella began walking away, shadows gathering around her as she moved.

But after reaching a certain point, she stopped and turned slightly one.

"One more thing, Morgana"

"This is not the age of the old kingdoms...All of this continent, its prosperity and its chaos, are credited to you."

Bella smiled. "So you would do well to stop hiding behind the disguise of a king...This is all yours to keep, Queen of Demons."

Then she turned ahead. "Bitch, Deal with your fucking trauma already."

With those final words, Bella disappeared into the shadows.

Morgana stood there for a moment, laughing quietly to herself.