Clayman had never been this close to losing his composure.
Everything had been going according to plan. He'd manipulated humans, stoked hatred, arranged a bloody battle meant to churn out the kind of tormented souls he fed on. Those deaths would feed his power, and the chaos would let him claim the mantle of a true demon lord. He'd even used Myuran as a disposable pawn — convenient, expendable — because he needed someone to tip the scales.
Then it all collapsed in a single instant.
The battle ended before it began. The souls Clayman expected to harvest were taken by someone else. He could not accept it; he ordered checks, interrogations, scrying — every report confirmed the same impossible truth. Every stage he had set, every string he'd pulled, had been neutralized. The spell he'd bound to Myuran was shattered; she was free. His carefully paced drama had been canceled.
Panic pried at his throat, but he clung to his last card: Milim. If he could bring her to his side, everything could still be salvaged. He convinced Frey and Milim to agree to a Walpurgis — the demon-lord feast that, once invoked with three signatures, compelled attendance. That gave him the chance he needed. At the subjugation meeting, he planned to take command, declare a sanctioned invasion of Eterna, and send Milim to cut down the strongest of Atem's lieutenants while Clayman cleaned up the survivors. It was ruthless, brutal, and — he believed — inevitable.
Until a new complication appeared: Ramiris, the whimsical recluse, insisted that Atem be formally invited to the Walpurgis.
"Ridiculous," Clayman hissed when he first heard it. But more than three demon lords had already signed the petition — Frey and Milim among them. In the end, Ramiris's childish interjection had somehow been accepted. Clayman's carefully controlled Walpurgis had become something else entirely.
Now he was trapped.
If Atem himself showed up, whatever platform Clayman planned to use to declare subjugation could turn into an accusation against him. Atem attending meant the accused was present — and that shifted the balance. Clayman could be challenged on the spot. If challenged, his schemes would be exposed. If exposed, he would lose the chance to command armies or claim the moral high ground — and his carefully cultivated ascendancy would collapse.
He paced, furious and frantic. "How did this happen? How did that meddlesome fairy get this accepted? Frey, Milim — why did you agree?" he snarled when he confronted them in private.
Frey shrugged, annoyed. "You wanted a ritual. We wanted the spectacle. It's not my fault you couldn't foresee a meddling fairy."
Milim merely smiled, and that smile was worse than any dagger. "You wanted attention. You created noise. I agreed because it would be interesting. Don't blame me that your little stage now includes the star."
Clayman's face went pale; rage curdled into desperation. "You've ruined my plan. If he comes, I'll be exposed. I must— I must stop this."
But stop what? He could not revoke the Walpurgis. He could not prevent Atem from attending. He could only scramble for contingency after contingency: hire assassins, plant false evidence, bribe lesser demon lords to turn, start a diversion that would force the meeting to be a war zone where he could control the narrative.
Each option was riskier than the last.
"What would you do if he challenges you there?" a subordinate dared ask.
Clayman's jaw worked. He pictured the scene — Atem standing composed in the center, eyes like law itself, the crowd watching as accusations either stuck or fell away. He imagined Atem's power: the artifacts, the rituals Atem wielded to command compacts and bind fate. The memory of the way Eterna's sovereign had dismantled armies with a gesture — it made Clayman's palms sweat.
"I will not be made a fool," Clayman whispered. "Find a way to make this look like his crime. Forge a trail of evidence pointing to him. Or make sure the meeting is a battlefield before anyone can demand proof."
He ordered spies and forgers, dark rituals and secret messengers. He tried to plant false witnesses among neutral demon lords. He tried to corrupt a scrying channel. Each attempt either failed or felt thinner than the last — and with each failure his options narrowed.
Worst of all: Atem had accepted the invitation.
When the confirmation reached him, Clayman felt the last of his control slip away. If Atem walked into Walpurgis, the whole thing might collapse into a public trial. Or worse, a fight on his terms — not Clayman's. His plan to rise on the backs of slaughter and subjugation had turned inside out; the feast he'd invoked to claim power had become the noose tightening around his own neck.
He sat in the dark, breathing shallow, and tried to think of one decisive move that could still swing fate back to him. He had always believed that if he prepared enough, he could force any outcome. Now he learned how brittle a scheme could be when one unexpected guest showed up.
Frey's sneer was thin and merciless as she watched Clayman squirm. His panic was delicious to behold — contemptible, frantic. The plan had been progressing faster than she expected, and now, by sheer momentum, it had bent precisely into the shape she and Milim wanted. Frey's face showed nothing, but the tilt at the corner of her eyes barely shifted toward Milim. A single, almost imperceptible nod passed between them.
(Yes. I see.) Frey answered silently, the smile at the edge of her lips deepening.
(Clayman's days are numbered.) She confirmed the outcome in her mind, and resolved the next step with the ice-cold certainty of someone who sees the endgame.
In a mausoleum sunk under a sky that never knew dawn, a black-haired girl lay sealed in a coffin of ice — or rather, a block forged from concentrated holy spiritual power. Her skin was pale and flawless; despite the chill she appeared untouched by the cold. Before her, clinging to the coffin with the rapt, worshipping desperation of an addict, was another woman — silver hair, heterochromatic eyes that flashed blue and red like split flames. Small white fangs peeked above her lips when she smiled. The sight was at once frightening and hypnotic.
The prisoner was Luminous Valentine, the Queen of Nightmares. Even she, drenched in vampiric power, could not break that coffin. Every touch blistered her skin; every attempt left burn-like marks. Yet she did not let go. She did not care for the pain.
A missive reached the mausoleum: Walpurgis had been invoked. Demon lords equal to her had signed on. Luminous listened, displeasure darkening the corners of her expression. She could not face all her fellow lords alone — not now. Her fingers traced the silent face in the coffin.
(Wait for me,) she murmured to the figure within, voice soft as velvet. Then she sealed the barrier tight, drew the mausoleum back into its sacred darkness, and stepped away to prepare.
Two others discussed the feast under an open, star-pierced sky. One man was broad and built like a glacier; the other was looser, half-sleep, forever drifting in a permanent, languid haze. They spoke as old friends do — without pretense.
"How long you gonna stay here? You leaving after Walpurgis?" the large one asked.
"I don't know," the slender one answered without urgency. "I'm listless. I don't feel like moving much."
The big man shrugged. "Still, we gotta attend. After the feast you can decide what to do next." He breathed the night in, satisfied by the vastness overhead.
The slender man — Deeno — watched the stars without real focus. Deeno was strange to look at, almost human, but his magic was not human at all; it moved like an ocean under his still face. He had wandered and grown tired; for now he sheltered at the giant's place and let the world take its turn.
"Dagruul," Deeno said suddenly, "you thinking of handing the title to one of your sons? I could act as guardian if you want."
Dagruul — the Fury of the Earth — closed his eyes and considered. He was a giant, a demon lord known for a patience that turned to terrifying force when angered. As a ruler he was gentle, but in battle he roared. His sons were reckless mirrors of youth, proud and untempered.
"Nah," Dagruul said finally, a rumble in his voice. "They're like I was. Reckless. Think nobody's stronger than them. They don't respect you, Deeno."
Deeno's half-lidded eyes flicked. "Then bring them along. If one of them is listed as my attendant, you can bring all three." He offered it as casually as if he suggested an errand.
They were talking about Walpurgis. Dagruul mulled the idea, feeling the weight of ages in the simple question.
Back in the inner circles of conspiracy, clay and ambition writhed. Clayman's scheme — the bloody battle designed to harvest souls and lift him into genuine lordship — had been unnervingly simple and wicked. He'd guided humans to the stage, arranged slaughter, expected tragedy to ripple outward and feed him the dark capital he craved. Myuran had been a tool, convenient and expendable. Everything had lined up.
Then the harvest failed. The souls had been taken by someone else, the battle collapsed, and the rituals Clayman trusted were broken. Myuran's binding was undone; she was free. His stage had been ruined.
Panic flared, but Clayman clung to Milim as his ace. He pressed Frey and Milim to call Walpurgis — three signatures and the feast would be invoked; attendance would be binding. There, he planned to seize command, to declare a sanctioned subjugation of Eterna — to give himself the right to march on the monster nation and to let Milim cut down the upper-tier magickers he feared. It was a brutal, tidy plan.
Only then did Ramiris, the capricious fairy-demon, demand that Atem — the new sovereign of Eterna — be invited to the feast. Clayman spat at the idea, but more than three lords had already signed. Frey and Milim did not balk. The ritual had been accepted. Clayman's Walpurgis had become something else: a gathering that would include the very figure he intended to destroy.
He scanned options — bribery, false witnesses, ruinous distractions — and every scheme felt thinner, riskier. If Atem walked in and challenged him in public, the feast would become a trial. If proven, Clayman would lose the narrative he'd spent months crafting. If he engineered the feast to be a war zone, he might survive, but not without risking the chaos that had undermined his previous designs.
Every contingency slotted into another dead end. Panic changed into icy desperation. Clayman's mind raced, bargaining with fate. In the end, the feast he'd called to crown himself was blossoming into the very instrument of his undoing.
Across the board, the web of lords shifted into position: Frey, patient and precise; Milim, smiling with appetite for spectacle; Luminous, locked to her secret sorrow; Dagruul and Deeno, steady in their own odd ways. The world gathered its players — some ready to fight, some simply waiting to see which way the wind would blow.
Walpurgis promised more than blood: it would reveal who had forged events in the dark and whose hands would be left empty when the light hit. The threads of shadow were being pulled taut, and everyone — for different reasons — prepared to test the weave.