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Chapter 82: Chaos and Concentration
🕑 Added 2025-07-02 13:00:17 +0000 UTCThey came by foot.
Under cover of mist, wrapped in cloaks and sound-muting sigils, the small party descended the north slope of Hazy Mountain without banner or name. The Superbia crest was hidden beneath traveling robes. No colors, no declarations, no procession, just silence and practiced discipline.
At the front walked Lady *Raquel 15th Superbia, the matriarch of a branch family and mother to the disgraced devil noble, Showeuff. Her long golden braid was wrapped tightly around her throat like a scarf. Her pale arms, etched with faded war tattoos, stayed hidden beneath her cloak, but her eyes missed nothing.
She did not speak as they crossed into the outer perimeter of mountain territory. Her face was stern, tinged with a hint of concern, but for far vainer reasons than motherly worry.
The Dream Knights were already waiting.
Six of them, arranged like statues of dreamsteel, greeted them at a shallow ravine where a bridge hung in place.
Raquel didn’t slow. She stepped across swiftly as he gazed at the devil welcoming her.
On the other side stood a man she hadn’t seen face-to-face in years.
Baku.
His presence was quiet, but he was far from looking weak.
And that frightened her more than anything.
He wore plain robes of pale blue, unadorned save for a silver badge bearing the insignia of his mountain faction. His face was the same as she recalled. Handsome, lined by time, and unmoved by flattery. But his aura, no longer thinning, no longer crumbling, coiled like an unseen storm just beneath the surface.
‘So, He’s indeed healed.’
The reports said as much, but to her, seeing was believing. Raquel stopped a dozen paces from him.
“Dream Eater.” she said stiffly.
“Raquel.” he returned.
They did not bow to one another, a simple greeting was enough.
“I trust we are not seen?” she asked.
“No one but us.” Baku said. “Just as you requested.”
“And the girl?”
“She is… indisposed at the moment.” Baku replied smoothly.
Raquel didn’t press. She hadn’t come to deal with his infamous disciple. She came to clean up a mess.
“Then let’s speak.”
They moved to a small negotiation chamber, a flat stone sanctum carved directly into the side of a cliff, veiled by natural mist. It held no guards or servants. Just a fire basin, a stone table, and two chairs.
Showeuff stood nearby, restrained but uninjured. He looked thinner, quiet and pitiful. His head remained bowed, unable to meet his mothers eyes.
Raquel gave him a glance. It was neither warm nor cruel, then turned her attention to Baku as they sat across from one another.
“You have what’s mine.”
“And you have something I want.” Baku replied.
“Just say it plainly.”
“The sword,” Baku answered. “Blooming Severance.”
Raquel’s jaw tightened.
“I thought you might ask for favors, an apology, maybe even coin… But that sword-”
“Was never yours to seal away.” Baku said.
“It was cursed,” she said sharply. “It turned on its wielder during the last capital purge, it feeds on despair. It drank the blood of allies. It-”
“Was forged from chaos ore, charm-snare bark, fear-warped devil bone and dipped in severed dreams,” Baku spoke. “I know what it is. And I know what it can do. I’ve seen it’s use.”
Raquel exhaled through her nose. She glanced again at her son, shame creasing her brow, then back to the Dream Eater.
“And what do you plan to do with it?”
“That’s not your concern.”
“Then why make this deal at all?”
Baku leaned forward slightly.
“Because we both want this closed. You don’t want your son rotting in a mountain dungeon, and I don’t want to hold a Pride heir hostage. This is a clean trade. One cursed relic for one name.”
Raquel stared hard at him, eyes squinting in suspicion.
“You’re not asking for this on your own behalf.”
“No.”
“Then it’s for her,” she said slowly. “You disciple.”
He didn’t answer.
But the silence was answer enough.
“…Does she know?”
“She doesn’t need to, not yet.”
That gave Raquel pause. Her sharp mind began to weave possibilities, though none with solid shape.
‘A sword none can wield and now one none dare to? And he wants to give it to the girl? But why in secret?’
“I’ll need time to retrieve it,” she said. “The blade is locked under a spell of lineage verification and sealed by three ancestral tokens in our vaults.”
“I’ll give you one week,” Baku said.
“You’ll give me my son first.”
“No,” he said evenly. “You bring the sword, place it in my hand, and he leaves with you.”
Raquel’s lips parted. She almost spoke again, but stopped.
She clenched her fists and nodded.
“I never liked you.” she muttered.
“Kahuhu, good. It makes deals simpler.” Baku grinned.
They stood.
Raquel approached her son, gave him one hard look of appraisal, then turned without ceremony.
She didn’t look back.
As the mists closed again behind the leaving procession, Baku returned to the mountain’s inner walls, the silence heavier now.
He hadn’t told Hannya.
He wouldn't, not until the blade was in hand, polished, and placed in front of her as a present.
‘Let her awaken to something worthy.’
Because the sword was cursed.
And Hannya...
She was something worse.
He chuckled to himself.
Three days passed.
Baku received word through the silent channel he’d arranged with Raquel. The blade would arrive at dusk. A cloaked courier would come bearing the ancestral sigils and the sealed case.
The courier didn’t speak when he arrived, only bowed and offered the wrapped blade, a long pitch black box wrapped in unmarked silks and bound with a curse-suppressing blood ribbon.
The blade's presence could be felt before it was unwrapped, heavy, ominous, breathing violence into the air.
Baku dismissed his guards and opened the box alone.
Inside lay a serrated katana.
Blooming Severance.
Its sheath was obsidian black with blood-red etching on a dull black metal with a red tinge. The guard was a black ring covered in runes designed to cut thoughts as much as flesh. Even sheathed, the blade pulsed faintly with charm-drenched dread.
He didn’t touch it with bare hands.
He placed the sword in a special rune-lock case of mistwood and dreamglass and sealed it with a sigil of dream law.
He smiled faintly.
Then he gave the command.
Showeuff was released from the mountain with no ceremony. His bindings removed, his aura still suppressed, and his pride in ruins.
Raquel didn’t speak to him until they reached the outskirts.
“You’re lucky.” she said.
He didn’t answer.
“You embarrassed us. Again.”
Still, silence.
Her voice lowered. “And still… I came.”
He looked up at her, for the first time since her arrival.
And asked “He… wasn’t even angry?”
Raquel turned to him, giving him a sharp look.
“He was worse.”
~~~
In the capital, the rumor began to not only grow, it mutated.
What began as whispers of the Pleasure Faction’s offer had become a thousand narratives.
Some said Hannya seduced the siblings and rejected them for fun.
Others claimed she had planned to accept, only to turn on them when the deal grew too greedy.
A few whispered something more dangerous. That she intended to take over the entire Luxuria line, usurping both factions by birthing a bloodline superior to theirs.
Though the rumors grew even more ridiculous, the factions still began to tear at the seams.
Within the Pleasure Faction’s inner sanctum, the heavy double doors opened without a sound.
A pink mist rolled across the marble floors, thick and languid, crawling like breath given shape. The room pulsed softly, its light and fragrance almost inseparable.
Silarra, the 4th Luxuria, sat on a cushion above a lotus-shaped throne of fine satin and velvet sheets. She was draped in translucent pink silks, her skin pale as porcelain, her hair a soft cascade of mauve down her shoulders. Her smile was neither warm nor cruel. It was simply natural.
They called her the Silk Divide, because nothing passed through her presence unchanged.
Vaedran and Vellea stood before her, silent, trying not to inhale too deeply. The pink mist was not poisonous, but it made their heads light, their skin hypersensitive, their thoughts harder to anchor.
They had grown up in this mist.
And still, it unnerved them.
The servants around moved like dolls, with soft, lifeless steps and downturned eyes. Not once did they blink. Not once did they speak.
It was like standing in a house filled with mannequins that remembered they had once been people.
Vaedran swallowed.
The feeling in the air was similar to the one Hannya gave off during their dinner, but thicker, older, more refined.
‘Mother is the source,’ he thought. ‘But Hannya… Hannya’s close.’
Silarra’s voice slid through the mist.
"You should have aimed lower."
Vellea’s lip curled. “We offered her-”
“You offered yourselves,” Silarra said gently. “Like fruit to a beast. She was never going to bite.”
Vaedran’s eyes tightened. “She rejected us.”
“She was always going to.”
The pink mist pulsed.
“You mistook her solitude for vulnerability,” Silarra continued. “But she’s not alone. She has companions, she’s anchored.”
“To whom?” Vellea asked.
“To that hybrid imp, the one you forgot the second you saw her…charms.” Silarra said. “The one always three steps behind her with weapons drawn and eyes wide. That girl... Shela.”
The name lingered. Indeed, they had intended to pursue both, but the reports they received from the sword ceremony took their eyes off her.
“You should have aimed at the servant,” Silarra said. “The shadow. Not the flame.”
Vellea looked down.
Vaedran remained still.
"Mother," he finally said, "there are whispers. Some think you're... afraid of her."
Silarra’s smile never faltered.
“I am.” she said.
That shut them both up.
Silarra stood then, descending two steps from her throne. Her silk-clad feet did not stir the mist.
“She reminds me of something I buried long ago,” she whispered. “The first generation of Luxuria... before we lost ourselves in elegance and polish.”
“She’s crude,” Vellea said, almost defensive.
“No,” Silarra corrected. “She’s honest. And honesty is the most violent form of charm.”
The room fell silent again, save for the soft hiss of the mist swirling low.
"You two will do nothing without my instruction," Silarra said. "Do not retaliate. Do not provoke. Not yet."
"And when she acts?" Vaedran asked.
Silarra reached out and gently caressed his chin.
“When she finally overreaches, we’ll offer her our hands again.”
Her voice became a whisper.
“And this time… we won’t let go.”
The pride estate roared behind closed doors.
Marble walls echoed with indignant voices and harsh words.
But the cries of outrage couldn’t undo what Raquel had done.
“You gave them a second ancestral sword!” barked Lord Eronius, one of the inner council. “Without formal request, without House vote!”
Raquel stood in the center of the stone chamber, wearing her silence like polished steel.
“He’s my son,” she said.
“He’s our heir!” snapped another. “You mortgaged our legacy for sentiment!”
Raquel’s smile was thin and joyless.
“I mortgaged nothing. I traded a blade that none of you had the spine to wield for a devil with potential.”
Lord Eronius stepped forward, jabbing a finger at her. “And when that potential fails again? What then?”
“Then I put him in the breeding chambers,” Raquel said calmly. “He’s beautiful. He’ll produce exceptional children.”
The room fell to stunned silence.
No one reacted in outrage.
Because this was Pride.
And in Pride, sons and daughters could become trophies. Concubines. Displayed like polished heirlooms to elevate a lineage by blood, if not by name.
“I favor him,” Raquel said. “And I’ll raise him again. Harder this time.”
The councilors said nothing more, but their silence rippled with disdain and restrained fury.
And still, none of them dared to strip her title.
Because Raquel might have made a fool’s gamble…
But if she was right, and Showeuff did rise again, then she would have rebuilt her legacy with a blazing fire.
And Pride favors such fires.
~~~
Far to the south, past valleys carved with mist and temples, Baku stood before a sealed shrine.
Shela approached the fortress lord cautiously. Her dark coat still covered in frost, her body still humming faintly with traces of [Absolute Zero]. Her awakening had not yet settled after her training.
“You called me?” she asked.
Baku nodded.
He knelt before the shrine and entered a passcode with his fingertip, runic dream glyphs unspooling from the stone like veins. The stone creaked and opened with a hiss.
Inside rested the sealed black case.
“What’s that?” Shela asked.
Baku turned to her.
“A weapon. A gift.”
He lifted the case and handed it to her. It was light, deceptively so, but she felt the hum of something heavy and cursed from within.
“Do not open it,” Baku said. “Not until she wakes. Not unless the mountain burns.”
Shela tightened her grip.
“What is it meant for?”
“She’ll know.”
‘She always does.’ He thought, more than sure her ‘fate mutation’ or whatever it was, to do the rest.
“And if she asks me where it came from?”
“Tell her you found it,” Baku said. “Tell her it arrived when she needed it. Nothing more.”
Shela nodded slowly, her expression unreadable.
“She’s still evolving,” she said quietly. “I feel her through the stone walls.”
Baku looked to the sky.
“She’s changing faster than I expected. Her dream body’s stabilizing. Her law field needs work, but her manifestation is tame.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Good enough.” He shrugged. He couldn’t help her with the laws she uses, so all he could do was hope she found some insights on that horrific tenet.
The air between them held for a moment.
Then Baku added, almost as an afterthought, “Keep it close. If you lose it, or someone else gets to it first…”
Shela nodded before he finished.
“I won’t.”
After a while, Baku simply nodded and left.
Shela returned to the outside of the barrier Hannya occupied. She stood outside the sealed chamber placing the sword case down beside the entry rune.
Her fingers hovered over the surface.
“She’s going to look different,” she whispered to herself. “She’s going to be stronger. Stranger.”
She sighed, wondering about her own approaching evolution, she could feel the core deep within her slowly flaring to life. Brighter each day.
“I hope she remembers who she was.” she said, unsure of whom she was really talking about.
Behind the sealed door, the dream mist pulsed.
And from within…
The air began to spin.
~~~
In the capital, the ground beneath diplomacy continued to shake.
Word of Showeuff’s return spread quickly. But no sword or hasty return was mentioned.
The omission made every noble suspicious.
The Pride faction’s silence was taken as guilt. The Dream faction’s silence was seen as strategy. And the Pleasure faction’s silence… as retreat.
Rumors swirled like blood in shark infested waters.
“She’s forging her own capital.” whispered one noble at a feast.
“She’s stealing relics to build a Judge’s Court.” said another behind a fan.
“She’s bedding demons for hybrid champions.”
“She’s turning the Dream Eater into her mount.”
The more they whispered, the more uncertain they became.
Each rumor sounded insane on its own.
But all of them together?
It was too much to ignore.
So ambassadors were sent. Letters dispatched. Spies arranged.
The houses needed to observe, but not just her, each other as well.
And just beneath that, preparation.
At the Dream estate however…
Lazmer had stopped sleeping.
Ever since Hannya visited the estate, he had noticed subtle shifts in the air beneath their feet.
The Eversleeper, Somnus, remained sealed in the subterranean core of the estate, his dream-soaked chamber bound by arrays, runic isolation, and enchantments older than the current council. But the spells hummed differently now. There was a rhythm to them, like slow breathing.
Lazmer had rechecked every binding. Every mind anchor. Every dream siphon feeding into the automaton network that neutralized stray spawn.
All operational, all stable, and yet… the undercurrent had changed.
‘She did something.’ He thought. He knew it was the case, but what?
No one else dared say it aloud. Most still assumed the visit was for diplomacy or theatrics.
But Lazmer knew better.
He stood in his observation tower, watching the fog roll across the estate.
He kept thinking about their encounter. He had seen it… something had been off that day. He hadn’t noticed until after Hannya left, but when he replayed his memory, one frame at a time.
That's when he realized.
Part of the conversation had was false.
It had been illusion. A dream-layered displacement using mist that mimicked the real.
Something only Somnus or Baku could do, devils that could control dream mist in a way.
She used their methods. And he didn’t notice.
He turned at the sound of a quiet knock.
A tall, lean figure entered, his black coat cinched with cold-iron clasps, a war collar fastened tight around his neck, and his face stoic behind emotionless eyes.
Caldeon, five-star enforcer of the Acedia clan.
Caldeon was precision incarnate. He had once commanded operations in the western wastelands during the Quiet Cull and had returned with not a single scar.
He bowed shallowly.
“Strategist.” he said.
“Caldeon,” Lazmer nodded. “I didn’t summon you.”
“I’ve summoned myself.” the man replied.
Lazmer offered him a long glance.
“You’ve come to move.”
“Yes,” Caldeon said simply. “Dozeuff’s tenet has awakened. The Compact is shifting power too much. A new variable has entered the capital, and the council is beginning to doubt our cohesion.”
“And you think the best way to secure that is… what? Kill her?”
“If needed” Caldeon said. “Pull the root before it becomes a tree.”
Lazmer exhaled.
“Let me guess, Ryoha supports this.” Their other 5-star enforcer.
“She has already begun assembling names.”
“She want’s blood because of some political imbalance?”
“Would you prefer silence and regret?”
Lazmer didn’t answer.
Caldeon’s voice softened.
“You’ve made good choices, Strategist. But you are still a thinker. Some problems require action.”
“…And what do you know of her?”
“I know she’s compromised Somnus. I know she walked into your mind without you noticing. I know she walked away with nothing, and yet changed everything.”
Lazmer closed his eyes.
“She shouldn’t be this advanced, this strong. She’s only been traced back to less than a year. A nameless devil anytime before that.”
Caldeon tilted his head.
“All the more reason to stop this now. A devil from nowhere suddenly gaining eyes from everywhere?”
That struck something deep in Lazmer, and a thought occurred to him.
But he didn’t speak it.
He couldn’t.
Such a fantasy guess would have his position questioned too harshly.
He dared not use the wild excuse that she was a supreme.
~~~
Deep within the catacombs of the Acedia estate, past sealed vaults and the remains of failed experiments, Dozeuff stood alone in a chamber that no longer obeyed logic.
His tenet, awakened days ago, had not receded, it only grew.
Mercy Is Wasted on Sleep.
That was its name. His paradoxical tenet. Structured thought and illusion disintegrated, and a narcotic rain fell without clouds. The droplets were faint, slow, near weightless, but they clung to skin, to soul, to spells, and filled the air with a slow-drifting drug.
Every drop numbed awareness. Each one unraveled intent.
The effect wasn’t immediate.
That was the cruelty.
It was gentle… and unforgiving.
Dozeuff breathed deeply, chest rising in the rain, his eyes fluttering with quiet bliss.
‘No more mirrors. No more masks. Just truth, peeled slow like skin.’
He ran a hand through his hair, damp with the rain, and looked across the chamber, where something had begun to form from the ripples in his law.
Nullath.
A monster, born of contradiction.
It had taken the shape of a serpent, easily twelve meters long, its body smooth and dark like oil.
But unlike a normal snake, it possessed four human-like limbs, too long, too thin, ending in fingers with sharp claws that scraped across the wet stone.
Its face bore no features but three glowing rings stacked vertically where eyes might have been, one red, one white, one grey. Each blinked slowly in an unsynced rhythm. Its tongue was rough like parchment scroll that hissed with sigils every time it tasted the air.
And it watched Dozeuff.
Like it knew him.
Like it approved.
“You came out better than I thought,” Dozeuff said, grinning with crooked teeth. “But you’ll need to be sharper than that. She’ll notice anything less.”
The beast coiled loosely, its limbs twitching. Rain slid off its back but never touched its rings.
Dozeuff stepped toward it.
Then stopped.
Because his mind had returned to her.
The little one with the veil.
With that silk voice and a gaze too heavy for someone her size.
Another skinny.
Always playing adult. Always acting untouchable.
He shivered, but not from the cold.
‘She made a fool of me. Of us. I smiled too early, and she smiled last.’
His fingers twitched, flexing, slow.
‘She’ll come down from her mountain eventually. And when she does, I’ll be waiting. I’ll remind her what pain feels like when it’s earned.’
Nullath shifted beside him, brushing its long body around his legs before slithering up into the high corners of the room, where the narcotic rain fell heavier.
Dozeuff looked at his hands.
“She’ll squirm, eventually,” he whispered.
Nullath coiled above, clinging to the ceiling like a twisted halo, dripping softly, shedding fragments of laws with every blink.
He grinned, teeth pale beneath the flickering light.
Then he spoke. Low, slow, and sacred to no one but himself:
“Those who wake too soon from innocence…will crawl toward monsters for warmth…
and sleep again beneath a stranger’s feet.”
The dreamrain thickened.
“Know the name of Dozeuff, the name of sedation, the name of the devil.”
A/N: *Decided on a name change for Showeuff’s mother, it was too close to the Pleasure factions siblings name and I’m triggering about it.
Comments
Legokill101
poor Dozeuff has deluded himself into thinking he's the Protagonist.
Butch Perterson
Lolol you’re right, the sir haughty armour needs to be brought back out 😂 I’ll see what I can do about bringing it back 🤣🤣
Aune
I wonder where the pink devil keeps her Outlander style sir Haughty's outfit pelt. Who knows? Like, she had her first transformative bonding moment through space with Vainglory because of Sir Haughty. Maybe she never changed for a time, keeping it under her kimono. Waiting for the reunion, or wedding ceremony to reveal her style.
