ButcherPete
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Chapter 61: Taking The Bait
🕑 Added 2025-06-06 18:04:44 +0000 UTCThe study atop Hazy Mountain Fortress was dimly lit, the flickering flame of a single paper lantern painting shadows across the old stone and smooth wood. A strange calm settled over the room, as though even the air had paused to listen.
Hannya sat cross-legged beside the window, the veil folded neatly at her side. She sipped from a lavish cup of bitter black tea, a new habit gained from her etiquette enforcer, Noh. Across from her, Baku sat at his desk, scribbling notes onto a scroll with slow precision, as if each stroke weighed a hundred pounds.
“Dozeuff looked like he wanted to bark,” Hannya said finally, breaking the silence. “But all that came out was a whimper, kikiki.”
Baku snorted, not looking up. “That's because his blood is unbalanced. Like a cart missing one wheel, it can roll, sure, but only in circles.”
Hannya smiled faintly. “They’ll come back tonight, most likely. Or tomorrow. They’ll try something stupid. Something petty. I can feel it.”
“You’re right,” Baku said, dipping the brush again. “Devils like that, nobles born into comfort and care, they can’t not bite the hand that denies them. Especially when the hand belongs to someone they consider beneath them.”
“They see everything as territory, as possessions. Every refusal is a slight. Every ‘no’ is a betrayal.”
“Exactly.” Baku set the brush down, turning to face her fully now. “But that’s what makes them useful. Predictable. They crave dominance so badly, they’ll overreach. And when they do…”
He didn’t need to finish.
Hannya did instead. “It becomes justified.”
Baku’s grin split wide. “You’ve learned well, Meiko.”
She tilted her head. “You don’t need to call me that here, Gramps.”
He shrugged. “Force of habit, Noh throws a fit when I call ya kid. Besides… it suits you.”
She rolled her eyes and took another sip of tea.
It was strange how far things had come in six months. She trained day and night. Her moods had mellowed, and her mind was much clearer. She felt… strong, balanced, almost like she did back then, back when she was a demon fighting in the holy wars, a frontliner defending the honor of Vainglory.
Online, of course.
She chuckled to herself at the thought.
‘Soon, my love. My evolution is ready, just one more step…’
She glanced out the window, gazing in a particular direction.
And one more scheme.
~~~
The night air on the mountain was thick with stillness, broken only by the whisper of wind snaking through the trees and high cliffs. Three silhouettes flitted from shadow to shadow, cloaked in illusion and secrecy, their noble seals hidden beneath travel-worn robes. They spoke not a word as they slipped from their lodgings at Baku’s fortress, each with murder and mischief in their hearts.
Dozeuff led the way, his golden scythe disguised as a walking stick, his face wrapped in a deep hood. Behind him came Suziana, her fan folded and tucked into her sash, raspberry red hair pinned under a black veil. Showeuff walked last, licking his lips nervously, a flask of shadowmoss wine swinging from his belt. His eyes kept twitching back toward the high-sitting pavilion where Hannya slept.
“This better work,” Suziana whispered, her breath forming in the chilly air. “She’s far too bold.”
“She’s a child playing with petty laws,” Dozeuff replied, not turning. “Let her dance in her pavilion. We’ll burn it down around her.” His eyes shined with something deeper, more sinister, as he spoke. “After we mark her below us.”
They reached the peak of the mountain, a clearing that showed the portal of nightmares.
The dream fissure.
The rift pulsed like a slumbering lung, a great wound carved in the world’s sky, leaking vaporous magic and shards of half-formed dreams. Strange whispers rose from its depths, as if the beasts inside were already awake.
Listening.
Dozeuff reached into his robe and pulled out a crystal the color of curdled opal. It throbbed faintly, the surface crawling with glyphs etched by something not quite alive. Suziana’s eyes narrowed.
“Is that-?”
“Flesh-bound crystal, harvested from a dream-gnawer,” Dozeuff said. “It contains a resonance frequency that will make the beasts inside think a Dream Core is evolving nearby. They’ll tear out of the fissure like starved hounds.”
They had given their spies a few of these to keep the pressure on the fortress, but it seemed they were buried along with the corpses that kept them for quite some time now.
He didn’t wait for her reply. With a flick of his wrist, he hurled the crystal into the rift.
It was silent for only a second.
Then the screaming began.
From the depths of the fissure came a long, jagged howl. No, not one, dozens. Shadows twisted. Light shattered. The mountain trembled as the dream beasts surged outward, claws scratching at the edges of reality, mouths full of hallucinated hunger. Their shapes made no sense, serpents with too many arms, wolves that flickered like static, birds that sang in reverse as they walked on all fours, the wings repurposed for rabid traction.
“They’re coming,” Showeuff whispered, his voice full of awe and terror as they dashed further away.
“They’ll pull Baku away,” Suziana said, watching the beasts scramble across the mountainside, converging on the warded barriers of the outer fortress. “And she’ll be alone.”
“Good,” Dozeuff sneered. “Then we end this farce tonight.”
~~~
Elsewhere in the fortress
Baku stood beneath a large tree, gazing into the distance with a lazy smile. His pale blue robes rippled in the unnatural wind, and his helm gleamed beneath the moonlight. The Painted Devil, Noh, stood beside him, eyes half-lidded, lips pulled into a quiet smirk.
“The worms have taken the bait,” Noh murmured.
“Mmm,” Baku said, tone unreadable.
“They think you're weakened,” Noh added. “That you won't intervene.”
“They're right,” Baku replied. “I won’t stop them.”
“Because of her?” Noh asked. Her tone carrying poorly masked concern.
Baku turned slightly, his eyes glimmering with mirth. “Kahuhuhu, she told me they’d try something like this. She was… almost giddy.”
“And you?” Noh asked.
“I’m curious about the outcome,” Baku said. He began walking down the mountain path, each step echoing like a drumbeat. “Besides… they don’t know I’m healed. Let’s see what her little trap looks like.”
The two then vanished into the mountain's mist.
The dream beasts howled louder as they swarmed the outpost closest to the portal.
And far below, in a pavilion wrapped in silk and spell-light, Hannya opened her eyes.
Her smile was already ready and waiting.
The nobles crept through the silken paths of the lower fortress like rats through a garden of tigers. With Baku gone and the dream beasts clawing at the outer posts, panic had begun to spread among the younger soldiers. Footsteps ran in all directions. Shouts echoed. Guards scrambled to reinforce the defenses, leaving their usual posts empty.
Just as planned.
The three nobles didn’t bother with stealth now. They moved swiftly, their disguises shedding like snake skins. Gold and gaudiness returned to their robes. Power pulsed at their fingertips. They weren’t hunters anymore; they were executioners.
And they would tear down this high and mighty devil.
“She’ll be in the Moon Pavilion,” Showeuff said, adjusting his cuff as he summoned his jagged obsidian sword. “We go in fast. Hit her with spell suppression and lock the room.”
“I’ll strip her mind,” Suziana muttered. Her fan unfolded with a click, glowing with seduction runes and domination sigils. “Break her charm laws and rewrite them into chains, hehe.”
“I’ll carve out her devil core myself,” Dozeuff added coldly. His scythe shimmered into view, blade humming with vacuum-cursed edge. “That devil girl will learn the meaning of humility.”
They reached the pavilion. No guards. No alarms.
Just the soft rustle of wind chimes and incense.
“Too quiet,” Suziana hissed.
“Exactly how I like it.” came a voice from inside.
The three nobles froze.
The door slid open with a slow thunk.
Hannya sat at the center of the pavilion, barefoot on glowing silk mats, a silver cup of tea held in one hand. Her hair was unbound, framing her delicate face. Her horns shimmered with fine golden casts. She wore a thin gown the color of dried blood, one hand poised lazily under her chin.
“Welcome,” she said, smiling. “You’re just in time. I was about to pour another cup.”
Dozeuff’s eyes narrowed. “You’re alone?”
She tilted her head. “Did you think I’d need help?”
Showeuff’s cast a sigil without warning, a disruption spell.
Hannya’s eyes didn’t move.
She spoke softly.
“[Destructure] and [Taskkill]”
The air thickened. Two runes lit up on the walls of the room. The traveling spell stopped midair, and like strands of invisible silk, the sigil was pulled apart. It then formed tiny, smaller sigils and dissolved into the ether.
“What the-?” A counterspell array? But what kind?
“You poor man,” Hannya drawled. “Did you think such a charming devil would sleep in a room that wasn't already prepared?”
Suziana threw up a fan ward, readying her artifact. “Don’t speak. You’re-”
“Bound by blood,” Hannya interrupted. Her voice cut through reality like a knife through butter.
To Suziana’s surprise, the artifact didn’t activate. It didn’t matter who finished the command; it was in her possession, she would never be the target.
And the artifact should have made the devil submit through a curse regardless of charm talent.
But it just dropped lifelessly.
Suziana was a four-star! Any Luxuria equal or below would be helpless against it!
Hannya ignored the stunned silence and spoke.
“Let’s see... Dozeuff wishes to rule the Dream factions. Suziana wishes for the inheritance of her mother’s pureblood contract. Showeuff… oh, dear. You wish to become one of your mother's consorts?”
All three nobles tensed.
“You’ve been… watching us,” Suziana realized.
“Not watching,” Hannya said. “Reading.”
Not from the novel {Tragedy of Heroes}, of course; she didn’t even know these low-level stepping stones until a few months ago.
She gained this information from a more direct line. Spies.
Noh’s network was quite useful and thorough. A good crutch for the ever-changing story and unknown variables.
To Hannya, the scrolls she received were no different from extra chappy’s.
A delicate hand then tapped the ground.
A magic circle ignited beneath her, complex, beautiful, ancient-looking. Dozens of rings spun in opposite directions. Strings of devil language and human sigils ran between them like constellations.
“You’re not the only ones who can bait,” she said sweetly. “Now…”
The array surged to life, and with it, the atmosphere changed.
A pull.
A drain.
A terrible, inevitable siphoning.
“What is this?” Dozeuff demanded. His scythe lashed out, but the blade hit a barrier of liquid glass and bounced back with a painful jolt.
“Well, I think you three have too many wishes,” Hannya said gently. “Too many desires. You walk around with them dripping from your souls like delicious nectar. It’s rude.”
They dare show their faces to her fully stocked? Not on her watch.
“Stop her!” Suziana screamed. She threw a wave of raw chi at Hannya, but it was absorbed by the very pavilion.
“M-my life force, my wishes…” Showeuff gasped, pale. “She’s stealing them-!”
“Correct,” Hannya said, eyes glowing bright and spinning like pinwheels. “I call it the wish-harvesting array. I’m missing one, after all. So I thought, ‘Why not borrow a few until I feel whole again?’”
She knew she would only get one from it, but she was curious about where all the extra would go.
Dozeuff roared. “I’ll kill you!”
Hannya didn’t flinch.
Instead, she raised her cup, sipped, and smiled.
“You can try.”
Suziana knew when she was outmatched. The charm currents swirling through the room weren’t just potent; they were sharper, purer, almost ancient. Older than Hannya should be capable of. This wasn’t some mere nomadic devil’s manipulation. This was the Law of Charm, in full bloom, used with a tactician’s cruelty.
And they’d walked right into it.
But she wasn’t without her own heritage.
With a whisper between clenched teeth, Suziana plunged her fingers into her own throat, and pulled out a shard of ‘mother’s bone’, threaded with silk and glyphs. An ancestral bone of the third matriarch, carved and refined into an artifact of escape.
“Abandon this bed.” She spoke.
The bone cracked in her hand, releasing a ripple of pure rebellion. A command against fate itself. The wish-harvest array faltered around her, the hold loosening just enough for her to slip through like water.
In a blink, she reappeared ten feet outside the array, gasping. The mountain air tasted different outside the circle,less sweet, less oppressive. But her fury was burning now, wild and noble.
“You think you’ve won?” She snarled.
Hannya didn’t turn. She remained calm in the middle of the array, still sipping her tea, still draining the other two nobles of their wishes. Showeuff had collapsed to his knees, babbling incoherently. Dozeuff writhed in silent rage, trying to crawl toward his scythe.
A pity, but she didn’t need the wench, and it wasn’t like she could cast sigils at her nor physically attack her.
An arrogant decision.
“You think you’re clever? You think you’re noble?” Suziana’s voice trembled with rage. “You’re filth! Lowborn filth with a gift that should’ve been mine!”
She reached into her sleeve and drew forth a small, brass bell, no larger than a child’s fist. It had no clapper. Its surface was dull, unadorned, save for a single rune engraved by hand. Ancient. Crooked. Sacred.
Her grandfather had given it to her on her fiftieth birthday. A relic from the pre-Schism era. He’d called it the Thought-Snare Bell.
“I was saving this for a Primordial,” she hissed, eyes locked on Hannya. “But you’ll do.”
She infused it with all the magical power in her core. Then, she rang it.
The sound was almost nothing. No chime, no toll. Just a single syllable of silence that pressed itself into the air and refused to leave.
Hannya’s eyes blinked.
Then froze.
Her hand trembled slightly.
The teacup slipped from her grasp and shattered against the mat.
The array faltered.
DING
[
Warning! You’ve been stricken with [Hypnotic Hum]!
[Hypnotic Hum] - Debuff: Your mind has been [Hypnotized]. Currently awaiting orders.
Duration: 6 hours.
]
Showeuff gasped as the siphoning cut off. Dozeuff slumped, groaning. The heavy tension lifted.
Suziana strode back toward the pavilion, every step sharper than the last.
“I don’t know how you got this strong. I don’t care what devil trained you. But you should have known… Pureblood lines run deeper than stolen tricks!”
She reached into her robes, drawing a blade carved from melted promises, another heirloom. The blade flickered with broken engagements, shattered contracts, and severed pacts. A weapon that had killed kings.
Hannya’s eyes were wide, but unfocused.
Still trapped.
Still suspended.
Hypnotized.
“Let me show you how a noble removes a mistake,” Suziana whispered. “This blade will go into your heart.” She boasted. “You will serve us for eternity as a slave and a toilet. You will serve us, worship us, love us! Hahaha!”
She laughed maniacally, her blood boiling without rest.
She raised the blade.
“Serve, worship, and love! Us and only us!”
And then
DING
[
Your [Supreme Devil Blood] snorts.
The [Mark of Madness] scoffs.
Love?
Their love has already been decided.
Your love has already been decided.
]
A tremor.
No, a heartbeat.
DING
[
Your [Supreme Devil Blood] is repairing your mind.
The [Mark of Madness] is supplementing your conscious will.
]
A heartbeat thrummed again.
The kind that shattered illusions.
A ripple pulsed through the pavilion like a windstorm through glass.
Hannya’s lips parted.
She exhaled softly.
Then smiled.
“I see, you used Mother’s Bone and now the Thought-Snaring Bell, so both were with you.” she concluded.
Her voice was quiet.
But no longer paralyzed.
Suziana flinched.
“How…?”
Hannya slowly turned her head toward her.
Her eyes were glowing again, but not like before. They weren’t just the eyes of a devil using charm. Small spirals rotated deep within. They drifted counterclockwise to the petals orbiting them.
They were the eyes of something beautiful…and maddening.
Pretending to be asleep.
Yet she could sense its gaze.
“You know what I hate more than the tears of my beloved?” Hannya asked.
Suziana backed away, heart racing. The words were nonsense, but the tone felt…eerie.
Dangerously so.
“It’s being hypnotized.” She continued. “Something I promised never to happen again, little devil.”
She rose from the floor.
And her smile vanished.
Comments
Butch Perterson
😂😂😂
BotRayBot
This story is so good! I like how Hannya was in the online trenches for her Vain lol
Ewout
OOOOH! This is getting Wild! Can't wait to see where this going. When I asked for a Gula POV I didn't know you had this lined up! This shit is way more fire than any pov has rights to be.
