The one who appeared, leading countless soldiers, was Crown Prince Edsen.

“Attack!”

At Edsen’s decisive shout, everyone who’d been floundering tightened their grip on their swords. The direction of those blades was Prince Abihel and the Eva Faith mob.

“So they’re the ones we saw at the hunting grounds.”

Edsen stepped up beside Ludville and clicked his tongue lightly. So it really had been Consort Jabiela who’d sent that group to him back then.

“It’s Eva Faith.”

“What?”

“Details later.”

Leaving Crown Prince Edsen behind as he demanded more of an explanation, Ludville sprinted forward. Edsen, too, launched himself at the enemy.

“There’s no end to them.”

No matter how many they killed, there was no end in sight.

Just like then—just like at the hunting grounds—the sight of people who didn’t feel pain nauseated everyone.

“AAARGH!”

“W-what is that?!”

On top of that, something like an unknown black liquid wrapped around the soldiers and threw them into chaos.

“If you get caught in that, it gets rough. It sucks your energy out fast.”

In that moment, a strange voice rang out.

Edsen whipped his head around, and he saw a man wearing a faint smile that didn’t fit the situation at all.

“We have to kill them first.”

Jainer, recalling what he himself had suffered before, pointed with his hand at the ones off to the side who were working sorcery.

SWOOSH.

At that, countless figures who’d been hiding in the darkness emerged, and in an instant they slit the sorcerers’ throats.

After that, they kept moving in secret, targeting only the enemies’ vital points.

“You’re....”

At Edsen’s dubious look, Jainer’s smile deepened.

“I’m Camilla’s older brother.”

BOOOOM!

Even though he was far away, had he heard that sound?

In the middle of the fighting, Ludville blasted enemies away in a single strike and then looked Jainer over, hard.

Jainer met that gaze and shrugged.

“Of course, it doesn’t look like anyone acknowledges it.”

With that, he jumped into the battle as well. Watching him take an enemy’s head in the blink of an eye, Edsen let out a hollow laugh.

Camilla... where had she picked up someone like that, anyway?

FWOOSH!

In that moment, feeling a wave of scorching heat, Crown Prince Edsen turned around—and the corner of his mouth lifted as he saw a massive bird flying in.

“So you finally came.”

It was the Guardian of the Ducal House of Jevillan. The Guardian flew straight toward the Eva Faith believers who kept surging in—and ignited an inferno.

Before they could even scream, everything there turned to ash and vanished.

That wasn’t the end. The enemies’ shadows seemed to writhe—then swallowed them whole.

In an instant, the area was dyed in darkness. Even within the space consumed by that darkness, there wasn’t a single living creature to be found.

And then, what appeared there at ease was a huge Black Wolf.

[CRAAWL!]

King, too, had already leapt into the battlefield and shredded the lingering traces of sorcery that still remained.

“You’re safe.”

Before he knew it, the three dukes had approached Crown Prince Edsen and checked his condition.

With their arrival, Edsen’s smile deepened. Why did they feel so reassuring today?

“Let’s finish this quickly.”

“Yes.”

All four of them drew their swords at the same time.

*****

“That person.”

“T-this! Eva will never forgive you—!”

“Shut up.”

“YAAAH!”

Slice!

“Stealing someone else’s body and living in it, and you’re talking about forgiveness.”

While the battle raged outside, Camilla was moving nonstop as well.

Together with Arsian, she was searching out the Eva Faith believers who’d already spread inside the Imperial Palace.

Some tried to run, got caught, spewed nonsense, and attacked.

“I-it wasn’t me!”

“The Sword of Judgment will be here soon—hold out until then if you can.”

“Ugh... AAARGH! Die!”

Others kept denying it to the end, only to reveal their true colors.

Those whose bodies had been stolen long ago rotted away and vanished the instant they died, while those whose bodies had been stolen recently—like Consort Jabiela—stank as they exposed their decaying bodies in full.

“Eek!”

“A-Anne was Eva Faith?”

People who’d been unsure at first started accepting the situation as they watched that happen.

And a little later—

“Prince Abihel... no, they say the leader of Eva Faith is dead!”

The news she’d been waiting for arrived. Word spread quickly that Prince Abihel had been executed by Crown Prince Edsen’s hand.

“Hah....”

Before she realized it, Camilla finally lowered the Guardian’s Sword she’d been clutching the whole time.

Had she been tense without even noticing? The hand that had been gripping the sword throbbed and tingled.

Is he finally dead?

For someone who’d maintained his life for so long, it was an emptily simple death. But with the three dukes and even the Guardians stepping in, he probably hadn’t had a choice.

Yeah. It’s over now.

Camilla let out another short sigh as she watched Arsian restraining an Eva Faith believer who was trying to flee.

But....

What is this?

Why does it feel so wrong?

Even after hearing that Prince Abihel—no, the leader of Eva Faith who’d taken his body—was dead, her mood felt strangely unsettled.

Like I missed something important—!

Camilla’s steps stopped dead.

“Ah.”

Only then did she understand why she’d felt unsettled the whole time.

Prince Abihel—whom she’d glimpsed briefly when she came here.

“The soul....”

The dead soul...

“There was only one.”

WUUUUNG—

In that moment, the Guardian’s Sword she’d set down on the floor resonated.

[Camilla! Caref—!]

At the same time, Zeno’s urgent voice rang out.

But before that, an unknown force bound her tightly.

Something like black liquid kept writhing as it strangled her. It was on an entirely different level from the power the sorcerer Daniel had shown.

“Camilla!”

Arsian rushed toward her.

“Stop.”

“...!”

In that moment, someone silently revealed himself behind her. He grabbed Camilla by the throat as if he could snap her neck at any second, and stared at Arsian.

At that gaze, Arsian’s movement—about to mobilize his mana—froze in place.

“You....”

Recognizing him, Camilla let out a hollow laugh.

Someone she knew well. The man she saw every time she met Crown Prince Edsen.

Bill.

The man who served as Crown Prince Edsen’s hands and feet clicked his tongue again and again.

Only then could Camilla see it—countless ghosts stationed around him.

The ones who’d been bound to the Fable Emperor until recently were now attached to Bill.

It wasn’t Prince Abihel.

The Fable Emperor hadn’t stolen Edsen’s body, and he hadn’t stolen Abihel’s.

No—why?

Why, leaving the princes alone, did he take a servant’s body?

“The Mirror of Truth, huh.”

He looked at Camilla as if she fascinated him.

“I killed them all so you couldn’t even be born.”

“Let go of her right now!”

Arsian reacted first to that.

“Didn’t I tell you not to move?”

Bill stopped him as he tried to take a step closer.

The hand gripping Camilla’s throat tightened further. Maybe his nails dug in—blood slid down from her neck.

At the sight, Arsian ground his teeth.

FWOOSH!

“Arsian!”

With a motion that seemed contemptuous, Bill moved his hand, and the black liquid sharpened—then pierced straight through Arsian’s stomach.

“L-let... go of her. Now.”

Even as he collapsed to ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) the floor, Arsian didn’t hide his Killing Intent. If someone could kill with their eyes alone, it looked like he’d manage it.

“That’s a bit difficult. The Mirror of Truth must not exist in this world.”

He clicked his tongue lightly. He hadn’t expected his plans to turn to dust like this again.

The moment he heard Daniel had died by the three dukes’ hands, he immediately sensed things had tangled.

That the three dukes already knew about Eva Faith—about their existence—and that they would soon learn of his existence as well.

“I waited so long.”

He endured and endured, waiting for the day Eva Faith could stand proudly in the world again, but it looked like he would have to hide himself for a while longer.

So he acted at once. He decided to discard the Fable Emperor—the body he had been using all this time.

If the three dukes knew about the eternal life their faith pursued, then when the Fable Emperor died they would surely suspect the two princes first.

That’s why I even framed Edsen on purpose.

So that everyone could be certain, at a glance, that Prince Abihel was his new body.

He even shoved one of the Eva Faith believers into Abihel’s body—stole the flesh outright.

And when that boy died....

He hadn’t thought his believers, whose power was still incomplete, could win against the three dukes and the Guardians.

So once Prince Abihel died and the Imperial Palace stabilized again...

That was when I meant to take Edsen’s body.

That had been his plan. Then he could hide quietly for a time and build up strength.

Time had always been meaningless to him. Starting over—what was so hard about that?

“But....”

This child was the problem.

“To think you were the Mirror of Truth.”

How could he have ever predicted that Camilla—this child—would be the Mirror of Truth?

With her around, every plan he made would be shattered. No matter what body he took, she would find him again.

“A-Arsian...”

Camilla’s eyes trembled without stopping. Seeing him bleeding, she barely swallowed down a scream that threatened to burst out.

[Camilla!]

[What the hell is this?! I can’t even get close!]

Zeno and Arena were just as panicked. They couldn’t approach Camilla at all, trapped inside that black liquid.

“Child, this isn’t the time to worry about—!”

Slice!

The Fable Emperor—no, Bill—who had been tightening his grip on Camilla, went rigid.

Someone had cut his arm.

“Cough!”

“Are you all right?”

It was Dorman. He wrapped Camilla in his arms and retreated.

But the black liquid ensnared the two of them again.

“Tsk. Too many nuisances.”

Bill clicked his tongue lightly. Even seeing his arm severed, his expression didn’t change much.

And why would it? The black liquid rushed toward him, gathered, and in an instant formed an arm again.

“Damn it.”

Coughing dryly for a moment, Camilla spat out a quiet curse.

Her gaze went straight to Arsian. Her anxiety kept climbing.