The Crown's Seduction-Chapter 341: The Red Mist

Nikolai could only watch as Ezekiel’s unconscious body was taken away. Thankfully, Ezekiel himself already knew that this was the price he had to pay. He already knew this was coming. Tarah had already warned them both, but they still took the risk... all for the chance to end Mineah’s curse on top of Vulcan’s soul being extracted from his body. They needed Devon’s demonic and overflowing dark power to extract the soul out of his body. And after that, only then could Mineah use her divine dagger to end Vulcan for good.

Or at least, that was what Tarah saw in her vision. From what Nikolai knew, things still weren’t set in stone, and the Seer had also clearly informed them that she was unable to see how things would end. It could end successfully, but it also had the possibility of ending badly. Well, nothing would happen if they did nothing and just waited for the curse to take effect. In the end, doing this was still the best option.

Unfortunately, Ezekiel was not in his right mind when he passed out due to Devon’s words. His fellow king was clouded with anger after hearing Devon’s taunt just before he passed out.

That was definitely not what Nikolai had planned.

’This is going to cause problems,’ he inwardly grimaced. ’We needed him rational for this to work.’

It was part of the plan that they devised for this gamble. Once the extraction of Vulcan commenced, Ezekiel must remain calm and rational so that he could survive. Anything else would risk him dying due to his emotions overwhelming him.

"Your brother-in-law seems to be devastated upon finding out the truth about his dear Seer..." Devon remarked with a dubious smile. "But you... Seeing you still being this calm and unbothered is something else, I must say."

Nikolai smirked. "I just hate listening to your rants and wasting my time..."

"Is that so?" Devon gritted his teeth. " Well then, let’s see how much you think this is still me wasting your time when you’re shouting in agony while I’m torturing you!"

"Let’s see you try," Nikolai scoffed. "I don’t think you can make me break no matter how much you try."

Instead of replying, Devon simply walked up to him and placed his hand on his forehead. Nikolai gritted his teeth as he prepared for the worst. He knew that he could keep trying to stall him, but it would seem that the time for stalling had finally passed.

Now was the time for endurance, so he will do exactly that.

"Let’s see if you’ll still be confident once I’ve stripped you of immortality!"

Nikolai braced himself as Devon began pouring his dark energy straight into his body. Immediately, the pain that began shooting through him almost made him regret even going through with this plan in the first place. Every nerve in his body screamed with pain, and all he could do was grit his teeth and power through it as the demon tried to get rid of his powers.

Too bad for him, Nikolai was still powerful enough to resist him.

"Still resisting, I see," Devon clicked his tongue in annoyance. "I’m surprised you’re even capable of doing so."

Nikolai did nothing but hold his tongue as he concentrated on resisting Devon’s power. It was taking his all not to scream in pain, but he wouldn’t give this demon the satisfaction of seeing him in pain.

No, he had faith that Mineah would pull through for him. She knew what to do. All he had to do now was survive while she did her thing.

***

In the other room with Ezekiel’s body, Sibil was hard at work trying to come up with ways to extract Vulcan’s soul out of Ezekiel’s body. It would be no easy task seeing as nobody had ever truly done this before at least in recorded history, but he was sure that he’d be able to do exactly what his master wanted him to do.

"Let’s see what makes you tick, Your Majesty..."

With an experimental poke and a prod, Sibil began weaving magic into the unconscious king’s body, hoping to find more information to help him with his task. The goal that his master gave him was that he had to pull Vulcan’s soul out of this man’s body to trap it into a magical box of some sort. From there, his master would then take over to absorb the dragon’s power unto himself, thus gaining power never before seen in these lands.

Well, that was assuming he succeeded in his task.

"A dragon with this much power shouldn’t be this docile," he murmured to himself. "Surely, there is more to this than meets the eye."

Raising his arms, Sibil began weaving even more magic into Ezekiel’s body. The king glowed under his ministrations as he poured his power onto the king’s soul. It took him a considerable amount of his reserves, but it would seem that the king’s soul now glowed blue as the man further experimented with the two souls in front of him.

"That’s the king’s soul visible..." he muttered. "Now for the dragon..."

With his focus now trained on the task at hand, Sibil began to do the same thing he did with Ezekiel on the other soul present within the king’s body. This time, it took him even more power as he did his best to highlight the target in question. Slowly but surely, however, his work paid off as Vulcan’s soul glowed a dull red within the unconscious body in front of him.

"I see... So that’s how it works..."

Looking at the souls in front of him, Sibil learned that the two souls were currently in the middle of mixing together. It wasn’t wholly complete, but it was still something that he took note of, especially since it wouldn’t be long before it was stopped completely.

With his task now clear to him, Sibil began his work in extracting Vulcan’s soul. Pulling on the red soul, he couldn’t help but smirk as he began to feel the soul yielding to his actions. Raising his hand, the red glow began to follow his gestures, slowly making its way to the magical box they had prepared for this exact purpose.

"That’s it..." he smirked. "Just a bit more..."

Sibil couldn’t help but laugh as he felt Vulcan’s power yielding to his whims. He wasn’t as strong as his master, but the fact that he was somehow managing to direct a dragon of Vulcan’s power was an intoxicating feeling. It was almost enough to make him think that he’d manage to control the dragon himself if he wasn’t as loyal to his master as he was.

Still, that didn’t mean his control would last. Unfortunately for him, the moment he thought about being more than enough to control the dragon was the point where the dragon in question began fighting back.

"W-What the?"

With a frown, Sibil did his best to rein the dragon in. With his master still busy torturing Nikolai, there was no help coming for him this time. Hell, said help might even kill him if he ever saw him struggling to contain a subdued dragon.

As such, he pulled out all of his power to try and contain Vulcan. Only, it didn’t work, and Vulcan was slowly wriggling away from his grasp with each second that passed.

"Yield, damn you!" Sibil yelled out.

Pouring even more of his power into his spell, Sibil did the best he could to make the dragon surrender. Unfortunately, it was then that his hold over the dragon broke, and the red soul immediately broke walls as it shot toward the room next to him. Why? He didn’t know.

But what he did know was that he was in so much trouble once Devon knew of his mistake.

***

Back with Nikolai, he was just about to start screaming when he spotted a red mist destroying walls and shooting into the room. Obviously, he didn’t know what it was, and seemed that Devon also had no idea what was happening when he stared at the new source of power in the room.

"What the... Is that what I think it is?!" Devon growled. "Clearly, someone screwed up..."

Before Nikolai could even ask what was happening, the red mist suddenly went towards him. Unable to dodge, he was left with no choice other than to absorb whatever it was. For a few agonizing seconds, he did nothing but take it as his body visibly vibrated with how much energy he was absorbing. It was almost as if he was taking in more than that, but Nikolai didn’t have the means to confirm it.

"You... You dare take what is rightfully mine?!"

Devon raged and cursed in front of him, and it was only then that Nikolai realized what exactly happened. After all, one didn’t simply explode in a burst of bright light after seeing a glimpse of Vulcan in their head.