Laila silently looked down at Ord’s face. She remained still, without moving, until the light returned to his eyes that had become pale and cloudy.

Ord, who had been looking up at the canopy ceiling, finally turned his gaze to look at her. For a moment, he had a fearful expression as if seeing someone other than her, but it was only for a fleeting instant.

As he met Laila’s gaze, he exhaled a long, deep breath like someone who had just returned from the threshold of death. Laila could hear his heart beating.

“You’ve come.”

Ord said. Even those brief words were closer to a sigh at first, but his eyes gradually became clearer and one could see life returning to them.

“Did you sleep peacefully, Your Majesty?”

At Laila’s question, Ord’s lips twitched before curling into a faint smile.

“I had a dream of a very ancient time. A dream from when I was young.”

“What kind of dream was it?”

“Well… I don’t remember now. But after waking from the dream, I suddenly feel as if I’ve aged a hundred years. Though I haven’t even lived fifty years yet.”

Ord, who had been speaking intermittently, coughed softly. Unlike before, it wasn’t as harsh or loud as to be grating to the ears.

It was because he no longer had the strength even to cough loudly. He was simply walking quietly towards the end, and no one could pull him from that path or make him return.

“The medicine you gave me helps.”

At Ord’s words, Laila’s expression took on an even more complex look.

After a moment of silence, she gently placed her index and middle fingers below Ord’s ear to feel his breathing and pulse. Though threadlike and weak, it showed no signs of stopping yet. At least not immediately.

“Your Majesty has kept the demon by your side for too long. You’ve absorbed too much of the Deceptor’s poison.”

“I did it for Eustar.”

Laila’s lips tightened again. The Deceptor did not continue to stay by Eustar’s side.

It spent most of its time next to Ord, and though the exact timing was unclear, after devouring Baso, it influenced Ord even more closely.

The medicine Laila had Mel make not only treated his physical illness but also played a role in neutralizing the poison weighing on his mind to some extent.

Thanks to this, Ord was able to hear with his own ears about the deaths of Nieldora Panang and the elders under her command.

Long ago, when they completely severed ties with magicians and non-magicians and disappeared from sight, they said they wanted to harmonize again with the ordinary people of Sierow. Ord sighed in relief, his body trembling uncontrollably.

Laila, who had been silent, opened her mouth.

“Your Majesty.”

“…”

“You made a condition to the Deceptor that Sierow must be rebuilt and made peaceful, didn’t you?”

Ord’s eyes slowly moved towards the wall. He gazed endlessly at the Rambri decorations that hadn’t faded a bit in color over the decades and spoke.

“Yes. Though it wasn’t my intention from the beginning… At first, my only condition was to exclude Eustar from the contract. That was all.”

He felt his vision blurring and gripped the sheets. His nails, which no longer grew, dug subtly into his palm. As he began to feel a dull pain, his vision cleared as if he had bitten into cold ice.

“But saying that I would save Eustar and become the contractor with the demon in his place was tantamount to saying that the royal line would end. Those who contract with demons cannot have children. They cannot love anyone. The body rapidly decays due to the contract, and the mind is eaten away by all sorts of evil things. Then the only one to rule Sierow after me would be Eustar. That was what I had to do before making him king. Eliminate the Sink… and firmly stabilize Sierow.”

“The Sink has no direct relationship with the Deceptor, but the Deceptor has continuously targeted the Hyanmorik bloodline. Did you know?”

Ord’s head moved slowly.

“To some extent. But I couldn’t be sure. How did you find out?”

“There was a book in the secret space of the library.”

Laila answered, but Ord blinked a couple of times as if he didn’t quite understand.

“A book.”

“Yes. Baso… no, it was the Deceptor. He showed me that place. There was a time when I was wandering around the library looking for clues to break Eustar’s contract with the Deceptor. At that time, he showed me a book filled with all kinds of sorcery, demons, and the origins of spells, saying it was left by the late king and queen. And he said…”

— You must never take the books here outside.

Laila thought about how dark Baso’s eyes had looked then, how strangely they had shone.

Come to think of it, it felt like his eye color changed every time she saw Baso.

Gray, green, brown, black, blue… It was astonishing how subtly and quickly the colors changed, so much that she couldn’t notice it right before her eyes.

Laila continued speaking.

“I found out the reason later. And why the air in that space was so thin. You must have known about that space too.”

“Yes. I designed it. Because I wanted to bury the terrible things my father and mother had done.”

“Each of the books there was a living thing. Life forms created only from impurity… and strange things that could only communicate through lies. If they had been left free, the royal palace would have been reduced to ashes. They would have moved from this person to that person, to another person’s hands, planting doubt, malice, fear, and hostility in people’s hearts. If all those seeds had sprouted at once, if an unknown rain suddenly fell and sprouts grew, then a disaster that no one could stop would have occurred.”

Ord had a thoughtful expression without speaking. Whether he knew this fact or not was not really important. Laila had secretly taken one book out of the library some time after meeting Badin.

Partly because she hadn’t finished reading it, but also because she was curious about why she wasn’t supposed to take it out.

As soon as that book escaped from its small, secret prison, it screamed at the top of its lungs as if it couldn’t wait any longer.

Most of it was the content in the book, but there were also things hidden in between that Laila had never thought of.

The book, with its mouth wide open, shouted and shouted and shouted again in a very ancient language about a contract made long, long ago.

“It was written with blood that the Deceptor had drawn by pricking the tip of his tongue.”

Laila said.

“About a promise made between an ancient being, neither god nor demon, and the first Hyanmorik.”

— All things with two legs, four-legged beasts, those with beaks, those that crawl on their bellies, those with scales, and those that live underground shall face a hole that will devour them all. But if one of you lowly creatures bravely takes part of my name, I shall save you from premature destruction.

Ord’s eyes slowly widened. What Laila was saying was completely incomprehensible to his mind. Nevertheless, he could understand every word Laila said without missing anything. Even the content she had not yet spoken.

Laila continued speaking.

“And so the bravest among the lowly creatures received part of that being’s name. That name was…”

“Hyanmorik. The foolish descendants of Hyanmorik.”

Laila nodded and took a moment to catch her breath. It was tiring. Even though she had just stood still and talked, she felt like she was about to collapse and die, as if she had been running non-stop for ten days straight.

“That being became the foundation of Sierow in that way. Instead of becoming a god worshipped and revered by the people of Sierow, it remained as another immortal being on which they always stand, sit, lie down, are born, and also die. It became the land that is always there but no one thinks deeply about, and when Hyanmorik became king on that land, that being also came to reign at the pinnacle of Sierow. The Deceptor discovered that initial promise and recorded it with his own blood.”

“Do you have any idea why he did such a thing?”

Laila shook her head.

“No.”

And then she added:

“Perhaps he wanted to push that being aside and take its place for himself.”

That makes sense. Ord thought. The Deceptor was more than capable of such tricks. Now he could fully understand why he had so readily agreed to his request to leave Eustar alone.

What the Deceptor wanted was not just the soul of a mere human, Ord Hyanmorik. He wanted to devour Ord and also influence Eustar, to get the entire name of Hyanmorik into his grasp.

Ord closed his eyes with a devastated expression and whispered as if sobbing.

“I see ghosts and demons dancing in the fire.”

“That is an illusion. Open your eyes. And listen carefully to my words.”

Ord obediently opened his eyes and looked at Laila, but he already had an exhausted expression. He could no longer rise.

He was like a fish with torn fins and a severed tail that could never surface no matter how much it swam.

Laila’s fingertips touched Ord’s forehead. And so Ord could understand her words without thinking. He could hear without having to strain his ears.

“I cannot do anything about Your Majesty’s decayed body. For there is nothing in the entire universe that can interfere with the process of life and death. But I can save Your Majesty’s soul with my power. What do you think?”

Ord’s eyes, which seemed to be slowly closing, opened. He didn’t part his lips, but Laila could hear his voice.

— What do you mean?

Laila answered.

“The demon who is old enough to be my father, the one who created the first witch, promised to take my innate ability. My ability as a medium.”

— And?

“There was such content in the contract of the Deceptor engraved on Eustar’s back. It said that the price could be paid by paying something equivalent to a human soul.”

— He didn’t say such a thing to me.

A bitter smile appeared on Laila’s lips.

“Of course not, Your Majesty. Why would a demon born of fire and lies honestly disclose conditions unfavorable to himself?”