The Demon King and the Supreme Deity, the first lives born from Chaos, possessed the highest order of life and even inherited the authority of Chaos's creation.
Thus, the Supreme Deity opened the Celestial Realm, and the Demon King created Purgatory.
Afterward, for reasons unknown, Britannia birthed a law that repels existences that are too powerful.
The Demon King and the Supreme Deity could no longer enter Britannia in their true bodies and could only remain in the Celestial Realm and Purgatory.
But the two of them were not Chaos, after all. They could create a world, yet they could not create the world's most important faculty—magic.
And since the root of magic lies in Britannia, their millennia-long Holy War was for the sake of seizing it.
To govern chaotic Purgatory and also to bolster the Holy War, the Demon King split off half of his own power and bestowed it upon his subordinates.
Fearing that those under him would seize his authority after gaining too much power, he split that power again into ten portions and granted them to the ten most elite demons in the form of Commandments.
And now, one of them—the Commandment of Truth—had fallen into Charles's hands.
Charles hadn't pounded Galand for so long just to stretch his limbs.
The magic that belonged to Galand himself had already been worn away by the seal, so when Charles landed his first punch, he sensed the vast power hidden within Galand's body.
So ripping out the Commandment of Truth from Galand was a spur-of-the-moment decision.
On the one hand, there was no interference from Galand's own magic. On the other, as Charles had suspected, the Demon King was the classic type of villain who trusted no one.
Thus, the Commandments inside the Ten weren't in a state of perfect fusion.
So even without any special extraction method, Charles severed the bond between the Commandment and Galand's body with superior magical control and pulled it out.
Now that spherical stone etched with strange sigils was nested Matryoshka-style within several layers of magical devices.
Charles knew full well that a Commandment was not merely a vessel for the Demon King's power—it was also his conduit for descending upon Britannia.
He wouldn't be surprised if it even contained fragments of the Demon King's soul.
So with this thing, he couldn't be too careful.
Research on the Commandments wasn't going smoothly either; as part of the Demon King's power, analyzing a Commandment was no different from parsing a shard of the world's laws.
The good news was that by dissecting the Commandment, Charles had grasped a few threads of Meliodas's curse. The pain of the gains at least offset some of the pain of the research.
As the hero who repelled Galand and saved Camelot, Charles received a warm reception from King Arthur.
Not only was he given a rather luxurious room, he also received a fully equipped magic workshop.
That day, just as Charles was fully absorbed in analyzing the Commandment of Truth, someone knocked on the workshop door.
Coming back to himself, Charles opened it to find Arthur standing outside.
"Why are you here? Shouldn't you be overseeing reconstruction right now?"
It had been two days since Galand was driven off, and the Seven Deadly Sins had yet to depart, choosing to recuperate in Camelot.
Meliodas and Diane were badly hurt, and Merlin had turned to stone by the power of a Commandment. In that state, they couldn't carry on even if they wanted to.
And because of Galand, Camelot's city districts had been severely damaged. Arthur had been busy with postwar rebuilding these past two days—Charles hadn't expected him to come.
Arthur wore a white everyday outfit; out of that golden armor, he looked more like an ordinary youth than a nation's king.
"I've come to trouble you uninvited, Mr. Charles, because I have a favor to ask!"
Charles let Arthur into the workshop. "No need to be so formal, Your Majesty. Tell me what it is. If it's within my power, I won't refuse."
Arthur looked at Charles with utmost solemnity, then suddenly bowed a crisp ninety degrees. "Mr. Charles, please teach me to become stronger!"
Charles hadn't expected that. He blinked, then said, "Don't you already have Merlin as your mentor? She's the world's greatest mage—surely you don't need anyone else's instruction."
Charles couldn't see Arthur's face from that angle, but his tone made his agitation plain.
"Merlin has taught me much, but I have to grow stronger faster!"
Charles could feel Arthur's resolve clearly. As the king of Camelot, he bore the trust of all his people.
Yet the attacks by Albion and Galand had shown him a truth: as he was now, he simply couldn't protect the kingdom and its people.
So he was desperate to grow stronger. Merlin had told him that immense magic slumbered within him, but he had no way to draw it out.
That left him both troubled and lost; he even began to doubt whether Merlin had misjudged him and he didn't, in fact, have such talent.
Until he saw how Charles beat down Galand, a Ten Commandment of the Demon Clan.
As Merlin's student, Arthur knew that although humans ruled Britannia, the gap in power between them and the other races was enough to make one despair.
Yet Charles, also human, possessed power that vastly exceeded the Demon Clan's. Arthur wanted to know how Charles did it—and he wanted that kind of strength to protect his people.
So he had come to ask Charles to train him.
Charles studied Arthur, mulling it over.
To be frank, he'd never considered this—but since Arthur had brought it up, his interest was piqued.
Though Meliodas was the protagonist of this world, Arthur was the true "child of destiny."
As for why the Demon King and the Supreme Deity had joined forces to seal Chaos, one theory said Chaos had created a perfect race.
The Demon King and the Supreme Deity grew jealous by comparison, and so they sealed Chaos. That "perfect race" was humanity.
It had always been treated as a joke, because whether in strength or in character, humans were undoubtedly at the bottom of the five races—how could they merit the label "perfect"?
Let alone provoke the jealousy of the Demon King and the Supreme Deity.
But Arthur's existence served, to some degree, as evidence—because Arthur was the only one capable of bearing Chaos's power.
Chaos embodies both light and darkness, purity and filth; it is the end of all things and the beginning of all things.
Only a race as complex—and as full of infinite possibility—as humans could produce someone with the potential to bear Chaos's power.
Arthur was just such a being: the hero chosen by the Holy Sword of Humanity, a king among kings. He was also the future King of Chaos who would rule the coming age.
This was why Merlin called Arthur her only hope. For someone seeking to plumb the secrets of Chaos, Arthur truly was her one hope.
After a moment's thought, Charles said, "If you come study under me, Merlin won't object?"
Arthur lacked nothing in aptitude as a disciple; Charles's only concern was Merlin.
There was no question Merlin would do anything for Arthur. Charles didn't want a clash with her over this.
Suddenly, Merlin's voice sounded.
"It's fine. As a mentor, I can only hope my disciple keeps growing stronger."
As she spoke, a slightly translucent figure appeared to the side.
Though her body had been petrified, Merlin had transferred her soul into her Sacred Treasure beforehand, so she could still act in this way.
Charles arched a brow. "If you've no objections, then let's do it."
"Really?" Arthur looked up, delighted.
"But my training is quite grueling," Charles said.
"Don't worry, Master Charles. I'll give it my all!" Arthur patted his chest.
Lately, apart from studying the Commandment of Truth, Charles didn't have much else to do. Taking the field as a mentor would be a good way to pass the time.
And in the process, it wouldn't be too much to study this so-called "King of Chaos," would it?
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