Silence.
It was a heavy thing, settling over the earth after the man's final breath.
Only the wind made a sound—its whisper dragging across the barren ground, carrying the scent of iron and something fouler.
Liam stood over the corpse. His breathing was steady now. His heartbeat slow—cold—as if it no longer belonged to him. The trembling had stopped.
The panic was gone too, locked away somewhere unreachable.
All that remained was the faint memory of Lilith's grip on his shoulders, a phantom weight anchoring him to what he had done.
He turned toward her.
The grey in his eyes no longer held the softness of a tired human sky; they had hardened into slate—cold, opaque, unyielding.
Lilith's face, so often carved from marble, had shifted. It didn't show approval or even disdain.
Only assessment—a sculptor studying the first deliberate strike of her chisel.
"The council won't be a debate," she said, voice low but sharp enough to cut the quiet. "It will be a hunt. They'll come for you, testing every crack, every hesitation. Show one… and they'll rip you apart."
Liam didn't answer.
He only glanced once more at the dead man, then back at her—with no discernible expression.
He wouldn't falter.
And Lilith saw it.
A brief flicker - satisfaction, faint as candlelight, flashed in her molten gaze.
"Good," she said, rising. "Then let's hurry. This is the first of our preparations."
---
The silence on the walk back didn't feel peaceful. It felt oddly alive—something breathing between them.
Aftermath.
The smell of blood still clung to Liam, mingling with dust and cold air. It refused to leave him, like he did not deserve to be free of it.
Instead of his quarters, they went deeper into the castle—through corridors that grew quieter, darker—until they stepped into a secluded courtyard carved into the fortress's heart.
It was a training ground. Empty and functional.
The smell of damp stone and sweat soaked deep into the flagstones.
A single demon guard waited there, motionless.
His horns were jagged and uneven; where ears should've been, there were only scars. The sight made Liam's skin crawl.
Lilith removed her cloak and mask with precise, almost ritual movements. A young demon woman—slender, anxious—hurried forward with a goblet of dark crimson wine.
Lilith took her seat. The maid—Eri—began fanning her in silence.
"Welcome back, Your Majesty," Eri ventured, her voice a nervous flutter. "How did it go?"
Lilith took a slow sip, her eyes drifting toward Liam, who stood rigid, the cloak still hanging off his shoulders like a burial shroud.
"He was… impressive," she said, her tone cool and measured. "He met my expectations."
Eri smiled timidly.
"To think someone could pretend to be a god so convincingly."
The words landed like a slap.
Liam's head turned—slowly, too slowly.
The movement itself looked off, unnerving. His eyes locked on the maid, and the air changed.
The shadows moved.
"Pretend?" he said quietly.
His voice wasn't the same. It was deeper, distorted—like something human trying to mimic itself.
The temperature seemed to drop. The weight of the courtyard pressed down on her until she could barely breathe.
"Tell me," Liam murmured, each word vibrating in the air, "are you that tired of living?"
[Fear Detected: 1 Entity]
[+20 EP]
Eri gasped, the fan slipping from her hands. Instinct took over; she bowed her head, voice breaking.
"I—I'm sorry! I misspoke!"
"Enough," Lilith's voice cracked through the tension. "She's my most trusted maid. She knows the truth."
For a heartbeat, the air remained heavy.
Then, as if on command, the pressure vanished. Liam's shoulders eased slightly.
"Yeah, i could tell," he said after a moment, forcing a faint smile. "Just… staying in character."
But it wasn't only that. Something had followed him from that execution ground—a darkness clinging just beneath his skin.
It was more than an act, this felt like residue.
The more one looked at him, the less human he seemed. Like Liam—the man—was sinking behind his own eyes, and something colder was surfacing in his place.
Perhaps he clung to the character of the demon god because, after standing idle during a murder, he felt he no longer deserved the comfort of his own humanity.
Lilith studied him. Her tone softened, but her eyes stayed sharp.
"His acting is quite convincing, isn't it?" she said to Eri, who still trembled. "Even knowing the truth, you were afraid."
"That… that was more than just acting, Your Majesty," Eri whispered, her voice thick with a dread that lingered in her bones. "I felt it. A presence of something that cannot be human."
Lilith leaned forward.
"In your world," she said, "what kind of magic existed?"
"None," Liam replied without hesitation. "We don't have that."
"So you're saying you have no magic at all?"
"I'm just a regular human."
Lilith's gaze narrowed.
"Then what is that?" she pressed, her voice dropping. "That feeling and power you exude… first in the throne room, and now here, with my maid. What is its source?"
Liam knew the answer. The System's screens hovered at the edge of his vision.
He contemplated, not for the first time, telling her everything. The Skills, the Essence, the Directive to subjugate her realm.
Perhaps with her knowledge of this world, she could help him grow faster, stronger.
And then, with the cold clarity of a survivor, he dismissed the idea as utterly idiotic and suicidal.
She said it herself. He was a pawn. A pawn whose use was solely to keep her as queen.
What would happen if the queen knew her puppet had the potential to become the true master? That the System's ultimate goal was for him to rule the demon empire she was fighting so desperately to keep?
He would cease to be a useful pawn and become a primary threat to be eliminated.
The risk was absolute. So, he chose the safer path.
"I'm not sure," he lied, meeting her gaze steadily.
Lilith watched him for a long, silent moment.
Finally, she leaned back. "Then what we are about to do is necessary." She gave a single, sharp nod to the earless guard who had been standing as still as a statue.
She turned her head back to Liam, her eyes glinting with a hard light. "Clench your teeth."
"Wha—"
The guard moved faster than sight.
One moment he was across the courtyard, the next he was directly in front of Liam, his scent of oil and iron filling Liam's nostrils.
There was no time to react, no time to scream. Only the sudden, white-hot agony as a dagger, etched with runes, was plunged deep into his abdomen.
The pain was an inferno, searing through nerve and tissue.
But a split second later, it was eclipsed by something else—a raw, rageing, alien energy that erupted from the blade and shot through his veins like lightning.
It was power, pure and violent, scorching him from the inside out, rewriting something fundamental.
A scream was torn from his throat, raw and ragged, as his body convulsed.
[WARNING: Foreign Energy Influx!]
[Magic Core Formation in Progress…]
[Assimilation: 1%...]
His world collapsed into light, pain, and the terrible ecstasy of becoming something new.