"You called for me?"
Wolf, white mask firmly in place, stepped into the empty throne room.
The young Emperor was an unremarkable-looking man, but the crown, the scepter, and the imperial robes lent him an aura of supreme, untouchable authority. Seated upon the throne, he looked down at Wolf.
"Wolf. Do you know your crimes?"
The Emperor came straight to the point.
Wolf, who had been moving to approach the throne, halted in his tracks. He dropped immediately to one knee.
"I, Your Majesty — what crimes have I committed?"
The Emperor's expression was stern. He struck the base of his scepter against the floor.
Nearly twenty shadow guards, cloaked head to toe in black, materialized like ghosts and closed in around Wolf.
"Unlawfully trespassing upon noble estates without permission. Covertly assassinating nobles. Conspiring with border lords. Theft from the imperial treasury — and more. These crimes are more than sufficient to constitute high treason. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
Real charges heaped atop fabricated ones — together, they added up to a death sentence.
"..."
Wolf was silent for a moment, eyes sweeping across the shadow guards closing in around him.
"I see. Once you'd gotten everything you needed from me — you decided to have me eliminated."
"Do you confess your guilt!"
The Emperor's voice rang through the throne room without answering Wolf's observation — and was swallowed the very next moment by Wolf's laughter.
"Hahahahahahahaha!"
"Fascinating. How utterly fascinating!"
The man who had spent his life inciting others to betray one another — who had taken his pleasure in watching betrayal unfold — had now been betrayed himself.
For reasons he couldn't quite explain, Wolf felt no anger. No panic. No disappointment. No grief.
What he felt, right now, was delight.
"Yes — I confess. It won't change the outcome regardless."
Having already known this was coming, he rose slowly to his feet.
"Duke Wolf, don't blame me — you've made far too many enemies. In recognition of the service you rendered the late Emperor, and the service you have rendered me since, I ask: do you have any last words?" the Emperor asked, his expression unreadable.
"Do you forgive those who betray you?"
Wolf posed an oddly out-of-place question. Despite being surrounded on all sides by the palace's most elite shadow guards, he remained utterly composed.
"I am the Emperor. Betrayal is something I will never tolerate."
The answer came without a moment's hesitation.
"I see. As expected — most living creatures are exactly the same."
"Do you know? I have always believed that humans are the most mutable creatures in existence. That is precisely why I have so enjoyed pushing them to betray one another — to frame one another, to slaughter one another. In setting it all in motion, in witnessing it unfold — I have always found something there. A feeling I have never been able to claim as my own. Something I cannot put into words."
Wolf's voice suddenly grew heated.
"I have always been curious — why do they choose betrayal? I envy them, truly, their capacity for such complex and contradictory thought. So I have watched. And at times, I have tried to understand it myself."
"Just as I thought — you are a demon and a madman."
Faced with Wolf's hollow philosophizing, the Emperor's brow furrowed.
He was already thinking of giving the order to eliminate Wolf on the spot. The longer this dragged on, the more time there was for things to go wrong.
"Somewhat unexpected, I'll admit — but your betrayal was exceptional. It has satisfied me greatly. This is, truly, the most gratifying moment I have ever known."
"Still... poor Wolf, burdened with so many charges. And yet... clearly..."
More nonsensical rambling.
"What are you even talking about?" The Emperor was beginning to suspect that Wolf had simply gone mad.
But Wolf's next words made the Emperor's mind go blank.
"...Wolf has been dead for quite some time."
The Emperor's heart lurched. Combined with the other man's strange, detached tone, something about the Wolf standing before him suddenly felt deeply — unmistakably — wrong.
Wolf said Wolf was already dead? Then who was this man standing in front of him? Who had been advising the late Emperor all this time — who had helped him seize the throne?
Had the Wolf of before ever been like this?
All he remembered was that Wolf had always been the late Emperor's loyal hound. A cunning, brooding, cold-blooded man. Nothing like the lunatic standing before him now.
When had this started?
Why had he never noticed? Had he been too drunk on the joy of his own ascension?
Or — was all of this simply an act?
"Enough. Whatever you say — you die today!"
"Move — kill him!"
The Emperor was done thinking. He had lost his patience entirely. Real or fabricated, mad or performing — it didn't matter. Once this man was gone, the problem disappeared with him.
In truth, he had always been afraid of Wolf — deeply afraid of what this man, who had cut down his own father right before his eyes, might do if left unchecked.
Deal with the nobles. Then deal with Wolf. It had been a plan that killed two birds with one stone.
He had known Wolf was formidable. But against the Empire's most elite shadow guards, he was confident they could encircle and bring him down.
At the command, the shadow guards drew their weapons and surged toward Wolf.
"AAAH!!!"
Screams tore through the throne room almost immediately.
Not Wolf's. The guards'.
The shadow guards moved fast. Wolf moved faster.
Wolf snatched the first guard to reach him, wrenched the man's own dagger back into his body, and twisted his entire arm until it bent at an angle no arm was ever meant to bend.
Then Wolf's arm transformed — steel erupting where flesh had been — and another guard was cut down before he could even react.
A guard lunged for his back. Wolf sidestepped and sent him crashing away with a single kick.
Wolf seized the corpse of a fallen guard and hoisted it as a shield. From behind the cover it offered, he unleashed Ordinary Offensive Magic — and cut down several more.
Against the encirclement, Wolf was not losing ground.
Amid the chaos, a black-and-white pillar of light suddenly shot toward the throne. Had a shadow guard not thrown himself directly into its path, it would have punched straight through the Emperor's skull.
"Who are you?!"
The Emperor, so confident just moments ago, now wore a look of desperate urgency — his voice edged with panic and undisguised fear.
He had not anticipated that "Wolf" would be this powerful. He was now certain of it — the man before him was an impostor.
Deep within the fray, Wolf heard the Emperor's cry. Beneath the mask, a smile spread slowly across his face.
BOOM.
A tremendous surge of mana exploded outward from "Wolf's" body. The shockwave alone was enough to freeze every shadow guard in place.
A pillar of translucent mana rose and expanded — surpassing the walls of the palace itself, swallowing everyone present within its reach.
A nameless, crushing pressure swept through the room like a tide.
"Hahahahahahahaha!"
He laughed — wild, unhinged, boundless.
Crack. Crack. The sound of bones reshaping rang out from within his body.
Wolf's silhouette shifted in that same instant. Beneath his clothes, his body twisted and reshaped, swelling a full size larger than before.
"It has been several hundred years since I've used my true form... How nostalgic..."
"Who am I?"
"Hmm..."
"Time passes. Identities accumulate. Even I have forgotten."
"But I'll tell you this much, at least."
"Standing before you is a Great Demon — one who has lived over a thousand years longer than you could ever dream."
"Wolf" slowly reached up and removed the white mask.
Beneath it was a face with no disguise. His true face, revealed at last.
____
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