Betrayed, I Met The Demon Lord

Chapter 77 - Night

Every step was measured, deliberate. Yet his posture sagged under the weight of centuries.

He had long since strayed from any known path, wandering aimlessly for over a millennium. Even now, his steps pressed forward—because to stop would mean facing something he dared not name.

Well, that... and because he had finally decided on a goal. A person he must get to in time.

He had risen from the deepest pits of Arataxia, drawn by a fragment of himself abandoned on the surface. A piece left waiting to be found.

"Knight." A voice, soft as breath, carried through the silent forest. He halted mid-stride.

Slowly, he turned. His armor swallowed the night, blending seamlessly with shadow. Even the moonlight avoided it, recoiling from the void it housed. He loomed there, sword in hand—a blade equal to his height, forged in iron, baptized in blood, and consecrated through ritual.

It was the World Sword, gripped tight in his gauntlet.

And upon him lay the weight of the dark World Armor.

"... Please, stop this." The figure hovered just above the ground, her wings shimmering faintly against the bleakness. Golden light radiated from her presence, "You still have a place with us... with me," she murmured, her voice fragile. "You always did..."

He stood, unmoved, the cold around him sharper than frost.

[The only place I have...] His voice slithered into her mind, not spoken but felt—an echo without origin, sliding between her thoughts. [...is above your eternally dead corpses.]

Tendrils of shadow crept from his feet, the grass beneath him withering into brittle ash.

[It has been so long, and at the first sight of me in a few centuries, you tell me to yield...]

Her wings dipped slightly at his words. She looked down, lips pressed tight, unable to meet his gaze.

[Go back to your Goddess, Evelyn.] He relayed, [There is no stopping. Not until every corner of Arataxia is consumed in fire and shadow. And not until he is ash... and ash... and ash again, until the end of all eons.]

"I... Please... Knight..." Her voice wavered, "I... I am so sorry... You didn't deserve... any of that..." The words cracked, and pure tears fell, tracing glowing paths down her face.

For a moment, the knight stood silent, the night thickening around him like smoke. Then his voice returned, cold and deliberate, threading deeper into her mind.

[Those tears might be real...] It slipped through her like venom. [...But your words? They were never yours. Not even before your ascension.]

The forest seemed to close in, each leaf and branch strangled under the weight of his presence.

[The only pure thing within you...] His tone sharpened. [...is your intent to stop me before I reach that boy. Before I foil the whore of a thousand nights—the one unjustly crowned as a Goddess and called divine.]

His words hung like smoldering embers in the cold night, a curse etched into the air.

[As for you...]

[I shall never forgive you. And I shall never forgive him.] He growled, his emotions like a metal saw, grinding against the flesh in her head, [Your Goddess, who nurtures despair—] His grip on his World Sword tightened, [And the others, complacent in the suffering they allow—]