The knights thought Seiden searched Rubert’s quarters to find evidence to corner Geril, but he hadn’t yet found the most important thing. Left alone, Seiden slowly headed to Rubert’s bedroom. Creeeeak, the old door sound rang out as the bedroom where he had lived for decades was revealed.

Seiden looked around the room slowly as he entered. It was a clean and tidy room. He felt like laughing thinking about how he managed the room as if he were truly a pure and devout priest.

“……”

After stopping briefly to slowly scan the wooden floor, Seiden’s gaze finally turned to his old bed in the corner of the room. Silently staring at the floor, Seiden slowly approached. He flipped over the bed that had become flat from long use in one motion.

“……”

This time, Seiden’s lips curved up. There was a very faint boundary line drawn on the floor where the bed had been. Seiden pried up the wooden floor with his sword. An empty space was revealed beneath the floor. He finally found a box hidden inside.

“……”

Seiden silently knelt down. He carefully examined the old wooden box. The wood grain remained intact on the aged box, with black and red patterns that looked eerie enough to create an illusion of screaming faces. At first glance the box appeared to have no locks and was open, but Seiden knew this was a disguise.

Though Seiden had never directly seen demons besides Rubert, he had dealt with enough curses, dark magic, and sinister objects they created to be sick of them. Through this, he had grasped the childish rules underlying the Demon God’s essence and what he pursued. Therefore, he knew what was needed to open this box.

“……”

Having finished his thoughts, Seiden picked up his sword again and stood up. Then, without hesitation, he cut his forearm with the sword. Blood flowed down his forearm, cut by the sharp blade. Without even frowning, he held his bleeding arm over the box.

Seiden’s blood dripped onto the box. He watched with tightly sealed lips. Finally, the wooden box terrifyingly absorbed the fallen blood, then opened its lid as if screaming. Simultaneously, black aura burst from the box, coloring Seiden’s surroundings in darkness in the blink of an eye. Seiden stared at the horrifying and fearsome form that appeared before his eyes.

“I have what you seek.”

A terrible sound echoed around Seiden. It was a strange and fearsome resonance that was neither voice, nor scream, nor joy. Perhaps only a god could make such a voice. However, the one burning black before his eyes was not a god. So that must be……

“But if you claim this, only disaster remains for you.”

It must be the last fragment of the Demon God, its power lost after its fall, leaving only black smoke as the final trace. It was truly miserable beyond words.

“Do you think you can break the saintess’s curse with this?”

When the Demon God mentioned Bellota, Seiden’s brow slowly hardened.

“If you touch this book, you will be cursed immediately. A terrible curse that will prevent you from ever touching or seeing that beautiful saintess again.”

A distant and dizzying resonance crept into Seiden’s ears and flowed across his eardrums.

“The saintess will become the Duke’s. You will only be able to watch. Don’t you understand yet? The portion given to you. The curse that great god placed upon you?”

When the Demon God finally struck the vital point, Seiden’s eyes sank darkly.

“You already know that god is not on your side, don’t you? That god has no intention of giving you the saintess.”

He knew. For a very long time. That’s why he buried the past and never spoke to Bellota about it. But……

“Now that’s not enough to satisfy you anymore, is it? You want to keep holding your beloved Bellota in your arms, kissing her, hiding her away by your side where no one else can see her, don’t you, Seiden.”

The wicked voice painfully touched the dirty and blasphemous desire hidden deep within Seiden.

“Take my hand. Then I will surely grant your wish.”

The black form slowly extended its hand toward Seiden. He looked down at the hand extended to him. A black hand that seemed to have turned to ashes after burning in hot fire for a very long time.

Surely, this bewitching form must be casting a spell on him. Otherwise, the vision of him finally achieving love with Bellota wouldn’t replay so vividly before Seiden’s eyes. 

Seiden stared blankly at the dreamlike scene. Bellota smiling happily in his arms, and himself holding her tightly with eyes closed in ecstasy.

As Seiden stared intently at that scene, two more visions arose beside that brilliant illusion. The forms of children who each resembled half of Bellota and himself. As the children ran toward the two of them laughing brightly, Seiden spread his arms wide and smiled while embracing both children. At this truly perfect scene, Seiden’s heart began to boil hotly.

“Come, abandon that god who abandoned you and take my hand. Only I can fulfill your desires.”

A voice sweet as pure sugar and soft as freshly squeezed milk flowed through Seiden’s entire body. This sweetness he had never felt before was dizzyingly ecstatic. That numbingly dreamy voice ticklishly urged him on.

“Hurry.”

Seiden quietly looked at the hand extended to him. Finally having decided something, Seiden’s pupils slowly narrowed. Seiden slowly moved his hand to raise the sword that had cut his arm earlier.

Sensing something wrong, the form tried to scatter in disturbance, but Seiden moved faster. Raising his sword high, he struck down at the form without hesitation and……

“Aaaaaah!”

Cut off the extended hand. A horrible voice that seemed to tear eardrums rang out, contrary to the sweet resonance from earlier. Though no blood flowed from the severed hand, the Demon God’s form began to violently undulate and convulse from the impact.

“Foolish one! Stupid worm! You will surely die! You will ultimately be betrayed by god! And you will regret it most hotly in hell!”

As its desperate cries rang out as if to split eardrums, the smoke surrounding Seiden was rapidly sucked back into the box.

“You will, you will regret it!”

With that final curse toward Seiden, its form was sucked into the box and at last the room fell silent.

Death? How laughable that it thought it could threaten him with just that. The only time Seiden had feared death was during those two years when he fought to return to Bellota.

Seiden looked down at the box with calm eyes. Inside the now wide open box lay a familiar book neatly placed. Seiden’s breath quietly stopped. He knew the identity of the book bound in dark red leather.

The Demon God Book.

The one he had searched so desperately for. The one he had yearned for so earnestly. The book containing the method to break Bellota’s curse.

“……”

Seiden slowly reached out and grabbed the book. An enormous power surged through his fingertips. Barely restraining that power, Seiden slowly opened the book to reveal blank parchment. Even after turning several more pages, nothing was written inside the book.

However, Seiden knew how to use this book. He slowly opened his mouth and spoke in a locked voice.

“I want to know the method to break the saintess’s curse.”

The voice seeking the answer that had now become most desperate to him quietly echoed through the ransacked room. Then red letters slowly appeared on the parchment.

[To god……]

Seeing the words that followed, Seiden’s pupils froze in place.

[You must offer the rockdragon’s heart.]

At these unbelievable words, Seiden’s eyebrows slowly twisted.

“What……”

An exasperated breath flowed between his lips. The rockdragon’s heart? Isn’t that the divine prophecy? How could god’s revelation appear in the Demon God’s book?

Seiden closed and reopened the book several times, again requesting the method to break Bellota’s curse, but the same answer kept appearing on the parchment.

“……”

Only then did a realization fall like a crash onto Seiden’s head. That weighed heavily on his entire body. The rockdragon’s divine prophecy. Seiden’s mind grew distant as he realized the meaning contained in that prophecy.

God had known all along. That’s why He gave that prophecy a hundred years ago. Because the saintess’s curse had begun a hundred years ago……

“Ha……”

As soon as he realized this fact, unbearable emptiness and betrayal washed over him. Seiden looked down at the Demon God Book again in disbelief.

[You must offer the rockdragon’s heart to god.]

The annoying letters still floated there as if mocking Seiden. God had never abandoned the saintess or this empire. He had given the answer long ago and simply waited for them to solve this problem themselves.

At the same time, the meaning of the divine prophecies that had stopped except for sending down saintesses crashed over him like a wave. That god would no longer give prophecies to humans unless they slayed the rockdragon.

But no one had been able to slay the rockdragon. No, no one had been able to take out its heart and offer it to god. No one had conquered the Forbidden Land, and no one had met god’s expectations. For an entire hundred years.

After staring at the red letters while frozen for a long while, Seiden finally closed the book. He slowly glared into empty space.

If offering the rockdragon’s heart was the only way to break Bellota’s curse, he had no choice. No, Seiden realized he had never had such a choice from the beginning.

Yes, he finally understood everything now. That he was destined to head to the Forbidden Land.

As he realized this, Seiden’s chest that had been tightly blocked until now cleared unbelievably. He had finally found the clear answer.

Tucking the Demon God Book into his chest, Seiden turned around without lingering and left the ransacked bedroom. Now that he knew the answer, it was time to act. All those preparations had already been completed long ago.