“Lord Senro, as you said, his power reeks of the Plague of Beasts, like a sick wind crawling through reeds. How do we counter it, when it sways a Demigod like me, like tide pulling at a cliff? Even if those old friends arrive like distant thunder…”

“If it’s a plague, we treat it like a plague,” Senro said, her words like frost sealing a well. “Hold him for a while, and I’ll seal him for good.”

Duke Dion exhaled, his breath like winter mist slipping past a mountain. Senro might be his junior, but her path ran farther than his, like a road disappearing into snow.

Because of that, his trust in Senro was absolute, like stone sunk deep in a riverbed. If Senro said she could seal him, then the lid was already iced shut.

“In that case, my old friends will be here soon, like banners cresting a ridge. But there’s one more matter—the issue of Her Highness Fenrir…”

“Fenrir’s matter is simple,” Senro said, voice like a straight blade in cold light. “If she’s behind it, we dig the truth from her sea of consciousness, like pearls from silt. If not, she’s cleared of being the mastermind—but she’s still guilty of dereliction for consorting with danger and failing to see its threat to the Demon World. As crown heir, that stain is on her, like ash on silk.”

Duke Dion hesitated, his gaze searching Senro’s face like a lantern probing an iceberg. He hunted for a hint, and found only sheer ice.

“…If she is the hand behind this,” he said, voice low like distant drums, “I beg you, for my sake, don’t convene a formal trial. Punish her, but spare her the scaffold.”

Senro didn’t answer. Her silence lay between them like a frozen lake, flat and merciless, and it set Duke Dion’s nerves to shiver like reeds in a cold gust.

If Fenrir truly was the mastermind, the law of the Demon World would brand her traitor, like hot iron on flesh. At the lightest, she’d be stripped of heirship and power, exiled to the border like a lone tree in winter. At the heaviest, she’d face a public trial like a scaffold at noon, and the Demon King would grant her death like a falling star’s edge.

As an elder, Duke Dion hated that picture, like smoke stinging eyes. He had treated Nero and Fenrir as his own children, like seedlings in his garden. Yet as a former general of the Demon World, if she crossed that red line that shook their foundations, he would cut without mercy, like steel biting through rope.

So he wavered, head slightly lowered before Senro, like a bough under ice. He didn’t mistrust Fenrir; he simply knew Senro’s justice was a balanced scale rimed with frost—she wouldn’t lie, and she scorned the thought of lying.

Silence pooled, heavy as storm clouds over a plain, and Zhe at their side felt the pressure like a mountain on his shoulders. With two Demigods unspeaking, he dared not breathe loud, like a mouse under an eagle’s shadow.

A soft knock broke the stillness, like rain tapping bamboo.

“Lord Senro, it’s Fenrir. I’ve arrived as promised,” a gentle voice came through the door, clear as a bell across water. “May I come in?”

The room paused, startled, like deer lifting their heads at a crack of twig. Duke Dion’s face darkened like a sky before hail, but Senro was unruffled, a calm pond under frost.

“Please enter, Your Highness Fenrir,” she said.

The door eased open with a sigh, and Fenrir stepped in, clad in black armor like night poured over steel. She took in the long table ringed with figures, then stripped off the heavy plates in one swift motion, like shedding wet bark, and sat beside Senro.

“Lord Senro, the battle outside was stunning, like lightning carving the dark,” she said, her eyes gliding over the room like a hawk over fields. The defenses were tight as woven thorn, and a border commander felt that at once, like grit under the tongue.

“Of course. Sit,” Senro said. Her voice, cool as moonlight on ice, brushed Fenrir’s ear and tugged her mind like a tide.

Ice-blue threads coiled around Fenrir’s throat like frost-vines, unnoticed. A deep-blue pupil opened on Senro’s brow like a midnight star, and subtle Arcane Power flowed along those threads, a chill river gliding into Fenrir’s sea of consciousness. It all happened in a blink, like a blade flashed and sheathed.

To Duke Dion, that blink stretched like a rack on his nerves. The result would decide Fenrir’s fate, a Damocles blade hanging over her like a shard of winter sky.

“How is it, Lord Senro?” he asked, the famed calm shaken to sparks, like a young colt pawing dirt.

“She’s innocent,” Senro said, her tone a snowflake that cut like glass. “But we still need the details.”

The vast icy pressure flared and faded like a cold wind snuffed in a cave. The deep-blue pupil closed like a petal at dusk. The ice-blue threads slipped back like water into snow, and Fenrir’s eyes cleared, dawn breaking over frosted fields.

“Good… good,” Duke Dion breathed, wiping cold sweat like dew from his brow. For a heartbeat, he’d thought the verdict had fallen like an axe and Fenrir’s doom was set.

Even Zhe watched Senro with a pinch of fear, like a sparrow eyeing a falcon’s shadow. He didn’t care if Fenrir lived; her death might even help him, a backer behind a crown heir, like wind at his back. But if Senro had struck with that kind of force, could he avoid the splash and live, like a leaf dodging a flood? A Demigod like Duke Dion would stand; a man forever stuck at almost-Titleholder like him would wash away like sand.

When Fenrir fully cleared, Duke Dion across the round table let out a long breath, a bellows easing beside a forge. Senro at her side looked less glacial, and there was even regret in her gaze, like warmth trapped under ice.

“You… Lord Senro, did you pry into my sea of consciousness?” Fenrir asked. She was sharp, and the rumors about Senro, plus the room’s reaction, painted the scene like ink on rice paper.

“Did you forget?” Fenrir’s face cooled, like slate under rain. “The Demon World’s First Decree?”

No one enjoys their mind being read, like a locked chest forced open. Especially not by Senro, head of the Royal Priesthood, famed for observation and foresight, like an eagle seeing mice under snow. And the First Decree was the chain on that soaring power, like reins on a warhorse.

In both the human realm and the Demon World, faith rises like incense, and faith feeds gods like oil feeds flame. So gods and churches found a tacit pact, a shadow treaty inked in smoke.

Clergy who wore holy names yet did vile deeds were never rare, like wolves in sheepskin. When only commoners suffered, crowns looked away, for peasants were treated like grass in a frost. But when that power tangled with royal authority, the crown struck back like thunder over a ridge.

The human churches were the clearest lesson, a tree allowed to grow monstrous and crooked, calling itself the mouth of God, like a vine that choked the house. By the time kings resisted, the church was a giant, a misshapen beast whose shadow swallowed cities.

The Demon World, scarred by history, saw divine power clearly early on, like a hunter reading tracks in snow. Thus the First Decree was born, sharp as a border stone.

From then on, two powers stood apart like twin peaks. The royal house acknowledged certain gods and folded their reach into royal organs: the Royal Priesthood under Senro, and the Order of Eternal Recluses that held the borders, like black pines in winter, against nameless horrors from the Abyss.

So Fenrir flung the First Decree as a reminder, like a bell rung in a fog. If Senro were a common priest, Fenrir could press charges like seals on a scroll. But Senro’s place was too singular; at best, this was a warning, a feather against iron. Whatever Senro took from her memories, she shouldn’t dare to use it, like a spark near dry straw.

“Of course I remember the First Decree,” Senro said. “I know it by heart, like a prayer cut into bone. But… this man—you know him, don’t you?”

With her words, a middle-aged man’s image rose from the circle on the table like smoke from a brazier. Fenrir froze, then frowned, caution drawing tight like a bowstring.

“What does it matter if I know him?” she asked, the words clipped like broken ice. “Even as Royal Priest, you can’t meddle in every affair of a crown heir, right?”

Senro sighed, the sound like wind through pines, and tapped the tabletop as if troubled. Pale frost spread over the wood like lichen.

“In the struggle for power, did you lose yourself a little?” she asked, the sentence a cold bell through fog.

Absolute strength is everything, like the mountain behind the village.

It sounded like a warning and felt like pressure, like snow building on a roof.

As head of the Royal Priesthood, Senro was stepping wide, like a footprint past the line. The woman rarely wore worry, yet when she did, the beauty of it struck like moonlight on a lake.

Duke Dion kept flashing Fenrir urgent looks, like sparks from tinder. Sensing the strain, Fenrir’s first heat cooled, like iron quenched in water.

Indeed, Senro had never overstepped all these years, like a blade kept clean under law. She had given much to the Demon World, the best example under the First Decree, like a pillar holding a hall.

Yet now she pressed forward, step by step, like ice creeping over a stream. Why force an answer from Fenrir’s mouth?

Fenrir thought for a while under the spreading frost, like a fox crouched in snow, then sighed.

“He was once one of my guest advisers,” she said, the words falling like pebbles into a well. “He often had sharp military insight, so I brought him into this plan. I also meant to use him as a disposable piece, like a straw raft. But…”

“But?” Senro asked, already seeing the shape of the truth like a shadow behind paper.

“But shortly after the plan began, he vanished with one of my legions, deep in the Hydra Plains, like stones sinking in a blue marsh. That’s why I needed Nero to shoulder more of the plan, like a beam taking an extra load.”

Fenrir let out a long breath, like smoke after fire. At this point, there was nothing left to hide, like snow melted to bare earth.