Witchbound Villain: Infinite Loop
220 – Echoes of the End

Like projectiles fired from the earth itself, two figures burst into the open sky—Isaiah and the Demon Lord, locked in a brutal clash mid-air. 

“If this keeps going, this place is going to collapse,” Burn sighed.

Isaiah’s wings unfurled, vast as the heavens, their edges cutting through the thick smoke still spiraling from the ruptured ground below.

His one broken horn gleamed under the fractured sunlight, a jagged crown atop his fierce, scaled visage. The long, powerful tail of the Eastern Dragon lashed through the air as he steadied himself, holding Nahwu and Locan against the howling winds.

Opposite him, the Demon Lord stood with an infuriating ease, dark corruption coiling beneath his feet, lifting him effortlessly above the carnage. The writhing platform pulsed, a living, breathing mass of blackened sin. And in his crumbling arms—ah, the ever-constant source of every lunatic’s motivation—a woman.

Their faces, both his and hers, were obscured by the thick, tar-like substance of corruption. It clung to them like a second skin, writhing and shifting, hiding any semblance of humanity beneath its abyssal embrace.

Whether it was armor, a curse, or simply the manifestation of the filth in his soul, Isaiah neither knew nor particularly cared.

With the flourish of a conductor ushering in a grand crescendo, the Demon Lord raised a hand that struggled to hold its shape, crumbling into ashes with every movement. Shadows curled and crackled at his corrupted fingertips before surging forward—a massive arc of darkness itself slicing toward Isaiah.

It wasn’t an attack meant to kill—no, it was a feint, a distraction, a well-placed thorn in the side of an already chaotic battlefield.

“Tch.” Isaiah clicked his tongue but wasted no time. He twisted, wings beating hard as he dodged, and with a precise snap of his arms, flung the Elf Princess and the Inkian Prince he had just rescued toward the one person insane enough to play mid-air catcher in this mess—Burn.

Burn shot forward like a hawk, arms outstretched, and caught both Nahwu and Locan, though the sheer force of Isaiah’s throw nearly sent them tumbling from his grasp.

But his eyes flicked back to the Demon Lord, who had already moved on to his next grand gesture. With meticulous care, he placed the woman from his pitiful excuse for arms onto a floating bed of thick, black, mud-like corruption.

The dark sludge rippled and steadied beneath her, cradling her form as if it were spun from silk instead of the very essence of doom.

"Wait for me, Evere, my love," he murmured, his voice heavy with solemn devotion, inwardly cursing Morgan Le Fay for complicating matters—disintegrating his arms and preventing him from permanently regenerating or recreating them with corruption.

Isaiah didn’t wait for Lance Inkor to finish his nonsense. The moment the Demon Lord whispered sweet nothings to his corrupted damsel, Isaiah shot forward like a cannonball with wings, spear in hand, eyes burning with the singular desire to shut this fucker up.

Lance turned just in time to see Isaiah’s spear hurtling toward his face. With a flick of his wrist—one that instantly disintegrated into holy ashes—a mass of writhing black tendrils erupted from his corruption-cloud platform, intercepting the strike. The collision sent a shockwave rippling through the sky, scattering the lingering debris from the earlier explosion.

His eyes flickered momentarily at Burn and Aroche on the cliffside, wondering if that monster would join the fight. If yes, he’d be finished.

"Still hast thou the luxury to avert thine eyes?" Isaiah flapped his wings hard, twisting midair, his tail whipping around like a battering ram. It crashed into the tendrils, forcing them to recoil.

With a sharp motion, Isaiah reversed his grip on his spear and thrust downward, aiming to pierce the swirling darkness at Lance’s feet.

The Demon Lord glided backward, his corruption shifting to carry him like a disgusting surfboard of doom. With a snap of his other hand’s fingers, jagged spikes of black sludge erupted from the air itself, each one twisting toward Isaiah like seeking blades. 

Between maintaining his rapidly deteriorating body and launching attacks, Lance was forced to choose. If he allowed his arms to crumble away entirely, he risked losing the ability to recreate even their shape, leaving him defenseless.

Yet, despite the relentless decay creeping up his limbs, he never ceased his assault, hurling attack after attack with unyielding ferocity.

Isaiah hummed in disgust, the echoes of an old, unwelcome memory creeping into his mind—his battle with his own father. He spiraled between the onslaught of spikes, wings folding tight before snapping open again to steady his descent.

Lance Inkor wasn’t fighting. Not really. This was a distraction, a well-rehearsed little act before his inevitable escape.

Meanwhile, Burn had gently set Locan and Nahwu down before turning to Aroche, his expression unreadable. But his voice carried that same, stubborn question.

“Do you want to return, Brother?”

Aroche met his gaze, and there it was—hope, raw and painful, staring back at him. Burn wanted to save him, needed to. How could Aroche not see that? But wanting something and getting it were two very different things.

“I’m gone, Burn. There’s nothing—not even the one who created me—that can bring me back,” Aroche said, voice steady. “This body is not mine. The only thing that still belongs to me is this memory and just enough consciousness to be a royal pain in your ass.”

“I know,” Burn admitted. “But what if I can?” His voice softened, pressing past the weight of reality. “Don’t think about the cost. Just tell me—do you want to come back?”

Aroche snapped, his patience finally unraveling. “I said I’m only here to mess with you!”

His voice broke, black tears spilling over, a cruel mockery of grief. “This is exactly what he wants. This is why I woke up now. So you’d break. So you’d throw everything away for a lost cause. So he could win.”

He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. “And this place? It’s still full of people who actually need you. You don’t have the luxury of wasting yourself on a ghost.”

Because that’s all he was—just a shadow, clinging to life because Lance Inkor wanted to make it personal. He wanted Burn to lose.

Aroche gritted his teeth, holding back the rotten, ink-like tears threatening to spill further. “Go and help your friend kill him—”

“If you’re tired, Brother, I’ll send you off myself,” Burn interrupted, voice cracking, his furious, desperate smile doing little to hide the devastation in his eyes. Tears streamed down his face, unrelenting. “I’ll cut you down with my own hands.”

Aroche froze.

“I’ve finally found you,” Burn whispered. “Let me have the honor of this last chance to save you.”

Either by bringing him back—or by letting him go. Both would save him in the end.

“I…” Aroche closed his eyes, an agonizing pressure spreading from the rotting cavity that mimicked his chest. “I want to li—”

COUGH!!

His body lurched violently. Aroche collapsed to his knees, his mouth stretching wide in a silent scream before a wave of thick, corrupted sludge poured out.

Not just from his lips—from his eyes, his nose, his very pores, his body breaking apart as if something inside him was desperately trying to claw its way out. His fingers dug into the ground, nails snapping from the sheer force as his body convulsed.

His breath hitched in uneven, agonized gasps, choking between the black bile that pooled beneath him. His shoulders trembled, but his hands, clenched into fists, spoke the words he couldn’t—not like this, not yet.

Lance Inkor sneered, his gamble paying off. This was why he had preserved Aroche Leodegrance’s severed head for so long. A single, well-placed weakness to trip up the monster, Caliburn Soulnon Pendragon.

And now?

He just needed to run.

He could start over. Five hundred years, a thousand, however long it took—

SLASH!

Time froze.

Lance Inkor saw the universe end.

Event horizon—

Darkness, but not just the absence of light—it was the collapse of everything. The crushing inevitability of oblivion, stretched thin over the fabric of reality itself.

A spiraling maelstrom of distorted time, pulling everything inward to a fate no mortal could comprehend. Space folded, twisted, inverted upon itself—light dragged into the abyss, unable to escape. A single, merciless horizon where the past, present, and future converged into nothingness.

Then—nothing.

A voice behind him spoke. Calm. Almost apologetic.

“My wife asked me not to use my Vision yet.”

Lance turned, dread coiling deep in his gut.

Caliburn Soulnon Pendragon stood there.

Not a man. Not a warrior. Not a hero.

A monster.

A creature even a Demon Lord wouldn’t dream of confronting head-on.

“I guess I need to apologize to her later for losing my mind,” he sighed, as if he had merely spilled tea instead of warping reality itself. “Thankfully, I didn’t destroy this world just now.”

Time snapped back. Reality reversed and resumed to present time.

Lance Inkor barely had time to process it before he realized—

He had already been split in two.

Both halves of his body, still alive, still suspended in midair, left to comprehend the fact that he was never supposed to even dream of running away—

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To you people who hating on Solo Leveling's Sung JinWoo for crying in front of his mom, you might hate this chapter too. But good on me. I don't need readers who think crying is weak. Strong men crying is aura +∞

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