Witchbound Villain: Infinite Loop
222 – Ghost of the Past

When Burn turned nine, Soulnaught found itself at the center of a royal scandal so monumental it could have been ripped straight from a Shakespearean tragedy—complete with betrayal, illegitimacy, and enough dramatic irony to make even the Bard himself wince.

At the time, Burn had already clawed his way into the early stages of Five Star Force Mastery—an achievement so rare that only a handful in the entire world had ever reached it. And yet, none of that mattered. He was still the bastard of Soulnaught, the prince marked by Soulnaught Syndrome, the one destined to die young.

Clarent, on the other hand, was perfectly acceptable. He wasn’t doomed by some tragic genetic flaw, and without Burn in the picture, his path to the throne was unquestionable. As if to drive the point home, he outshone even the Wintersin Crown Prince, securing the top spot in Saint Lucia Academy’s Force Department—a flawless heir in every way that mattered.

But then the Agravaine family decided to do some digging. And what did they find? Proof that Queen Guinevere had been rather preoccupied—not with King Arthur, but with his most trusted knight.

Thirteen years later, on the battlefield of Clarent’s rebellion, Aroche stepped into the meeting tent Clarent had so thoughtfully set up in the heart of the chaos, claiming he had something important to say.

Inside, Aroche was met with familiar faces—faces that had no business being there.

Queen Guinevere and her second husband, Lancelot.

Both should've been long dead.

***

“No!”

The scream ripped through the air, shrill and jagged, a wail of grief so raw it barely sounded human. The woman lunged forward, her silk-clad knees slamming into the corruption-drenched earth, but the pain didn’t register. Nothing did. Nothing except him.

“Don’t kill my Lance!”

She clawed at his ruined body, trying—pathetically, hopelessly—to hold him together, as if sheer desperation could fuse him back into one.

But there was no stitching back what had been split in two.

His insides—if they could even be called that anymore—had spilled out in a putrid sludge, a thick, ink-like substance that pulsed and writhed as though it had a life of its own.

It smelled of rot, of foul magic that had gone rancid, twisting into something beyond decay. His veins, if they still existed, were nothing more than festering tunnels of that thing, a creeping, corrupted mana that clung to him, refusing to let go, refusing to let him die.

And yet—his eyes were open. Barely. Distant. Flickering between the remnants of life and something far worse.

The woman clutched him tighter, heedless of the sludge that oozed onto her hands, soaking into her soaked dress until it became part of her, staining her flesh with something far more permanent than blood.

Her beauty, once delicate, had twisted into something grotesque—lips curled in a snarl, face stretched with madness, eyes bulging with a hate so thick it choked the air.

Then, slowly, her head snapped up.

Her eyes locked onto the one who had done this—Burn, and what was once grief curdled into pure, rabid malice.

“You monster.”

Her voice dripped with venom, thick and sticky, like bile crawling up a rotting throat.

“You wretched, soulless little abomination. You crawling, festering maggot in human skin. Did you think you were righteous? Did you think you were justified?! You were never meant to exist! You should have been crushed underfoot like the filth you are the moment you slithered into this world!”

She rocked over the twitching corpse, black sludge seeping from between her fingers as she tried, tried to shove his body back together.

But the more she pushed, the more the ink-like filth bubbled, boiled, fighting her efforts, as if mocking her for believing she could fix this. The sickening, wet sound of it squelching against her hands made even the bystanders shudder.

And still, she raged.

“You think you can take him from me?! Over my dead body, you demon child! No—over yours! If there is any justice in this world, it won’t be you who gets to walk away! It won’t be you who gets to breathe another breath while my Lance—my beloved—rots in this foul, broken state! You should have never been born! You should have never—”

Her words broke into a guttural sob, raw, rasping, full of something beyond human grief. But even as she wailed, her hatred never dimmed, her trembling hands still pressing, still pushing, still trying to force a corpse back into something whole.

But there was no fixing what had already rotted.

“Please…”

Her voice cracked, something fragile slipping through the madness. For a fleeting moment, the rabid hysteria in her eyes dulled, giving way to something raw, something desperate. Sanity clawed its way back—too little, too late.

“You’re not even Arthur’s son!”

The words left her lips like a curse, like an accusation meant to tear through flesh and bone, meant to wound him in ways no blade ever could. As if saying it out loud would undo the truth, as if it would unravel the world and make things right again. But Burn—

Burn did not flinch.

His gaze was black ice, his face carved from the coldest stone. There was no fury on his visage, no heat of righteous anger. That would imply fire, passion—life. But what stared back at her was something deeper, something emptier. A bottomless, endless void where light did not reach, where nothing survived.

A hollow rage. A quiet, all-consuming abyss.

And yet she still screamed, still hurled herself against that impenetrable darkness, clawing at a wound that did not exist.

“You took everything away from Clarent—from me!”

Her voice cracked, shrill and shrieking, but the words only sank into the air, swallowed whole by the silence that followed. The world had already moved past her grief, past her anger, past Clarent.

And Burn—he simply stood there. Unmoved. Unshaken. Unforgiving.

"You son of a bitch! Leave us alo—!"

SLAP!

The sound cracked through the air like a whip, sharp enough to cut through the downpour of blood and corruption thickening the battlefield.

The force of it sent her staggering backward, limbs flailing gracelessly as she tumbled to the ground, her once-beautiful form reduced to something pathetic—muddy, disheveled, and unhinged.

Burn’s voice, when it came, was quiet. And that made it all the more terrifying.

"Once, I thought if I kept calling you Mother, one day… you’d call me Son.”

No response. Just ragged breathing and wide, unseeing eyes.

“And yet, not only did you betray Father—you betrayed humanity?” His words were ice, razors slipping under skin, cold and merciless.

The woman did not move.

Burn tilted his head, gaze unreadable. Perhaps she never had anything left to say in the first place. Perhaps she had already become nothing more than an animal clinging to whatever scraps of life she could salvage.

“If I was never my father’s son, then it only means one thing.” Burn's lips curled into something that wasn’t quite a smile. "That Arthur Pendragon never betrayed Guinevere Leodegrance.” A pause, just enough for the weight of the next words to land like a hammer. “And she betrayed him anyway… with this.”

His gaze flicked down at the pile of rancid filth still writhing beneath him—the thing that had once been called Lance, the Second Demon Lord.

It was still alive. Somehow.

The thick, blackened sludge that passed for its blood oozed from the ragged tear in its body, bubbling and pulsing like an exposed infection, thick as tar, clinging to the ruined meat of its form. Its grotesque excuse for a mouth moved, a gurgling, wet, sucking sound accompanying the laborious attempt to speak.

It coughed, viscous filth spilling from what remained of its throat. And then—

"If you touch her—I’ll fucking kill Aroche Leodegrance… again."

Burn did not react.

The creature gurgled, forcing another breath, another string of words. "Caliburn Pendragon… I still have power over y—"

SPLAT!

Burn's metal heel came down without hesitation, without hesitation, without even a flicker of emotion.

The blackened, rotten thing that was once a heart burst like an overripe fruit beneath his boot. Sludge and remnants of decay splattered across the ground, steaming in the corrupted air. The creature spasmed violently beneath him, its thick tar-like flesh shuddering in the agony of something that should have died long ago.

Burn crouched over it, his voice a whisper of death itself.

"Don’t you see?" He tilted his head, eerily calm. "That’s why I’m still keeping you alive, you disgusting, rotting piece of waste."

Not far from them, Aroche coughed—a sound weak, strained, on the brink.

His body—if it could even be called that—was a grotesque patchwork of horror, an abomination of reanimated limbs stitched together from corruption, decayed flesh barely clinging to life. The magic holding him together flickered, waning, failing.

“Can’t you see? I’m the only one… who can bring him back… to you…” Lance groaned, choking as more foul black corruption spilled from his mouth.

Burn turned, his gaze settling on his brother.

Aroche smiled. It was small. It was weak. And yet, it held more weight than anything else.

"Brother… it’s fine," he whispered, his voice barely audible, stolen by the wind. "Don’t… hesitate… and destroy these… abominations…"

A pause. Then a ragged breath. His limbs trembled. His body, stitched together by the very same corrupted magic that clung to Lance, was failing.

"I understand now," Aroche exhaled heavily, panting, his body trembling under the weight of itself. "That having me alive would make me a burden… far heavier than letting me go."

And then—

A smile. Soft. Resigned. Peaceful.

"Don’t dishonor me by… making me stay, brother."

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