Witchbound Villain: Infinite Loop
242 – The Price of the Throne

One day, a man approached the young Rafaye. He told him he could give him the throne.

He introduced himself as Lancelot.

“You’re Arthur Pendragon’s right-hand man,” Rafaye said, unimpressed. “What are you doing offering the throne to a half-legitimate prince from another kingdom?”

The man scoffed. “Arthur Pendragon’s right-hand man? Is that all I am this time?” He let out a dry laugh. “I see. In this round, I’m just that man’s servant, huh?”

Rafaye didn’t understand at first. But over time, he did. This man was no one’s servant. He wasn’t a knight, nor a hero, nor even a man bound by reason. He was a force this world had yet to comprehend.

The Second Demon Lord.

No.

Rafaye didn’t take the offer immediately. He wasn’t interested in the throne. He didn’t care for glory, or power, or whatever delusions of grandeur came with it. The scheming, the corruption, the filth of politics—he wanted none of it.

But then he saw her.

The woman he loved.

She knelt on the cold ground, her hands clasped in desperation.

“I beg you… Your Highness! Ledger, please!” Her voice trembled. “I’ll marry you, Ledger Inkor! I’ll marry you, so please… spare Rafaye.”

Her shoulders shook. Her lips quivered.

“Spare your brother, Ledger,” she pleaded.

Again and again, she begged, tears slipping down her face, pooling on the marble floor.

And Rafaye? He stood there, watching the woman he wanted more than anything grovel before another man.

And what use was wanting something, if he had no power to take it?

Lancelot introduced him to Grand Duke Barbarella. A month later, one quiet morning, Ledger Inkor was found dead in his bed.

And after that?

Nothing could stop Rafaye’s rise to the throne.

He married the woman he swore to protect, convinced that finally—finally—everything would fall into place.

Of course, he should’ve known better.

Inkia had long rotted from the inside out. The nobles, the rich, the people—thieves, liars, swindlers, all playing their roles in this grand, putrid theater. And Rafaye? He was never the playwright. He was just another actor shoved onto the stage.

He had been part of the game from the very beginning.

No matter how hard he fought, no matter how fiercely he clawed for control, the so-called stability he thought he held slipped right through his fingers—sand scattering in the wind.

And the woman he loved? She still had to bow her head before powers far beyond his reach.

So what else could he do?

He became sharper, crueler, more cunning than anyone else at the table.

He married another.

And another.

He secured power piece by piece, deal by deal, until the throne was truly his.

And still, she stayed by his side.

Until—

“Rafaye, I’m pregnant.”

He could remember the way she smiled that day. Soft, luminous, like dawn breaking after an endless night.

He could remember his own smile.

And for that one fleeting moment, when he wrapped his arms around her, holding her as if she was the only thing that mattered—

It felt real.

His whole world, warm and steady, fitting in his arms.

Before it shattered that very same night.

"Your child. Give it to me."

The devil had come to collect.

How could he?

How could he hand over the very heart of his world to the Demon Lord?

"What are you planning to do with my child?"

"Knowing might be harder on you."

"I'll give you anything else—anything but that. Take the throne back, take everything!"

Lancelot only laughed, shaking his head. "Why are you so worked up? Just make more."

So he did.

He filled his queens’ wombs. He took more women. He let the Demon Lord have them—his children, his heirs, just as long as it wasn’t hers.

Anything but Celia’s child. Anything but that.

But when she found out just how many he had sired—

She collapsed.

And their child was lost.

In the end, it was the first fracture in something he had once believed unbreakable.

Rafaye lost himself.

It seemed that being with him was Celia’s curse.

With him, she was doomed to sacrifice, over and over again.

And she still smiled at him.

He began to resent her for it. He began to hate her love. Hate the way she stayed. Hate the way she settled—for him, of all people.

So he pulled away. Became cold, became cruel. He drowned himself in other women, let her watch as he descended into something lesser, something she could no longer reach. But letting go of power meant dragging her down with him.

And he couldn’t have that.

So he gave her another child.

This time, only she smiled. He didn’t even look at her.

And then, the moment his other children were born, the Demon Lord came.

Rafaye let him in himself.

He was the one who unlatched the doors to the nursery, stepping aside as Lancelot entered in the dead of night.

And he watched.

Watched as the Demon Lord reached for their tiny, delicate heads—watched as thick black ink, like living mud, slithered into their orifices, sinking deep into their bones.

His own flesh and blood, now nothing more than pawns of fate, caught in the grasp of something far beyond his control. This putrid, rotten presence.

“If just one of them survives, it’ll be enough,” Lancelot mused, almost casual. “But none of them make it past a year. What’s wrong with your genes, Rafaye? Make a better product, or you’ll just keep watching them die.”

Rafaye’s voice was hoarse when he spoke. “What do you actually want from them? What do I do to make the perfect one for you?”

Lancelot smiled, soft and knowing.

“Someone strong enough to be the vessel of my greatest experiment. My masterpiece.”

Child after child died. None could meet Lancelot’s demands.

And as the years passed, as this cycle of death and failure continued, the whispers began.

They called it Celia’s jealousy. Her malice.

The Favorite Queen, unable to bear the thought of another woman’s child rising above hers. They said she poisoned them. Strangled them in the night—those babies that weren’t hers.

But no one could prove it. Because it wasn’t true.

Not that it mattered. The world was rotten, and rotten things believed what they wanted. Even when Rafaye tried to protect her, to shield her from the lies, it only made things worse. Proof of his favoritism, they sneered. His bias. His weakness.

And that was how her second pregnancy ended.

Not at the Demon Lord’s hands. Not this time.

But because of jealousy—because one of his other queens, seeing the Favorite still standing, still beloved, decided to fix that herself.

A few drops in a cup. A quiet miscarriage. Just another casualty in the endless, bloody battle for the throne. That’s all it was, to them.

But none of them were ready for Rafaye’s wrath.

Shrewder. Sharper. Deadlier.

He killed more in the shadows than the number of corpses the light of day would ever see. He had long learned that in a rotten world, you didn’t cleanse it—you rotted with it.

And Lancelot laughed.

"Fine, fine, fine. I won’t ask for that woman’s child anymore. See? I never took hers, did I? Only the others. The first and second? That was just misfortune. You were unlucky, that’s all. But I promise you—your third will survive."

And so, the First Prince’s Faction was born.

With Lancelot’s permission, Rafaye raised a legitimate son with Celia. With Lancelot’s protection, her family, Angemoux, climbed higher and higher, their power solidified under his reign.

But the search for the perfect vessel never stopped.

Until one day, a girl was born.

Blair.

The lowly daughter of a maid. A bastard with no claim.

And yet, she survived—year after year, through every trace of corruption, through every test Lancelot devised. Until finally, he looked at her and smiled.

His masterpiece.

That was the day Lancelot’s interest in Rafaye’s children ceased. The day Rafaye was finally "free."

But at what cost?

The bodies he had left in his wake, the innocent, the weak, the countless lives crushed beneath his rule—none of them could be undone. He was a king drenched in filth, a shrewd old man with literal blood on his hands.

And by then, love had become something foreign. He had lost it, the ability to say loving words, cast loving gazes, offer loving touches.

For his wife. For his son. For his family.

It was all meaningless now.

And yet—

She was still there.

For him.

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I think it's safe to say that a lot of people are not okay in this world nowadays. I just want to tell you all that you will be safe here. In this fantasy world.

In a world where someone dares to take the burden, but also dares to put it down. In a world where you can hug your loved ones and tell them you love them without shame, without pride getting in the way, without ego. In a world where you are strong enough not to take shortcuts. Strong enough not to sacrifice what matters to you.

In a world where even the villains had their love and stories—no matter how cowardly, no matter how foul—so those who learn have better choices to make.

I wish more men could be Burn and have people like Burn to lean on. To have a leader, a father, a husband, a brother, a friend like him. To be a leader, a father, a husband, a brother, a friend like him.

I wish more women could be Morgan and have people like Morgan to lean on. To have a leader, a mother, a wife, a sister, a friend like her. To be a leader, a mother, a wife, a sister, and a friend like her.

A support, an advisor, an advocate, a mentor, a guardian, a lover, a ride-or-die, a slave.

You know what kind of slave—idealistic slaves like Burn and Morgan.

And if you don't have them in real life, you have them here. You have them in yourselves.

Be brave, ladies and gentlemen. Let's brace the world together.

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