Witchbound Villain: Infinite Loop
255 – The Fall of Inkor

Locan's face was as pale as death itself as he watched his mother being dragged out of the assembly room, her expression frozen in sheer terror. And really, who could blame her?

It wasn’t every day one bore witness to a holy saint delivering a soul-flaying curse, ensuring that the poor wretch in question would suffer divine retribution long after his corpse had rotted away. No appeals, no second chances—just an express ticket to eternal torment, courtesy of God Himself.

Celia would never had a say in it. No desperate pleading, no pathetic groveling could overturn a judgment that was now written in celestial ink. People, for all their faults, could be bribed, threatened, manipulated. But God? God wasn’t in the business of negotiations. Once your life ran out, so did your bargaining chips.

They always said that as long as you were alive, there was hope. That you could still right your wrongs, glue together the shattered pieces, and claw your way back toward redemption. But once you kicked the bucket? That door slammed shut. And locked. And probably got incinerated just for good measure.

Looking back, how could she have been so deluded? As if she—some trembling mortal—could shield him from divine punishment. As if her love, her pleas, her mere existence could rewrite the laws of the universe. No, in that assembly room, she wasn’t a savior. She wasn’t even a player in the grand scheme of things.

She was an insect—small, pathetic, and utterly insignificant—writhing on the floor as an assembly of myths deliberated not just whether to crush her, but whether doing so was even worth their time.

“It’s over…” she stammered, her voice breaking like a frayed thread. “It’s over… over… it’s over…! Your father… your father can’t be saved… it’s over… it’s over…”

Locan stood frozen, the words sinking in like stones in water.

“Those children… the demon lord’s experiment… There’s nothing… nothing… that could save him—no… no… my love…”

Her rambling barely made sense, each word unraveling another thread of the carefully woven lie he had called his life. His mother—he had believed she had done everything in her power, killing them so he could be the one sitting on the throne. How naive. How blind. The truth was so much worse.

What had they done? Selling his siblings to the Demon Lord, handing them over like offerings for whatever twisted experiments he conducted? That means… Blair too?

So how could she even dare to beg for forgiveness? As if pity was still on the table?

If it had been Locan in his parents’ place, he wouldn’t have debased himself like that. No, he would have chosen the blade, the poison, the pyre—anything but that. He would have cut his own throat before letting his children fall into the Demon Lord’s hands.

His father was vile, that much was indisputable. But his mother? She may not have known the details, may not have seen every bloody exchange behind closed doors, but she wasn’t blind.

She must have sensed the rot, the wrongness, the weight of it all pressing down on the air around her. And yet, she stayed. She stood beside him, played the part of a devoted wife, clung to that throne as if loyalty could absolve her of complicity. And what? Letting people think she did it herself?

So what if it meant shouldering the sin of killing oneself, of slaying one’s own blood? At least that would have been a choice—an act of defiance rather than… “Fucking hell, mother…”

If it meant screwing over the Demon Lord, if it meant sparing those poor children from whatever horrors awaited them, then wasn’t that the lesser evil?

But noooo, oh no. They had done nothing. Stood still. Watched.

And for what?

For him? So that their one and only cherished product of love could persist in this world? As if his survival alone could justify everything?

He would rather die.

Locan seized a sword from a nearby guard, the weight of it insignificant compared to the burden that had been placed on him since birth.

His very existence had been their excuse—their flimsy justification for silence, for compliance, for standing by while monstrosities unfolded. And his sister—his beloved sister—was proof of it. Cursed. Still unable to open her eyes.

He pressed the blade against his neck, his gaze hollow, filled with the kind of horror and disappointment that left no room for fear.

He understood now. Even if he had never been born, they would have done it anyway. His existence didn’t create their evil; it merely gave them a reason to hold onto it. A reason to keep their hands bloodied while pretending they had no choice.

All those children—his own half-siblings, discarded like sacrificial pawns. All the nameless, faceless victims of Inkia, slain because his parents had let the Demon Lord run rampant.

“Hah!” Locan chuckled, a bitter, lifeless sound.

And what had he done all this time? Survived. Stubbornly kept his ignorance. Kept his mouth shut. Washed his hands clean while standing in the filth.

He was no different from them.

He was truly their son.

“Locan!”

A young elf burst out of the assembly room, her hair catching the light as she raised both hands in urgent protest. Nahwu, the second elven princess—his best friend, his only tether to reason—stood before him, desperation lining her every word.

“Please, Loki, don’t do something stupid!”

“You don’t understand!” Locan’s voice cracked as he screamed, the words ripped straight from his breaking soul. “I’m just the same as them, I—I’m… a coward…”

The assembly hall’s doors stood open, offering the gathered elite an unobstructed view of the scene unfolding outside. At the center of the room, Burn sat in silence, recalling something Morgan had once said upon first laying eyes on Locan in the Great Forest.

"What can I do? I don’t have any power and I’m not smart! I’m barely fifteen—"

That was what he had said.

His cowardice was understandable. But that didn’t change the fact that it was there.

He had sat and watched while the world crumbled. He had let his mother carry out her deeds, turning a blind eye, keeping himself detached from politics as if neutrality absolved him of responsibility.

The First Prince faction—his own supposed supporters—had wielded his name like a banner while squabbling over useless political feuds, all while he did nothing. Not a single real effort, not even the smallest action to push back against the tide.

He was still a prince. He had power—small, perhaps, buried beneath the weight of circumstance, of fate, of the Demon Lord’s looming presence—but power nonetheless.

Perhaps it was unfair to compare him to Emperor Burn, but when Burn was his age, he had already done what others twice his years could not. He had united the factions of Soulnaught under his banner, carved a path for himself as Crown Prince, and stood at his father’s side, sweeping aside opposition with steady, decisive hands.

And Locan?

Locan had done nothing.

“I… I can’t… because of me—because of the very idea of me, my parents…” Locan gritted his teeth, the words scraping their way out of his throat. “And I did nothing—I didn’t even try—to want to know—I…”

Nahwu sighed, her expression knotted with panic. She didn’t want to see this—any of it—but this was the price of their choices.

“Loki, I understand. Didn’t I tell you what I did? I… I poisoned my sister too. It was all my fault!”

“It’s because we didn’t know. Because we were deceived. And you… you grew up in an environment that let you stay deceived, that let you stay safe, even if—”

“Blair… my sister…” Locan’s eyes widened in raw horror. “Because she was born into this family…”

His breath hitched.

“I must atone… and die.”

Fifteen years old. A boy barely out of childhood, standing in the middle of a grand hallway, surrounded by guards who could do nothing but watch as he raised the blade again—this time with no hesitation, no wavering. The steel gleamed against his skin.

But—

“Once a coward, always a coward, huh?”

The blade barely grazed his throat before he froze. Blood trickled from the shallow cut, red against the pale stretch of his skin, but nothing more. He couldn’t move.

Behind him stood a young boy, dark-haired and solemn, one hand outstretched in effortless restraint.

The guards sprang forward, wrenching the sword from Locan’s grip and whisking it away. Still, the young prince stood there, unmoving, held in place by something unseen—a simple binding spell.

Yvain sighed. “Running straight to the afterlife the moment you have a sin to atone for? And what about your responsibility?” His voice was cold, edged with expectation. “Do you think that just because your kingdom has crumbled, just because it’s fallen into our hands, you’re suddenly free of obligations? That death is an escape clause?”

Locan and Nahwu stared in shock. That face, those features—they were unmistakable. And yet, something was different.

The golden-haired, blue-eyed boy they knew was gone. In his place stood someone entirely new. Black hair. Black eyes.

“You… Evan di Sator…?”