Witchbound Villain: Infinite Loop
266 – Last Day of Mythical Assembly

Oh dear.

Another experiment down the drain.

Ahlgrath, was it?

Yes. That twitchy little smear of loyal rot. All bile and devotion, like a puppy made from slugs and trauma. He’d been useful—a fine little apostle of filth, with just enough sentience to scream orders and just enough instability to explode on cue.

But now? Gone it seemed.

Such a shame. Truly. Lancelot would’ve shed a tear if his tear ducts hadn’t long since fossilized into glands of acid and contempt.

And here he was—him, Lancelot, Demon Lord—hanging like a cursed chandelier in some custom-crafted cosmic oubliette. His once-mighty body split clean down the middle like a particularly offensive fruit. Only thing holding him together was a slop of sentient, tar-thick mana that dribbled and bubbled like a bloated ulcer.

Delightful.

Oh, and the seal. Let’s talk about the seal. The delicious little snare they stuck him in. Not just any glorified magic circle scrawled by trembling nuns—no, no. This one had character. An aroma. The stink of legacy.

He could feel her touch. That Original Saint. That sanctimonious nightmare in a bridal veil of holy fire. Her spells always had this nauseating fragrance of hope and martyrdom—like a church set on fire by good intentions.

But there was another flavor in this seal. Something foreign. Something sharp and surgical. Not divine. Deliberate. Like steel dipped in prophecy. Caliburn Pendragon, that golden-eyed bastard, must’ve lent his little “Vision” to the mix.

Ah, teamwork.

How adorable.

Saint and Sword, combining their talents like lovers carving a tombstone together.

He couldn’t move. Could barely think without the seal yanking on his nerves like a butcher with piano wire. But he could still observe. And reflect. And, most importantly, hate.

Because they didn’t kill him. Oh no. They preserved him. Vacuum-sealed evil in a jar, like some apocalyptic jam for later spreading.

Why? To watch. To study. To see just how deep his roots still burrowed into this rotting world. Factories, infestations, weaponized curse—they wanted to trace his influence like it was some goddamn constellation of suffering.

And really—wasn’t that flattering?

He wasn’t dead. Not exactly. Just… paused. Like a nightmare on standby. A god of decay with his fangs wrapped in duct tape. He’d survived worse. Like that event horizon slash Burn hurled at him—an actual existential cleave. A sword stroke so absolute it bisected not just his body, but his narrative.

And yet, here he was. Still alive. Mostly. Barely. Just enough.

He chuckled in his head—because he had no throat—and the laugh came out as a ripple through the black glue keeping his halves together.

No, he wouldn’t escape. Not yet. Probably not ever.

But escape wasn’t the only move left.

He could still influence. Still whisper. Still twitch a tendril of decay through the cracks in the world. Let them think they’d won. Let them believe the infection was contained.

Because the joke was this:

Lancelot didn’t need to win to cause damage. He just needed to exist.

And exist he did.

Suspended in agony.

Half-dead.

Half-alive.

Completely pissed off.

And when Caliburn Pendragon finally clashed with the Outsiders—when gods and monsters danced their final ballet of ego and genocide—Lancelot would be watching.

Not from the sidelines.

From inside.

Just wait.

Oh, just wait.

Because even if he couldn’t claw his way out of this celestial prison…

He could still bite.

So when he suddenly saw light, he was a bit surprised.

For a moment, he thought some fool had opened the lid on his tomb of torment just to check if the corpse inside was still twitching.

But no—this wasn’t the faint flicker of some candle-wielding priest or the glow of a rookie mage fumbling with containment runes. This was real light. Sacred. Political. The kind of light that reeked of ceremony and consequences.

The void seal convulsed—gurgled, actually, like some embarrassed stomach cramping through a sacrilegious burp—and half of him slopped out onto polished marble.

Half.

The upper portion, to be exact. His torso, arms, and the grotesquely calm mockery of a face he wore like a meat mask. The rest of him—the ruin, the rage, the reality-rending bile—remained tucked firmly behind the seal’s dimensional zipper. He was still tethered, still leashed. Like a rabid dog with just enough chain to snarl at guests.

Delightful.

He could see. He could hear. And now, unfortunately for everyone else, he could be seen and heard.

The assembly hall was grand in that overwrought, self-important way—gilded bones of old kingdoms forming balconies and pillars, myth-blood royalty and archon demagogues seated like bored theater critics at the apocalypse’s dress rehearsal.

World leaders, champions of realms, warlords in ceremonial silks pretending they hadn’t pissed themselves the moment the seal gurgled.

And there he was.

Lancelot.

One half of a broken god, plopped in the middle of the world stage like a cursed centerpiece no one wanted to admit they ordered.

He lifted his head—what was left of it—and looked around with the kind of smile usually found on rusty bear traps. “Oh,” his voice rasped through what sounded like centuries of disuse and sarcasm, “a surprise birthday party? And I didn’t even bring cake.”

They stared. Some with contempt. Some with fear. A few with the blank-eyed devotion reserved for bombs and holy relics. But they all looked.

And Lancelot drank in their attention like blood through cracked lips.

But then—there he was.

At the far end of the hall, in the position of command, throne raised slightly above the rest, sword not drawn but never far: Caliburn Pendragon.

The golden boy. The prodigal king. The walking mural of tyrany and jawlines.

Still alive.

Still smug.

Still the center of every myth no longer cowardly to admit that they were forged from slaughter and polished with propaganda.

Burn stood there, radiant in that infuriating, effortless way. Not a strand of hair out of place, drenched with blood on his conscience. He was the symbol. The spearhead. The reason Lancelot had been shoved into a magical oubliette like a cursed miscarriage.

Lancelot grinned with split lips and a voice soaked in rot and irony, “There he is. The man who swings suns like sabers.”

The seal throbbed behind him, like a petulant jailor yanking on his leash. It wouldn’t let him loose, not truly. His body was still half-trapped in that black, gurgling wound in space. His power muted, sealed, sedated. He couldn’t piss on the world today—but oh, he could still speak.

And sometimes, a word was worse than a warhead.

He flicked his eyes around the chamber. His voice slithered out like oil down silk.

“So,” he said, “what's the plan, gentlemen? A trial? A sermon? A public disembowelment? Or is this a new kink you've developed, Burn? Dragging your enemies out half-formed just to gawk at them in council meetings?”

No one answered.

No one needed to.

Lancelot grinned wider, teeth like shards of regret.

Let the world look.

Let them see the corpse that wouldn't stay buried.

Let them wonder why he was smiling.

Because if this little unveiling was meant to humble him—It had already failed.

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