Witchbound Villain: Infinite Loop
273 – Unmeant

Lancelot didn’t lie.

The moment he mentioned soul modification from the womb, Burn knew he was telling the truth.

What anchors your soul to your body?

What makes it so you can exist through your body?

Simply that connection—the connection he had artificially mended by eating a merfolk and a unicorn.

“Soulnaught Syndrome is caused by an innate disconnection between the soul and body,” he once said.

“The body, or mortality, is a tool the soul uses to exist in this world. It can also be called a confine, if you will. But someone with Soulnaught Syndrome is born with a soul not entirely within their body.”

“It means... there's something causing them to be born with a weak connection?” Morgan once asked him.

The answer was now clear.

It was Merlin.

Not—"Existence detachment, perhaps? I do remember from my earliest memory that I didn’t feel any attachment to this world or my time here. Almost like I wasn’t supposed to be created, or exist at all,” Burn once speculated.

And he saw the love of his life—Morgan’s eyes—falter.

“That’s not… an acceptable reason,” she said. “God will never do that to anyone.”

God would never—but the world could be crueler.

“I believe so too, Morgan,” Burn then nodded. “I am sure there’s something else causing it, because any attempt to fix it with holy power is unsuccessful.”

Because the one who caused it was—

At the time, Burn shook his head, smiling.

“Sometimes I’m afraid God had no hands in my creation, or I was wrong and He was just trying to bring me back to Him as fast as possible.”

Merlin.

God truly had no hands in his creation.

And He just wants him back to Him as fast as possible.

After all—Burn knew any kind of sickness, no matter what form, was a way to absolve creatures of all sin, promising paradise after death. If life was a test, then his test was sickness.

And Soulnaught Syndrome was just one of many incurable diseases—that was invented to create this kind of abomination.

Him.

“But I just chose to sin and rejected the promised reward,” he once said, staring straight at Morgan’s wet, glistening eyes. He sighed, “This world needs order.”

A monster of order.

A monster of ambition.

A tyrannical improbability.

Caliburn Soulnon Pendragon.

God never meant for him to exist like this.

So even the woman he thought He had sent especially for him—

“Are you leaving me, Morgan?” he once whispered.

He asked three times.

First, when he feared she might leave.

Second, when he wished her to stay.

And third, now that he knew she wouldn’t leave.

“This is so unfair,” Morgan then whispered back.

“Good. Life is unfair. You can't leave even if it's unfair.” So what if Burn was about to rob the rest of her eternal life just for him?

For him…?

What a joke—

“...I love you too, Caliburn…”

“It looks rather optimistic.”

“Nothingness is optimistic?”

“Mm. How dare everything never exist? Such audacity. Such hope.”

Then, he laughed, his chuckle rumbling low in his throat, his lips curling into a rare smile. “How dare indeed.”

How dare—

How she—

—was never meant for him.

“Hahaha…”

“Well, congratulations, Your Holiness.”

“Congratulations!”

The very moment he saw her—sitting there like a divine painting in the middle of a flock of fluttering elves, hand resting delicately over her stomach, face a little pale but glowing like she’d swallowed the entire night sky—he felt every ounce of strength drain from his body.

She smiled so brilliantly. So blindingly. One hand caressed that dream of hers like it was a blessing instead of a catastrophe.

“Thank you. I’m so happy. I’m so blessed…” she said, eyes shimmering with tears that apparently weren’t from regret.

They had had sex just a few days ago—

“One day… I want to have a biological child with you,” she had once said, with all the unknowing innocence of a holy war crime.

He stopped cold at the chamber’s threshold.

“Caliburn?” she looked up, those absurdly bluest of blue eyes meeting his like he was some kind of sacred miracle instead of the abomination he actually was. “You’re here? So suddenly… is the assembly over?”

She stood, with the elves fluttering around her like courtly midwives, delicately guiding her forward as though she were made of spun glass and grace.

She reached up to him, brushing sweat from his cheek like this was some fairytale reunion instead of a slow-motion divine judgment.

“You’re sweating like crazy. I’ve never seen you like this before. Did you rush here to find me?”

She blushed. One hand stayed protectively on her stomach. “You see, Caliburn, I’m actually—”

“I missed you,” he interrupted, because he could not—would not—let her say it.

He couldn’t.

He had made his sister pregnant.

“I missed you terribly, Momo,” he said instead, as he pulled her into a desperate embrace. His face grew paler and paler, buried in the crook of her neck—like if he held her close enough, maybe the truth would unexist.

The elves immediately looked down, faces flushed with embarrassment. How sweet. Blushing at what they assumed was a romantic reunion. As if their naïve awe could survive the truth. They scurried away, shielding their innocence—unaware of how utterly wrong it all was.

“Your heart’s racing,” Morgan laughed softly, trying to pull back, unaware she was wrapped in the arms of a man too damned to let go. He didn’t move. Of course he didn’t.

“What’s wrong, Caliburn?”

She tried to read him. Of course she did. The saint’s instinct. The wife’s worry. She chanted the mind reading spell in her heart—and found only a void.

“Caliburn? Are you blocking me off?” Her voice cracked. “I can’t… I can’t read your mind. Please. Tell me.”

So she hugged him tighter. Because that’s what Morgan does. She gives warmth to monsters. Even when they smother her. He crushed her in his arms like the only warm thing in a world of ash. She gasped, breathless, red and glowing—and when he finally let her go, she looked beautiful. Of course she did. She always did.

He’d rushed here from the assembly like a beast breaking through the fabric of space. He didn’t even remember how. Only the blur of panic and one singular, selfish goal—her.

He saw her glow, her flustered blush.

Then he remembered their faces.

The pale, drained faces of the world’s greatest mythical beings. Watching him crumble in real time. He told them: “Not a single word out of this room. Not a single word to my wife, or I…”

He didn’t finish the threat. He didn’t need to.

Then he left.

The aftermath was silence and broken knees. Even the immortal felt mortal in that moment. Bella, daughter of the Vampire Cardinal, turned to her father and whispered:

“Father… what do we do?”

“What else?” Vlad said. “Do as said.”

He was the strongest man alive. He could split the earth and put it back together upside down if he wanted. And now the strongest man had a humiliation bigger than his power—and they were the witnesses.

Vlad knew they all wondered the same thing: What did he see? What was in his mind?

And oh, they should pray never to find out.

Because they also knew, just as clearly, one thing more terrifying than his wrath was how much he loved her.

And he could've done it. Slaughtered them all. Locked down the world. Built an empire of silence and obedience so Morgan never found out. Never had to know. All so he wouldn’t have to face this humiliation.

But the joke is: he didn’t care.

Not about them. Not about their whispers. Call him a sister-fucker, an abomination, a divine error. None of it mattered. Let them choke on the word.

It was Morgan.

Morgan was the only name in his godforsaken universe. What she thought. What she would feel. What she would say.

That was his hell.

She loved this world. That was the curse. She would never destroy it, never walk away. She belonged to it, and it to her. She was its light. Its saint.

He was the shadow that hung from her heels. A mistake wrapped in power. A walking blasphemy wearing a crown.

And now that he stood here, with her—glowing with life inside her, glowing with his sin—he was drenched in sweat, fevered with guilt, heart full of rot.

All he could think to do was touch her. To kiss her. To ruin her. To press himself closer. To devour what little sanity he had left. To drown in her warmth and smother the disgust he felt with the heat of her skin.

Because no matter how much he hated himself, no matter how monstrous he knew he was, the urge remained.

To possess her. To be inside her. Again. To sink into her warmth and pretend there was no sin. To press himself in, even knowing how vile he was. To drown in her.

Because shame is fleeting.

The self-disgust was real. Burning. Pungent. But hers—hers would be worse. She would hate him.

And still, he couldn’t let her go.

Because his self-hate didn’t matter. Her love might’ve.

Because no matter how wrong it was—

Even if it damns them both—

He loved her all the same.