Chapter 1460: Under the Mask
“This is all because of Hackzord’s betrayal! Your Majesty, grant me permission to slaughter him!”
Blood Conqueror’s voice filled the Presiding Holy Sea. The veins stood out along his forehead like cables under tension; steam pushed between his teeth with each word. No one who saw him could mistake the anger for performance.
The other senior lords wore expressions that were various shades of grim.
Only Nassaupelle held no expression at all. He felt, beneath the stillness, a small and private amusement.
Fools. An assembly of fools.
He had warned them. He had been precise about it. And aside from Undeserved, the others had doubted his account — doubted the collusion between Silent Disaster and Sky Lord, doubted the attack on him. Even after Mask extracted his memories and laid them before the King, the senior lords had responded with suppressed skepticism, proceeding on the assumption that Mask had somehow manipulated or been manipulated. Because of how he looked. An assembled monster.
And now — without ever hearing Hackzord’s or Serakkas’ explanation — the human “Deity of Gods” had appeared.
The moment to assign blame had clearly passed.
“The problem,” Undeserved said, cutting smoothly through Blood Conqueror’s heat, “is whether you know where they are. Currently, Hackzord might be concealed anywhere along the continental ridge. Our Sky City citizens may have been compelled. Finding a senior lord without a large committed force is not possible.” He let a beat of silence pass. “And even if you find Hackzord — don’t forget that Serakkas is beside him. At that point, it would be worth considering who exactly is doing the slaughtering.”
“You—!” Blood Conqueror’s fists tightened, but the Presiding Holy Sea was not a place for settling personal scores.
A fleshy form shifted and spoke up. “Your Majesty, I do not fully understand this. Did the humans genuinely find evidence regarding the Divine Will? Otherwise, by Sky Lord’s character, how could he side with them—”
“With everything they have already done, you’re still guessing at their reasons?” Mask interrupted him. His voice was clipped, dismissive. “Regardless of motivation: Hackzord had ample opportunity to report to the King. What happened? From leaving the Western Front, to the Bottomless Land, to his coordination with Silent Disaster — no communication with King’s City. Not once. This was not a panicked improvisation. This was a betrayal that was planned.” His masks shifted slightly. “If I had not achieved a breakthrough in my abilities, I would have died at Serakkas’ hands.”
A silence through the assembly.
The memory extraction was a matter of record — it could not be fabricated. And Hackzord’s movements had been sighted by scouts along the northern reaches of the Land of Dawn; the evidence, taken together, pointed in only one direction. No one could argue it looked like anything other than deliberate.
Correct. Precisely like that. Nassaupelle held his inner composure carefully. Memories could not be fabricated — but they could be edited. Selected passages removed. Causal chains quietly shuffled. He had concealed all traces of Valkries with great care, and everything he had presented to the King had been shaped with that specific omission in mind.
It had been the right choice. If the other senior lords discovered that the reason for the betrayal involved Valkries’ whereabouts, the complications would have multiplied. The acquisition of the human legacy — the thing he actually wanted — would have been delayed indefinitely.
He did not have more time to waste.
“Mask is correct,” Undeserved continued, in the reasonable tone he used for things already decided. “We should attend to the human floating island first. They are clearly heading toward King’s City. The enemy is airborne and armed in all directions — this is not the kind of battle suited to Blood Conqueror or Death Scar. After weighing the options, I am the most appropriate candidate to stop them.”
Undeserved had been upgraded from psychic stock — like Resentful Heart and Death Scar — but where mind controllers tended toward manipulation and confusion, Undeserved leaned into direct engagement. His dress announced it: a close-fitting black leather, no armor, the silhouette of a weapon that had abandoned the idea of defense entirely. The only externally visible difference from a human form was the two horns extending from his brow.
But appearance was the least of it. Nassaupelle had experienced Undeserved’s deeper ability firsthand. Walking at his side, his own consciousness had registered the other man as inert, as stone — the presence simply absent from his awareness. It was mimicry far beyond Transformer’s range. An ability that could make a senior lord invisible to any passive detection.
The most plausible candidate, Mask conceded. Or rather, the only available choice — if he himself is excluded. Wars were not ended by assassinations, and the King would not agree to that argument regardless.
“Overruled.” The King’s voice arrived with a brevity that left no purchase for argument. Nassaupelle was not certain, but the King’s tone seemed to have grown more distant — more purely cold — than it had been. “Killing the commander generates chaos, and the replacement is more likely to expose themselves. The humans have witches capable of detecting magic power; do not overlook their anti-magic carriers either. Your probability of success stands near thirty percent. Your probability of escape stands below one percent. It is a meaningless risk.”
“But the other senior lords—”
“Our higher ascendants should not be underestimated.” The King’s voice did not rise. “The humans’ floating island uses a God’s Stone pillar from the Western Region. It is unlikely they possess a contingency comparable to our Deity of Gods. Ultimately, they are still relying on their own strength.”
“Truly wise, Your Majesty!” Nassaupelle extended both hands and spoke with an animation that was entirely deliberate. “In fact, I have studied how the lowlifes conduct their battle — those iron birds seem difficult to counter, but they are structurally vulnerable. If they dare show themselves in the air above our city, I will teach them a lesson they will not recover from.”
“Even your magic power core instrument was taken by the lowlifes. How much weight should your words carry?” Death Scar said, without warmth.
“If not for Silent Disaster, I would never have lost control of the Deity of Gods.” Mask did not look at him. “The Western Front proved the potential of the Symbiotic Demons. My role is simply to expand that application. They cannot fly — but they are significant threats to those iron birds.”
“Permitted. Do not overuse resources at the front lines.” Brief. Final.
“Naturally.” He pressed the advantage while it held. “There is also a new concept I wish to test. If we can successfully channel magic power out and release it unmodified, we may obtain a powerful new weapon type. The research requires magic power cores. May I proceed?”
“King’s City has a surplus of cores. Test your concept. Do not interfere with the Birth Tower’s operations.”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
The Presiding Holy Sea dissolved around him. The black stone tower of King’s City materialized in its place — vast, unchanged, except for one thing. Pairs of eyes had appeared on the tower’s face. More than before. They looked out and down in all directions, as though the stone itself had learned to observe.
That was the King.
In terms of raw magic power, ten of Mask could not equal the Tower. In the past, he had never entertained the comparison. But now—
Nassaupelle slowly rearranged his masks and walked toward the nesting grounds.
… The King is merely a part of the core as well.