She was Black Lotus, one of the Cardinals, though she was part of a duo known as the “Lotus” sisters alongside her younger sister.
But Tina remembered she had an inseparable younger sister named Blood Lotus.
The two sisters did almost everything together, even hugging each other to sleep. They had even gone to the battlefield together on the day they fought the magical beasts. After being taken away by the Heavenly Magical Beast, they had gone missing.
It was said that because they had been modified by cultists, their bodies contained some chaos energy, which made the Heavenly Magical Beast mistake them for its own kind back then.
And in the end, the Heavenly Magical Beast actually succeeded.
Both sisters became puppets of the magical beasts. Ultimately, those cruel experiments only served to bolster the forces of the magical beasts, throwing the remaining humans into a dire plight once more.
As for Tina, after she pierced Black Lotus through the heart, she had suddenly sensed a roar within her soul, much like Krulu's.
Like a pitiful girl who could be controlled by her obsession at any moment, Tina had subconsciously given her a second chance at life.
She had injected a massive amount of chaos magic into her chest, and her heart had recovered as if it were being nourished.
Unfortunately, given the situation at the time, Tina had no opportunity to continue observing Black Lotus's condition. She only knew that she had survived.
“She works with me in the Church. Both she and Blood Lotus are Cardinals who answer to me.”
At this point, Sathya suddenly seemed to remember something.
“Sister Tina, if there's anything you want, just tell me. I only don't want you to leave this place, but I will do my best to satisfy any other request... My other magical beast companions are with me now, and the situation outside is definitely more stable than you think.”
“Mm, thank you, Master.” Tina breathed a sigh of relief, but then she suddenly felt that what she had just said... was a bit strange?
She glanced at the smiling, loli-like Black Lotus. To be honest, she didn't really want to deal with magical beasts.
After all, these magical beasts were all weirdos consumed by their obsessions—though she herself didn't seem to have the right to criticize others for that.
“Where is Blood Lotus now?” Tina tried asking. “I remember that you and Blood Lotus are usually always together.”
“She will come, but not just yet.”
Tina found this even stranger. What did that mean?
Could Sathya be planning to bring Blood Lotus here too...?
As they spoke, Sathya saw the two of them chatting, so she went to start preparing dinner.
Taking this opportunity, Tina had Black Lotus sit beside her, planning to ask about the outside world.
“Lord Demon King?”
“Black Lotus, are you a human or a magical beast right now?”
“I'm a magical beast~ And I'm Lord Demon King's thrall, so I will completely obey your commands~”
“Is that so?”
Tina looked at Black Lotus's eyes, which had already turned blue. They indeed looked very much like her own.
However, that was simply due to the erosion of chaos.
Rather than a magical beast, she was more like a pitiful human whose life force was linked to her own.
Her physical body only looked human on the outside; in reality, she was a creation of chaos, emitting the miasma of a magical beast.
Their relationship with Tina was just like the relationship between Velrose and the Saintesses who had died during the Saintess Selection.
What was even stranger was that she could actually sense the other's emotions.
...Not her current emotions, but those from decades ago.
Those emotional changes and fluctuations even allowed Tina to see—or rather, clearly perceive—this person's past, showing her exactly what had happened to cause such emotional turbulence.
It was an ability akin to empathy.
For Tina, empathizing with friends was already a huge hassle, and she had never expected that she would one day empathize with a magical beast.
Her tail wagged, then suddenly went rigid.
Tina's pupils suddenly contracted, and a few seconds later, they returned to normal.
Because just now, using the magical beast's emotions—or rather, her obsession—she had reconstructed a real scene, which manifested before her eyes.
It was something like a glass incubation vat, with a body floating inside the liquid.
The sensation of suffocation was very strange, but it wasn't painful. Strictly speaking, a magical beast didn't need to breathe anyway.
She could vaguely see several people standing outside the vat, wearing black coats that completely obscured their appearances.
What they were saying was also difficult to hear.
After some discussion, the black-clad figures opened the glass vessel and hauled her out using chains and ropes.
She wore only a symbolic piece of white cloth extending from her chest to her thighs, tied at her waist and legs.
Subsequently, the black-clad figures led her into an even darker room—one where she could see almost nothing, filled with the stench of decay and blood.
...It was filled with the corpses of many people.
There were boys, girls, men, women—all kinds of corpses.
Tina knew this smell. She had experienced similar things, though that had been on the battlefield rather than in a dungeon-like laboratory such as this.
Afterward, she was locked in a cell.
It wasn't cold here; on the contrary, it felt as though something was heating the floor, causing both the air and the ground to warm up.
She sat in the corner, and suddenly, a pair of hands stretched out in front of her.
She looked up...
...and found a pitiful little girl dressed in the exact same outfit, but she had dark red hair.
“Sis...”
The girl mumbled something hesitantly as she pulled her up.
Just when Tina thought a warm, heartwarming scene was about to unfold between the two, the other girl actually pulled out a blood-stained axe, which seemed to have been retrieved from the pile of corpses.
The scene cut off abruptly, like the house lights suddenly turning on after a movie ended.
Tina opened her eyes.
“Lord Demon King, are you reading my memories?” Black Lotus asked with a look of delight and excitement, though she maintained a ladylike smile.
“Yes.”
Tina's face was slightly pale. In those scenes and fragments, Black Lotus's emotions had been utterly despairing. Even if she couldn't hear clearly what the black-clad figures were saying, it was obvious that those cultists didn't treat Black Lotus as a human being at all.
But as for what happened next, it wasn't that Tina didn't want to look, but rather that she couldn't.
To continue watching, her authority would need to be stronger.
A deep blue halo had already appeared above Black Lotus's head, representing that this magical beast was now under her control.
Black Lotus reached up to touch it. When her fingers passed through the halo without feeling anything, she smiled and gave up.
“What is your relationship with Blood Lotus like? I can hear that your heart yearns for her deeply, yet you didn't bring her with you.”
“It's not that I don't want to see her. Actually, my sister, Blood Lotus, is intentionally avoiding me.”
Tina didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
The relationship between these two sisters was truly far more complicated than she had imagined.
“Let me tell you the rest of the story, Lord Demon King.”
“Could you just call me Tina? I don't like that title.”
“Mmh~ Lady Tina.”
“Don't add 'Lady' either, okay?”
“...Okay.”
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