Lonia eventually sat up and walked over to Rafina's door.
The door was unlocked.
The room was empty of the person who was always waiting for her.
She had said that if Lonia ever wanted to find her, she could just wait in her room.
The moment she entered, the light in the room seemed to brighten slightly.
The bed was made, the corners of the blanket folded neatly, and the pillow placed dead center.
It was incredibly tidy, completely unlike Lonia's. She still didn't make her bed to this day. When her sister saw it, she would only sigh and not press the issue.
Lonia walked in and shut the door behind her.
She stopped in front of the desk.
The desk was twice as large as it had been four years ago, its dark oak surface piled with three stacks of documents, each tied with a different colored ribbon.
Red was for Ten Courts affairs, gray for military matters, and black for things directly under the Demon King. Some of the pages had been flipped through so many times that their corners were dog-eared.
But Lonia's gaze didn't linger on those documents.
In the upper right corner of the desk, in the shadow of the three stacks of files, a few thin booklets were piled together. The top one featured a chubby, round blue slime on its cover, with the title written in elegant script: 《Slime Adventures: The Final Volume》.
The cover still featured that same blue slime, wearing that same round, innocent expression.
She had finished this series long ago, reading it together with Rafina.
This thing was a product of the Era of Dragon Sovereignty, from back when humanity was at its peak and Transmigrators were generally highly successful.
Because they wanted for nothing, countless works of literature and art had poured down like raindrops in a storm.
The edges of the final volume's pages were yellowed, and the folded corners of several pages had been carefully smoothed out, leaving faint creases.
The booklet lay open to a page in the middle, with a slender quill resting between the sheets, the ink on its nib not yet fully dry.
Rafina was still reading this book.
Beside it lay a notebook.
It had a dark gray hardcover with no title or decoration, except for "Rafina" written in tiny letters in the bottom right corner.
Lonia's fingers brushed the cover of the notebook.
She knew she shouldn't open it.
She opened it anyway.
The first page was a table of contents, with titles listed in neat handwriting.
《Volume I: The Traveler's Journey Begins》, 《Volume II: The Ultra-Ancient City》...
All the way to Volume XII.
Beside each volume's title were page numbers and completion dates. The earliest entry was from four years ago, while the most recent was from last month.
Lonia flipped through it casually, getting a general sense of what kind of story it was.
She didn't read the beginning too closely, but it seemed to be about a slime living in a cave who, accompanied by a little bat, gathered its courage and ventured outside.
It rolled across grasslands, rolled through rivers, and rolled through one unfamiliar town after another, meeting all kinds of creatures.
A short-tempered lizard, a sloth that loved to smoke, and a pair of inseparable goat sisters.
Everywhere it went, it would learn something new before rolling on to the next place.
She caught a glimpse of a chapter title: “Major Crisis!? A Giant Robot Attacks!”
...
Lonia's brow furrowed.
It looked incredibly familiar no matter how she looked at it.
A lighthearted, slightly silly style. A chubby protagonist, and the occasional bizarre setting that felt like it didn't belong in the story at all...
It felt exactly like 《Slime Adventures》. But the story itself was different.
“Did she write this herself?”
Lonia murmured to herself, but her fingers slowed down as she turned the pages.
“The blue traveler looked up at the starry night sky, missing the fellow waiting for it back home in the cave.”
Lonia stared at the sentence for a few seconds.
She closed the notebook and returned it to its original spot.
Then her gaze drifted downward.
Beneath 《Slime Adventures》 lay a stack of documents.
A single line of text was written at the top of the first page.
“Vampire Court Evaluation.”
Lonia's pupils contracted.
She gently moved 《Slime Adventures》 aside, revealing the rest of the documents underneath.
There were seven pages in total.
The first page was an outline. The title was 《Rebalancing the Power Structure of the Ten Courts: Vampire Court Proposal》, with the subtitle "Reducing the Excess Power Allocation of the Vampire Court to Restore Balance to the Ten Courts." The date was marked in the upper right corner.
One month ago.
The second page was a situational analysis. It used charts and data to list the proportion of resources the Vampire Court currently held within the Royal Court.
Territory size, control over mineral veins, military organization, and actual influence in the Joint Conference. Every single category was marked with an "above average" percentage, circled in red ink.
The third page traced the history. Starting from the first time the Vampire Court obtained extra privileges, it listed the time, reason, and the file number of the Demon King's approval for every instance of power expansion. Lonia's eyes swept over the dates—most of them were concentrated after Eliza became Court Head.
The fourth page.
Lonia's finger paused on the edge of the fourth page.
“Eliza Catori: Personal Evaluation.”
The handwriting was still Rafina's.
“Vampire Court Head. Rank Eight. Pureblood supremacist. Mature political skills, adept at using various means to expand vampire influence. Maintains a potentially defiant stance toward the authority directly under the Demon King. Her three tentative proposals in recent years have all been rejected, but her strategy following each rejection has become increasingly sophisticated. This indicates she is not acting on impulse, but is systematically testing the boundaries of the Acting Demon King.”
Lonia clenched her teeth, her small fangs grinding together with a soft click.
She continued reading.
“Risk Rating: High. Eliza Catori's personal combat capability (Rank Eight) is sufficient to pose a direct military threat. At the same time, her political network spans the Shadow Demon Court, the Lich Court, and part of the Scavenger Court. If they act in concert, they can form a four-vote alliance in the Joint Conference.”
“Recommended Measures: Phase out the Vampire Court's excess power. Phase One—”
Lonia didn't read the contents of Phase One.
Her eyes skipped to the fifth page.
The fifth page was a timeline. Starting from now and extending over the next three years, it outlined the reduction targets to be achieved each quarter, precise down to specific mineral vein numbers and the number of military personnel to be cut.
Every step was marked with "expected resistance" and "countermeasures." The phrasing of the countermeasures was calm and thorough, like a chess player calculating every possible response from their opponent before making a move.
The sixth page was the contingency plan. If Eliza chose to resist aggressively, Rafina had prepared three sets of countermeasures of varying severity.
From economic sanctions to military pressure, the most extreme plan read: “If necessary, consider replacing the Vampire Court Head.”
Lonia's finger froze on that line.
Replacing the Vampire Court Head.
Replacing Eliza.
Her sister.
The seventh page was the last one. It contained only a few lines.
“Note: Lonia Catori is excluded from the reductions. Regardless of how the proposal proceeds, ensure that Lonia's personal interests and safety are not affected. This is the bottom line and is non-negotiable.”
Lonia stared at those few lines for a long time.
The warm glow of the magic lamp illuminated the ink on the paper, making Rafina's handwriting shimmer faintly under the light.
The words "non-negotiable" were written with slightly heavier strokes than the rest, as if she had applied a bit more pressure when writing them.
Lonia stacked the documents back in their original order and placed them under 《Slime Adventures》.
She sat down on the chair in front of the desk.
Resting her folded arms on the desk, she leaned her chin on them, staring straight ahead.
She had always known.
Her sister wanted to be the Demon King.
She had known it for a very long time.
Eliza Catori, pureblood vampire, Rank Eight, Vampire Court Head.
Long before Lonia was born, she had already been the sharpest piece on the Demon Realm's political chessboard.
Every negotiation, every resource exchange, and every vote in the Joint Conference was directed toward a single goal—to make the vampires the head of the Ten Courts, and to make the Catori family the de facto rulers of the Demon Realm.
The throne of the Demon King was merely the final step.
Eliza knew of the curse of the Demon King's throne, and she had long prepared herself and steeled her resolve for it.
She didn't view Rafina as a genuine threat.
A mixed-blood orphan of unknown origin, no matter how talented or personally trained by the Demon King, was in Eliza's eyes nothing more than a pawn temporarily occupying the center of the board, bound to be taken by a piece with deeper roots sooner or later.
Louis of the Demon Court was useless, and Rafina was just a brat. What kind of waves could they possibly make?
Until recently.
Rafina had dismantled half a year of Eliza's hard work in less than fifteen minutes at the Joint Conference.
The Court Heads of the other Ten Courts had begun addressing her as the "Acting Demon King" instead of the "Demon King's student."
Until the fence-sitters who had wavered between Eliza and Rafina began to side with the silver-haired girl, one after another.
Eliza finally realized that the pawn had reached the end of the board and was turning into a queen.
And Rafina had realized it too.
Which was why these seven pages of documents existed.
Lonia recalled what Eliza had said in the study earlier, remembered the silhouette of Eliza sitting up all night staring at the rejected proposal, and remembered her sister's hands combing her hair when she was a child.
The movements had been stiff, the pressure uneven, always tugging and hurting her hair.
But then she would apologize, asking with genuine concern if she had hurt her.
She also thought of Rafina.
She thought of the oil lamp in the old archives, the chestnuts in the maple forest, the cotton stuffing scattered across the duvet, and the tail that was always draped over her.
She thought of the water stain in the notebook that had dripped right onto "missing the fellow waiting for it back home in the cave," and she thought of the "non-negotiable" on the seventh page.
Her sister and Fina.
Fina and her sister.
Lonia buried her face in her crossed arms.
She waited for a long time, but Rafina didn't return. Eventually, she lifted her face from her arms.
There were no tears in her eyes; Lonia hadn't cried in a very long time.
She stood up and slid the chair back under the desk. The legs scraped against the wooden floor with a low, grating sound.
As she reached the door, she paused and cast a backward glance at the desk.
The slime's round eyes stared up at the ceiling under the light. The notebook lay quietly beside it.
The three stacks of documents rose high, their red, gray, and black ribbons gleaming with different luster under the light.
Seven loose pages lay hidden beneath the slime's belly.
Lonia turned, opened the door, and stepped into the hallway.
The lights dimmed.
She didn't return to her guest room.
She walked to the window at the end of the hallway and pushed it open.
The cold wind of Abyss City rushed in, carrying a dry draft and the scent of sulfur.
The wind whipped her long black hair, sending the ends fluttering behind her.
Lonia reached her hand inside her collar, her fingertips brushing against the warm copper hairpin beneath her collarbone.
It was shaped like a maple leaf.
She pulled the hairpin out from her collar, pinched it between her fingertips, and held it up before her eyes.
Under the blue glow of the hallway's phosphorescent flames, the copper leaf lost its warm hue, turning a cold, metallic gray.
Years of wear had rounded the edges of the maple leaf, and the pattern of its veins had been rubbed nearly smooth by her fingertips.
“...What on earth are you so busy with?”
Her voice was swept away by the wind, leaving not even an echo.
Lonia tucked the copper hairpin back inside her collar, resting it against her collarbone. Its metallic chill was quickly swallowed by her body heat.
Leaning against the window frame, she gazed out at the silhouette of Abyss City.
The black stone buildings resembled a frozen wave under the dark sky, dotted with the blue glow of phosphorescent flames. In the distance, the central spire of Gloom Castle seemed to pierce the clouds, the crest of the Demon King atop it emitting a dull red shimmer in the eternal night.
Rafina was probably there.
On some floor of the central tower, in some meeting room, sitting at the head of a long table, facing the Court Heads or their representatives, managing the operations of an empire.
Her long silver hair would be tied back, her beautiful eyes as calm as still water under the candlelight.
She would speak precise, thorough, and impeccable words, standing firmly on the carpet of the meeting room.
Meanwhile, her arrow-tipped tail would hang motionless beside her chair.
Lonia closed her eyes and sank her consciousness into the thread. It was like placing a hand on a taut harp string, feeling its vibration.
The other end of the thread was pulsing.
Rafina's thoughts were racing at high speed, her consciousness divided into countless threads as she processed a myriad of matters simultaneously.
Amid the intervals of the pulses, an extremely faint, almost imperceptible trace of exhaustion would occasionally flicker—like a bubble rising to the surface of a deep ocean, popping the moment it appeared.
Lonia withdrew her consciousness from the thread.
She opened her eyes and looked at the central spire outside the window.
“...Fina.”
The wind carried the word into the dark sky of Abyss City.
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