“What… the heck is going on nya?”

Your eyes widen in shock as you witness the scene before you. Never in your wildest dream that you’d expect something like this to happen.

It’s Elemiah. His eyes are crimson, he’s demonic! All twenty-six madness gems are now connected to him, pulsating with dark power.  

Is this really the Elemiah you know? Since when did he become so corrupted?

And judging from the sheer amount of energy alone, it’s already surpassed the amount of energy inside Dolore’s soul. There’s no way you can beat him in a fight. The human Elemiah is already unwinnable, let alone a demonic one!

Your instinct screams at you to flee. Your fingers twitch, ready to cast the Ice Step to back the hell out of this place. But as you're about to make your move, Elemiah's voice cuts through.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to harm you.”

While he speaks, his emotionless tone makes it hard to gauge his sincerity.

“B–but! You are a demon nyaa!” your arms and legs keep shaking. “How can I possibly believe you nya?”

“You cannot believe me,” Elemiah’s brows furrow. “But you can believe that demonic DeathWhizkersz girl?”

You freeze. Cold dread slithers down your spine. 

So he knows about Nightingale.

This is really bad.

“H–how?” you stutter.

This shouldn’t be possible. Asteria already disabled the tracking spell on Eosphoros. She made it that even when you manually activate the sword, it wouldn’t send any signal to Elemiah. Given the knowledge and capability of that genius catgirl, there should be no error in her action. Yet, Elemiah still knows about your secret, about your whole situation with Nightingale!

“Because I was watching her too,” comes his reply.

A cold realization dawns upon you after processing your thoughts for a few seconds. It’s very simple. While Elemiah might have been unable to directly monitor you, he had been shadowing Nightingale all along.

“Damn,  he got us good…” Asteria mutters. 

You recall your earlier meeting with him. The guy mentioned that there was a ‘demon who can use both ice and space attributes’, thus suspecting you and making you go through that terrifying madness gem trial. Turns out, the one he was looking for was actually Nightingale. It seems like he tracked her down and put a marking spell on her.

So… what now? 

“What do you want from me nya?” you ask.

Depending on his answer, you will take action. Asteria has already finished analyzing the spells engraved on the walls. They are just anti-demon spells. There is no spell or magic in here that would limit your ability to escape. If needed to, you can just Ice Step out of here. 

But… you are still curious about what Elemiah is going to say, about the reason why he called you here in the first place.

“I need your help. Can I speak to the entity inside you?”

The most absurd thing suddenly comes out of Elemiah's mouth, and you feel like the whole world just collapsed.

…

What!?

You reel in shock, as does Asteria, whose voice echoes in your mind.

The entity… inside…

What the heck!?

This guy, not only knows about Nightingale, he also found out about Asteria too!?

Your heart is now beating so fast that you can clearly feel the thumping inside your chest, and your ears too can hear its relentless rhythm.

“Wha–what are you talking about nya? I-I don’t know what you mean nya!” 

You are determined to keep Asteria’s hidden.

But then, Asteria appears right next to you, in a form of some sort of astral projection. 

“It’s okay, Felicia. ” she says. And then, turning to Elemiah, “What do you want?” she asks in a stern and cold voice.

“Such an honor to meet you,” the grand inquisitor responds, bowing to show his respect. “If I’m not mistaken, you must be Asteria, the 16th wife of Goddess Aquilonyan?”

At those words, Asteria's expression darkens. The air suddenly feels a hundred times more tense, and you can now clearly feel her murderous aura, pulsating out of her astra body in the form of a dense, swirling black mist.