My Wives are Beautiful Demons
Chapter 407 - 407: Holy crap!

Vergil didn't say a word. He just turned and began climbing the stairs leading to the second floor, his cloak billowing behind him like an obedient tongue of darkness. The hall, still frozen in silent reverence at the triumphant entrance, barely noticed his departure. But Stella and Raphaeline did—and followed him immediately, like loyal shadows that needed no orders.

Vergil's mind was a whirlwind of possibilities. Cabernet was not the type to be easily alarmed. If she said it was a "huge problem," then something truly catastrophic had happened. And he already suspected who the key player would be.

At the top of the staircase, opulent corridors stretched like golden veins through the body of the castle. Tapestries fluttered without wind, and the sculptures on the walls seemed to watch their passage with subtle eyes. The presence of the three kings on the second floor made the servants instinctively step aside, bowing silently or disappearing into the shadows.

Cabernet waited for them in front of a half-closed door, clutching the bottom hem of her scarlet dress, her eyes flashing between panic and fury.

"You took too long." Her voice was firm but tense. "We must act immediately."

"Speak," Vergil replied dryly.

Stella and Raphaeline stood silently beside him. The warrior crossed her arms, her eyes narrowed. Raphaeline just watched, with that calmness that always seemed to precede destruction.

Cabernet opened the door and led them into an old meeting hall—walls covered with black mirrors that reflected not images, but pulsations of memory. In the center, an arcane map floated above a round table made of petrified bone. Red marks glowed on it, flickering.

"The Scarlet Dragon Empress," Cabernet said, getting straight to the point. "She has been taken."

The silence that followed was not empty. It was heavy. Like the crack that precedes thunder.

Vergil slowly clenched his fist, his fingers creaking like steel being compressed.

"Who?" His voice sounded like a sentence.

Cabernet pointed to one of the red dots on the floating map, the glow pulsing with the frequency of a wounded heart.

"We don't know yet. But it was someone from within. Someone who knew exactly what they were doing." His voice was hard, but there was a shadow of pain there. "My daughter was attacked right here. When we arrived, she was on the verge of death. Her mind... damaged. Almost consumed. And the Orb, the Empress's seal, was taken."

Stella stepped forward, her boots hitting the floor with a sound that seemed to mark time. Her eyes were sharp as a spear being raised. "Is she alive?"

Cabernet nodded slowly. "Yes. Barely. She fell into a deep coma, and we couldn't bring her back. But the bigger problem..." she took a deep breath, swallowing the pain, "is the Orb. The Scarlet Empress is imprisoned in it. And now... it's in the hands of someone who knows exactly what they have."

"My daughter is the least of our concerns right now," she added, with bitter coldness. "If the Orb is opened or broken in the wrong place, or by the wrong hands... it could be the end. And not just for us."

Raphaeline stepped forward, slow as a shadow sliding down the wall. "During the damn Walpurgis..." she said, with disdain. "Someone is trying to turn this celebration into a condemnation."

Cabernet bit his lower lip, his eyes flashing. "Problematic" is kind. This is a disaster scenario. We're dealing with a threat on an apocalyptic scale. Someone removed the Empress from her seal... and did it right under our noses."

Vergil kept his eyes fixed on the map, the hard lines of his expression carved in absolute concentration. His chin was tense, his jaw locked like armor preparing for impact.

"This was meticulously planned," he said at last, his voice low and drawn out like a blade being unsheathed. "Nothing was accidental. Cabernet's daughter was the decoy. The real target was always the Orb."

He turned slightly, his gaze fixed on Raphaeline.

"Your blood magic is the most accurate there is. Amplify your vision with the blood residue in the air, as you did in the Baal Clan. Find any anomaly. Even the most subtle."

Raphaeline stared at him for a second... and then smiled. A calm but cruel smile. "Leave it to me. If there's a drop of traitor blood in this castle... it will scream at me."

Cabernet nodded, relieved for a brief moment. "Start with this corridor. That's where the traitor fled. But be careful. They knew where they were stepping. They erased their tracks, concealed their scent. We're dealing with someone who knows our house better than they should."

Stella snapped her fingers. "That just confirms what I already suspected. One of the nobles. Someone important. No one lower would have access to so many security circles."

Vergil turned completely, his cloak rearranging itself on his body like a living beast. "Then let's tear off the masks. Start the hunt. Raphaeline, go. Stella, close the escape routes. Cabernet, keep your daughter alive. I'll take care of the hall."

Cabernet lifted his chin, his eyes flashing with restrained anger. "What if we find out who it was?"

"There will be no trial," Vergil replied, already walking away. "There will be an example."

Raphaeline had already disappeared into the corridor before Vergil's last word echoed off the walls. Her silhouette was a scarlet blur that flowed like living smoke between the halls and staircases.

The castle, even in the midst of impending chaos, dared not breathe loudly near her.

Minutes later, Raphaeline's voice rang in Vergil's mind with the precision of a dagger stuck between his ribs. "Vergil. I found something."

He stopped immediately in the center of the hall, and the silence around him fell like a veil. His expression closed even further. "Where?"

"Fifth floor. West Tower. There's the smell of old blood, but it's too fresh to be there. It's masked, camouflaged with dispersal magic, but not for me."

"Whose blood?"

"Hard to say. It's not Cabernet's daughter's. It's... different. Strong. Dense. Someone powerful bled here — and is trying to hide it."

Vergil wasted no time. With a gesture, he summoned a spiral of shadows beneath his feet and disappeared—a lightning portal pulling him straight to the base of the tower. In seconds, he was climbing the wide steps of dark stone.

At the top, Raphaeline waited for him, kneeling on the cracked marble floor. A thin trail of blood snaked between the cracks in the stones, as if it had a life of its own.

"Here," she pointed, her eyes glowing a deep red. "This is where he bled. Not by accident. By necessity. He needed to use something—a teleportation seal like the ones we use."

She ran her fingers over the blood and murmured softly. The liquid vibrated, emitting a guttural sound, almost like a muffled scream.

"Definitely Demonic. There are runes engraved in the structure of the blood. This here..." she frowned, her voice almost reverent, "is contract blood. Someone made a pact here. And not with just anyone."

Vergil crouched beside Raphaeline, his eyes fixed on the pool of fresh blood that seemed to pulse like a sacrificed heart. Without saying a word, he ran two gloved fingers along the red trail. He slowly brought them to his mouth.

The taste exploded on his tongue like a memory torn from him: scorching iron, ashes of dead worlds, and something... acidic, insolent, that refused to bow down. His eyes narrowed. He felt as if his own blood reacted, remembering before his mind did.

White hair. A mocking smile. A red overcoat that billowed like fire amid the carnage.

The world around him seemed to freeze.

Vergil spat the blood on the ground, the sound as dry as a gunshot in absolute silence.

"I see..." he muttered, incredulous. "I should have killed him earlier when he was pretending to be weak."

But the taste did not lie. The energy that vibrated in that essence was all too familiar. Painfully personal. A scar that time had failed to erase.

He rose slowly, every fiber of his body tense like a string about to snap.

"It seems that Spectre wasn't the leader..." his voice came out lower, denser. "This blood is from that fucking demon who accompanied him."

Raphaeline watched him closely, surprise casting a shadow over her features.

"Do you know him?"

Vergil didn't answer right away. His eyes were distant, as if they were seeing something that wasn't there—or that should never be there again.

"A little."

But then, everything stopped.

He felt it.

A pressure in the air, as if the castle had held its breath. A flash of raw energy coming from the hallway behind them — quick, fast as a blade thrown by an angry god.

Vergil spun his body with an instantaneous movement, his eyes lighting up with an icy glow.

"Someone's coming," he said in a low voice, already raising his right hand, and the shadows around him compressing, forming floating blades around him.

"How strange... that aura..." Raphaeline frowned, her red eyes flashing as she scanned the air around her. "It's coming from outside."

In an instant, they both appeared at the top of the castle tower, the vastness of the horizon stretching out before them, a sky heavy with demonic clouds that writhed like enraged serpents.

Among these turbulent shadows, a figure appeared at high speed—a woman gliding through the clouds with the lethal grace of a storm about to explode.

Vergil frowned, his eyes fixed beyond her, where something colossal was emerging from the horizon.

"Holy shit..." His voice came out hoarse, laden with a mixture of shock and urgency.

Behind Sepphirothy, a titanic creature tore through the sky—a monstrous, immense ice dragon, so vast that it seemed to be part of the landscape itself, its skin covered with scales that glistened with the cold of an eternal winter.

Raphaeline screamed, turning quickly to Vergil, fear and determination burning in her voice:

"Vergil, prepare for war! This is no time to hold back your powers. HELP ME STOP THAT THING!"

The air vibrated with the beast's presence, a harbinger of the chaos that was about to descend. The sky, the castle, the world — everything was about to be consumed by a storm of ice and fire.