A VILLAIN'S WILL TO SURVIVE
Chapter 339: Before the Knot is Tied (1)

The lighthouse—designed by Quay and expanded through Deculein’s magic—rose into the sky, a towering monument against the void. Ria stood at its base, gazing up, a silent wave of emotion washing over her.

“We finally made it,” she whispered.

The final destination of the main quest. The one thing that was never meant to be completed—and yet there it stood, waiting for its last, inevitable moment. If this were still a game, she would have given up long ago.

“…Can you all see this?” Ria muttered under her breath.

The magical lens embedded in her eye transmitted everything she saw back to the Floating Island, its power flowing through the intricate weave of enchantments that bound them together.

Through that invisible connection, the scholars and sorcerers stationed there were watching, their eyes fixed on her every movement, awaiting their next command.

With each passing moment, the pressure grew, the weight of their silent scrutiny bearing down on her, as though every step she took was being judged, calculated, and measured by those who held her fate in their hands.

— We see it.

“Can you decipher it?”

— We can. Given enough time, we could dismantle the lighthouse’s magic entirely.

The Floating Island—the proud citadel of magic that had once sworn not to meddle in the petty struggles of the land—had cast aside its neutrality. Now, it stood allied with the Empire. Their finest minds, their deepest reserves of knowledge, were devoted to stopping the lighthouse from reaching completion.

And all because of Deculein. Because he had annihilated the Island’s executioners without mercy, wiping them out in an instant with cold precision, he had forced even the most detached heights of the world into action.

His ruthless efficiency had shattered the complacency of those in power, drawing them into a game they had long since chosen to ignore, where the stakes had never been higher and the consequences of failure unimaginable.

— Deculein’s arrogance will face final judgment. The Floating Island will purge the rot devouring this world.

“Ria, there’s a guy downstairs selling chicken skewers,” Leo said suddenly.

Ria glanced down, her fingers briefly brushing the edge of the railing as her thoughts swirled in the quiet. She then returned her gaze to the lighthouse, her eyes locking onto the figure standing before it—Deculein, robed in black, an imposing silhouette against the backdrop of the stormy sky.

He stood there, towering above even the high priests of the Altar, his presence commanding, as if he had already surpassed the very power that once held the world in its grip.

“Ria? Chicken skewers—”

“You and Carlos go eat,” she said, barely sparing him a glance.

“Okay!”

Leo and Carlos wandered off, leaving her alone. As the cultists finished their prayers and scattered—some retreating to the sanctuary, others dispersing back toward the Empire and neighboring kingdoms—a low voice spoke beside her.

“Enjoying the view?”

It was Deculein.

“…What do you mean?”

“The lighthouse,” he said.

Ria nodded silently.

“Soon,” Deculein said, a faint, sardonic smile on his lips, “everything will be tied off.”

Tied off. The final thread of the story, pulled tight and secured with careful hands, marking the end of a journey that had spanned lifetimes.

There was no more room for doubt, no more loose ends to untangle, only the quiet satisfaction of completion, knowing that every twist and turn had led to this moment. In the stillness that followed, the weight of what had been accomplished settled over everything, a silence pregnant with the finality of it all.

“…And at the end,” Ria said, almost to herself, “you’ll be the greatest villain of all.”

Deculein tapped his staff against the ground, the sharp sound reverberating through the air, heavy with purpose. In that instant, Ria’s magical lens crackled violently, a surge of power ripping through the enchantment, making her entire body tremble.

She flinched, clutching at her eye as the lens pulsed with a painful, fiery light, the connection between her and the Floating Island faltering for a split second, before she forced herself to regain control, her heart racing with the unexpected surge.

“Ugh—!”

“…The Floating Island underestimated me,” Deculein said coldly. “If they thought they could peer into my work without consequence, they were fools.”

He turned back to her.

“But tell me, Ria,” his voice dropped lower, soft yet cutting. “Do you remember what we once talked about?”

Something from a past she herself had never lived. A conversation between Yu Ara and Deculein. Ria tilted her head, stealing a glance at him, then quickly looked away toward the lighthouse again.

Was he testing her? Or perhaps—

“Pathetic,” she muttered.

The same words she had once thrown at him long ago—when he had tried to shoulder everything alone, when he had drowned in guilt rather than letting anyone share his burden. She had called him pathetic for it, had begged him to let someone else carry the weight too. That bottling up sorrow wasn’t noble; it was cowardice.

“You were pathetic,” she said, her voice steady. “Because you kept it all to yourself.”

Deculein showed no reaction, his expression as cold and unyielding as the stone beneath his feet. Of course not—he wasn’t Kim Woo-Jin anymore, the man he had once been buried beneath the weight of his own transformation.

No matter how monstrous he had become, no matter how dark his actions, he was no coward, standing resolute in his new identity, untouched by the fear that had once plagued him.

And yet…

“I see,” Deculein said, nodding, as if he truly understood. A faint smile, delicate as a dying moon, touched his lips.

To Yoo Ah-Ra, once, that smile had been like a mirage in the desert—haunting and beautiful, a fleeting vision that seemed just out of reach. It had captured her attention, filling her with both longing and uncertainty, as if it were a promise of something more, yet always slipping away before she could truly grasp it.

Now, as she watched him, that same smile seemed empty, no longer a symbol of hope, but a reminder of the distance that had grown between them, an illusion that had faded with time.

“Three weeks,” Deculein said, shattering her thoughts. “Three weeks from now…”

The lens in Ria’s eye buzzed again, a sharp, unsettling hum as its magic rebooted, recalibrating in response to the disturbance. For a brief moment, her vision flickered, the world around her blurring into fragmented shadows before snapping back into focus.

Her eye throbbed with the strain, the connection to the Floating Island straining under the pressure, but she gritted her teeth, refusing to let the magic fail her now.

“…The continent will meet its end.”

***

The desert of Roharlak. A wasteland where the only exports were grilled scorpions, scorpion shells, scorpion venom, and endless fine sand. Within that barren heart, Warden Primien sat at her desk, frowning deeply.

“Something’s wrong,” she muttered.

The desk was buried beneath a mountain of newspapers, each one stacked haphazardly, their pages yellowing with age. Every headline blared the same name—Deculein, each one more sensational than the last, painting a portrait of a man both revered and feared.

The weight of it all pressed down on the surface, the relentless barrage of headlines a constant reminder of how his name had come to dominate every corner of the world, its echo impossible to escape.

“Something doesn’t add up,” she said again, her voice low.

Out here, isolated from the continent’s heartbeat, Primien had pieced together scraps of information. She had followed his movements, studied his speeches, dissected every rumor. And still—only one conclusion came to mind.

“Why?” she whispered.

She knew Deculein. Knew him in ways the rest of the world did not. This was not the man she remembered—the one who had once looked away at just the right moment, who had let her hidden bloodline slip by unnoticed.

Yet the man the papers now portrayed was a zealot. A fanatic who not only despised the Scarletborn but who preached the gospel of blood purity and absolute hierarchy. Even his new book left no doubt.

“The Future of the Empire.”

A manifesto, calling for the Empire’s future to be built on rigid class division and iron-fisted rule by the pure, lay at the center of the papers. Its words were unyielding, written with the cold precision of someone who believed in the supremacy of bloodlines and the eradication of any who did not fit within the sacred hierarchy.

The manifesto’s message was clear—any hope for equality was a lie, and only the strongest, the most “pure,” could be trusted with the reins of power, a terrifying vision that threatened to tear the Empire apart from within.

Primien had no special love for the Scarletborn. Born in the frozen North of Phaeirden, she had grown up cold, hungry, and hardened. She hid her blood not for loyalty, but for survival. For a chance at a better life.

And yet…

“No matter how I turn it over,” she muttered, “it doesn’t fit.”

Her mind spun in circles, searching desperately for the truth that seemed to slip further away with each passing moment. Every thought tangled with the next, a chaotic web of confusion, as she grasped at fragments of reality that never quite came together.

The more she searched, the deeper the void seemed to grow, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that the truth she sought was hiding just beyond her reach, teasing her with its elusive nature.

— What doesn’t fit?

The mechanical voice rasped from a crystal orb at the corner of the room, its tone cold and unyielding, echoing off the walls with an eerie clarity. “Elesol, elder of the Scarletborn,” it announced, the name carrying a weight that seemed to fill the space with an unspoken threat.

There was no warmth, no emotion in the voice—only the harsh precision of a machine delivering an undeniable truth, its words hanging in the air like a challenge.

“It’s Deculein,” Primien said. “His actions—they don’t match his nature. I don’t believe he’s truly our enemy.”

— Not our enemy? After what he did to the Scarletborn of Roharlak?

“Killing?” Primien scoffed. “If you mean the Canvas… I don’t see it as cruelty.”

The Painted Prison. Whispers called it a hell, a place where hundreds of souls were condemned to spend centuries suspended in a void of nothingness, their bodies and minds trapped in eternal torment.

Some said it was a fate worse than death, a slow, suffocating oblivion where time lost all meaning, and the only companion was the endless, oppressive silence. The very thought of it sent shivers down the spine, as no one truly knew what it was like to be erased from existence in such a cruel, unrelenting way.

Primien disagreed.

“In there, there’s still a chance of survival. Until the door is opened, no one truly knows if you’re dead or alive. That’s better than the gas chambers, where you die the moment you step through.”

— Are you serious?

“I am.”

She leaned back, letting her gaze drift to the ceiling, her thoughts momentarily suspended in the stillness of the room. The patterns in the plaster above seemed to blur into one, a labyrinth of shapes and shadows that mirrored the confusion swirling in her mind.

For a brief moment, she allowed herself to be lost in the quiet, the weight of the world momentarily forgotten as she sought solace in the nothingness above her.

“But enough of that. Elesol—the lighthouse?”

— The Floating Island has intervened.

Those words carried weight enough to crush stone.

The Floating Island—neutral for centuries—now moved openly against Deculein.

— Twenty days remain.

Twenty days. Three short weeks before the continent’s end.

“…Then I must go myself,” Primien said.

— Is Roharlak ready?

Beneath this desert, hidden deep, the Scarletborn survivors waited. Bloodlines old and defiant, still clinging to life.

“We’re ready,” she answered.

— The final battle will be fought at Myeolji. At the lighthouse. Once it ends, the years of our suffering will finally pass. We will reclaim what was stolen from us.

And in that moment, something sparked inside Primien. A thought, sharp and wild.

“…Elesol.”

A theory. Fragile, yet too perfect to ignore. If it were true, it would explain everything—Deculein’s contradictions, his silent mercy.

“Where are you?” she asked, her voice trembling.

— Why?

“I need to speak to you. Face to face.”

No response. Of course. In these times, Elesol rarely risked setting foot outside his underground sanctuary.

— Is it important?

“It is,” Primien said.

She hesitated for only a breath before continuing.

“Deculein had a chance.”

— A chance for what?

Primien closed her eyes. Not long ago, Deculein could have exterminated the Scarletborn bloodlines entirely. Information had been placed in his hands. He could have ended them.

“But he didn’t.”

— Explain.

Primien opened a drawer and drew out an old, battered diary. It had been confiscated from a child interned at Roharlak. Meaningless, forgotten—until her eyes had caught upon it. Most of its pages were childish ramblings. Innocent memories. But one entry burned into her mind:

Today I met the scariest officer. He wore so many medals on his chest.

I thought he would arrest me.

I thought I would be dragged away.

But he said nothing. He just told me, “Be careful,” and walked away. Later, I saw his face in the newspaper.

It was really him. His name was…

Primien closed the diary with a soft thud.

“…Deculein,” she whispered. “He didn’t even kill a child.”

***

The Floating Island—Megiseon’s upper sanctum. It was here that the sum of all the world’s great magic and the records of its most brilliant sorcerers were gathered and preserved. Now, in the heart of that sacred place, the Island’s highest circle had convened, devoting themselves wholly to one singular task.

“This lighthouse serves as a conduit,” spoke Astal the Addict, his voice slicing through the hush of the grand hall. “The Altar intends to summon an outer comet through it. Deculein’s magic only amplifies the lighthouse’s power.”

The Ethereal-ranked mages—those privileged enough to reside on the Island—had already unraveled the Altar’s ambitions, their research tracing even the darkest depths of Deculein’s designs.

“But whatever the Altar intends, our purpose remains simple,” Astal said, standing at the center of the council chamber.

“The Floating Island does not interfere with the mortal world.”

It was a sacred principle. And yet, here they were—moved not by duty or by justice, but by a single private grudge. Deculein.

“Our sole objective,” Astal continued, “is the eradication of Deculein.”

His words echoed off the crystalline walls, and the sorcerers nodded grimly. Around the great round table, they bent over their tomes and charts, weaving spells designed for one purpose alone: Deculein’s annihilation.

“I repeat,” Astal said, louder now, his gaze sweeping across the assembly. “Our mission is to eradicate Deculein.”

A second time.

“I repeat. We must eradicate Deculein.”

And again.

“I repeat. We must eradicate Deculein.”

Whispers stirred among the mages. Unease prickled at their skin. Heads lifted from books, quills stilled midair. One by one, they turned toward Astal. He stood frozen in place, his mouth forming the same words, again and again.

“We must eradicate— we must eradicate— we must—”

His voice unraveled, stretched thin like an overplayed record.

“We must—”

And then, silence. Astal remained standing, his mouth still open mid-syllable. Time itself seemed to seize around him. The air grew still, heavy, unnatural—as if even the beating of hearts had been caught and pinned in place. The hall stood suspended, frozen at the edge of a sound that would never finish.

Silence had settled over the upper reaches of Magiseon. Through that heavy stillness, a voice drifted—a light, lilting sound that seemed to echo from nowhere.

“I think it’s time we corrected that.”

Click, click.

The sharp tap of heels broke the frozen air as a figure emerged from the shadowed edges of the hall, wavering like mist, yet cutting through the gloom with undeniable presence. A familiar voice followed, calm and mocking.

“It’s me. Epherene.”

She smiled as she looked around the assembly, her face carrying the faintest ghost of someone they had once called teacher.

“Eradicating Deculein,” she said lightly, “won’t happen.”

Her voice carried a sharper edge now, slicing the silence.

“No—can’t happen. Not while I’m here.”

With a flick of her fingers, she wove her will through the hall. In an instant, time ground to a halt. The greatest minds of Magiseon stood frozen mid-motion, their mouths half-open, their eyes wide with shock, unable to move even a breath.

“…Tch.”

Click, click.

Epherene walked casually among them, the sound of her steps echoing against the walls like a metronome counting down to something inevitable. She slipped into a vacant chair as if she owned the place, and tilted her head, glancing toward a relic embedded into the wall.

Lokralen—Kaidezite. Records of Lokralen and Kaidezite, the Floating Island’s most sacred archives. She studied it with a faint, almost nostalgic smile.

“Not long now,” she murmured.

She still didn’t fully understand what had happened that day, long ago. But somehow, she knew that day would come again—and soon.

“I’ll do my best too, Professor,” she whispered under her breath, her voice soft as falling ash.

A creak splintered the stillness.

Sliiick—

Somewhere among the frozen assembly, faint resistance stirred. A few of the mages—unsurprisingly—were strong enough to strain against her spell. Epherene’s smile widened.

“Good,” she whispered, the word tasting almost sweet.

She welcomed it. She had survived too much, grown too much to fear resistance now.

“Come at me,” she said, rising from her seat, her eyes flashing.

“I’ll handle every last one of you.”

Because now, she trusted herself more than anyone else ever could.

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