Chapter 52: Dulthmune
The hall stayed quiet for the first minute, both sets of eyes fixed on him.
"What do you mean?" Lydia finally asked.
Niel leaned forward. "I believe Ursula’s tied to the Church, and I don’t think burying old secrets is their real endgame. That’s the theory, anyway."
Lydia leaned in too. "Then what is?"
Niel drew a breath and laid out his reasoning, walking them through everything he’d pieced together. The silence that followed held longer than expected before Draken finally leaned in.
"If you’re right, then both the human and demon races might be heading toward one massive war."
Lydia’s gaze drifted from Niel down to the floor and back. "Didn’t you say your whole goal was bringing about the end of the world? Isn’t this exactly what you wanted, then?"
Niel leaned back, a small smile finding its way onto his face. "The goal was never to destroy everything outright. It’s to leave a mark deep enough that history has no choice but to remember me. In other words — I intend to be the final villain."
"Short version: ’I want to be the last problem standing,’ right?" Lydia asked.
"Exactly that," Niel said.
Something shifted in Lydia’s expression as she studied him — a flicker of real, unguarded interest, something close to anticipation. She sank back into her throne.
"Alright, let’s say we’re playing by your rules. What’s the plan?"
Niel considered them both a long moment. He didn’t have the full plan mapped out yet, but he knew exactly how he wanted it to end, so he said that instead. "The plan is what we’re here to build, piece by piece, from here forward. But the end goal doesn’t change."
"And what’s the end goal?" Draken asked.
Niel’s lips curved. "An alliance between demons and humans, standing together against the greatest threat either world has ever faced."
Lydia turned it over for a moment, then scoffed. "So basically a suicide mission?"
Niel met her eyes. His true endgame was to become the world’s greatest calamity — death wasn’t the objective, though he wouldn’t flinch from it if it came to that. Survival was still the preference. "Any outcome’s acceptable, as long as the goal gets met."
Lydia glanced at Draken, who seemed lost somewhere in thought, and her voice cut through it, sharper than she’d meant. "Is your goal the same as his?"
Draken looked up, clearly turning something over, searching for the right words before finally speaking. "My goal is to witness humanity fall, the same way I watched my own kind fall. If that’s guaranteed, I’ll follow this through to the end." He looked to her. "Is that the same reason driving you, or something else?"
She leaned back with a smile. "Watching both demons and humans collapse promises some genuinely interesting fights, and I’d love a front-row seat. But I intend to live, no matter what comes — so I might peel off near the end and side with whoever’s winning. Survival’s the only thing that actually matters to me."
Silence settled over them as each turned over what the others had revealed — the gaps between their goals now plainly visible. Niel finally broke it.
"Seems our paths might split before the end. So let’s set that division aside for now, run with the current plan, and when the time for goodbyes actually comes, we accept whatever each of us decides then."
Lydia glanced at Draken, then back to Niel. "I’m in."
"Still in too," Draken added.
Only then did Niel settle fully into his throne, the others following suit.
"Very well, then," Niel said. "Let’s plan."
---
The first real plan took shape from there, building off Niel’s push to bring the Sinners into the light.
"I think we need to climb the hierarchy first. We’re in the wrong kingdom for this," Niel said, fingers tapping lightly against the throne’s armrest.
Neither of them spoke, though their expressions made it clear they wanted more detail, so he drew a breath and continued.
"There are nine kingdoms across the human world, seven realms in the demon world — we’ll set the demon side aside for now." He let that settle before continuing. "Among the nine human kingdoms, everyone knows the top three — Warstone, Fluttermoon, and Langrave. The current heavyweights. Warstone ranks second, maybe even first, in raw power. Taking down a kingdom like that outright would be nearly impossible."
"That much’s obvious just from its size and army. Straight-up loss," Draken agreed.
"Not necessarily. Not with me around," Lydia countered.
Draken let out a short scoff. "If we went up against a kingdom like Warstone, do you honestly think the three of us could handle their full force — adventurers, heroes, palace knights, the Church, all of it?"
"I’m not a fool," Lydia shot back. "We can’t win that fight outright. We might have the sharpest set of skills for this, but mana doesn’t multiply just because ambition demands it. We need more hands. A real organization."
"We already have the organization," Niel said. "What we need is scale." He let the thought settle before continuing. "I propose we start with the weaker kingdoms first. It feeds directly into the larger plan."
A smile crept onto his face. "If we go after the weaker kingdoms and they fall, the stronger ones will chalk it up to weakness on their part — nothing more. But if we go straight for the strongest first, the rest might read us as a serious threat and start forming alliances against us. That’s a complication we don’t need yet."
The logic sat with them, sound and clearly thought through, and neither objected. Then Lydia spoke. "What’s the other upside?"
Niel smiled at her. "Numbers. Growing the organization with people who share the end goal."
"I see," Draken said, hand drifting to his chin. "So essentially, we scale up until we’re strong enough to actually challenge the top players."
"That’s the plan," Niel confirmed.
They sat with it in silence, checking it for holes, and after a while reached the same conclusion — the logic held.
---
With the decision made to leave Warstone, and the plan to bring the Sinners into the light already set, Lydia found herself puzzling over how it would actually unfold. If the goal wasn’t to start a war in Warstone itself, how were they supposed to make the public aware of them at all — or had the location for the "reveal" quietly shifted somewhere else?
She looked at him, faintly confused. "This reveal — the Sinners coming to light. Which kingdom are you planning to use for that?"
"Warstone, obviously. Big enough to spread word fast, if we pull it off right," Niel said, resting his cheek against his knuckles.
"Ah, I see," Lydia said, settling back into her chair.
Draken, who’d been quiet, finally spoke up. "That leaves us with two open questions — timing for the reveal, and which kingdom we head to afterward."
Both of them turned to Niel, waiting. He considered it. He already had a destination in mind, but the timing needed to be exact — precise enough to guarantee maximum attention.
Before he could settle on an answer, Lydia’s face lit up. "The first princess’s birthday is in four days. Biggest feast of the year. Sounds like the perfect grand entrance to me."
"The first princess? Princess Elestar?" Niel murmured, memory stirring from his old life. Among the crowd that had gathered for his execution, she’d been one of the very few who’d looked genuinely shaken by it. He pushed the thought aside just as quickly.
The goal wasn’t to raze the kingdom — just to leave a mark significant enough to matter, before moving on.
Lydia’s voice cut back through his thoughts. "You don’t know the first princess?"
Niel waved the question off, as though it carried no weight at all. "Alright then — four days from now, official entrance. Bring whatever you think matters and meet back here after the reveal. That’s the plan."
"Can’t work with that timeline," Lydia said, rising from her throne, crossing toward where Niel stood. Draken rose too, and the three of them met near the center of the hall. Draken’s eyes widened suddenly, as if a question he’d meant to ask had just resurfaced.
"You never told us where we’re actually going after this. Where exactly is that?"
Lydia paused halfway across the room and turned back. "Yeah — you never said. Which kingdom’s the first target?"
Niel’s gaze drifted between them, a quiet smile curving at the corners of his mouth. His thoughts wandered back to the life he had left behind—a kingdom ruled by the youngest unmarried king, its army the feeblest among its neighbors. One figure surfaced in his memory with ease. He had lived beside that king, served him long enough to recognize the restless pride beneath the crown, the reckless impulse that council and advisors had barely managed to contain.
Without them, the kingdom would have crumbled into ash years ago. And now, that ruin was precisely what Niel intended to deliver. He lifted his chin toward them, the smile never leaving his face, and murmured under his breath:
"We’re going to Dulthmune."