Chapter 1555: Epilogue 28 - Truce (1)
It had been three days since the fight happened.
Right now, I was leaning comfortably against my bed, finally giving myself a chance to rest for a while. Honestly, it had been quite some time since I last got to relax without constantly worrying about something trying to kill me or throw another problem my way.
That didn’t mean those three days had been peaceful, though.
Quite a few things had happened during that short period, and most of them were important enough that I couldn’t simply ignore them.
After the fight, Satania, who had ultimately lost to me, accepted the conditions that I had laid out for her.
The first condition was that she would completely withdraw her support from the Empire, and to my surprise, she agreed almost immediately without trying to negotiate anything. The Empire, however, didn’t take that news very well, which was honestly exactly what I had expected from the beginning.
They had already begun preparing for the war they wanted to wage, so losing Satania’s support at this point was a massive setback. Whether it delayed their plans significantly or simply stripped away a huge portion of their military strength, either way, it dealt them a painful blow. Satania alone represented an absurd amount of firepower, and losing someone like her wasn’t something that could easily be replaced.
Despite all of that, the Empire still seemed determined to push forward with their plans.
Backing out now probably wasn’t even an option anymore after investing this much time, effort, and resources into the whole campaign. Looking at things from their perspective, continuing the war probably made more sense than abandoning everything they had worked toward until now.
The second condition was that she could no longer build her undead army through massacres or the extermination of innocent people.
Expanding an army was one thing, but growing it through genocide was something entirely different. That was easily the worst part of the way she had been increasing her forces, and I couldn’t just overlook something like that.
Then again, necromancy was the source of her power.
Using the dead to strengthen herself was practically built into the nature of her abilities, so it wasn’t surprising that she wanted to make use of it as much as possible. The problem wasn’t the power itself. The real issue was how she chose to use that power and how far she was willing to go just to gain more strength.
Something else that still bothered me was the fact that she barely used her undead army against me during our fight.
Looking back on everything, it honestly felt like she had held herself back more than I originally realized.
After asking Lucielle about it, she explained that Satania simply didn’t want anyone else to kill me.
She wanted to be the one to finish me herself.
Her undead soldiers weren’t allowed to steal that victory from her, and neither were any of her other subordinates. Not even the other Sins themselves. She wanted the satisfaction of defeating me with her own hands and nobody else’s.
That alone said a lot about her personality.
Her pride was honestly ridiculous.
Sometimes I found myself wondering whether she had somehow inherited the wrong Sin.
Even so, Wrath still suited her frighteningly well.
The last condition was probably the most important one out of everything we discussed.
If our interests ever clashed in the future, then the conflict would be settled between the two of us personally instead of dragging entire countries into another pointless war.
Nobody else needed to become involved if the disagreement was ultimately between us.
Personally, I still believed I could defeat Satania if we ever fought again.
Confidence wasn’t really the issue here.
What worried me was everything, if she ever waged a war, that could happen while I was busy fighting her.
If she ever unleashed the full extent of her wrath upon the Human Continent, countless innocent people would die before I could stop her. My loved ones would inevitably become targets as well, and there was simply no realistic way I could protect every single one of them while I was occupied battling someone as powerful as Satania.
That was exactly the kind of future I wanted to prevent before it ever had the chance to happen.
She accepted all of those conditions surprisingly easily.
That still didn’t mean we had suddenly become friends or allies.
Her goals were still completely different from mine.
My own path was leading somewhere else entirely.
Our interests simply happened to overlap for the moment, and that temporary overlap was enough for both of us to come to an agreement.
Once that ended, things could easily change again.
At the end of the day, we were still enemies.
That was probably the simplest and most accurate way to describe the relationship between the two of us.
"I’ve got to admit," Lucielle said while looking at me with genuine curiosity, "I’m honestly surprised that you managed to convince Satania to agree to all of that. She doesn’t exactly strike me as the kind of person who listens to anyone."
"Honestly, I’m a little surprised too," I replied with a small shrug. "Still, somehow I managed to convince her. I also told her that Lilith might’ve planned everything from the very beginning."
Lucielle continued staring at me.
"I think Lilith was already thinking far into the future," I continued. "She probably knew she wouldn’t be around to see the results herself, but she still prepared everything anyway. That’s honestly what makes her so terrifying."
A quiet sigh escaped my lips before I continued speaking.
"It’s almost like she was playing a game of chess."
Carefully, she moved all of her pieces into exactly the positions she wanted before quietly stepping away from the board. After that, all she had to do was let everything continue moving on its own while the rest of us unknowingly followed the path she had already prepared.
Lucielle blinked a couple of times before tilting her head.
"...I’m not really following what you’re trying to say," she admitted honestly.
A faint chuckle escaped me before I answered her.
"That’s fine. You don’t really need to understand the analogy itself," I said. "What matters is the conclusion. I think Lilith planned everything from the very beginning, and right now all of us are simply moving across the board exactly the way she wanted us to."
Thinking about everything that had happened until now, I found myself doubting Lilith more than ever before.
Whatever she had said in the past.
Whatever she had planned behind the scenes.
Whatever future she believed she was creating.
None of it was something I could blindly trust anymore.
Following her plans without questioning them felt like the fastest way to walk straight into a trap, and I had absolutely no intention of making things that easy for her.