There is a saying among those within the Silent Court, one I learned after meeting Midir in my past life.
This world is a horny bastard.
It favors certain beings, not because they earned it, not because they were measured and found worthy, but simply because it chose.
Some move freely where others are bound, survive outcomes that should have crushed them, and step away from consequences that erase everyone else.
The world does not call this justice. It does not mask appetite in philosophy or pretend to balance the scales.
It indulges openly, shamelessly, its desire naked and unapologetic.
I understood this long before I understood why.
Worlds are expressions.
Earth is the place where those expressions are gathered, held together despite their differences.
Within it exist countless ways reality insists on being real, some orderly, some fractured, all equally actual in their own right.
Above them stands the Central World.
The greatest way, all the ways and the only way in which something may pertain to.
Worlds are within themselves whole, yet equally deluded in the grand play.
Some worlds may subscribe to reason, some may deny classics, others may fly free, it matters not to the highest.
The Central World alone bears the whole.
It is both broken and fixed, here and there, before and after, a world in which nothing is true or false, a complex world in summary.
Concepts unravel under inspection.
Contradictions are not errors but necessities, weight-bearing elements of reality itself.
Truth shifts when observed. Meaning erodes at the edges. Certainty survives only so long as no one insists on it.
If one stares long enough, the seams begin to show.
There are worlds where cause limps behind effect, where outcomes arrive first and explanations stumble after them like excuses.
These places should collapse the moment they are understood, yet they endure, stubborn and undeniable.
The Central World is a world with all ideals, all revelations.
It is not merely the source of worlds, but the condition by which any world can exist at all.
Law and exception, order and violation, possibility and its refusal all find their origin there.
That is why this world behaves as it does.
Gripping the terrible world was a force, and Satire must be the witness.
Imposed over Satire's form was a creature I could not identify, a being whose nature was surely beyond my own.
It wrapped around her without care for the mortals watching, shielding her entirely from my Dark Alter.
Dark Alter was the ability granted by my Regalia, the power to alter anything in this world.
But now I understood something terrible.
It should not have been able to affect things beyond me.
Which meant something helped her. Something I could not see. Something patient, waiting, watching.
I ignored that thought, because staring at it would break me.
Rather, I realized Satire must be so far ahead of me that my Regalia could not even reach her.
To my current self, she might already stand at the ninth wall, as all Saints must.
Her movements were deliberate, almost languid.
Every step she took carried a quiet authority, yet it was the stillness around her that made me shiver, the absence of time pressing against my chest.
"Demons, you say? So how many do you think shall come?" Mirabel asked.
I could not speak. Blood filled my mouth, and I used it as an excuse, a hint, just barely enough, to disguise the real reason I kept silent.
Satire answered smoothly. Her voice was melodic, but beneath it, a razor-thin edge cut through the air.
"As you know, demons hail from Hell. They are greatly weakened here."
She brushed under her nose as though the conversation were trivial.
"In truth, I could easily defeat one, even after they regain as much strength as this world allows."
Visitors always suffer restrictions here.
They weaken upon arrival. As long as they were powerful enough, they could recover a portion of their strength over time.
But never all of it.
Even those from lower realms, even those who climbed within the self-enclosed hierarchy of this world, could not ascend to the highest world.
They could only fall to this terrible place. This world was simply the most complex, the most contradictory, and the most disastrously free.
"That still doesn't answer my question. Unless you mean to say you don't know," Mirabel pressed.
Satire shrugged, but there was a flicker behind her silver eyes, an unspoken amusement, as though the world itself trembled at what she knew.
"It is unknown. No more than five. Griffin wishes me to stay here."
I raised my hand. "That shall not be needed. Mirabel and I will handle them."
She looked surprised. Then she smiled. And in that single smile, everything froze.
[Nicholas was careless. Who could have known that simply his eyes held such hatred that the world shivered.]
I turned my head slowly. Mirabel was frozen mid-breath, trapped in perfect stasis.
Satire stepped toward me, her motion slow, deliberate, as if the paused world itself bent to her will.
She looked down at me with pure delight.
There was a sweetness to her gaze, but beneath it was a cold, predator-like calculation.
Every moment she lingered, every subtle shift of her weight, was a warning.
"You reek of time. How funny. So you must have foreseen a future."
She had no idea I had lived my entire future.
She pressed her fingers into my chest, light as a feather, yet the pressure of her presence made my blood feel sluggish.
"Don't be too brazen. I don't think I've done anything bad… right?"
I chuckled weakly, trying to mask the tension in my chest. "I've just seen some horrors. You aren't the worst of them."
She clicked her tongue, a soft, piercing sound that made my skin crawl. "I hate that answer."
She stepped back, returning to her original position. Only now, her magicae coiled around my heart.
She was allowing me to move purely because she could.
If I showed even a flicker of bloodlust, she would freeze my heart in time.
And I would die.
Time resumed, smooth and natural.
"If that's what you wish, I shall take my humble leave." She said cheerfully.
But her smile lingered in my mind long after she walked away.
It was a smile that promised retribution for a future not yet born.
Mirabel looked confused, aware something had happened, yet unable to grasp it.
Satire walked away, laughing faintly, her presence fading like a shadow that had no intention of ever leaving completely.
[Nicholas was lucky. His pitiful efforts spared him, not to comfort him, but to warn him.]
The voice in my head was right. I needed to be more careful.
I had been careless. So foolishly careless.
Mirabel turned to me, curiosity written across her face. "Nicky? What happened?" she asked innocently.
[Nicholas knew that revealing this would bring about great tragedy in this world.]
I reached out and cupped her cheeks. "Nothing. What could happen? Now come, we must prepare."
She looked confused. "For what?"
I laughed and stood, gripping my blade from my back. "To hunt demons, of course. We are to hunt demons."
Her eyes widened slightly, yet she did not flinch. She understood the weight behind my words.
Demons are creatures that, at full power, could lay waste to entire worlds, a feat nearly impossible from this world.
Not to mention, they are immune to natural death within the Central World.
They come from a higher realm, Hell, yet they are not fully present here, existing merely as rough, incomplete copies.
Never the truth, never their full glory, however unholy that may be.
Fighting a newly fallen demon roaming this world would be nearly as difficult as facing a dragon.
Their strength, though fractured, still commands terror.
Only the war my father fought long ago left them diminished.
Mirabel walked up to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. Her touch was firm, grounding.
"You've become too much," she said softly, awe and warning coiling together in her tone.
I turned back toward her, eyes narrowing. My voice cut through the tension like a sharpened blade.
"I'm still too little."
The words were not a plea. They were a challenge. A warning.
A dagger thrown at the universe itself.
And I meant every word.
I'm still too little.