When Mugu woke, he was no longer the same.

Beside him lay several books left by the Unknown God, their covers cold and unfamiliar to the touch.

His attribute had changed. What had once been Decay had evolved into Entropy, the law of inevitable breakdown.

He could feel it in the air around him. In the way dust settled. In the way stone cracked. In the way living things weakened simply by existing near him.

He had also been granted access to two of the Unknown God’s authorities. One of them was Boundary Maker.

And most importantly of all, Damon could no longer possess his body.

Mugu did not receive a system. He did not need one. As the Prophet of the Unknown God, he could speak to the deity directly.

By the time he rose to his feet, he had already reached the Fifth Class.

A Seed of Depravity had formed within him. He had become a demon.

Yet the changes in his body were gradual, far slower than Damon expected.

Ashcroft explained the reason.

"Mugu has not completed the final step. He has not acquired enough souls."

In simple terms, Mugu still needed to kill. He needed to claim lives to finish the transformation into a true demon.

Damon was the opposite. He had gathered enough souls already but had not been pushed far enough to trigger demonization.

Even Ashcroft admitted the mysteries of demonization were unclear. He knew fragments, not the whole.

Mugu returned to Lysithara.

The moment he stepped into the city, Damon felt a strange sensation, as if the world itself were beginning to come apart at the seams.

He turned slowly, trying to understand what was happening.

Ashcroft sighed.

"You are trying to wake up. Or perhaps the Unknown God has shown you everything he intended you to see."

Damon looked at Mugu’s back as he walked deeper into the city.

"No. We have not seen it all. This is not enough."

Ashcroft was silent for a moment before speaking again.

"No. It is enough. This is the dangerous part for us. This is where he helps build the Crystal Tower and summons the Outsiders. Some of those entities are transcendent. They can sense you even inside a memory like this."

Damon paused.

Maybe the Unknown God was not trying to stop them from seeing more.

Maybe he was protecting them.

Ashcroft sounded irritated.

"That said, I still need to confirm something before we leave."

"What?" Damon asked.

Around them, the world began to spin forward in time. The sun, the moon, and the scenery blurred as years passed in moments.

"That prince of Valtheron. Something about him was wrong when Mugu met him again."

Damon watched the years flash by, trying to memorize every detail of Mugu’s life.

Ashcroft spoke quickly.

"Focus on the mark on your arm before it fades. Use it to anchor yourself to a moment in time. Pause here."

"I cannot do that," Damon said, shaking his head.

"Try. I will assist. This is crucial."

Damon took a breath and nodded.

Ashcroft began chanting a spell. Damon repeated the words, concentrating as hard as he could.

The world slowed.

When it did, Damon saw Mugu again.

Years had passed. Mugu had left Lysithara a second time and returned to the Doom Continent.

This time, he summoned the surrounding kingdoms and demanded they bow before him.

He knew they would refuse.

So he chose an example.

The closest kingdom was Valtheron.

On a cold, rain soaked night, Mugu walked into the royal palace and began a slaughter. He killed everyone in his path without hesitation.

The king tried to fight back. He was no match.

Of the king’s three children, Mugu killed two.

Abellona escaped with the youngest child and a handful of survivors, fleeing toward Soltheon.

Damon hovered in the throne room after Mugu left. The world was still straining forward in time, but Ashcroft insisted they remain here.

Damon did not know what Ashcroft was looking for.

But Ashcroft had thousands of years of experience, so Damon waited.

The king lay beneath the throne with a gaping hole in his chest. Blood pooled around him as he muttered weakly to himself.

Damon leaned closer to listen.

At first, it sounded like nonsense.

"I... I really could not change the plot... I still ended up dying... the plot of the fated villain... hahaha... I tried to change it..."

Damon frowned. None of it made sense.

But Ashcroft suddenly muttered a curse under his breath.

"Bastard. I knew it. I knew it."

Damon looked at him.

"The plot? What is he talking about?"

Ashcroft’s expression darkened.

"He is a transmigrator. A reader, if I am not mistaken."

Damon narrowed his eyes.

"What does that even mean?"

"It means he is an outsider as well. The original prince and this person are not the same. The prince may have died at some point or come close to it, and his soul was replaced by someone from another world."

Ashcroft fell quiet, eyes lowered in thought, before he spoke again.

"He mentioned the plot. That means he knew something about this world and the events tied to his current body before he ever arrived here."

Damon’s brows drew together as the pieces began to align in his mind.

"Are you saying what I think you are saying? You think that he..."

"Yes," Ashcroft cut in.

"This is not as rare as you believe. Reincarnation is not difficult. I am proof of that. I was reincarnated from another world into this one."

Around them, the world began to fracture. Thin cracks spread through the air like stress lines in glass.

Damon narrowed his eyes at the sight.

"If he knew the story, then he must have tried to change his fate. That explains why he was kind to Abellona. The original prince was a monster who defiled her. To her, it would have seemed as though he changed overnight."

He turned slowly, watching the fractures widen.

Realization dawned across his face.

"I see it now. Mugu did not become a demon because he was forgotten. The Unknown God orchestrated everything. He replaced the original prince of Valtheron with someone else to force events down a specific path."

Damon’s voice grew steadier as the thought formed.

"He used his knowledge as a god to write books in other worlds and spread them as common novels. From the readers, he selected the one most useful to his plan and placed him into the body of the story’s villain."

Ashcroft listened without interruption, his expression darkening.

"He knew who the main character was. In this case, Mugu." 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

"Yes," Ashcroft said quietly. "That is very close to the truth."

His voice hardened.

"It is easy to forget. The Unknown God is not only a god. He is also a demon. A patient, calculating, and sinister demon."

Fury crept into his tone.

"For four epochs, from the Zero Epoch until now, he has never truly lost. Everything has followed his design. I can assure you, Mugu did not have a good ending. I did not. And neither will you."

The world shattered completely, leaving only a white void stretching in every direction.

At the end of that emptiness, Damon saw a man and a woman locked together, both soaked in blood as they impaled each other after a brutal battle.

So this was how Mugu died.

He died fighting Abellona.

They were on their knees, facing one another as blood streamed down their bodies and pooled beneath them.

The woman’s lips trembled as she whispered,

"I love you..."

Mugu’s chest was torn open, his heart exposed. Large demon horns curled from his skull. His eyes were tired and hollow, yet burning with venom.

He reached forward with shaking fingers and seized her by the throat, forcing her down.

"I hate you."

His blood slick hand tightened as her dagger remained buried deep in his heart.

This was the fate of two lovers.

In a just world, love would have won.

The void fell silent as their bodies slumped together, cradled in death.

Damon watched without speaking.

"I imagine that if the story had not been changed by the outsider, Abellona would have been rescued by Mugu," he said softly, a hint of melancholy in his voice.

"Perhaps," Ashcroft replied.

"They would have lived quietly in Lysithara. They might have had a family. Mugu might have become a sage."

A deep sadness settled over Damon.

Who was to blame for Mugu’s end?

The original prince of Valtheron?

Or the Unknown God?

Ashcroft’s voice was flat.

"It does not matter. This is how the past happened. What ifs change nothing."

Damon’s jaw tightened.

"The Unknown God is a hypocrite. He speaks of choice, yet shows us how meaningless choice is. What choice do we truly have when a being like him decides that all possibilities are evil and the omniverse must be destroyed?"

The last fragments of the world fell away.

And what greeted Damon next was the cry of a newborn child.