My Wives are Beautiful Demons-Chapter 696: That’s all I needed

Vergil wakes up slowly.

There’s no startle, no instinctive reaction of someone waking up ready to fight. It’s a slow, heavy return to consciousness, as if his body had been dragged back to the surface after sinking too deep.

The luminous ceiling of the VIP room is still there, projecting soft shades of blue and white. But something is... wrong.

Too quiet.

He blinks once. Then again.

The sofa still supports him, but the weight in the air has shifted. Vergil slightly turns his neck, feeling his muscles protest in a restrained manner, and looks around.

The VIP room is almost empty.

Katharina isn’t on the arm of the sofa. Ada isn’t leaning against any column. Roxanne has also disappeared. Not even the distant noise of conversations penetrates the glass walls.

Only silence.

Vergil frowns.

He begins to rise, resting an elbow on the upholstery, when he senses something different—not a sound, not a smell, but a subtle shift in the space. An emotional displacement he would recognize anywhere.

The living room door opens.

Raphaeline enters.

Vergil freezes for a moment.

She walks slowly, as if each step required conscious effort. Her body is still erect, her posture impeccable as always, but her face... her face betrays everything.

Her eyes are red. Not the vivid red she usually wears with pride, but swollen, scarred. There are traces of dried tears on her skin, and the energy around her is unstable, rippling erratically, like a flame that has just been almost extinguished.

She closes the door behind her.

They stare at each other.

For a second, neither of them says anything.

Vergil feels his chest tighten immediately, instinctively, almost violently.

The next instant, he doesn’t walk.

He simply disappears.

Space folds, and Vergil appears right in front of her, so close that Raphaeline barely has time to react before feeling firm arms enveloping her body.

He pulls her against him with controlled force, a solid, protective, definitive embrace.

"What happened?" he asks, his voice low, laden with genuine concern. "Raphaeline... what happened?"

She tries to answer.

She can’t.

The control she had maintained since the bar finally breaks. Her face buries itself against his chest, and the tears return—hot, silent at first, then uncontrollable.

Vergil says nothing more.

He simply tightens the embrace, one hand resting between her shoulder blades, the other holding her head with rare care, as if he feared she might fall apart.

"Breathe," he murmurs, unhurriedly. "I’m here."

Raphaeline breathes unevenly. Her body trembles once, twice, until she finally manages to speak, still clinging to him.

"Shezmu..." her voice comes out weak, broken. "She showed up at the bar."

Vergil doesn’t react outwardly.

But he listens.

"She sat next to me," Raphaeline continues, the words coming out between sobs. "As if it were... as if it were normal. As if she didn’t have the right to be there."

Vergil remains silent, his gaze distant, focused only on listening.

"She talked about her birthday," Raphaeline says, swallowing hard. "Six hundred and sixty-six years."

Her body tenses in the embrace.

"And then... she gave me a box."

Vergil feels his breath hitch for a microsecond, but doesn’t interrupt.

"A box that was in my mother’s room," Raphaeline continues. "One that no one else should have. No one."

She pulls away from the embrace just enough to look at him. Her eyes are still teary, too dark.

"Vergil... it was the same box. Every scratch. Every mark."

He doesn’t answer. He just holds her face carefully, as if anchoring that reality.

"Inside... there was a letter."

Her voice falters again.

"It was her handwriting," Raphaeline says, almost in a desperate whisper. "It couldn’t have been anyone else."

She closes her eyes tightly.

"The first sentence..."

Tears stream down her face again.

"’I’m alive.’"

The silence that settles is heavy.

Vergil says nothing.

He doesn’t question.

He doesn’t react with disbelief.

He just absorbs it.

Raphaeline laughs weakly, brokenly.

"I thought it was cruelty," she says. "A provocation. An emotional trap set by a goddess."

She shakes her head.

"But it wasn’t."

Vergil senses it.

He senses it in the way she says it.

"The way it was written," Raphaeline continues. "It was clearly my mom’s..."

Mom. Not even Vergil knew that Demon Queen Raphaeline Baal could speak that word.

She runs a hand across her face, wiping away the dried blood from her tears.

"I want to find her," Raphaeline says. "How is she alive after two hundred years? Why did she abandon me!"

Vergil lightly presses his fingers against her shoulder, a silent gesture of presence.

"She said she watched me," Raphaeline murmurs. "That she saw what I became." She swallows hard. "And that she was proud."

The word seems to hurt more than any other.

Vergil closes his eyes for a moment.

Not to rest.

But to contain something.

Raphaeline rests her forehead against his chest again.

"I spent centuries thinking she was dead," she says. "Centuries trying to honor something I never knew was real. That obsession with swords..."

Her voice trembles. "And now... now she’s alive, Vergil." She looks up, desperate, confused.

"And I don’t know what to do with that."

Vergil remains silent.

Vergil remains silent for a few more seconds.

It’s not hesitation.

It’s a choice.

He holds Raphaeline against him, one hand firm on her back, the other still resting on her shoulder, feeling the slow tremor that diminishes as her breathing regulates.

Then he speaks.

His voice isn’t loud.

It isn’t dramatic.

It’s absolute.

"Then we’ll find her."

Raphaeline raises her face slowly, as if afraid that those words would disappear if she moved too quickly. Her eyes are still dark, moist, full of something that mixes hope and fury.

"It doesn’t matter how long it takes," Vergil continues, his tone calm like a perfectly controlled blade. "It doesn’t matter who’s involved. If she’s alive... we’ll find her."

There’s something about the way he says "we" that makes Raphaeline’s chest clench again—but this time it doesn’t hurt the same way.

She takes a deep breath, opening her mouth to answer—

"Find who?"

The voice cuts through the VIP room like an unexpected blade.

Raphaeline stiffens.

Vergil doesn’t move immediately, but his eyes shift to the side with instinctive precision.

Ada is standing near the inner entrance of the room.

She doesn’t seem confused.

Nor unconcerned.

Her arms are crossed, her posture too relaxed for someone who clearly heard something too important to ignore. Her eyes—the same eyes as Raphaeline’s, though less burdened—silently analyze the scene.

The embrace slowly dissolves.

Raphaeline turns, still wiping her face with the back of her hand, her expression closing like an old door being forced shut.

"Ada," she says, her voice hoarse. "You should be resting."

Ada raises an eyebrow.

"I was," she replies. "Until I felt you destabilize half the VIP wing."

She looks from Raphaeline to Vergil, then back to her mother.

"Now... you want to try again," Ada continues, her tone lower. "Find who?"

The silence weighs heavily again.

Vergil steps forward.

"We need to talk," he says, directly. No beating around the bush. "But not now."

Ada tilts her head slightly, assessing him.

"That sounds dangerously like ’important things are happening without me’," she observes.

Vergil doesn’t argue.

"There are still thirty minutes left until phase two," he says. "And this conversation can’t happen with the clock ticking."

Raphaeline closes her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. When she opens them, the Demon Queen is already partially back—not whole, but functional.

"Ada," she says, more firmly now. "Trust me. Please."

The word trust does not go unnoticed.

Ada hesitates.

Just a moment.

Then she lets go of her arms and sighs.

"Okay," she says. "But I’m not going anywhere."

Vergil nods once.

"Good."

He turns to Raphaeline.

"I’m going for a walk," he says softly, just to her. "You need space. And I... need... well, I need to go see Wukong."

Vergil takes a step back.

Then another.

It’s not abrupt, nor cold—it’s that kind of necessary distancing, when being too close starts to hurt in a way that doesn’t help anyone.

Raphaeline watches him silently, her eyes still heavy, but more steady now. Ada remains leaning against the entrance, too attentive to feign indifference.

"I’ll be back before phase two," Vergil repeats, more to reaffirm his promise than to reassure. "You two... talk." Raphaeline nods slightly. She doesn’t fully trust her own voice yet.

Vergil then walks to the VIP room exit.

The door opens with an almost respectful whisper, as if the space itself knew that this moment didn’t allow for loud noises. As he crosses the threshold, the lighting changes—less soft, more functional, long corridors stretching in multiple directions, each leading to some absurd wing of that impossible complex.

The door closes behind him.

And only then—

Vergil stops.

His shoulders drop an inch. Almost imperceptible. But real.

He runs a hand over his face, his fingers briefly pressing the bridge of his nose, and lets out a long sigh, held back for far too long.

"That’s all I needed," he murmurs to no one. "I’m going to need patience to deal with this..."