CHAPTER 423: SEE YOU AROUND... VERGIL.

The bluish mist hung in the air like silk veils suspended between the branches of ancient trees. A stone staircase rose gently before Vergil, winding like an enchanted river, illuminated by golden threads of magical light that sparkled beneath his feet with every step. The sky above was an ocean of starry ether, with a crescent moon curving like a serene smile, suspended at the top of the staircase like a beacon of dreams.

The place seemed to exist outside of time. Every leaf, every particle of light floating around pulsed with a supernatural calm—as if the world itself were breathing slowly, watching Vergil with invisible eyes.

He heard the voice before he saw its owner.

"You have come too far for something you never fully understood," said the voice, firm, grave, carried by a silent authority.

Vergil raised his eyes slowly, his fist still firm on the hilt of the sword that rested against his waist. At the top of the staircase, silhouetted against the soft glow of the moonlight, sat a man on the steps.

His gray hair was simply tied back, and his face—aged, with wrinkles marked by life, not just time—had a steady but gentle look. He wore a thick, old cloak, covered by a worn but still strong leather breastplate. His presence there, in the center of that enchanted setting, was both absurd and perfectly coherent.

Vergil climbed a few more steps until he was close enough to make out the man’s eyes. There was something in them that was no longer seen in the faces of the present—a kind of living memory, as if he had witnessed empires rise and fall.

"How... how are you here?" Vergil asked. "This place..."

The man interrupted him with a lazy wave of his hand. "Few can reach this place. And almost no one can carry my ancient sword."

Vergil instinctively looked at the blade stuck in the ground—a sword of golden light, with arcane inscriptions carved into the hilt. He could feel its warmth pulsing, as if it recognized the name that now came to the tip of his tongue.

"Your sword," he murmured. "So... you are... King Arthur Pendragon."

The old man tilted his head slightly, his eyes half-closed in amusement.

"King Arthur?" he said with a short laugh. "The last person who called me that is probably dead for centuries."

Vergil frowned, trying to decipher whether it was sarcasm or simple melancholy.

"And who was that last person?" he asked, his voice firm, without fear. "Morgana Le Fay? Or... the Lady of the Lake, Viviane?"

Arthur raised an eyebrow, surprised. Then he smiled, and his smile was like the sound of distant thunder—echoing memories of glory and tragedy.

"You are an eccentric young man to speak so freely to a king," he replied. "Or perhaps just a fool."

Vergil took a deep breath. He felt no arrogance coming from this man, only a truth stripped of formality. His eyes were on the heavens, but his feet remained firmly on the ground.

"You are no longer a king," said Vergil, staring at him.

Arthur shook his head slowly, as if accepting an inevitable conclusion.

"No," he said. "Millennia ago, I ceased to be anything the mortal world would recognize. Thrones have crumbled. Castles have fallen. Names have been forgotten or rewritten by cowardly hands. And yet..." He gestured with his hand toward the ethereal surroundings. "There are still those who come here with this sword. Excalibur always seems to find someone."

Vergil looked at the blade stuck in a rock, letting the golden light illuminate their faces. The blade vibrated softly, as if the sound of metal sang in memory of its master.

"I didn’t expect to be sent to another dimension just for rebuilding this thing." Vergil’s voice was low, almost a whisper.

Arthur nodded. "I’m as surprised as you are. I wasn’t supposed to be here, after all... I died."

Silence. A subtle wind blew through the enchanted trees, stirring leaves that did not fall. It was as if the world itself was about to say something, but hesitated.

Vergil broke the silence: "So... you don’t know why I’m here?"

Arthur slowly rose from the steps. His presence grew, as if he were no longer just a man but the reflection of an entire era. But there was weariness in his shoulders. The weight of legend, perhaps.

"She wants to test you."

Vergil stared at him. "You’re kidding."

Arthur let out a brief laugh, dry as wood creaking in the wind.

"Oh, how I wish it were a joke," he said, as he walked slowly toward the rock where Excalibur rested, embedded like an immovable landmark in the center of the world.

The blade seemed to have grown from the ground itself, as if the earth had swallowed it and now offered it back. The inscriptions along the hilt glowed with a rhythmic pulse—like a heart waiting to be awakened.

Arthur stopped beside the sword and placed his hand on the rock, almost reverently.

"This stone is a seal. A challenge and an oracle. Whoever removes the sword from here... does not merely carry it. They are judged by it."

Vergil crossed his arms.

"This sounds like one of those cheap tests of purity of heart. Is this really necessary?"

Arthur turned slowly to face him, his eyes darker now, intense as burning coal.

"It’s not about purity. It never was." He pointed to the sword. "If it were something so trivial, do you think a demon could hold a sword?"

Vergil approached with slow steps. With every meter he cut between himself and the blade, he felt something tightening inside his chest. It wasn’t fear, exactly. It was... anticipation. As if the world were holding its breath for him.

"So, I just pull it out of the stone?" he asked, stopping in front of the stone.

"If you fail, you must be returned to your world," Arthur said simply. "Maybe remembering everything, maybe not. But if you succeed... the sword is yours. A Legendary Heroic Rank Sword."

Vergil looked at Excalibur. It was beautiful, yes, but not in the way one would expect from a legendary weapon. It was an ancient, heavy beauty, laden with purpose. As if the blade knew of all the wars that had yet to happen.

"This is going to hurt, isn’t it?"

Arthur smiled slightly. "Probably."

Vergil slowly reached out his hand.

Excalibur seemed to shine brighter with every inch his skin approached it, as if it sensed his presence, as if the golden metal recognized something within him that even he did not understand. When his fingers touched the cold hilt of the blade, a wave of electricity ran through his body, causing his muscles to contract and his eyes to widen.

His heart began to beat with inhuman urgency.

Thump. Thump. Thumpthumpthump.

He tried to pull it—just a slight movement to test the sword’s resistance—but it was like touching the sun. Light exploded in his mind, and then the world collapsed.

He was no longer there.

Vergil was in another life. Seeing with eyes that were not his, feeling with a chest that breathed with another soul.

It was raining. The sky was a sickly red, the clouds tinged with blood and fire. The earth shook beneath hooves and screams. A black dragon tore through the skies, vast and ancient, its eyes like burning craters.

Arthur was there—young, in his full glory. His armor, marked by a thousand battles, glistened with sweat and hope. He rode with Excalibur in his hands, a blade that cut through the air as if tearing veils between worlds.

The battle was a chaos of distorted time. Vergil felt every blow, every loss. Knights fell beside him, faces he would never know fading into silent screams.

And then came the final moment.

The Dragon destroyed castles with a single flap of its wings. Arthur ran toward the creature, plunging Excalibur directly into its abyssal heart. But the blade did not hold. It shattered into a million shards of light and silence. And Arthur fell, mortally wounded, his blood merging with the mud and glory.

And Vergil felt it all.

Pain.

Loss.

The eternity of a broken oath.

Cosmic screams echoed in his mind. The universe itself, or what lay beyond it, howled inside his ears. An absurd pressure, as if his body were too small to contain the truth he had just touched.

He was thrown back with force.

His body flew like a piece of paper in the midst of a hurricane of reality. He crashed into the ethereal ground, rolling among leaves that did not break, stones that sang.

Arthur watched him from where he stood, eyes half-closed, one hand resting on his knee in a sign of doubt.

"Are you alive down there?"

Vergil, lying on his back, breathing as if he had been running for millennia, let out a hoarse groan.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!" he shouted, coughing. "My... my heart almost EXPLODED! My hands are burning! I failed, damn it! I FAILED!"

He rubbed his palms on the floor, trying to contain the throbbing, pulsating pain that seemed to come not from his flesh, but from his soul.

Arthur frowned, approaching with slow steps. His eyes were fixed on something. Not on Vergil, but on his hands.

"...Are you sure about that?" Vergil stared at him, panting.

"Of course I am! The sword is still—..."

He stopped.

He looked at his own hands.

There, steady and serene, rested the sword.

Not the same sword.

Not the Excalibur he had seen in Arthur’s dreams, broken in battle against the dragon. This one was new. The blade was still golden, but the light seemed more... profound. As if it carried the essence of something that went beyond kingdoms or legends.

The inscriptions had changed.

More arcane. More ancient. As if they had been carved by forces that knew neither time nor language.

Vergil blinked, stunned.

Arthur crossed his arms, his face a mixture of confusion and curiosity.

"Hm. Much stronger than the original," he muttered, almost to himself.

Vergil held the new Excalibur with trembling hands, the blade light as a promise and heavy as a curse.

"...What happened?"

Arthur walked around him, his steps slow, as if he felt the space around him being shaped by something new.

"The sword that Viviane forged..." he began, his voice thoughtful. "Well, this is the second time this has happened, but again, the sword’s energy has changed. Just like thousands of years ago when I held it. The power Viviane put into the sword wasn’t hers, and she probably doesn’t know about it."

"Are you saying that Viviane... put a power into Excalibur that even she didn’t understand?"

"No. She probably didn’t put anything in it," said Arthur. "In fact, something or someone probably interfered with it."

Vergil looked again at the sword in his hand.

The blade whispered. Not with words. But with intentions.

Arthur, or whoever he was now, approached once more, his face serious.

"Vergil... take care of her. Viviane. She doesn’t know what this sword really holds. But you saw it. You felt it. There’s more to it than legend and bravery."

Vergil raised an eyebrow, still trying to process it all.

"You knew that, and you didn’t say anything?"

Arthur paused.

For a moment, the scene glowed—and then shattered.

Not like something breaking, but like a mirror revealing what was behind it.

The man before him began to change.

The wrinkles disappeared. The gray hair turned to smoke. The body became an ethereal silhouette, made of light and shadows, like a statue carved from memory, not flesh.

"You... can never speak... right? ... Excalibur."

The entity smiled — but not with lips. It was a heartfelt smile, like the acceptance of an identity that was never chosen.

"See you around... Vergil."