Chapter 431: Pandora is helping Alice!

Floating in the air, like a bored deity descending upon a theater of broken puppets, was Seris.

Majestic.

Cold.

Imposing.

Her presence was not accompanied by explosions or thunder—it didn’t need to be. It was an overwhelming silence. A weight that made even the air hesitate. Holding her hand was a little girl with black hair and big eyes, shy and cowering.

Alice.

“Were you planning to destroy all trade in my kingdom, or was this just a very expensive misunderstanding?” said Seris, with a gaze hard enough to shatter titanium.

At that moment, all the witches fell to their knees. Some trembled. Others murmured ancient prayers.

Except Morgana.

She remained standing, staring at Seris with a steadiness that only someone who had died for herself could sustain.

Pandora glanced at Morgana out of the corner of her eye, sighed… and relaxed her shoulders.

“Okay…” she said, raising her hands in surrender, smiling. “I just wanted to have a little fun. It’s been a while since I’ve had a decent opponent.”

She turned to Vergil, her eyes still sparkling with adrenaline.

“Was it fun for you?” But Vergil… was no longer there.

He had disappeared like smoke.

Pandora blinked—and then saw him reappear directly in front of Seris, completely ignoring her regent presence. His red eyes were now back to their intense blue. His expression was much calmer, though there was still a wild spark dancing in the depths of his irises.

He didn’t look at Seris.

His eyes went straight to Alice.

The girl’s eyes widened when she saw him.

“Yay! You came to see me!” she exclaimed, instinctively reaching out her arms.

Vergil bent down and picked her up carefully, as if the chaos of minutes ago had never existed. Alice blushed, embarrassed by the stares of the dozens of witches around her, but she couldn’t resist. Quite the contrary.

He placed her lightly on his back.

“Climb on, little one,” he said, and she smiled, clinging to him like a living backpack.

The image was… surreal.

The Demon King, fresh from a battle that had nearly destroyed the witches’ central square, now walked calmly with a little girl on his back as if they were going to buy bread.

Pandora watched them with half-closed eyes, her arms crossed, one eyebrow arched. “…Okay. I have questions.”

Vergil stopped walking and turned his face just slightly, enough to look at her sideways.

“What is your relationship with this child?” she asked, pointing her chin at Alice.

He shrugged. “I saved her.”

“…Is that all?” Pandora continued, suspicious.

Before he could answer, Alice interrupted him with the sweetness of a nuclear bomb covered in sugar.

“He’s my daddy!”

Pandora froze.

Literally.

Her eyes sparkled with contained magical static, as if she had suffered a momentary glitch. She slowly turned her face to Seris, seeking some explanation, some logic, some anchor in the midst of the insanity.

Seris, as always, was impassive. He just shrugged with the lightness of someone who rejects responsibility with royal elegance.

“Are you telling me,” Pandora began, her voice too controlled, “that all this time… I’ve been helping the daughter of a Demon King?”

Seris crossed her arms.

“I told you she was a demon witch. You got involved because you wanted to. I didn’t hide anything.”

“You omitted everything!” Pandora retorted, her eyes flashing. Demon witch could mean anything! A little contract with a minor spirit, a hellish baptism… not “the daughter of a royal capirotão”!

Seris raised an eyebrow.

“You are Pandora. A pure magical being, created by the hands of Hephaestus. I thought nothing intimidated you.”

Pandora closed her mouth. She took a deep breath. She exhaled. “…touche.”

Vergil, still with Alice on his back, finally turned completely and faced Pandora. His eyes were calmer, but no less intense.

“And what exactly are you doing here, what is she doing here?”

Before she could answer, Seris descended a few more meters, coming to rest at the same level as them. His presence was still like a calm ocean—vast, peaceful, and dangerous.

“I brought her,” said Seris.

Vergil raised an eyebrow.

“Why?”

“Alice is no ordinary human. She is a rare hybrid, with demonic and magical traits perfectly intertwined. No ordinary mage could understand how her body works. So I brought the best.”

Pandora snorted. “Better? You say that as if it weren’t obvious.”

Vergil watched her for a few seconds. Then he sighed. He then bowed slightly, “Thank you for taking care of the little one,” he said.

Silence.

It was Pandora’s only response for one, two, three heartbeats—too long for someone who used to measure the world in frantic bursts of adrenaline.

Vergil’s gratitude, so simple and direct, cut through her arrogance like a thin blade: he spoke neither in defiance nor in mockery; he spoke in genuine gratitude.

The child goddess, made of crystal and sin, blinked twice.

Her cheeks, so pale they glowed under the light of Salem’s floating rings, were tinged with a soft blush, almost imperceptible to anyone who didn’t know to look for it. The serpent of light around her neck raised its head, curious: it was rare to see Pandora lose her composure.

“I-I…” Her voice faltered for a moment, then resumed, lower, almost irritated with herself. “I didn’t do anything special. It was… field research.” Her chin rose in an effort to regain her haughtiness. “Any decent archaeomancer would do the same.”

Alice, perched on Vergil’s back, leaned over and waved one of her tiny hands, as if to brush away an imaginary cloud.

“Thank you, Aunt Pandora,” she said, with a smile that would melt the walls of any heart. “You taught me the butterfly crystal trick!”

Pandora cleared her throat, pretending to examine her own nails—covered in diamond-cut micro-runes—but the blush only got worse. Some witches still hiding behind twisted tents exchanged surprised glances: seeing Pandora without sarcasm was rarer than a double eclipse.

“Hmph. It was nothing.” She snapped her fingers; a tiny origami of light took shape, spinning until it landed on Alice’s nose, who laughed. Just… keep the conjuration posture, or it will pop in your hair.

Morgana watched the scene with her arms crossed and an amused gleam in her eyes.

Seris, for her part, smiled in that enigmatic way that for centuries had made it impossible to distinguish tenderness from calculation. She saw, in Pandora’s brief shyness, a silent confirmation: Hephaestus’s girl had accepted the task.

Vergil straightened up, stroking Alice’s foot behind her neck.

“Whether it’s ‘research’ or not, I owe you.” His eyes met Pandora’s, steady, without any threat—just an implicit promise of reciprocity. “If you need anything, let me know.”

Pandora opened her mouth… and closed it again. Instead of replying, she looked away to some point in the cracked sky, trying to regain her old air of superiority. But the lightness that shone in her eyes said more than any crystal-clear laughter:

she had enjoyed hearing that “thank you.”

And although no one spoke aloud, everyone knew: the battle was over—not out of fear, nor by royal order, but because, in the strange mathematics that governs monsters and prodigies, sincere respect is worth more than a hundred explosions of aura.

All around, the witches began to rise, still trembling. The market smelled of potion smoke and broken crystal dust, but for the first time in minutes, there were no screams — just relieved sighs… and a collective murmur:

“Maybe… just maybe… this new Demon King isn’t so terrible after all.”

Pandora heard it. She smiled slightly, hiding another blush.