CHAPTER 447: PUT YOURSELF IN HIS SHOES.

Titania did not hesitate.

With a quick gesture of her small hands, the magic circle exploded into a blinding light. Runes danced through the air in a spiral of energy, and from the center of the spell, a burst of primal magic was launched like a flaming spear, straight toward Vergil’s chest.

Zuri let out a muffled cry. "Vergil!"

But he was no longer there.

With a quick, almost lazy movement, Vergil tilted his body to the side, and the beam of energy whizzed past him, cutting a tree in half and exploding against a rock in the background. The impact shook the ground, and burning leaves began to fall slowly around the clearing.

He reappeared a few meters away, standing on a high branch, his hands still in his pockets.

"That hurt just to watch. I almost hit my chin."

Titania spun in the air like a living storm, her wings producing a buzz so intense that it made the air vibrate.

"STAY WHERE YOU ARE, YOU DAMNED CREATURE!" she shouted, casting three spells in succession: magical obsidian thorns, enchanted chains, and an explosion of flaming fairy dust—not as harmless as the name suggested.

Vergil disappeared again.

The chains crashed to the ground. The thorns dug into the trunk of a centuries-old tree, which exploded seconds later. The explosion of enchanted dust ricocheted off a magical barrier that Vergil had conjured in the blink of an eye, without even raising his hand.

When the dust settled, he was back in the center of the crater, standing on a rock and looking slightly bored.

"You scream too much, you know?" he commented. "It starts to hurt my ears after the third assassination attempt."

Titania screamed again, this time higher-pitched, more primitive. The ground beneath her cracked as her energy expanded, creating a magical spiral that lifted rocks, burned roots, and scattered sparks like meteors.

She pointed at him, her eyes ablaze.

"YOU ARE PLAYING WITH THINGS YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND! I CAN UNDO YOUR SOUL, DAMN YOU!"

Vergil did not move. He did not even blink. He merely blew away a leaf that had landed on his shoulder, as if he were more concerned with nature’s annoyance than with the threat of spiritual destruction.

"Destroy my soul?" he repeated, raising an eyebrow. "You sound like my grandfather. Only with more glitter."

"YOU—!" she flew forward, a miniature comet surrounded by red flames and golden lightning. The air around her distorted with the heat and energy of the charge.

Zuri cowered in the corner of the crater, frightened. "Vergil, she’s going to pierce you like a spear!"

But Vergil moved only at the last second. Like a blur, he leaned to the side and twisted his body, dodging with such lightness that he seemed to dance with the wind. The blow passed straight through, opening a flaming gash in the ground.

"You’re fast," he said, now appearing behind her.

Titania turned brutally, her eyes wide, surprised at how easily he avoided everything. More than surprised—offended. As if Vergil’s failure to defend himself was a greater insult than any verbal provocation.

"Are you MOCKING ME?! FIGHT, DAMN IT! FIGHT BACK!"

Vergil looked at her with an almost... disappointed look.

"You want me to fight seriously with a six-inch-tall fairy?"

"RAAAARGH!"

She hurled a magical blast of pure arcane force, which spread like a sonic wave. Vergil leaped backward, landing softly on a fallen log without even dirtying his coat.

"Have you ever thought about stopping trying to kill me and talking like normal people... like, an adult conversation, say?"

She launched another series of attacks—spears of light, threads of energy, an explosion of enchanted roots that tried to trap him like vegetable snakes. Vergil dodged everything, without fighting back. He just dodged, parried, or opened small shadow portals to absorb the spells.

Zuri, who was now watching from the treetops, whispered:

"He doesn’t want to hurt her..."

And she was right.

Even with space, time, and power... Vergil did not retaliate. He just avoided, let it pass, looked on with a calmness that — for Titania — was unbearable.

"YOU’RE UNDERESTIMATING ME!"

"No..." he said calmly. "I’m trying to give you a chance to calm down before you regret what you do."

She paused in midair for a second, trembling with rage.

"You think... it’s pity?"

"No. It’s respect," Vergil said, his eyes now more serious. "Not for you. But for the chaos you carry. And because I don’t want someone like me to let go of the leash just because some hysterical little queen decided to test me."

The tension in the clearing grew.

Titania stopped flying. She floated silently now, panting. The fury still burned, but something in her pupils had changed. Fear? Doubt? Memory?

The silence was heavy.

"Last chance, Titania," Vergil said, his aura still flickering with shadows and embers. "Do you want to keep screaming, or do you want to talk like two beings who have seen too much?"

The clearing was no longer a battlefield, but a stage of tension.

Titania’s aura pulsed like a heart about to explode. Even with the warning, even with Vergil’s strangely threatening calm, she did not yield. She could not yield. Not after centuries of being imprisoned, humiliated, forgotten. His presence... his name... his lineage. It was the trigger.

"YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING!" she shouted, her voice now distorted by layers of magic. "YOU ARE AN HEIR TO THAT WHICH DESTROYED ME! I WILL NEVER—NEVER—BOW DOWN!"

She raised her arms, her eyes ablaze. The runes floating around her body spiraled and collapsed into a single beam—a black and red bolt of pure energy that cut through the air like a blade from the gods.

Zuri cowered in the tree. "VERGIL, NOW!"

But he didn’t move aside.

This time, he advanced.

The world slowed down.

Vergil disappeared from view for an instant—and reappeared at the center of the magic, piercing through the explosion like an arrow. The fairy’s energy burst around his body, trying to tear his flesh and soul apart... but there were no gaps.

Vergil appeared in front of Titania with his hand open.

Her eyes widened. "What—?"

And then he grabbed her.

With surgical precision, Vergil closed his hand around her, trapping her as if she were a small luminous insect. The aura that had previously swirled wildly around Titania imploded at the moment of contact.

Absolute silence.

No spell escaped. No flash exploded. Only the subtle sound of air being sucked in by the brutal, controlled force emanating from Vergil’s palm.

"Enough," he said, his voice low and grave. "You want to scream so badly... now scream in here."

He raised his hand with Titania trapped, and his aura changed.

The heat was gone. The fire disappeared. The light of the shadows increased.

And in its place came the cold of death.

Zuri, still on her branch, lost her breath. "Vergil... you’re not going to—"

But he had already done it.

His hand was enveloped by a dark, thick, spectral mist. An unnatural flow of energy that did not burn or cut—but drained. An ancient power, laden with curse and stillness, with spiritual dissolution. The kind of power that left no bodies, only absence.

The energy of death.

Titania screamed inside her clenched fist, but the sound was muffled. Her body glowed in spasms, her wings fluttering like those of a hummingbird under attack. The magical aura she carried was sucked away, pulled in incandescent threads into the mist surrounding Vergil’s hand.

"You’re going to hear this when you’re about to be killed..." he said, looking at his hand as if analyzing it. "It seems you’ve gone mad and forgotten that people are individualists." Her eyes flashed with restrained fury. "I’m not my fucking grandfather, and you’re no longer the fairy queen. Know your place."

Titania still struggled, but every second inside that grip slowed her movements. The fury that had once dominated her form was now replaced by pure panic.

"Y-you... are you going to... kill me?" she gasped, her voice barely audible, trembling like a candle on the verge of burning out.

Vergil looked at her for a moment. And then his expression softened... slightly.

"If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t be holding you with two fingers," he replied, and then—in one sudden movement—he released her.

Titania fell to the ground like a burnt petal. Weak. Empty. Gasping for breath. Her glow was dull, her wings trembled with effort, and she coughed as if she had inhaled black smoke.

Zuri ran down the tree and landed next to Vergil.

"You... well, you’re right to do that to her," Zuri said. "And to think that the Fairy Queen was here the whole time..."