Chapter 463: Faithful Squire

The forest seemed quieter now.

Vergil walked ahead with slow, steady steps. His eyes took in everything, but unhurriedly. His expression was as neutral as marble, impossible to read. On his shoulder, Zuri, in her snake form, coiled, her body relaxed but her eyes alert.

Behind, walking a few meters away, came Rize—graceful, almost dancing among the twisted branches and thick fog. Her footsteps made no sound. Every time she looked at Vergil, her eyes shone with an almost… reverent glow.

Zuri curled her body a little tighter around his neck, and then spoke, making no attempt to hide the concern in her tone:

“Are you sure… we can just leave it like this?”

Vergil turned his head slightly, his eyebrow raised. “What?”

Zuri let out a short, sharp breath. “You don’t think… you’ve created a problem?”

He resumed walking, as if the question held no weight. But she answered anyway.

“What problem?” Zuri, her eyes narrowed, looked from Vergil to Rize—who was currently staring at some moss glowing a strange color—and smiled at the sight of him.

“Vergil… you really don’t notice things, do you?”

He cast a sidelong glance at her, and then at Rize—who, realizing they were both talking about her, lifted her head with a radiant smile.

She spoke with a sweetness as sharp as silk: “With your permission, master… I’d like to say that you are perfect. Never change.”

Zuri squirmed, muttering something under her breath like, “My god… what a lovely hell.”

The snake on her shoulders tapped the tip of its tail against Vergil’s cloak, as if trying to forcefully get his attention.

“That. Is. The. Problem,” she said, each word firmer than the last. “She adores you. Blindly. And you seem to enjoy it.”

Vergil replied emotionlessly, “She’s loyal.”

“No!” Zuri drew herself up higher, her face now close to his. “This goes beyond loyalty. She’s not your ally. She’s not your follower. She’s a satellite circling you as if you were the only star in her universe. This…” she gestured with her tail, “…this is dangerous.”

“To whom?” Vergil asked, his voice low.

Zuri stared at him seriously. “To her. To you. To what you might become if this continues to escalate the wrong way.”

Vergil paused.

The sound of the forest ceased for a moment. As if everything was waiting for his answer.

He looked at Rize, who was standing a few steps behind, watching them with wide, hopeful eyes.

“You speak as if she were weak,” he said, turning to Zuri.

“I speak as if she were alive,” Zuri retorted. “She wasn’t born worshipping you. It was… absorbed. Developed. But it’s something that can break.”

Vergil seemed to ponder. Long seconds passed.

Rize, silent, then took a step forward. “Master… may I say something?”

Vergil nodded.

She stepped a little closer, eyes downcast.

“I understand Lady Zuri’s concern,” she said sincerely, without sarcasm. “But I’m not tied to you. I… chose Master, so please remain silent and just ignore me. After all, the only one bothered here who could speak is my Master. He’s not here. So be quiet.” Rize’s gaze nearly swallowed the small snake.

Zuri stopped moving.

For a moment, the silence was so thick it seemed to weigh down the branches of the surrounding black trees.

The small snake around Vergil’s neck slowly raised its head. The eyes, previously merely watchful, now burned with something closer to fury.

“Repeat that, slowly,” Zuri hissed, her tone as cold as a blade dipped in poison. “Because the first time it seemed you forgot who you were talking to.”

Rize didn’t back away. Instead, she took another step forward, her body erect, her eyes shining. The mist curled slightly around her as if acknowledging her firmness.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Lady Zuri. I respect you,” she said, her voice still soft, but firm as a rock. “But I don’t answer to you. I am my master’s creation, and it was to him that I gave my loyalty. Not to the shadow on his shoulders.”

Zuri gritted her teeth. Tiny lilac sparks flashed around her reptilian eyes. But Vergil slowly raised a hand, a gesture that said more than any words: Enough.

The two fell silent.

Vergil, still standing in the center between them, turned his head, looking first at Zuri, then at Rize. There was no anger. No surprise. Just that silence of his—sharp, absolute, that always came before something important.

“Zuri,” he began, his voice low and nonjudgmental. “You’ve been with me for a long time. You’ve seen what happens to the weak in this world. Including me.”

Zuri didn’t answer. Her body, previously tense, was still erect, but she waited.

“And Rize isn’t weak.”

Rize smiled, even without looking directly at him. But Vergil continued:

“However…” he turned his golden eyes toward the spider, “…that doesn’t give you license to spit on my frame. And Zuri is part of my frame.”

Rize bowed her head with a nod, without arguing. “Yes, master. I’m sorry.”

Zuri snorted, but now with a little less venom in her tone.

Vergil then crossed his arms and resumed walking, his cloak billowing with an almost hypnotic movement. Zuri slid back to her place on his shoulders, but still gave Rize one last withering look before curling up again.

Rize followed behind as always. But now… there was a difference in the air. Something sharp. A kind of tension that stemmed not from ordinary rivalry, but from incompatible ideologies trying to coexist under the same name: Vergil.

A few minutes passed.

The sound of the forest, previously absent, began to return strangely—not as natural music, but as something… distorted. Whispers in the branches. The crackling of roots moving underground. The forest watched. It listened.

Vergil stopped in front of a tree that seemed to have grown twisted around itself, as if struggling to exist.

“We’re still being followed,” he said calmly, as if talking about the weather.

Zuri hissed cautiously.

“It seems destroying her Ozob has made her quite nervous,” Vergil replied, with a slight ironic sneer. “How about… we scare her?”

Rize glanced over her shoulder, her eyes narrowing. Something was moving in the shadows. Something that walked soundlessly, but weighed heavily on the world like a presence that didn’t belong.

Vergil was still staring at the twisted tree before him, but his voice was directed back, clear as cold steel being drawn from its sheath.

“Rize,” he ordered, without even turning around. “Scare our little spy fairy.”

Zuri’s serpentine eyebrows arched, almost in surprise. “Really?” he hissed. “Are you just going to let her go?”

But Rize had already bowed, an elegant curtsy, one arm crossed over her chest and the other extended slightly to the side, like a dancer about to open the show.

“As you wish, master,” he replied with a soft smile on his lips. “I’ll be right back.”

In an instant, she vanished.

There was no sound. There was no tremor. Just a sudden absence. As if the space she was in had regretted sheltering her and returned her to the chaos that had shaped her.

Vergil remained where he was, his eyes fixed on the forest ahead. The air seemed to grow heavier by the second. Zuri remained still, but not relaxed. She sensed—as only a creature of serpentine intuition could sense—that what was coming would be… uncomfortable.

And it did.

A few minutes passed, or perhaps seconds stretched by the density of the silence.

And then, like a crack in reality, the sound emerged: the sudden crack of a tree breaking, branches flying, a muffled scream, and a hiss like a flame igniting in the void.

Vergil turned his face just as Rize emerged from the mist.

She wasn’t walking. She floated inches off the ground, her legs extended gracefully, as if each step were a silent declaration of supremacy. But what truly held his gaze… was what she carried with her.

Rize held Titania. By the wing.

Not brutally. She hadn’t torn or injured her. But there was a surgical firmness in her gesture—like someone holding a shard of porcelain, extremely valuable yet too fragile to be respected.

The fairy struggled, flailing her arms, and kicked like a child suspended in midair by one ear. Her hair floated like liquid light, and tiny sparks of magic escaped her as she writhed.

“LET GO! YOU DESTROYED SPIDER! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO I AM!” Titania screamed, her high-pitched voice reverberating almost comically among the dead trees. “I AM A QUEEN! A FAIRY GODDESS! A LEGENDARY WARRIOR—”

“Yes, of course,” Rize interrupted calmly, looking at Vergil while still holding the fairy by the threads of light that formed the base of her right wing. “I found our pursuer hiding inside a hollow log fifty meters away. She was trying to mask her magical signature with the essence of dead leaves. Very clever.”

Vergil held out his hand without even looking back.

Rize, with inhuman elegance, complied immediately. With a delicate, firm movement, she picked up Titania by the waist as if she were an irritating doll and placed her in her master’s open palm.

The fairy writhed furiously, her eyes blazing with indignation and her face flushed with rage.

“YOU, YOU BASTARD—!”

“Shut up,” Vergil snapped, his voice so cold and sharp it seemed to freeze the air. “Before I rip off your wings and shove them down your throat. Come on. Onward.”

“I WON’T—!”

Vergil didn’t wait. His gaze narrowed, and the magical pressure around him rose like a silent, oppressive tide.

“I will kill you if you keep following me. So… you will come with me. Alive.”

Titania froze. A chill ran down her spine. It wasn’t a threat uttered on a whim. It was a sentence. And Vergil wasn’t known for saying anything he didn’t intend to follow through with.

She swallowed. She crossed her arms. Muttered something indecipherable. And fell silent.

Vergil held her for only a second longer before simply dropping her to the ground, as if discarding an uncomfortable item, and turned to continue walking.

But before he took the first step, his hand rested on Rize’s hair.

“Good job.”

His fingers gently ran through her strands, brief, but with a tenderness rare for him. It was a simple gesture. Almost insignificant. But coming from Vergil… it was as if the world had stopped for a moment to watch.

Rize froze. And then smiled.

A sweet, genuine, almost childlike smile. His eyes shone as if they were the only source of light in the opaque, oppressive forest. And for a moment—a brief, pure moment—everything in her seemed to say:

“I would do anything for this moment.”