Chapter 464: Queen of Sluts

The forest seemed to absorb every word, as if the place itself thrived on human interaction—or, in this case, something close to it. The twisted trees remained still, while a thick mist seeped between the roots, like curious fingers trying to feel the ground.

Vergil, now with Titania at eye level, let the silence stretch just long enough for her to begin squirming, trying to break his grip. His fingers, though firm, didn’t crush; the firmness lay more in intention than physical strength.

“Locate yourself,” he said, as if asking for something as simple as a drink of water. “And tell us where we should go.”

Titania looked at him as if he’d just asked her to hand over her own crown. Her expression was a mixture of disbelief and disdain.

“Me? Locate myself to help you? HA!” She threw back her head with an exaggeratedly arrogant laugh. “You don’t understand, mortal. I don’t work under the orders of… people like you.”

Zuri, still in snake form on Vergil’s shoulder, arched a look of pure boredom at the fairy. “It’ll be fun to watch,” she muttered softly.

Vergil, for his part, simply closed his eyes for a second and, in a slow gesture, brought his free hand to his own head. He grabbed her by the top, cupping her tiny skull with his fingers, and began rocking her from side to side, as if shaking a small, malfunctioning part to see if it would work again.

“STOP! STOP! STOP IT!” Titania screamed, her wings trying to flap, but the movement only made her voice tremble in an almost comical way.

Vergil stopped abruptly. His golden eyes fixed her like silent blades. And then, without changing his tone, he spoke:

“Get to work… you slutty queen.”

Titania’s eyes widened. For a moment, she seemed to forget how to breathe.

“YOU—YOU—YOU UNTITLED WORM! YOU’RE GOING TO—”

She didn’t finish. Vergil grabbed her right leg, lifting her like a clumsy toy, and began spinning. Not fast enough to hurt, but fast enough to turn the fairy’s vision into a blur of trees, sky, and ground, repeating at high speed. She screamed with each turn, her voice rising and falling like an untuned chime.

“STOP! STOP! FOR THE LOVE OF THE STARS, STOP!”

Vergil obeyed. He released her just enough for her to hang upside down, gasping and dizzy, her hair flying.

“Work, Queen of Sluts.”

She tried to regain her composure, but she was still wobbling in the air. She took a deep breath and, with an almost theatrical sigh, replied:

“I can’t! Are you stupid, or are you just insisting? This forest… has a Displacement Matrix! A spell so ancient that not even I can undo it! It’s designed to confuse, disorient, and imprison anyone who enters. Even someone of my level can’t simply… leave.”

The following silence wasn’t one of disbelief. It was one of pure assessment. Vergil didn’t blink, didn’t comment, just watched her as if weighing every word she spoke and deciding whether they were lies, half-truths, or an involuntary confession.

“Then you’re useless.” The sentence came out as a sentence, dry and definitive.

“I—NO—am useless!” she replied immediately, her eyes flashing. “I can…at least…locate any enemy within a ten-kilometer radius. If you want to survive, I can tell you what’s coming, where from, and with how many.”

Vergil tilted his head. His fingers moved, moving from her leg to her translucent wings.

Titania froze.

“No. No. Don’t touch that. If you damage it, I—” Her voice was strangled, more from fear than anger. “This is… all I am. Without wings… I’m nothing.”

Zuri, from his shoulder, watched with clinical interest. “She’s not lying. Faerie wings are literally part of their souls.”

“Great,” Vergil said, as if he’d just found a pair of pliers in a toolbox.

“GREAT?!” Titania nearly choked. “You’re a psychopath!”

“No,” he corrected. “I’m efficient.”

The way he held her wings wasn’t aggressive, but there was a calculated, almost scientific pressure—enough to remind her she could rip them off in a second, but not enough to cause pain… yet. His eyes were cold, but the gesture conveyed a crueler message: he didn’t have to hate her to destroy her.

Titania took a deep breath, trying to regain control. Her voice was lowered, but still thick with defiance. “If you let me help, I can make the crossing less… deadly. But if you keep treating me like a broken toy, you’ll end up alone… or dead.”

Rize, who had been watching silently until then, took a step forward. Her gaze fixed on the fairy like that of a predator finding a wounded animal. “That’s it, beg my master to live. That’s how it should be… My master is supreme.”

Vergil didn’t answer immediately. He leaned in a little closer, his face so close to Titania’s that she could feel his breath.

“Ten kilometers,” he repeated, as if searing the promise into her mind. “Nothing less. And if you try to cheat…” The pressure on her wings increased for a second, enough to make her tremble. “…you’ll discover what it means to lose more than freedom.”

He released her. The fairy fell lightly, flapping her wings in a desperate reflex to steady herself in the air. She glared at him, but there was something new mixed in: caution. Maybe even fear.

Vergil turned his back, as if the conversation were over. “Let’s go.”

Titania followed, but now a few meters away, her wings emitting a barely perceptible glow as she began to track the energy around her. Even trying to maintain her queenly posture, her voice wavered slightly as she spoke:

“There are three… no. Four presences… to the west. Approaching slowly. They don’t look human. They don’t look like… anything I’ve ever seen.”

Zuri looked at Vergil, her tail swaying slightly. “Maybe she’s not so useless after all.”

Vergil kept pace. “We’ll see about that.”

Rize smirked, keeping pace. The distant sound of footsteps—or something equivalent to footsteps—began to blend with the rustling of leaves and the heavy breathing of the forest. Titania, even trying to maintain what remained of her dignity, glanced over her shoulder every two seconds.

“If those things get too close…” she began.

Vergil didn’t look back. “You’ll tell me first.”

The fairy frowned. “And if I don’t?”

He finally turned his head, his golden eyes meeting hers for a brief moment. There was no anger, no verbal threat—just a heavy silence, filled with the kind of certainty that made her body react on its own, her wings shrinking reflexively.

“…understood,” she murmured, barely audible.