Chapter 192: 192. Scheme against the Schemer

William looked at Edward for a few moments before he moved to the side, patted a hand on his shoulder, and exited the hall, leaving Edward sweating in strange nervousness.

Edwards’s breathing had hitched as he had seen William’s figure pop out of nowhere; his heart beat like a drum.

He felt like he had been caught, but he couldn’t prove it to himself somehow; his brain wanted to sideline it as a coincidence.

Eventually, the figure of William left the corridor as the echoes of his footsteps faded out in the background.

Sweat dripped from Edward’s forehead, and he wiped it from the back of his uniform’s cuffs before proceeding towards where he was headed.

William, in the meantime, entered his dorm and locked his door. After making sure that there was no one attempting to lurk inside, he shut the curtains and proceeded to change into his normal clothes.

Once that was done, he entered the domain of the infinite and floated high in the sky; with a flash, he arrived above the hellish demonic point he had made for Amorphous, but which now was being used for keeping Arwen here.

Due to the time difference between the outside and inside the domain, from Arwen’s perspective, many days had passed inside as he had been trapped inside the hellish pit.

Right now, William could see the panicked figure huddled in a corner.

William had already decided what he would do, he had not gotten the chance to do what he wanted earlier in the cafeteria, for which he had intercepted Edward later in the training facility.

When William had looked at Edward’s figure, he had used the mental curse ability that was provided by his omniscient eyes talent.

He had also used the talent to intimidate Edward and had left him sweating.

In the novel, till the part William had read, Edward had not died in the story; neither had the Sinclair duchess.

In fact, Maximus had been killed by Ethan when he had started attacking normal innocent people.

At his death, the duchess had revealed herself in front of Maximus. During his last breath, she had come and revealed her scheme in his ears, along with her collusion with the demonic cults.

At that point in the novel, the author had revealed the true nature of Sinclair Duchess to the readers; she and Edward had been introduced as characters who loved to witness fear, suffering, conflict, and chaos.

The duchess had reveled in the last painful cries of Maximus.

To William, who was the reader, he had cursed the duchess and not just her but also Maximus for falling into her trap and for wasting the potential of his talent on useless things.

He could have achieved revenge for his mother, and even though his target had been that, the only mistake he had made was trusting the demonic cults more than his own ability.

Although recent actions of Maximus had made Will realize that there were many more layers to Maximus’s character than the one-dimensional representation in the novel.

William had now decided to help Maximus because Maximus had come to him, he had acknowledged his mistake and identified his real enemies.

William knew that he had assisted him in all this; yet, there was something he couldn’t point out about Maximus that he couldn’t ignore.

Max was not acting like William had expected him to at all.

He was being humble, honest, and insecure just like a normal person would, and for that, William had decided to involve himself in his matters; he wanted to see what more undisclosed events had happened that the author hadn’t revealed in the orignal book that had led to Maximus becoming a pawn in the duchess’s hands.

And definitely many more secrets were hiding in the Sinclair house than William had earlier acknowledged.

What had triggered this decision was the murky and grim halo around Arwen, which had seemed to be connected to Edward’s own much darker and sinister halo.

The possibility was that Edward was using something to affect Arwen’s mind, and no ability or artifact like this had been revealed to be in the hands of Edward or the duchess in the actual novel ’Saga of the God Slayer.’

According to what William had read, Edward was supposed to possess a C-ranked swordsmanship talent, and his venomous tongue was supposed to be just a natural behavioral trait inherited from his mother.

But as things had unfolded before William, this was clearly not the case.

William looked at Arwen’s figure from high above the sky and noticed the murky halo around Arwen amplified; William was surprised at how the halo’s size increased inside the domain.

[The murky energy around Arwen is festering on something; it is parasitic in nature. That is why even after the proximity with Edward being cut off, the halo has still grown so much worse.The ability must be sustaining itself on maybe his thoughts or his mind.]

William activated his shapeshifter talent and turned into Edward. He descended from the sky and landed in the hellish pit with a thud.

Arwen’s huddled figure looked up at Edward, and a light of hope appeared in his eyes.

“Edward!!” he rushed forward; his hair had long been unwound and covered his forehead, and the rough condition of the pit made him look like a beggar.

“Edward, you are here; let’s leave here. Do you know how to leave this pit? I can’t leave; there seems to be a barrier blocking me.” Arwen spoke hurriedly in panic.

William tried to calm him down; his natural acting talent worked to mimic Edward’s body language and voice, and even though there were a few holes in his acting, Arwen didn’t care, for the past few months, loneliness and panic had clouded his mind.

“Calm down; first, tell me how you ended up here,” he asked

“I don’t know.” At this point, Arwen cried in a shrill voice, “I was in the cafeteria, then I saw clouds, and then I woke up here!!”

“Hmm, do you know what?? I think it was William’s doing. You know, when you challenged him to a duel, that coward attacked you sneakily from behind.”

“WHAT!!!??” Arwen exclaimed, and then fury overtook his expression.

William noticed the murky halo around Arwen start growing rapidly, so much so that its growth was visible to his eyes.

[Edward’s words are triggering this parasitic curse in Arwen.]

“Arghh!! Shit, I will kill him!!!” Arwen gritted his teeth and shouted while punching the walls of the pit.

He then turned around and held William’s shoulders. “Edward, we have to deal with him!! What you said earlier was absolutely right; he has been controlling Seraphine using a nasty ability!! And look what he did to me; we have to report this to the academy; he is a threat.”

Edward, in front of Arwen, nodded. “Yes, but I think the threat is much more serious. Look at that.”

Edward pointed at a footprint inside the pit.

It was the footprint of amorphous, and now it was emitting strong residual demonic energy.

“It seems that William has been colluding with the demons.”

Arwen looked at the mark, and his eyes widened. “Oh god!! He is a traitor!!” He then looked at the duplicate Edward. “We have to kill him, Edward. We have to save everyone. He is a cultist!!” He must be plotting an attack on the academy soon.”

[At this point he has been so affected by Edward’s ability that he failed to notice the footprint while living here for almost a few weeks, and he isn’t even trying to question Edward about how he found the demonic pit; his mind has truly been corrupted; he is being easily triggered by Edward’s words and is not questioning them at all.]

“Yeah, truly a pity,” William sighed in his mind; all the mood for revenge and killing died down. This man was already on the path to absolute ruin, and the irony is that Arwen considered Edward a friend.

William thought for a moment and made his decision.

As Edward, he looked at Arwen. “Arwen, you are right; we must kill William, and we must do it discreetly.”

“After we arrive at the academy, don’t talk to me about this since we are being monitored all the time.”

“Here.” William took out a black demonic seed and handed it to Arwen.

“This is a demonic seed. I found it in the possession of the cultist we recently hunted on our mission. Keep this with you. When you are asked why you killed William, just show them this. Tell them that William offered you this and asked you to join the Amon cult.”

“Also, tell them that he was colluding with the Amon cult and all the heroic killing of space mage Vorin was staged by demon lord Amon to place William as an undetectable spy in the academy.”

Arwen looked at the demonic seed with wide eyes while William, who stood as Edward, spoke in his mind.

“Edward is going to cry.”

[Will he get happy hearing his own cries? like he does to others.]

“If he is a masochist, then yeah.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep