NOVEL NEXT Chapter 79: The Measure of Masks
There was no snow in the Capital that day. No hail fell from the sky, no howling winds to signal a cold snap. And yet, those gathered beneath the towering stages of the ceremonial plaza felt a chill ripple through their skin as if something ancient were brushing past them, unseen, but not unfelt.
Above the high-arched square, ten banners hung from curved poles shaped like horns and bones. Symbols of each noble devil faction, stitched in gold threads, a medley of colors, and illusion-lights, flapped in quiet cadence. The Pride Faction's crest, a burning lion of flame hovering over hellfire, hung highest at the rear, the host of today's event. Near it, but pointedly lower, the sigil of their rival faction, the silver mirror, its placement a silent insult.
The other banners, Jealousy's hateful eye, Pleasure's silver-rose fan, the Dream Faction's woven hourglass, swayed without comment.
At the center of the raised marble stage, upon a pedestal of velvet and stone, the blade Vanity rested in its sheath, untouched, waiting. Like a challenge dressed in courtly language. A blade said to only respond to one of Vainglory blood. A blade no one truly expected to change hands.
Then the crowd murmured, first quietly, then like a ripple in a pond.
Then came the moment everything shifted.
She didn't ride a steed. She didn't arrive in a palanquin or flanked by trumpeting heralds.
She walked. On the road like a commoner.
But not a soul had that thought.
Hannya, robed in a black kimono etched with pink rose petals and golden lining, emerged through the main gates with no escort but two figures. Shela, armored in muted froststeel, and Noh, gliding in silver-threaded powder blue.
The black veil across Hannya's face concealed everything but her eyes, two slow-turning petal-shaped irises of delicate pink, rotating in a steady clockwise rhythm.
The pink petals observed the square around her, unbothered and languid.
Even before she reached the base of the platform, the murmurs began again.
"Is that her? That's the one?"
"She's so small."
"She looks like a child."
"Why does she walk like she belongs here?"
"Where is her crest? Her faction's seal?"
"She has no sigil," someone whispered. "Just followers."
That was what unnerved them the most. She looked too young, too unimportant. But no one looked away.
She acknowledged no one, she walked with purpose, eyes fixed on the blade waiting patiently for her, for him.
As she ascended the ceremonial stairs, the trailing hem of her kimono whispered across the stone like water drawn over polished glass. The veil moved with her breath, delicate but unreadable. Her aura followed in subtle waves. Warm, quiet, and unplaceable. Her black horns shined with a red tint radiating a confidence of something born to be above all.
She stopped before Vanity.
One slender hand lifted, resting gently upon its hilt. Her fingers curled over it lightly. A gesture of contact, not possession.
"I have come." she said. Her voice rang out, smooth and clear, soft like silk across sharpened glass. "As requested. To accept a gift I did not ask for, and a gesture I will not return."
A murmur of gasps. Such words were a spit in the face for the hosts that had arranged this fanfare.
Someone scoffed. Another laughed nervously before Shela's eyes, cool and unflinching, shut them up.
Noh opened her fan and tilted it across her cheek, a curved smile just barely visible behind the folds.
Hannya turned to the crowd. The slow spin of her irises reflected slivers of light across the stone like pinched the sun's rays. She scanned each banner, lingering only an extra breath on the Pride Faction's pavilion, the hosts of this stage.
"You called me here to measure me," she said. "So measure."
She took a step back from the blade. Her arms folded beneath the long sleeves of her robe. The wind teased her veil, but nothing underneath was revealed.
"But be warned," she added, quieter now, yet somehow deeper in resonance, "what you weigh today may weigh on you tomorrow."
Not a muscle moved in the front rows, only accumulating tension as time went on.
Shela stood at her right hand, still as sculpted frost.
Noh merely flicked a cherry blossom from her shoulder.
And the sword, Vanity, remained untouched.
The sword remained still. The crowd hushed. But in the shaded balconies above, behind veils and enchantments designed to obscure expression, the great factions of Hellnia watched with sharp eyes and sharper intentions.
Ten seats had been prepared. Nine were filled.
The tenth, gilded in ivory bone and deep purple silks, bore the golden plate of Gula's Feast Faction, empty. It had remained so since the invitations were sent. No reply had come this time.
But Gula did not need to explain herself and none dare inquire.
But the others had come.
~~~
The
Pride
Faction -
Hosts of the Ceremony
Perched highest in the central pavilion, the lords of the Pride Faction leaned forward like judges over a stage. They had orchestrated this entire affair to remind Hellnia who held the measuring stick, and who did not.
High Lord Eronius watched with eyes narrowed, his fingers thrumming the arm of his chair.
"She has presence, I'll grant her that. But no house, no bloodline, no permission. A clever imp wearing borrowed poise."
Beside him, his advisor chuckled darkly. "Just like the one beside her, even clever, impure things can become inconvenient."
Eronius said nothing. He was watching her veil. Watching her eyes. The way they spun.
The
Mirror
Faction -
Pride's Rival
To the left of Pride sat their ancestral nemesis, the Mirror Faction, proud, bitter, and self-forged. Their highborn wore reflective silks and silver chains, and their expressions flickered like water.
Matron Iselai sipped from a glass chalice of devil prince wine and smiled faintly.
"So this is the one they tried to bury in rumor. I rather like her."
Her granddaughter scowled. "She insulted the sword."
"That sword insulted itself, child. She just pointed it out."
The
Dream
Faction -
Sloths in Bureaucracy
To the far right, veiled in pale blue and incense smoke, sat the Dream Faction, slow, ancient, methodical. They did not react outwardly. But their recording scribes had already begun etching her words in memory crystal.
Archon Vizras, skin marked with sleep-sigils, did not open his eyes.
He spoke slowly. "Too fast. Too young. Too unstable."
Another scribe nodded. "But watch how she froze the room. We must amend our threat models."
The
Jealousy
Faction -
Saboteurs in Silk
Behind mirrored curtains, the Jealousy Faction whispered among themselves. They wore no house crests, only eyes painted on the backs of their gloves and veils.
"She doesn't deserve that attention."
"She hasn't earned that blade."
"She walks like she's already won."
Their leader, a rail-thin devil named Vaskir, murmured, "Then let's remind her that admiration… can be stolen." He grinned.
The
Pleasure
Faction -
Charm and Politics
Wrapped in floral glamour and incense, the Pleasure Faction watched with fascination more than judgment.
Vequess, their envoy, fanned himself slowly.
"She's far too raw," he whispered. "But there's a rhythm in her movements. That's no accident."
His assistant murmured, "The elders acknowledge she's Luxuria-born."
Vequess tilted his head. "Then the garden has grown a wild rose."
He did not mention the political marriage being whispered in the inner halls. Not yet.
The
Love
Faction -
Idealists in Fracture
Seated together in light robes of pearl and crimson, the Love Faction's envoys remained unusually still. They had sent only two, a soft-voiced speaker and a full-veiled devil in polished white.
The speaker kept her hands folded and her voice low.
"That girl. She bears no warmth."
"She bears loyalty," the full-veiled devil replied. "But it's… fierce. Not gentle. Not guided."
The speaker looked away. "She was touched by one of ours. And one of ours left because of her."
Neither said Salitha's name.
But the wound was still there.
The
Hoard
Faction -
Devourers of Value
Gilded in treasure-colored threads, the Hoard Faction leaned back with disinterest. Their power came from stockpiles, from accumulation, not spectacle.
"Do you smell ambition?" their eldest muttered.
"Old ambition. New skin."
"She's not hunting gold," another added. "Which means she's dangerous."
The
Thief
Faction -
Covetous Shapeshifters
Masked in smooth bone-white hoods, the Thief Faction leaned forward, calculating.
"She's not like the others." said one.
"She wants nothing we can steal." another muttered.
Their matron, cloaked in vapor, hissed, "Then steal her thunder."
The
Decay
Faction -
Slow Rot and Patience
Cloaked in dust and soft chants, the Decay Faction merely observed. Their senior member, face veiled by dark-colored fabric, sighed gently.
"Quick flames burn out. Let her dance. We'll still be here."
Their patience was not laziness.
It was inevitability.
The
Feast
Faction -
Absent Monarch
Gula's chair remained empty.
But her absence was not weakness.
It was declaration.
~~~
As Hannya stood in silence before the blade, nine factions watched with sharpened minds and grinding wheels. Some saw a threat. Some saw a tool. Some saw a mirror.
And one, hidden among the courtiers, cloaked by no faction's banner, saw her as something else entirely.
A test. An order by their master.
But they were not testing her strength.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
They had prepared something else.
The plaza had gone quiet in the wake of Hannya's words. Not even the wind dared interrupt.
Then came a sharp thrum. Subtle, like the twang of a taut string being cut.
It pulsed from the marble beneath the ceremonial platform.
A sigil flared to life just behind the altar, unauthorized, unmarked by ceremonial approval.
Etched in violet, it spread like a spidery burn through the stone. The air around it warped slightly, casting ripples across the polished tiles.
The crowd stirred.
"Someone triggered a dueling seal."
"That wasn't approved."
The Pride Faction said nothing.
And that silence, intentional and controlled, confirmed the trap.
They allowed it.
A figure rose from the glowing sigil. Clad in ornate violet armor, rimmed in smoke-veined runes, the devil's face was hidden behind a polished helm. They carried a halberd inscribed with law-ink and submission glyphs, suggesting they were a ceremonial warrior, or at least disguised as one.
They stepped forward and spoke, their voice echoing across the plaza:
"By the rites of public challenge, I demand recognition. The blade Vanity cannot fall to a nameless outsider. Prove yourself."
From the elevated pavilions, confusion broke into murmurs. Some nobles whispered in disapproval. Others smirked behind their fans.
But in the center of the stone circle, Hannya didn't move.
Shela's hand instinctively reached for her weapon. "This wasn't agreed to."
Noh gently raised a hand. "Let her handle it."
Hannya tilted her head slightly, and for a moment, her eyes shimmered like moonlight, soft pink, shaped like petals, their slow clockwise spin catching the faintest glimmer of arcane light.
She exhaled once.
A thin layer of mist began to rise around her feet, not like the usual smoke or vapor. It sparkled faintly in the sunlight, like the shimmer of air on a hot stone. To most, it looked like nothing at all. A strange glint, a shimmer in the heat.
But it was dream mist, drawn from her [True Dream Body], the personal fissure housed in her devil core, connected to every cell in her body.
The challenger saw none of this.
They surged forward, halberd raised high, runes flaring.
Hannya raised her hand.
Snap.
The sound rang sharp across the platform.
The violet-armored devil froze mid-step.
Their weapon hung in the air, unmoving. A ripple distorted the edge of their armor, then another.
They blinked behind their helm.
The plaza was gone.
The crowd. The sword. The sun.
All replaced by darkness and rising petals, falling endlessly upward in reverse.
Ascending to an endless black expanse.
They were trapped in an illusion.
And they had no clue of the source.
From the outside, the effect was minimal.
One moment the challenger lunged forward. The next, they stood still, completely still, halberd raised, unmoving, silent. As if caught in a moment between seconds.
Gasps swept the audience.
"What did she do?"
"She didn't touch him."
"She used something. A sigil?"
"No. That was charm law. I-I think?"
Hannya walked past her frozen opponent without a glance. Her veil fluttered behind her, her stride punctuated by the faint clack of geta sandals on marble and the soft jingle of the golden anklets above them.
She never broke pace.
And then, she vanished.
Or rather, reappeared, in the blink of an eye, at the foot of one of the upper pavilions.
Several nobles jumped.
Hannya now stood before a man in muted ceremonial black, no faction crest, no formal title, just an old sigil etched into the collar of his coat. He had blended with the crowd until now, a nobody among powerful names.
But Hannya had walked straight to him.
Face still veiled. Hands behind her back.
"You tried to measure me through another." she said softly.
The man swallowed. His aura flared slightly, a knee-jerk defense.
"I-"
"You didn't believe I could hold a sword." she interrupted. "And so you gave one to someone else."
She tilted her head, the petals in her eyes reflecting his rising fear.
"That," she said, "was your last mistake of the day."
Hannya stood still there, her face hidden beneath the black silk veil, her body perfectly relaxed. But the man before her was anything but composed.
He tried to step back.
She didn't let him.
"Kneel," she said.
The word dropped like a hammer, no shout, no roar. Just a single syllable laced with command, thick with charm law so concentrated it struck through his aura like a lance dipped in honey and venom.
His legs buckled.
He hit the stone hard, grunting, his eyes wide.
"And identify yourself."
The charm aura rolling off her now was visible, dense, a pink miasma that moved like warm breath over skin. It coiled around his limbs, soaked into his robes, and slid into his mouth and nose like perfumed oil.
It invaded him.
Aura so tangible he gasped, choking on it.
Inside his chest, his devil core began to strain, its rhythms skipping as the parasitic charm infected it. Her will began to overwrite his, like honey poured into a flame, smothering everything but obedience.
He tried to resist.
But it wasn't brute domination. It was seductive possession. The same ancient art that once allowed Luxuria devils to enthrall entire noble courts and turn armies against themselves.
Now, that same overwhelming command, dignified, soft, but inescapable, clung to him like a second skin.
Shela stared down from the plaza, tense but still. Even she had not seen Hannya use this level of power, of control. Noh's smile didn't change, but she slid one polished fingernail down her fan in amusement.
In the pavilion of the Pleasure Faction, Vequess leaned forward.
"That aura…"
One of his attendants whispered, "It's too refined to be wild. She's… trained?"
Vequess frowned faintly. "No. Not trained. That's innate."
It was too close.
Too similar.
To their leader's.
"I… I am Raevik," the man finally gasped. His voice was cracking under her presence. His eyes bloodshot, his skin damp with sweat. "S-Sub-agent of the Jealousy Faction."
"Ah." Hannya's eyes blinked slowly behind her veil. "Not a surprise."
He continued through clenched teeth. "Vaskir, Lord Vaskir, wanted you exposed. Said no devil who hides behind charm and illusions should carry a weapon of Vainglory."
She cocked her head slightly, her tone still gentle. "And yet here you are, hiding behind illusions and charm, trying to carry my fate."
Raevik whimpered as the charm law started to burn away at the core of his devil energy.
He was just a three-star devil, his core couldn't deal with the dense mana and superior chi flooding it. It rattled violently deep within him.
"What's happening to me?"
"You're being rewritten," she whispered. "But don't worry. It won't last. I've no need of you any longer."
She lifted a hand, two fingers raised…
and snapped again.
Pop
There was no scream. Just a sudden explosion of rose-pink mist, splattered across the tiles in a wide, blooming pattern.
What remained of Raevik drifted down like blood-scented ash.
Several pavilions went utterly silent.
From the Jealousy Faction's seat, Lord Vaskir stood sharply, slamming his hand into the railing. "That was not an authorized execution!"
But he was drowned out by murmurs.
One by one, gazes began to shift, not to Hannya, but to the Pride Faction, who had allowed the unauthorized challenge in the first place.
High Lord Eronius sat back with his jaw clenched, watching the aftermath unfold with a tight grip on his cane.
And then came the shift.
Vequess, from the Pleasure Faction, quickly turned to his assistant and murmured, "Write another invitation. Have it ready."
The attendant blinked. "Another invitation, Lord Vequess?"
"To dine," he said smoothly. "And perhaps more. The Compact is rising. She is... viable."
In the Dream Faction's seats, Vizras's eyelids fluttered once before settling again.
"Immediate threat classification revised. Charm Law: Level Five or higher. Hybrid strain? Possibly divine-linked. Some Karmic Mutation? Too fast to tell…"
One of his scribes asked, "Do we oppose her?"
Vizras paused.
"We observe. Lets see if she remains... indifferent."
Even in the Love Faction's alcove, the speaker frowned.
"She could have spared him."
"She could have," said the full-veiled devil. "But mercy isn't always love."
The speaker did not reply.
But in the Mirror Faction, Matron Iselai chuckled behind her glass.
"Ah, little thorn," she whispered. "You bloomed faster than they expected."
The crowd remained silent as Hannya slowly returned to the ceremonial platform. She did not speak again. She did not acknowledge what had just occurred.
She simply turned her gaze to the sword Vanity, still untouched, still humming faintly.
And Vanity, for the first time, tilted in place, ever so slightly.
Not toward the host of the ceremony.
But toward her.
The sword Vanity no longer felt like a relic on display.
It pulsed.
It leaned in place, barely, but noticeably, angled toward Hannya as she ascended the steps once more.
She stood before it again. No words. No grand declaration.
Her hand touched the hilt.
And then, for the first time…
She felt it.
For just a moment, subtle and surreal, a pulse of acknowledgment. The sword at felt it when her aura flared. An energy only it could feel.
The traces of a forgotten lineage.
She was a priestess of a Vainglory.
A faint warmth traveled up her fingers, not from the steel, but from something deeper, the sword's purpose, echoing through its centuries of waiting. It did not bind to her, no. But it accepted her intent.
She wasn't here to wield it.
She was here to deliver it.
'You recognize him too.' she thought.
The sword responded, not in voice, but in understanding. It knew her conviction. Her destination. That this was not theft, but return.
'We both serve him.' she realized.
And in that moment, a second wave overtook her.
It struck her harder than expected.
She felt it, a blush behind her bones, a giddy shiver under her skin. A twisting warmth, not from victory, but from proximity to something that once felt impossible. She was now walking the same path, standing on the same ceremonial stage once meant only for heroes, for heirs, for him.
She imagined his ruined eyes opening, his heart remembering something forgotten. She imagined his hand, starved of meaning, reaching.
And she would hand him that meaning.
The thought made her breath tremble.
Her knees nearly buckled from the sensation that fluttered behind her navel.
And then…
DING
[Heart Trial 3: Submission – (Completed)]
A strange meal has enlightened your thoughts, leading you to a wonderful realization. Your wifely service can only be done by you and you alone. By plundering your beloved's fated weapon from the useless trash around you, your heart devil blood has triggered a heart trial for awakening. Your devotion has reached the threshold of ego death. You are a mere delivery girl and it only brings you to the apex of joy. In loving one forgotten by the world, you now stand as his memory. Your body, your soul, and your ambition will carry to him what he was denied. The ribbon is drawn.The red thread will now pull you through blood and time.
[Devil Physique is awakening…]
[An Entity has turned to you. A conflict has been witnessed and resolved. It then turns away.]
[Red Thread Heart(SS) - Unlocked]
Red Thread Heart: Your physique has mutated from Karmic Heart(S)(New) + True Dream Body(S) + Eye of the Blasphemer(S) + 6 Star Heart Devil. The Red Thread Heart only seeks the [Blocked by Auditor].
…
…
Her heart pulsed, once, then twice, before bursting with ribbons of pink and gold mist inside her inner world. The sensation that followed was not pain. It was ache. An ache soaked in longing, resolve, and the bloom of finally knowing:
She was no longer beneath him.
They stood, if only for a moment, on the same stage, the same strength, the same renown.
'Vainglory,' she thought, eyes wet behind the veil. 'I'll bring you your sword. And the world.'
Her body trembled with quiet anticipation.
She turned, sword still sheathed, and bowed her head once, to no one in particular.
A gesture not of humility, but completion.
The sword had chosen.
And Hellnia was watching.
~~~
Later that night.
Diplomatic estate, Capital Inner Ring.
The suite was luxurious, the kind typically reserved for ambassadors, foreign monarchs, or rogue saints seeking asylum. Hannya, Shela, and Noh had been housed here after the ceremony by the Capital Council's polite insistence. A show of hospitality, or a leash of gold.
Velvet drapes, warm baths, and wine flows marked the hours. Yet Hannya sat near a small altar at the far end of the room, staring at a large cloth-covered object propped against the wall.
Noh lounged nearby, brushing her hair out. Shela sat cross-legged on the floor, oiling her gear.
None of them spoke.
Until Hannya did.
"I'll use it tomorrow."
Noh raised a brow. "The mirror?"
Hannya nodded. "I want to see one of them. Uninvited."
Shela looked up. "Which faction?"
"One that continues to scheme against me," she said. "That ends now."
Her hand lightly touched the outer cloth covering Narcissus' Envious Mirror, a seven-foot slab of black marble with a faint, gold-glassed sheen beneath the wrap. A relic of an extinct bloodline. A cursed window.
She smiled slightly.
"I want to see who smiles back when I appear."
~~~
Across the capital
The ceremonial gathering had broken like a tide. But ripples remained in every political house.
In the private vaults of the Pride Faction, High Lord Eronius stared at a family tapestry. The blade Vanity had once hung above it. His teeth ground.
"The Vainglory line was a branch of ours," he muttered. "Not hers."
"And yet," said his attendant, "she now carries their relic."
~~~
At the Jealousy faction, Vaskir's candle lit office lay silent, only a half written letter and a quill on the floor. Ash scattered lazily out the open window.
No one bothered to look for him that night. No one cared.
~~~
In the Mirror Faction's quarters, Matron Iselai lit a perfumed candle.
She handed a letter to an attendant, who swiftly received it and left.
Her heir raised an eyebrow at her actions. She knew who that letter was for.
"To her mountain?" her heir asked.
"No. To her cook," she replied, smiling thinly. She had already sensed that old, peculiar mirror law. "A rising faction needs taste, doesn't it?"
~~~
In the Love Faction, the full-veiled devil stared at the empty bed where Salitha once slept.
He didn't say a word.
~~~
In the Pleasure Faction, Vequess read the invitation again.
"She might not even open it." his assistant whispered.
"Oh, she will," Vequess replied, eyes sharp. "A devil like that always tastes the bait, before deciding who gets eaten."
~~~
Back at the estate, Hannya lay beneath silken sheets, not yet asleep.
She could still feel the pulse of the sword wrapped beside her, like a second heartbeat echoing her own. She held it tighter.
And deep within her devil heart, the red thread had begun to pull and unwind.