{Chapter: 91: Doctrine Boring Life}
In Dex's eyes, a fourth-circle mage was a candle against a storm. A spark to be extinguished with a breath. He had met archfiends whose gaze could annihilate ten such mages with no more effort than blinking.
And yet, from such weaklings came inspiration.
It was ironic. Tragic, even. But Dex had long since made peace with the hypocrisy of it.
Their bodies were pitiful. But their ideas…? Occasionally worthy of theft.
As he continued down the street, the faint trail of death-flowers in his wake turned heads and spread whispers.
And yet no one dared stop him.
Not even the instructors.
As long as something has a physical form, Dex could transform it into a Death Flower. Whether it was a brittle twig, a metallic blade, or even the bones of a long-dead creature, they could all be twisted by his will. The only difference lay in how durable the object was and how much of his power he needed to expend to transform it.
But now, that no longer mattered much.
This was monumental for Dex, not just as a technical advancement, but as a spiritual milestone. It symbolized that his erosion of the material world was becoming easier, more fluid. He no longer needed blood rituals or sacrificial offerings to corrupt or warp reality. The act of transformation had become a mere extension of his intent.
He rotated the flower between his fingers, admiring its crimson red petals and shadowy core. The scent was faint, more memory than smell—like the whisper of lavender carried by a dying breeze.
After some time, he raised the flower and passed it forward, saying with a languid smile, "For you."
At some point during his moment of reflection, a cold and strikingly beautiful woman had arrived. She stood silently, adorned in a black robe that cloaked her form entirely except for her face. Her skin was ivory-pale, almost ethereal, with dark, calculating eyes. A faint gray mist spiraled around her like smoke from an unseen fire, giving her an air of danger and mystery.
She didn't take the flower.
Instead, she pointed to the field of death blooms that had spread in a wide arc around them, staining the ground with their otherworldly hues. Her voice was clipped, cold as steel:
"No. I think you should clean up this pile of poisonous things. This isn't the Forbidden Forest, where you can do as you please. You're near a residential zone. These are potent toxins to common wizards, and they could cause irreversible contamination."
Dex blinked, then chuckled softly, as if the idea of danger to others amused him.
To her, his smile was like watching a predator yawn—casual, unconcerned, but deeply unsettling.
"Trouble for others?" Dex mused, as though tasting the idea. "How quaint. But since you asked so politely..."
He raised his hand lazily and snapped his fingers.
Instantly, the flowers ignited with blood-red fire. The flames danced across the blooms in patterns that defied logic, illuminating the street in surreal hues. It was not a destruction so much as an ascension—the flowers didn't burn, they blossomed into light, their petals flaring into crimson brilliance before vanishing entirely. The air shimmered in the aftermath, the scene too beautiful to be real, too dreamlike to last.
The woman hesitated, visibly stunned by the spectacle.
Seizing the moment, Dex leaned closer and gently tucked the last Death Flower into the edge of her hood, just above her ear. He spoke with casual elegance:
"Destruction is inevitable in this world, wouldn't you agree? If something must perish, why not let it die beautifully? It's a beautiful scene, isn't it? If destruction is unavoidable, I think it's better to make it look more gorgeous. There is nothing negative about this flower. I hope you like it. After all, it is always appropriate to give beautiful flowers to beautiful women."
Then, without waiting for a response, he turned and strolled down the street, his boots tapping rhythmically on the stone path.
A tune escaped his lips—a haunting melody, a slow, rising hymn that belonged to no known language. It was an old folk song from a nameless region long swallowed by time. But in Dex's voice, it carried a spectral majesty, the kind that echoed in memory long after the sound had faded.
In recent years, Dex had taken to the arts. Despite his nature as a demon, or perhaps because of it, he had pursued painting, sculpture, and music with almost obsessive dedication. He projected avatars into distant lands and enrolled them into prestigious guilds and schools, always under aliases. It didn't take long before he stood at the pinnacle of the art world. Collectors wept over his canvases, and entire fortunes were exchanged for a single composition.
Art, to Dex, was another form of domination. Another way to impose his will on the world.
Of course, he didn't neglect his nature entirely.
In his day-to-day life, Dex still ate well, drank luxuriously, and slept soundly. From time to time, he took it upon himself to "balance" the world. Sometimes that meant cutting down those who pretended to be righteous. Other times, it meant lifting up those considered scum. Morality was a toy to him, something he twisted to amuse himself.
But no matter how much pleasure he extracted from these indulgences, a kind of spiritual ennui crept in.
He found himself sighing more often.
He wondered if this was the natural boredom of the apex predator—the one who had no real challenges left. Everything was too easy. The world unfolded before him like a book he had already read.
At times, he even joked to himself: "If I were the protagonist of this story, shouldn't more enemies be showing up? Shouldn't I be hunted, hated, or plotted against?"
But reality remained silent.
No secret councils, no holy avengers, no cursed champions had emerged to oppose him.
"Maybe I'm not the main character after all," he muttered once, standing atop a ruined bell tower as night swallowed the sky. "Or maybe the author got bored halfway through."
He chuckled to himself, but there was no real amusement in it.
It was a laugh to fill the silence.
And silence, he was beginning to learn, was the one thing he truly feared.
*****
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