Betrayal

Mira had never expected Lucius to say something like this. She knew what he meant by this, he was letting her take hold of the Amulet first.

Just from this Mira couldn't help but feel her love deepen for Lucius. She knew how much this entire ordeal meant to Lucius; it was his fifteen years of work, his only goal in life, his very conquest. For him, it was everything to obtain this amulet, yet he was allowing her to get it first.

'He trusts me so much… willing to sacrifice even this…' Mira thought to herself.

She smiled gently as she looked at the Amulet of Barrom that was manifesting in front of them. The amulet in question was rather mundane looking, it didn't even have a peculiar shape. It was a plain circular amulet that didn't even have any inscriptions on it.

Had it not been for the massive amount of demonic energy contained within it and the fluctuations coming off from it, Mira would have doubted that it was the mythic artifact that the Barrom clan had been looking for.

"Who would have thought something so powerful would be so… ordinary looking," Mira muttered as she extended her hand towards the amulet.

~Humm~

A humming sound was heard as Mira's hand held onto the Amulet of Barrom. She could instantly feel the demonic energy pouring into her body, restoring its stores of magic and also healing the injuries she had sustained during this mission.

"This is… just… amazing…" Mira uttered between the pleasure.

But then she suddenly heard something that shook her soul.

"Nitey…" Lucius uttered.

Mira could feel a foreign power assault her senses as her magic was being suppressed. The pleasure she was feeling from the Amulet's power was now turned into sheer pain.

"AAAAAAH!" Mira screamed.

Her face turned red and veins appeared in her eyes as she tried to fight against the power assaulting her.

She looked at Lucius, who was creating runes in the air and forming spell constructs. Mira could sense that the power that was assaulting her came from none other than from her lover Lucius.

"WHYYYY!!!" She yelled, while her heart broke to pieces.

She had never expected him to betray her at this moment. Not when she held the amulet in her hand.

"Because my love… that is not the true power of the amulet… there is still one more seal to go." He said while continuing on his task.

Mira finally understood that she was part of his plan all along. It was not his love or generosity because of which he had allowed her to obtain the Amulet of Barrom. No, rather it was because he knew something more, something that he kept from her.

"YOU! After all these years! The things that we went through! The memories we shared! Do they mean nothing to you?" Mira questioned with anger.

"I have always been honest with you. You've known what I am like, so why are you shocked now?" Lucius stated calmly.

Mira only became more enraged after hearing his answer. She knew what he had said was right, she had seen him sacrifice his companions, yet she thought that she would be the exception for him. Mira thought that his love made her the focal point, but that was utterly wrong.

He had always been using her. Now that she recalled those events that they went through, those conflicts, and how she used to make more time for him, sacrificed for him just so that he could progress; all of them were his machinations.

While Mira was going through her memories, Lucius was busy making the new spell constructs. The Amulet of Barrom would appear like a mundane looking artifact as he had calculated. It needed to be processed once again with another True Blood soul to make it show its true form.

This was the final test that the Ruins had for the seeker of the Amulet. If the seeker took the amulet just like that, while he would get power for a while, it would be limited by a great amount and the curse of the amulet would also activate.

To resolve all of this, Lucius needed to sacrifice another person and there was only one whose true name he knew, Mira or Nitey. She had in fact told him her True name herself a long time ago as a sign of trust. Lucius had asked her back then what she would do if he were to ever betray her.

At that time, her answer made him laugh.

"If you really betrayed me, I would just think it was worth it."

But now that was the very thing that was happening. He was sacrificing her for what he felt it was worth.

Lucius was nearly done with everything when the Amulet finally started changing its form. From its plain circular form, it transformed into an inverted pentagram. Its metallic form changed to a crystalline one, and the power coming from it increased as well.

A red glow ignited in the amulet and Lucius smiled upon seeing it.

"Finally…" He muttered with relief.

Mira was still stuck there, frozen in her position as she looked at him with spite in her eyes. Lucius extended his hand to take the amulet from Mira's hand. But then…

"NOO! You're not getting this. Not after all that we've been through." Mira said as she suddenly grasped his hand in a tight grip.

Lucius was startled by this, as he had not expected her to be able to move. Not to mention her strong grip that was like a vice pressing upon a sheet of metal.

"Since you want this amulet for power that would make you the strongest in the world, I'll take that away from you," Mira said, hatred dripping from her voice like venom off a snake's fang.

"NO! What are you doing!" Lucius shouted, now feeling afraid.

He didn't know why his spell constructs were not restraining her anymore. Even if the power of the amulet was less than its full potential, that was still enough to kill a few million people with ease, not to mention Lucius here alone.

'Where did I go wrong? Which calculation was it?' Lucius thought in his mind.

But in the real world, Mira continued speaking.

"I Nitey, sacrifice Ziyor my unborn to the Great Demon King Barrom. In exchange, may the soul of Lucius be forever unable to gain power in this world."