My Wives are Beautiful Demons Chapter 540: And you want me to feel sorry?

Vergil remained still, staring at her. Her words sounded as if each syllable had been chosen to pierce and seduce at the sa ti.

"Your personal forest..." he repeated in a low, almost mocking tone. "So all that spectacle was just to lure here?"

Qliphoth lifted the cup again, swirling the red liquid in lazy movents. The viscous sound echoed like a muffled whisper.

"Spectacle?" She smiled, exposing teeth that were too white, too beautiful. "I’d say it was entertainnt. It’s rare to see mortals and immortals bleed with such fervor inside . Most just writhe and die quickly. You, on the other hand... you like to dance on the edge of the blade."

Vergil leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. His smile returned, cold and slanted.

"And you like to watch."

"Naturally." Qliphoth shrugged, as if it were obvious. "My roots run beneath this world, Vergil. I see, feel, and hear more than you can imagine. Your arrogance, your desires, your hunger... all of it pulses like a drum within my very being."

Vergil arched an eyebrow, feigning disinterest. "So you watch like a lab rat?"

"Rat?" Qliphoth tilted her head to the side, and for the first ti, the shadow of her hat revealed one of her eyes. It glowed an incandescent amber, like molten gold. "No," she said in a deep whisper. "A wolf. A wolf who hasn’t yet realized his pack was never his."

The words sank deep, but Vergil didn’t allow his face to betray anything. He laughed dryly.

"And what would you be? The forest? The hunter?"

"I am the world that decides whether the wolf deserves to hunt," she replied without hesitation. "The difference between your hunger and my existence is that I don’t need to fight for territory. I am the territory."

The tension in the air grew, as if the surrounding forest leaned even closer to the island, breathing with them.

Vergil drumd his fingers on the table, looking her in the eye. "Then let’s cut the taphors. If you brought here, it wasn’t for tea."

Qliphoth leaned forward, and for a mont the veil of her hat allowed her face to be almost revealed. The red skin, the full lips, the perfect jawline—beauty and monstrosity in a symtry that hurt the mind.

"Maybe I just want to see how long you can take before you break," she said in a soft, cruel tone. "Maybe I want to rip off your mask of bravery and see what’s left. Or maybe... I want to invest in you."

Vergil narrowed his eyes. "Invest?"

"Of course." She rested her chin on her hand, smiling. "Kings, gods, warriors... they’ve all always co to seeking power. They’ve all promised worlds, empires, eternity. But you..." her voice dropped to a whisper that seed to caress his skin, "you don’t ask. You take."

Vergil didn’t answer. He just kept his gaze fixed, as if daring the entity itself to continue.

Qliphoth then set down the cup. The tallic sound against the table echoed like a bell, and in that instant, the surrounding trees trembled, the lake of blood bubbled, and roots rose into the horizon like gigantic snakes.

"I’ve been curious since the mont you entered my forest," she said, her tone changing from a joke to a sentence. "I wanted to see if that stupid god’s heir was truly nothing more than an arrogant boy."

Vergil growled softly. "Keep calling that, and you’ll find out what I really am. I’m no one’s heir, I’m just ." I don’t speak for Lucifer, and he’s never done anything for . And what the hell is this about calling him the Demon God? A God doesn’t die so pathetically.

She laughed. A rich, full sound that made the entire forest tremble.

"That’s it!" she exclaid, clapping her hands softly. "That’s the spirit. That’s the blood that makes you different. The others crawl. You bite."

Vergil leaned forward, resting his elbows on the dark tal table. His eyes blazed, reflecting the red of the surrounding lake. His patience was wearing thin.

"I’ve heard enough beautiful talk." His voice was deep, firm, like the sound of a blade being unsheathed. "But I didn’t co all this way to listen to the ravings of a tree. I want one thing only: territory. I want this ground, this domain, to claim as my own."

Qliphoth didn’t move. She simply lifted the cup again, bringing it to her black-painted lips. She sipped the liquid slowly, as if ti were hers and nothing else mattered. When she finished, she set the cup down on the saucer with a soft tallic clink.

"Territory, huh?" She laughed softly, the sound echoing like chains clinking. "That’s easy to give. There’s just one catch..." Her golden eyes sparkled beneath the shadow of her hat. "You’ll probably die trying to take it. And not just you, by the way. Everyone around you."

Vergil didn’t flinch. His gaze remained steady, cold as ice.

Qliphoth then rested his chin on his hand, regarding him as if analyzing an interesting prey. "Especially since, right now, I’m not a full-grown World Tree." She raised her hand, letting tiny roots of pulsating energy sprout from her skin, coils that twisted and then disappeared. "I am developing. Growing. That ans everything around is also growing unstable. The territory you want... is alive. It is hostile."

Vergil watched her silently. The sound of the bubbling lake of blood filled the space, and the ferrous sll seed to intensify. Finally, he narrowed his eyes.

"Then why the hell am I here?" he asked, his voice dry as a blade against stone.

Qliphoth leaned back, crossing his legs with the elegance of soone who knew how much his presence overwheld the senses. He picked up the cup again, toying with the red liquid before answering.

"To satisfy my curiosity," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I just wanted to know you. To understand the depths of the biting mouth, not just the gleaming teeth." The territory is there, Vergil. You already tread it. You already feel it." She gestured lightly to the roots twisting in the distance. "But I can’t leave here. Not now. Not yet."

Vergil narrowed his eyes. "Are you trapped?"

Her smile didn’t change, but her voice lost so of its playful sparkle. It beca harder, older.

"You call trapped... but have you ever wondered why I chose this place?"

Vergil leaned back again, crossing his arms. "So tell . Why did you settle in this territory? Why did this place, specifically, beco the so-called Lucifer’s Vault?"

For an instant, the air seed to freeze. The surrounding forest stopped moving, as if it had held its breath. The lake ceased its bubbling.

Qliphoth swirled the cup slowly, and when she answered, there was no trace of emotion in her voice. Only the weight of the inevitable.

"Does a seed choose where it will bloom?" she asked coldly. "I didn’t choose. I was born here."

Vergil remained silent.

"That disgusting man..." her teeth ground together, and for a mont the heat in the air seed to increase, "...was the one who shaped these hideous things that surround my domain. Deford creatures, traps, seals. I was trapped from the beginning, unable to expand my true essence."

She looked up at him, and for the first ti the shadow of her hat failed to hide the fury in her golden eyes.

"But back then, I was barely born. I had no strength left to argue. Unlike him." The word was spat out like venom. "Lucifer. The great ’Demon God.’ He was already ready to go to war with the God above, while I... I could barely keep my roots firmly in this wretched soil."

Vergil clenched his jaw. The na weighed heavily, but it didn’t shake him as it had before. He had already decided he would inherit nothing of that title, of that past.

"So this place," he said slowly, "is nothing more than a prison created by Lucifer to contain you."

"Prison, vault, call it what you will," Qliphoth replied, returning to his tea as if nothing had happened. "In the end, the result is the sa: a domain surrounded by artificial darkness. The cage where I grew up, feeding my hatred."

Vergil tapped his fingers on the table. "And you want to feel sorry?"

Qliphoth looked at him... "P-pity?"