Bang!
A deafening explosion echoed through the air!
Roy swiftly stepped in front of Lilith, shielding her. The energy ball's blast didn't faze him in the slightest, but Dorothy was thrown back by the force, crashing into a wall and collapsing to the ground.
Lilith watched the scene with a puzzled expression.
"What just happened?"
Dorothy struggled to her feet, looking utterly disheveled.
Her once sleek black hair was now a chaotic, frizzy mess, resembling an afro. The staples holding her body together had completely given way, and dark energy seeped from her form, giving off an ominous vibe.
Roy and Lilith hurried over to check on her.
The staples had snapped, clearly no longer capable of keeping Dorothy's body intact.
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Luckily, Roy had the Cursed Thread in his possession, which could serve as a makeshift suture to piece Dorothy back together.
That item was seriously versatile—one of the few things Roy had acquired early on that still proved useful even now.
Of course, during the stitching process, he inevitably saw some things he shouldn't have or touched places he shouldn't have.
Thankfully, Dorothy wasn't the prudish type. Right now, she was more furious than anything else.
Once she got up, Dorothy stormed toward Roy, clearly intending to confront him. But after a few steps, she froze, sensing something was off.
"What's going on? Why am I trying to walk forward but moving backward?"
Roy and Lilith exchanged a glance.
"Lilith, did you accidentally put her lower half on backward?" Roy asked.
"Maybe… but I swear I checked multiple times. How could I have messed that up?" Lilith replied, looking confused. It clearly wasn't intentional, which made it even stranger.
Afterward, Lilith tried reassembling Dorothy's body again, but no matter how they tried, something always went wrong.
Either her legs were attached backward, or her elbows bent the wrong way.
At first, Lilith handled the repairs, then Roy took over, but accidents kept happening.
They began to suspect it was a side effect of Dorothy's misfortune divination kicking in.
The side effects of misfortune divination depended on the power gap between the diviner and the target. Dorothy must have divined something extraordinary to trigger such chaos.
Thirty minutes later, Dorothy's body was finally pieced back together. By then, Roy had become intimately familiar with the Death Witch's anatomy, inside and out.
By the end, Dorothy's anger had fizzled out, replaced by a look of utter resignation. Even her attempt to confront Roy came out weak and half-hearted.
"Tell me, why did I divine the Lust King? What the hell did you do, Roy?"
Roy froze for a moment before it clicked—that was why this magical mishap was so severe.
Even though Dorothy had been sealed away for years and her power had waned, she was still a legendary witch, roughly on par with Lilith's current strength.
At their peak, both Dorothy and Lilith were likely demigod-level witches.
Only divining something as powerful as a Hell Lord could cause such a massive backlash.
It had been said before: those with the gift of foresight, like the Heavenly Eye, risked severe consequences when predicting entities far stronger than themselves.
The acting Supreme Witch of the Witch Coven, Mortel Snow, had suffered backlash from prophesying about Wendy, and Wendy's power was only slightly greater than Mortel's.
Dorothy's case was far worse.
Roy thought it over and quickly pieced things together.
"I get it now. That succubus was after me!"
Roy didn't believe in coincidences. A succubus appearing out of nowhere, targeting Marianne and Gretchen—two women loosely connected to him but not closely tied—couldn't be random.
Now that Dorothy had divined Asmodeus, it was likely all part of the Lust King's scheme.
"Roy Black, answer me! Why did I divine the Lust King?" Dorothy demanded, her face starting to flush with anger again.
Roy explained, "This summer, I had a run-in with the Lust King. That succubus was probably sent by him to mess with me. My bad—I didn't even think to connect the dots."
Dorothy stared at him, speechless.
"Why would you go picking a fight with the Lust King? You got a death wish or something?"
Lilith chimed in on Roy's behalf. "Dorothy, Roy didn't just mess with the Lust King. He's actually taken on four Hell Lords and come out on top."
Well, Lilith didn't know Roy had recently crossed paths with Lucifer and Beelzebub too, meaning he'd now faced all seven of the Sin Lords.
Dorothy's first reaction was disbelief. "No way! Four Hell Lords? How is he still alive?"
"But it's true!" Lilith insisted. "The Greed King, the Wrath King, the Lust King, and the Envy King—all of them fought Roy, and he drove them all off Earth. Pretty impressive, right? You feeling a little tempted yet?"
Dorothy's heart did skip a beat. Having the protection of someone that powerful would make her life a lot easier.
As a Death Witch who'd been sealed for so long, her strength had plummeted, leaving her vulnerable to old enemies who might come knocking.
But Dorothy was stubborn and refused to admit it. "Hmph! You expect me to believe that nonsense? No one could survive four Hell Lords!"
Lilith shrugged. If Dorothy wanted to play tough, there was nothing she could do about it.
"Fine, don't believe me. So, what's the plan now?"
Dorothy had used her misfortune divination to pinpoint the rough location of the Nether Archmage, but all the time spent reassembling her body had likely given the Archmage a chance to slip away.
Plus, Dorothy was currently plagued by bad luck, so she decided to hold off on chasing the Archmage until her misfortune faded.
After Dorothy shared her plan, Roy snapped his fingers. "My promise still stands. Whenever you're ready to go after that guy, just give me a call. For now, I need to look into this succubus situation."
As Roy prepared to summon Crowley and leave, Lilith suddenly grabbed his arm, her eyes gleaming with a suggestive look. "Roy, Dorothy and I don't have a place to crash. Can you help us out?"
This clearly wasn't about needing a place to stay. Lilith's expression screamed she was in the mood for some fun.
"Is that… a good idea?" Roy hesitated.
"It's been over two weeks since I last saw you, little master!" Lilith pouted.
Well, Roy was a softie at heart, so he gave in.
He called for Crowley, and the three of them hopped onto a motorcycle, heading for Madison's nearest property.
Besides her massive Beverly Hills villa, Madison also owned a more private place in East LA, perfect for dodging paparazzi.
But once they got on the bike, Roy realized there was a problem.
Crowley's Harley-Davidson Buell Firebolt was a compact model. Roy, with his burly frame, could just about manage riding it alone. Adding Lilith and Dorothy, though?
Lilith wasn't too bad—her puppet-like body was designed to be slender in most places, with only certain key areas exaggeratedly full.
So, squeezing her on was doable. The issue was Dorothy, whose figure was a bit more… generous.
There was no way all three could fit on Crowley unless Dorothy literally sat on Roy's head.
"Roy, where's Bumblebee? Why aren't we taking that?" Lilith asked.
Sure, being pressed up against Roy was nice, but cramming three people onto a motorcycle was seriously uncomfortable.
"I lent Bumblebee to Saltana. I didn't expect you two to show up," Roy explained.
Dorothy, already fed up and wary of her bad luck causing more accidents, spoke up. "Forget it. I'm not getting on. Just give me the address, and I'll walk."
Lilith hopped off too. "Dorothy, with your current streak of bad luck, I'm not sure you'd make it there without something going wrong. I'll walk with you to keep an eye out."
Since both Lilith and Dorothy opted to walk, Roy hesitated about riding the bike himself.
Lilith noticed his reluctance. "Roy, go handle your stuff. Just don't forget to come find us later!"
It seemed like the best plan for now.
Roy nodded and handed Lilith the keys to the villa. "There's food and drinks stashed in the villa. Help yourselves."
"Before you go, how about a kiss? Mwah!" Lilith planted a quick peck on Roy's cheek before heading off with Dorothy.
As Roy watched them go, he saw Dorothy walk straight into a lamppost with a loud thud.
"Ow!"
"Dorothy, watch where you're going!" Lilith exclaimed.
"Damn it! I swear that pole wasn't there a second ago. It just popped up out of nowhere!"
Dorothy was in for a rough time. Good thing she was immortal, or things could've ended badly.
Shaking his head, Roy leaned against Crowley and made a call.
"Hey, Mr. Orin, it's Roy Black. Any updates on Paxton Fertel's situation?"
"It's bad. Really bad."
---
Meanwhile, Terrence Kaufman crept cautiously into an alley, heading toward the back door of an apartment building. After checking over his shoulder to ensure no one was following, he knocked six times on a door.
A moment later, six knocks came from inside. Terrence responded with three more knocks, and the door swung open.
Inside was Paxton Fertel, the man Roy had inquired about.
Paxton stared at Terrence in silence, his eyes glinting faintly, unsettling the middle-aged man.
"Chief Fertel, why are you looking at me like that?" Terrence asked nervously.
"Come in first. We'll talk inside," Paxton said, pulling Terrence into the room.
As soon as they were inside, Terrence couldn't hold back. "Chief Fertel, why is the department hunting you down? What happened?"
"This afternoon, I had a run-in with Gerald Orin. He set me up, trying to frame me for betraying the FEA so he could throw me in prison. I had no choice but to go on the run."
Terrence wasn't buying it, and for good reason.
Political struggles in America these days didn't usually escalate to locking someone up. Sure, everyone in politics had dirt on them, but throwing someone in jail? That was a step too far.
If you sent your rival to prison, you'd be setting yourself up for retaliation when your own time in power ended. Competition was fine—splash some mud, sure—but sending someone to jail risked uniting your enemies against you.
That said, this unspoken rule wouldn't hold up twenty years from now, when things got far uglier.
"Chief Orin wouldn't go that far, would he?" Terrence asked skeptically.
Seeing the doubt, Paxton quickly shifted gears. "It's too late to debate that now, Kaufman. I need your help."
"With what?"
"I need you to send the contents of this USB drive to an email address."
Paxton placed a USB drive on the table in front of Terrence.
Terrence eyed it warily, his expression conflicted.
He'd been sticking with Paxton in hopes of getting his old position back, not to end up in prison himself.
With Paxton's influence clearly crumbling, Terrence was already thinking about jumping ship.
"Uh, Chief Fertel, I'm not great with computers. Maybe someone else should handle this. I won't disturb you—I'm heading out!" Terrence said, making up an excuse and turning to leave.
"Don't you want to know what's on the USB?" Paxton called after him.
Terrence had no interest in knowing. As a seasoned workplace survivor, he knew some things were better left unknown—ignorance was safer.
But Paxton didn't give him a chance to refuse. "It contains a recommendation for your transfer to the San Francisco branch."
Terrence stopped in his tracks and turned back to Paxton. "Is that true?"
See? Just like that, he switched to respectful language.
Paxton's knack for climbing the ranks despite his mediocrity wasn't without reason.
"Of course. Once the info on this USB is sent, someone will pull strings to get you to the San Francisco branch. You'll be out of LA for good."
Terrence clenched his jaw, his face showing a mix of hesitation and temptation.
He desperately wanted out of LA. With Gerald Orin holding a grudge against him, as long as Orin was in charge, Terrence had no shot at advancing.
And Orin, who'd only been LA's branch chief for less than two years, was younger than Terrence. He might still be in power when Terrence retired.
Paxton sweetened the deal. "If you transfer to San Francisco, you'll start as a mid-level agent."
That was the final push. Terrence was sick of being a low-level agent, especially when his former subordinates were now his superiors.
"Alright, I'm in! All I have to do is send the USB's contents to the email, right?"
"Exactly. Simple, isn't it?"
"Chief Fertel, wait for my update!"
Terrence grabbed the USB and hurried out of the room.