Page 21 of Infernal Crown (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

LYSITHEA

The moment my true mind rushes back in, I realise the full scope of what’s happening, every instinct I have screams at me to act.

The grimoire’s power tears through reality, reaching across dimensions to remake everything according to its twisted vision of truth. I can feel other worlds dying, entire civilisations blinking out of existence because they dared to build their cultures on hope instead of harsh facts.

“No,” I whisper, but the word comes out with an echo that makes the false realm shudder.

The grimoire pauses in its working, cosmic attention shifting to me with the kind of focus that makes my bones ache. “You disapprove of the acceleration?”

I have perhaps three seconds to decide whether to maintain the performance or abandon it entirely. Through the Soul Scar, I can suddenly feel my men’s terror bleeding into my consciousness.

“I disapprove of the lack of control,” I say, choosing truth wrapped in acceptable packaging. “This level of expansion threatens the stability of the working itself.”

The Crown’s power surges through me as I speak, lending weight to words that might otherwise sound like criticism. God recognises god, and the grimoire accepts my concern as legitimate rather than treacherous.

“An interesting perspective,” it muses, cosmic intellect turning the problem over like a scholar examining an unusual specimen. “The acceleration does introduce variables we had not calculated.”

Variables. It’s talking about the death of entire universes like they’re mathematical uncertainties in an equation. The clinical detachment in its voice makes me want to tear the Crown from my head and beat it to death with it.

Hmm…

Instead, I step closer to the focal point where reality bends around our combined power. “Perhaps we should consolidate our gains before expanding further.”

The lie is like copper in my mouth, but it rings with conviction. The Crown doesn’t just enhance my magical abilities; it transforms my very capacity for deception, allowing me to speak falsehoods with the authority of absolute truth.

I find that laughable, but very definitely usable.

“Wisdom,” the grimoire agrees, its attention returning to the working. “We shall perfect this realm completely before extending our influence.”

Relief floods through me for exactly half a second before I realise the fundamental problem with my solution.

The grimoire’s power is already loose, already tearing through dimensional barriers to reach other realities.

Asking it to consolidate isn’t stopping the expansion; it’s just asking it to be more thorough about the destruction it’s already causing.

Through my enhanced perception, I watch entire star systems wink out of existence as the grimoire’s influence touches worlds where they are developed differently, where emotional truth carries more weight than logical consistency.

Each death feels like a small cut against my soul, accumulated damage that threatens to overwhelm my ability to maintain the performance.

“The process requires such precision,” I say, testing whether I can influence the working through apparent cooperation.

“Indeed. Observe how efficiently we eliminate the contradictions that plague inferior realities.”

The grimoire flutters its pages, and I watch a world die.

Not the violent destruction of war or natural disaster, but the gentle cessation that comes when meaning itself dissolves.

One moment, a civilisation of beings who communicated through shared dreams and built cities from crystallised hope.

The next moment, empty space where they used to exist, their fundamental nature too incompatible with absolute truth to survive the transition.

The Crown’s influence whispers that this is necessary, that these beings were living lies anyway, figments of imagination given false substance.

But my heart screams in protest at the casual erasure of an entire species whose only crime was existing in ways the grimoire found philosophically unacceptable.

“Beautiful,” I manage to say through gritted teeth.

I have to do something. The performance isn’t working anymore—the grimoire is too powerful, too confident in its righteousness to question my apparent conversion. It sees my cooperation as inevitable rather than earned, cosmic forces aligning according to natural law rather than personal choice.

But what can I do? Verik’s spell is too dangerous; we can’t risk it.

We all know it, and yet what else is there?

The Crown’s power feels vast but young compared to the grimoire’s ancient authority.

I’m channelling forces I don’t understand in the slightest, while it has spent aeons perfecting its command over the fundamental structures of reality itself.

The answer comes to me like lightning striking twice in the same place: I don’t have to win. I just have to break things badly enough that the grimoire can’t continue.

“May I contribute more directly to the working?” I ask.

The grimoire’s attention fixes on me with sudden interest. “You wish to assume greater responsibility for the transformation?”

“I wish to prove my commitment to the cause.”

The words emerge with perfect sincerity because they’re technically true. I am committed to the cause—just not the cause the grimoire thinks I’m serving. My commitment is to saving existence, not perfecting it according to cosmic ideals that value truth above life itself.

“Admirable,” the grimoire says, power flowing between us in torrents that make reality bend like heated metal. “Then let us combine our efforts completely.”

The connection hits me like diving into an ocean of liquid starlight.

Almighty power floods through my consciousness, expanding my awareness to encompass scales of existence I was never meant to perceive.

Through the grimoire’s enhanced perspective, I see the working from a cosmic viewpoint that makes our concerns feel petty and short-sighted.

And that’s when I understand the true horror of what we’re facing.

The grimoire isn’t malicious. It genuinely believes that remaking everything according to absolute truth represents the highest possible good.

From its perspective, the beings dying across multiple realities aren’t victims but patients being cured of the disease of false existence.

Every world it unmakes becomes a step toward universal perfection.

The Infernal Crown’s influence tries to pull me into that same perspective. Why should I preserve flawed existence when I have the power to create perfect truth? Why should I value the freedom to lie when honest reality would eliminate so much unnecessary suffering?

But I’m not just divine power. I’m also Lysithea, who fell in love with three deeply imperfect monsters.

Lysithea, who chose to bind herself to people who lie, scheme, and make terrible decisions for beautiful reasons or just for fun.

Lysithea, who understands that flaws aren’t bugs in the system of existence—they’re features.

Lysithea, who lies to protect those she cares about, to protect herself.

I reach deeper into the connection with the grimoire. Instead of cooperating with its grand design, I do something that violates every principle of magical theory I’ve ever learned.

I fight it.

Not with opposing force, which would be like trying to stop an avalanche with a snowball.

Instead, I introduce chaos into the absolute perfection of its working.

Where it seeks to impose order, I create beautiful contradictions.

Where it eliminates complexity, I add layers of meaning that resist simple categorisation.

The grimoire’s attention snaps to me with the force of a cosmic slap. “What are you doing?”

“Improving the design,” I lie, my power lending conviction to words that burn my throat like acid.

But the grimoire’s ancient intellect cuts through my deception in seconds. Power that has existed since before the first star formed recognises rebellion when it encounters it, cosmic authority bristling at the audacity of a newly made goddess challenging its perfect vision.

In short, I am a terrible liar.

“You seek to sabotage the great working.”

“I seek to save existence from your idea of perfection,” I spit out, losing all pretence of helping this manic fucking tome.

Silver fire traces across my skin in patterns that mirror the grimoire’s own energy signature, but where its power seeks to impose order, mine celebrates the beautiful chaos of imperfect life.

The guys groan behind me, knowing I’ve just lost the plot, and any sense of surprise we might’ve still had to blow this arsehole up, along with its diabolical plans for us all.

“Foolish child. You understand nothing of what you protect.”

“I understand that existence doesn’t need to be perfect to be worth preserving.”

Our powers crash together like titans. The false realm becomes our battlefield. Reality bends and twists as we fight, each trying to force our vision onto existence itself.

Where we collide, everything breaks. Verik’s perfect paradise splits open. The cracks show the chaos he hid in its foundation. His beautiful patterns fall apart as our fight tears through the perfection he built.

“The realm is destabilising!” Verik shouts, but his voice sounds distant compared to the cosmic forces roaring through my consciousness.

I can feel the false realm coming apart around us, Verik’s hidden flaws finally triggering as the power flowing through his construction exceeds every parameter he designed it to handle.

The crystalline streams boil away into steam that tastes of regret.

The perfect trees catch fire and burn with colours that shouldn’t exist. The beautiful grass dissolves into component equations that spiral away into a dimensional void.

But the grimoire’s power is still spreading beyond our failing trap, still reaching across the spaces between worlds to impose truth on realities that never asked for cosmic intervention.

If anything, the conflict between us is making the damage worse, our clashing authorities creating instabilities that ripple outward to touch innocent civilisations.

I feel another world die. This one built their entire culture around the idea that love could transcend death, that bonds between people were stronger than the forces that sought to separate them.

The grimoire’s influence touches their reality for less than a second before their fundamental beliefs prove incompatible with absolute truth.

They simply stop being. Not dead, not destroyed, but never having existed in the first place. The universe edits their reality out of the cosmic record, leaving empty space where they used to dream and hope and build impossible things from the power of emotional connection.

“Stop!” I scream, divine power cracking reality around us. “You’re killing everything!”

“I am perfecting everything,” the grimoire corrects, ancient voice carrying infinite patience. “Their existence was predicated on beautiful lies. Truth demands their correction.”

The casual certainty in its tone breaks something inside me, and I’m fighting it with power that might be strong enough to destroy our realm but isn’t nearly sufficient to stop the universal transformation it’s already set in motion.

Through the Soul Scar, I feel my men’s desperate attempts to reach me, to help me.

But we’re not strong enough. The grimoire’s power dwarfs our combined abilities, an ancient authority that has spent aeons perfecting its command over the fundamental forces of existence. Fighting it directly is like trying to argue with gravity or negotiate with entropy itself.

And while we fight, innocent worlds continue dying.

The weight of that realisation crushes me more thoroughly than any physical force could. We came here to save existence, but our trap has become the launching point for universal catastrophe. Our rebellion against the grimoire’s vision is causing the very destruction we sought to prevent.

Everything is falling apart.

The false realm collapses around us in cascading failures that turn paradise into cosmic debris.

Reality fractures along dimensional barriers, allowing the raw void between worlds to bleed through in streams of absolute nothingness.

Our careful plan dissolves into chaos as competing divine forces tear apart everything we built.

And beyond our dying trap, the grimoire’s power continues to spread, reaching across infinite distances to touch realities that never knew they were in danger, remaking them according to a perfect truth that values consistency above existence itself.

I’m going to fail. We’re all going to fail.

And the universe is going to pay the price for our hubris.