My Wives are Beautiful Demons

Chapter 839: Outer Sepulcher

Vergil followed Seris into Salem’s main palace, while Alice, Morgana, and Pandora came right behind. The interior was very different from the chaotic square they had just crossed. There, the corridors were wide, tall, and silent, illuminated by floating crystals held in slow orbits around ancient chandeliers. Living shelves moved by themselves along the walls, portraits of dead witches whispered among themselves, and some doors changed position when no one looked directly at them. For any ordinary visitor, it would have been maddening. To Vergil, it was merely another inconveniently magical place.Seris walked ahead naturally, as if that entire palace breathed with her. Morgana, beside her, wore the expression of someone who had already accepted that the day would end in documents, dangerous spells, and at least three witches trying to listen behind the door. Alice remained close to Vergil, still irritated with Pandora for reasons Pandora seemed completely incapable of understanding. Pandora, meanwhile, walked happily, looking at everything as if she had been invited on a tourist visit, with the serpent coiled around her neck observing the whispering paintings.

When they reached a circular room inside the palace, Seris snapped her fingers, and the door closed by itself behind them. Runes immediately appeared on the walls, forming layers of soundproofing, dimensional blockage, and secrecy against spying. A teapot appeared in the center of the table, along with cups, cookies, and a small sign reading "Do not listen behind the door." Outside, someone grumbled quietly and quickly moved away.

Seris sat in the main chair and crossed her legs. "There. Now no one hears anything. Or, at least, no one I cannot turn into a frog afterward."

Morgana sat beside her and murmured, "You know that has never stopped the nosiest ones."

"No, but it makes the punishment fairer."

Vergil did not sit immediately. He remained standing for a few seconds, looking at the runes on the walls as if evaluating whether that place was truly safe. Then he pulled out a chair and sat with the same serious expression he had brought from Sparda. The playful atmosphere of their arrival still existed around them, but the weight of the true reason for his visit began to impose itself.

Seris noticed quickly. Her smile diminished. "So, what happened?"

Vergil rested his arms on the table. "Persephone sought me out in Aphrodite’s flower shop. Hades is trapped in Tartarus together with Thanatos. Hades himself sealed the domain to prevent something from escaping. There were also attacks against Helheim, Naraka, and possible interference in Yama’s system. Up to that point, you already knew part of it."

Seris nodded slowly. "Yes. My network confirmed it."

Vergil continued. "After that, Nyx appeared to me."

Seris’s face changed.

It was a small change, but clear. Her gaze became more closed, her posture more attentive, and even Morgana noticed that the name had pulled the Queen of Witches out of her casual tone. Alice also grew serious. Pandora, for the first time since they entered, stopped playing with her own serpent.

"Nyx appeared to you?" Seris asked.

"Not directly. She pulled me into a dark space, far from Sparda. She said she could not appear in the palace. She introduced herself respectfully, offered herself as my subordinate if the Helm of Darkness was not payment enough, and told me Tartarus was not merely attacked. It was recognized."

Seris was silent.

Vergil watched her reaction carefully. "She mentioned something called the First Shadow. She said it is a place older than the Underworlds, older than the pantheons, and older than the modern ways of administering death. I want to know if you know it."

Seris did not answer immediately.

She raised her hand, and a cup of tea slid to her fingers without her needing to look. She took a small sip, more to buy time than out of thirst, and carefully placed the cup back on the saucer. When she finally spoke, there was no joke left in her voice.

"First Shadow is the kind of name gods use when they want to pretend something can be understood with poetry."

Vergil narrowed his eyes. "Then it exists."

"It exists." Seris passed her fingers over the table, and ancient symbols began to appear in the wood, forming concentric circles. "But among ancient witches, in the few grimoires that still mention it without driving the reader mad, the most common name is the Outer Sepulcher."

Morgana took a deep breath. "That name I know."

Alice looked at her. "You know it?"

"From forbidden citations," Morgana answered. "I never thought it was real."

Seris stared at the symbols on the table. "Almost no one does. And that is one of the reasons we are still alive."

Vergil was silent, waiting for the explanation.

Seris continued, now drawing with magic a map that did not seem to obey normal geometry. "The Outer Sepulcher is not exactly a dimension in the ordinary sense. It is not like the Demon World, Tartarus, Helheim, or Naraka. Those places belong to systems of belief, authority, death, punishment, or cycle. The Outer Sepulcher is older than those classifications. It was created before humanity, before mortal religions, and before most of the local gods in this sector understood they had enough power to name anything."

Vergil raised his face slightly. "Sector."

Seris looked at him. "Yes."

"Of the multiverse."

"Yes."

Vergil stared at her for a few seconds. "Do those things really exist?"

Seris let out a short laugh, without humor. "Vergil, you cross dimensions like someone opening a curtain. You talk to gods, demons, witches, dragons, and primordial entities. The multiverse being real should be one of the least offensive things in your week."

"I knew other planes existed."

"Planes are rooms inside a mansion," Seris said. "Parallel realities are other mansions. Sectors of the multiverse are entire continents full of mansions that do not follow the same architecture. And the Outer Gods are things that live, or exist, outside those continents."

Pandora raised her hand like a curious student. "Things with tentacles?"

Seris looked at her. "Sometimes."

Pandora nodded, satisfied. "Classic."

Vergil did not take his eyes off Seris. "Have you seen this?"

Seris was quiet for an instant. "I saw enough not to want to see it again."

The room seemed to grow heavier.

Seris passed her fingers over the table, and the runes changed. For an instant, the image of a sky that was not a sky appeared, full of stars far too large, moving like eyes in dark water. The image did not last long, because Seris erased it before any of them could look for too long.

"In my studies of magic, many years ago, I managed to access some dimensions and parallel realities," she said. "Not in a stable way. They were small openings, brief observations, attempts to understand how magic behaved where the laws were different. In some, time did not run in a straight line. In others, death was a sound. In one of them, gravity seemed to be a local opinion. I was detected in three."

Alice became serious. "Detected by whom?"

Seris smiled without joy. "By things that had no eyes, but looked anyway."

Morgana lowered her head, as if she did not like remembering that period. "She lost almost half her magic."

"More than half," Seris corrected. "I was expelled from those realities like an infection being rejected by a body. My soul returned torn in places that should not even tear. It took me years to recover what I lost, and even after that some marks never fully disappeared. Since then, I do not try to cross certain limits. Not out of cowardice. Out of respect for the fact that there are places where intelligence becomes bait."

Vergil absorbed that without answering.

For a moment, he remembered Alice. Not the Alice sitting there, close to him, with her worried expression and her gaze fixed on Seris. He remembered the other Alice. The Alice from the future, who had spoken to him for a brief moment, carrying a weight that did not yet fully belong to the current reality. That had already proven, in a way he did not like to admit, that time, dimension, and possibility were less fixed than they seemed.

He returned to reality when Seris lightly tapped her nail against the table.

"You thought of something," she said.

Vergil looked at Alice for a second and then turned back to Seris. "Nothing that helps now."

Alice noticed there was something there, but did not ask. Not at that moment.

Vergil leaned back in the chair. "I need to know whether it is worth risking myself with Nyx and helping Olympus."

Seris looked at him for a few seconds. "I cannot make that decision for you."

"I know."

"But I can tell you what I see." She leaned forward, her expression closed. "The Olympians are the most arrogant people I know. And I know many, many people. I know demon kings, immortal witches, ancient fairies, dragons, mages who tried to impregnate reality with concepts, and infernal aristocrats who think a surname replaces competence. Even so, the Olympians remain their own category of arrogance."

Pandora raised a finger. "That was very specific."

"Because it was deserved."

Vergil remained silent.

Seris sighed. "But that is exactly why Nyx’s request matters. Hades offering the Helm of Darkness would already be strange. Persephone swallowing her pride and seeking help outside Olympus is even stranger. Now Nyx appearing, bowing, and offering temporary servitude? That is not normal politics. That is well-dressed panic."

Morgana nodded. "An entity like Nyx would not do that for a small problem."

"No," Seris agreed. "And she also would not if she thought Hades could solve it alone. If she sought you out, it is because the Outer Sepulcher is closer to being found than it should be."

Vergil looked at the runes on the table. "What happens if they find it?"

Seris remained silent for a moment too long.

When she answered, her voice came out low. "No one knows for certain. The texts do not agree. Some say it is merely a dead region, a depository of souls older than the current systems. Others say it is a tomb of gods that were never born within this sector. And the worst texts say the Sepulcher does not hold the dead. It holds the first model of death. The raw form. Death before it had rules."

The room became quiet.

Even Pandora stopped smiling.

Vergil narrowed his eyes. "That can be used as a weapon."

"Yes."

"As a door."

"That too."

"As a source of authority."

Seris looked directly at him. "That is the worst-case scenario. If someone manages to touch the Outer Sepulcher and survive the understanding of what it is, perhaps they could rewrite the relationship between life, death, and afterlife across several domains at the same time."

Alice tightened her fingers over the arm of the chair. "That would affect everyone."

"Mortals, gods, demons, spirits, condemned souls, souls in transit, sealed entities. Everyone." Seris took a deep breath. "That is why the attacks on the Underworlds make sense. They do not merely want to invade. They are measuring responses. Searching for equivalent points. Discovering how each system reacts when wounded."

Vergil thought of Nyx’s words.

If you hear something calling your name inside Tartarus, do not answer.

Even if it sounds like someone you love.

"Nyx warned me not to answer voices inside Tartarus," he said.

Seris closed her eyes for an instant. "Good advice."

"Why?"

"Because places linked to the Outer Sepulcher do not imitate only sounds. They imitate bonds. If you love someone, they can use that person’s form as a key. Not merely to deceive you emotionally, but to make your soul recognize a false authority. Answering can be the equivalent of opening a door."

Vergil became completely motionless.

Alice looked at him.

Morgana did too.

Seris noticed the change in his energy and raised a hand. "That is why you should not go alone. And that is why, if you go, you will need seals of silence, identity bindings, and someone outside capable of remembering who you are in case the place tries to rewrite you."

Pandora murmured, "That was horrible."

"Yes," Morgana said. "And rare, coming from you admitting it."

Pandora hugged her own snake. "I like fun chaos, not primordial death doing theater with loved ones."

Vergil looked at Seris. "Can you prepare those seals?"

"I can try." Seris crossed her arms. "But I need to be honest. If the Outer Sepulcher is truly involved, nothing I do will be an absolute guarantee. I can make it harder. I can delay it. I can create ways to pull you back if there is still something to pull. But promising safety would be a lie."

"I did not ask for safety."

"Good, because I would not have had any."

Vergil remained silent for a few seconds.

The entire room waited.

Then Seris spoke again, calmer. "You asked me whether it is worth it. My answer is: if it were only for Olympus, no. I would let those golden peacocks choke on their own greatness. But it is not only for Olympus. If Nyx is right, and if the Outer Sepulcher is being tracked, then this reaches every system of death. Including yours."

Vergil stared at the table.

"And if I do not help?"

"Then perhaps they find another path. Perhaps not. Perhaps Hades holds Tartarus long enough. Perhaps the seal fails tomorrow. Perhaps Helheim is the next breaking point. Perhaps Naraka has already been touched deeper than we know. There is no way to predict."

"That does not help."

"Yes, it does," Seris answered. "It means you are not choosing between risk and safety. You are choosing between a risk you can study and a risk that will knock on your door when it is ready."

Vergil looked at her.

Seris held his gaze. "And you hate waiting for the enemy to choose the battlefield."

Her answer struck exactly the point.

Vergil released a low sigh, annoyed that she was right. "I need everything you know about the Outer Sepulcher."

Seris nodded. "I will gather the forbidden texts."

Morgana looked at her immediately. "Those forbidden texts?"

"Yes."

"You promised you would not open those again."

"And he promised he would not invade Salem. We are all failing today."

Vergil looked at Morgana. "I did not promise that."

"Even worse," she murmured.

Seris stood, and the runes on the table disappeared. "I will prepare a protected reading room. Alice, Morgana, stay with me. Pandora, do not touch any book that whispers your name."

Pandora made an offended expression. "I am not a child."

Seris looked at her.

Pandora looked away. "I will try."

Vergil stood as well. "How long?"

"To gather everything? One hour. To understand enough without losing sanity? Depends on how much the universe hates us today."

Alice approached Vergil and held his sleeve for an instant. "Are you really going to consider going?"

Vergil looked at her. "I will consider it."

"That does not reassure me."

"It was not meant to reassure you."

She made a slight grimace, but did not immediately let go. Vergil allowed that small gesture for a few seconds before turning his gaze back to Seris.

The Queen of Witches was already walking toward a side door, but stopped before leaving. "Oh, and Vergil?"

"Yes?"

"If Nyx offered servitude, do not accept without a contract written by me."

Vergil raised an eyebrow. "You want to review the contract of a primordial goddess."

"Of course." Seris smiled, and for a second the Queen of Witches looked again like the woman who turned crises into gossip and chaos into opportunity. "Someone needs to make sure she does not include a hidden clause in eternal night, ancestral debt, or symbolic marriage with the dark."

Alice tightened her grip on Vergil’s sleeve.

Morgana sighed.

Pandora smiled. "Marriage with the dark would be elegant."

Vergil closed his eyes for an instant.

"Meeting," he said. "Now."

Seris laughed and opened the door.

Outside, three witches who had clearly been trying to listen fell into the corridor when the block disappeared. They looked at Seris, then Vergil, then Alice, and one of them raised a finger with her dignity destroyed.

"We came to offer tea."

Seris smiled.

"Of course you did."