He gestured toward Richard's fallen, bleeding form. "If he dies, everything i have invested on him, dies with him. Centuries of work, gone. Power that I cannot easily recover, lost forever. When I saw him falling, when I realized this... child had actually managed to defeat what I'd spent so long creating, I reacted poorly. Emotionally rather than logically."

Chronus met Malakor's hollow gaze directly. "I panicked. I broke our sacred law not because Richard is essential to some grand scheme, but because I couldn't accept that my life's work was about to be destroyed by someone who's barely existed for three months. Pride, Lord Malakor. Foolish, destructive pride. Nothing more sinister than that."

It was a good lie. A believable lie. The kind of lie that had just enough truth woven into it to be difficult to disprove.

Satou could see it in how Chronus delivered it, the right amount of shame, the right amount of defiance, the right amount of reluctant honesty. He was admitting to breaking the law while providing a motivation that made sense. Pride and panic, not conspiracy. An emotional mistake rather than a calculated violation.

Several of the demon lords exchanged glances. The explanation was reasonable. Demon lords were notorious for century-long projects and could be incredibly possessive of their work. Reacting badly when that work was threatened? Entirely plausible.

But Satou noticed something not all the demon lords were buying it.

Loki's expression remained cold and skeptical. Nyxara's shadows swirled with agitation, as if she sensed deception but couldn't quite pin it down. Nexus's thousand eyes were blinking in rapid, complex patterns that suggested intense analysis.

And Malakor... Malakor was perfectly still, his skeletal form radiating cold that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with absolute judgment.

"Pride," Malakor repeated, his voice devoid of inflection. "You expect us to believe that centuries-old discipline collapsed because you couldn't accept losing Richard?"

"We all have weaknesses, Lord Malakor," Chronus replied. "Even beings as old as us. Mine is my work. My creations. I have... difficulty letting go when I've invested so much."

Malakor's hollow eye sockets seemed to bore directly into Chronus's skull. Not just looking at him, but through him. Into him. At something deeper than flesh, deeper than thought.

At his soul itself.

The temperature dropped another ten degrees. Frost spread in intricate, increasingly complex patterns across the obsidian floor—fractal designs that looked almost like the neural pathways of a vast, incomprehensible mind working through a problem.

Chronus's steady expression began to crack. Sweat that had been beading on his forehead now ran freely down his face. His hands, which had been clasped calmly behind his back, began to tremble slightly.

Because Malakor wasn't just looking. He was reading. Peeling back layers of deception like one might peel an onion, examining the truth beneath the lies beneath the half-truths.

And what the Lord of Undeath saw in Chronus's soul made his skeletal features somehow express even greater coldness.

"You're lying," Malakor said flatly.

Chronus flinched as if struck. "My lord, I—"

"You're lying," Malakor repeated, his voice carrying the absolute certainty of death itself. "I can see it in your essence. Richard Clay is more than a project. More than a repository of your power. He is integral to something you're hiding from this council. Something you've been hiding for a very long time."

The skeletal lord's hand rose, and everyone present felt the surge of power—not threatening yet, but the promise of annihilation held in check by the thinnest margin of restraint.

"But," Malakor continued, "I cannot prove the specifics of your deception. You've layered your soul with temporal defenses, twisted your essence through so many timestreams that even I cannot unravel all the threads. Centuries of preparation have made you... opaque to even my sight."

He lowered his hand slightly. "So I will give you a choice, Chronus the Timeless. Accept judgment now for breaking our sacred law, face execution or exile, and whatever you're hiding dies with your position. Or..."

The pause stretched, pregnant with terrible possibility.

"Or you accept this as your final warning. Return to your seat. Continue your schemes. But know this—if you violate our laws again, if you interfere in council business again, if you give me any reason to look deeper into your affairs..." Malakor's voice became colder than the void between stars. "I will not simply execute you. I will unravel every timeline you've touched. I will follow every thread of your existence backward and forward through time. I will discover every secret, expose every hidden plan, destroy every contingency you've prepared."

The skeletal lord leaned forward slightly. "And then, only after I've torn apart everything you've built over millennia, will I finally grant you the mercy of true death. Do I make myself clear?"

Chronus's face had gone pale. His temporal nature was flickering—he couldn't maintain stability under the weight of Malakor's direct threat. When he spoke, his voice was strained, cracking with something that might have been genuine fear.

"Yes... yes, sir. Crystal clear, my lord. I... I understand completely."

"Good." Malakor straightened. "Then return to your platform. Collect your champion. Tend to his wounds if you can. And never, ever set foot on this arena floor again during a sanctioned duel."

Chronus nodded jerkily. He turned toward Richard's fallen form, clearly intending to collect his champion and flee before anyone could change their minds.

But then Malakor turned to Satou.

The weight of the first seat's attention was like being observed by a mountain—vast, ancient, utterly unmovable. Satou met those hollow eye sockets without flinching, his dragon-enhanced will refusing to bow even before absolute power.

"Satou," Malakor said. "The duel was interrupted before completion. Richard Clay lives, though defeated. Chronus has been warned but not punished beyond that warning. Are you satisfied with my judgment?"

Every demon lord turned to look at Satou. This was unprecedented—Malakor asking a provisional seat for his opinion on a matter of council law. It was simultaneously a show of respect and a test.

Everyone stared at Satou, waiting to see how he would respond.

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