Agatha's laughter echoed through the crater, bouncing off the debris and getting louder and louder until it sounded like it was coming from all over. It wasn't the laugh of someone who had lost.

It was the triumphant cackle of someone who had planned everything perfectly and spent thirty years getting ready for this one moment. Greg tried to get up and out of the crater, but his exhausted body wouldn't let him.

His muscles screamed in pain, and his vision was blurry from being exhausted. He had gone beyond what a person could do during the battle, and now he was paying the price.

"Do you want to hear the real joke?" Agatha's voice suddenly got louder.

It wasn't just aimed at Greg anymore, but it was heard all over the ruined district. Her staff glowed with purple light, and her words were magically amplified so that everyone within a mile could hear her clearly.

"Do you want to know what thirty years of research found?"

Greg could hear his friends yelling in fear. Their voices were far away at first, but they got closer as they ran toward the crater.

Marina was yelling his name. Tunner was yelling orders, but they were too far away, and no matter what Agatha was doing, she wouldn't let them help.

"There's no such thing as peace!" Agatha's loud voice sounded like a message from the gods themselves. "It never did! Everything you've heard and believed, every story about the Royal Knights bringing peace and prosperity, is all lies!"

"Lies that are carefully planned to keep people in line!"

The debris field started to shine more brightly, and Greg could feel the ore core below him pulsing more strongly. The purple light spread like a virus, reactivating the dark magic that had held Calamity together and infecting every piece of it.

"The wars never stopped!" Agatha went on, her voice getting crazier. "They were just out of sight!"

"They went to the dark places where regular people couldn't see them! The kingdoms made secret deals, agreed to let other people fight, and set murder quotas to keep up the appearance of peace while still feeding the war machine!"

Greg's stomach turned as the pieces fell into place. The reports from the missing expedition. The strange disappearances that happen near borders. The way Royal Knights would go on secret missions and never tell anyone where they went or what they did.

"Your dear Royal Knights weren't there to keep the peace!" Now, Agatha's laugh had a sharp edge. "They were killers! And even worse...! Manipulator!"

"They are tools for kings who couldn't afford to go to war but still needed to get rid of threats and stay in power! All of them took part in the lie, starting with Rosalina, Christoft, Tunner, and Veldway!"

"That's not right!" Greg found his voice, but it was hoarse and weak. "They were knights who kept people safe!"

"They kept the system safe!" Agatha screamed, and the ore core lit up so brightly that Greg had to cover his eyes. "They killed anyone who might have told the truth!"

"They shut up whistleblowers! They got rid of the proof! And they did it all while pretending to be good people!"

The purple light had spread to cover the whole field of debris, and Greg was horrified to see pieces of the broken Calamity start to move again. They did not act by chance. Instead, they purposefully manipulated the pieces until they began to come together and transform.

"Let me show you what being honest really means!" Agatha held her staff high above her head. "This is what happens when someone doesn't want to go along with the comfortable lies!"

She brought the staff down, and the purple light burst out in a shockwave that knocked Greg down. He was out of breath when he finally looked up and saw Agatha stepping off the edge of the crater.

She didn't trip. She walked down the air like it was solid ground, and her body started to glow with the same purple light as the ore core.

"Three decades of work," she said, her voice getting back to normal as she got closer to Greg. "Three decades of collecting materials, learning how to control and channel the corruption that comes from mixing ores, and studying how that corruption affects things!"

"The Calamity you broke was only a test model, serving as a practice run and proof of concept!" A practice run with a proof of concept!"

She got to the bottom of the crater and stood right over the pulsing core. "But this? This is the real work of art."

Agatha plunged her staff into the ore core, and her whole body shook. The purple light shot up through the staff and into her.

She screamed, but not because she was in pain. She was in ecstasy until her skin started to change, bend, and mix with the negative energy.

Her arms grew longer and turned into blades. Her legs came together and split into several supporting structures. Her torso grew and twisted to make room for the huge amount of energy that was flowing into her.

"Fuck...!" Greg struggled to rise and intervene, desperate to stop the transformation, but his body refused to obey.

He could only watch as Agatha transformed into something else—something worse. In the debris field, chaos erupted. Thousands of weapon fragments hurtled toward Agatha's shifting form, merging into her new shape.

This version, however, was not a mindless amalgamation of stolen weapons and souls like the first Calamity. It possessed a clear purpose and exhibited intelligence, as Agatha's brilliant yet twisted mind directed every aspect of its construction.

The worst part is that it wasn't alone. Two other cores burst out of the ground on opposite sides of the debris field, and they both glowed with the same sickly purple light.

Greg's horror deepened as he realized that Agatha had concealed backup cores throughout the area during the Calamity's rampage. These served as insurance policies in case the first core was destroyed.

"Three kingdoms," Agatha's voice echoed from all directions, altered by her transformation. "Three Royal Knights...! Three lies...! Three Calamities to burn them all down!"

The backup cores blew up, sending debris flying toward them and making two more giant structures. These were smaller than the first ones, maybe two hundred feet tall each, but they moved with terrifying speed and coordination. The three Calamities flew up into the air and hovered over the ruined area like angels from the end of the world.

"Let the real test begin," Agatha said, and all three of the constructs fired at the same time.

The bombardment was worse than anything they had ever seen. Agatha's mind spread across all three forms, guiding the projectile weapons as they launched in continuous streams.

Buildings that had made it through the first battle fell apart. The attack made the streets crack and bend. The air screamed as so much deadly metal passed through it.

Greg heard someone scream his name and looked up to see Marina at the edge of the crater, her face twisted in fear. "GET OUT OF THERE, GREG!"

"HURRY...!"

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