Witchbound Villain: Infinite Loop

This was no longer a deja vu. This was an actual time loop.

Burn's eyes snapped open, and he was back—back in his room, lying on his bed, as if the war, the victories, the endless battles were just figments of a fevered dream.

Just a second ago, the mysterious woman with eyes like twin beacons of fate was before him, killing herself, and then, with the mere act of blinking, he found himself in the silence of his chambers, not a battlefield in sight.

The confusion that gripped him was palpable, a thick, suffocating mist. Anger followed, a roaring fire in the pit of his stomach, burning with questions and the frustration of understanding just out of reach.

KNOCK-KNOCK!

The door to his room was opened, and a man he knew as his closest aide entered.

“Your Majesty, the preparation for the war is complete.”

Burn felt his veins pop.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!”

His aide flinched and squirmed at the sight of his explosive anger.

“Haven’t I conquered the continent?! Twice! Another three, no, two and a half years had passed and everything had knelt down in front of me! Every single being!”

“Y-Your Majesty…?”

How? Why? The words echoed in his mind, unanswered. His heart raced, pounding against his chest like a war drum, calling him to a battle he could no longer find.

Bewilderment settled in, heavy and oppressive. He stood there, on the edge of his bed, a conqueror displaced from his conquests, a warrior stripped of his war.

The memory of the woman lingered, haunting and elusive. Had she been the key, the harbinger of his inexplicable journey through time?

In this quiet room, far removed from the clamor of war, Burn was caught in a storm of emotions, each wave crashing against him with the force of the realities he'd lived and the one he found himself in now.

The line between past and future blurred, leaving him in a limbo of his own making, a prisoner of time's whims.

No.

That woman.

It was that woman!

***

This time, let’s avoid her.

The first time Burn thought of after finding the key was to not meet that woman at all in this loop. But of course, he also tried to find out who that woman was.

How did she do that? Was it a technology from the outsiders? Was she someone sent to play a trick on him? Who was she?

“Ahem, ahem. An ethereally beautiful woman. As if the sun had decided to take a day off and let her do the shining instead. Her hair, a cascade of golden rebellion against the mundane, flowed with the secrets of the dawn.”

Galahad, Soulnaught’s strongest knight and Burn’s closest aide, read the description of the woman Burn wrote out loud.

“Tall and statuesque, she moved with a grace that made gravity seem like an overly clingy companion, rather than an immutable law. Blue eyes, deep enough to rival the stories of old mariners, sparkled with the kind of light that suggested she knew exactly how absurd the world was and found it amusing.”

“Ahem, ahem.”

Now, even Galahad's face was red.

“Her smile? It was the sort that promised mischief and whispered tales of adventures yet to be had. In her presence, the line between reality and the stuff of dreams blurred, not because she was ethereal, but because she carried an air of someone who could laugh at a storm and win.”

“Cough, cough…”

Burn was actually very serious when writing those descriptions. Now that it was read out loud in front of his court, he realized that it was more like a love letter.

“Your Majesty… you want us to find you… our Empress…?” one of the lead ministers asked.

“What fuck?” Burn coldly dismissed their imagination, but their face was unconvinced, seemingly happy that finally their emperor had a crush.

Burn thought that if he didn’t describe her in such detail, she might be mistaken for a random maid on a random street. However, it seemed his courtiers had misinterpreted his intentions.

“Your Majesty, we will certainly find her. We are going to war worldwide anyway, so we will reunite you with her,” one confidently declared.

Burn massaged his temples, frustrated. But, it wasn’t as if he had a choice. He couldn’t paint, so creating a portrait of her was out of the question.

Yet now, knowing she would inevitably appear, he felt more prepared. He was Emperor Burn, the strongest of the strong. What were another two to three all-out wars to him? They would be a piece of cake. This time, before she could do anything, he would—

***

“Caliburn Soulnon Pendragon!”

SLASH!

“Eh?”

***

BLINK!

Chirp…! Chirp chirp…

Rustle…

“WHY?!”

KNOCK-KNOCK!

The door to his room was opened, and a man he knew as his closest aide entered.

“Your Majesty, the preparation for the war is complete.”

“GET OUT!”

For the third time, Burn awoke to the same morning before the war, in his room, on his bed, stuck in a loop that even the most avant-garde director would envy.

He sat there, a picture of contemplation, his hands joined in a pose that screamed "Eureka!" if only he actually had an idea. His golden eyes were bloodshot, a testament to the shock of déjà vu on repeat. His white hair, a rebellious mess, suggested he’d fought battles with his pillow and lost.

In a moment that might have been mistaken for divine inspiration (or perhaps just sheer desperation), Burn bellowed, "Bring me papers! Something to draw!"

It was a command that echoed through the halls with the urgency of a king facing his doom—or an artist struck by a fleeting muse.

One couldn't help but picture the scene: the mighty Emperor Burn, conqueror of lands, now poised to conquer the realm of art. What was his option?!

The image of the woman was indelibly etched in Burn’s mind, her features as clear as the noonday sun, even though he never once drew in his life, he would make it LOOK like her!

Armed with nothing but sheer will and a newfound determination to capture her likeness, Burn set out to do the impossible: translate his vivid memory onto paper. After all, how hard could it be?

Yeah, no.

After several attempts that ranged from earnest sketches to desperate doodles, Burn had to face the stark reality: his artistic skills were, to put it mildly, underdeveloped.

Each stroke brought him no closer to her likeness; each "masterpiece" was a testament to his unwavering spirit, if not his grasp of anatomy or proportion.

How could he draw a woman that beautiful with his skill?!

What lay before him was a collection that, in a more charitable light, could be described as "abstract interpretations."

In truth, they looked slightly better than what a particularly ambitious five-year-old might produce in a fervor of scribbling. His depiction of her, intended to be a homage to her ethereal beauty, instead resembled a vague, humanoid shape, where features drifted on the face like lost ships at sea.

“Fuck this! Galahad! Call those outsiders merchants! I want to buy their AI painting generator!”