The most terrifying thing about a demonic imprint was that people could be influenced without realizing it. By the time everything was set in stone, it was already too late to change anything.
Karya was relatively lucky. He had a habit of examining himself, and the demon influencing him seemed to have gone a little too far, accidentally revealing a clue. That was what let him realize what was happening in time.
Thank goodness.
So, here was the question: there were three demons in Karya's small world. Which one was causing trouble?
Before returning to his small world to deal with the demonic imprint, Karya felt he needed to make thorough preparations.
The first one to consider was Evelynn. The intense urge to destroy that Karya had just noticed might well have been mixed with a desire to inflict pain. And the one most capable of stirring up that desire was Evelynn. The young demon of pain had been born from the suffering brought on by war. She had an intense craving to inflict pain, and countless ways of doing so. Her favorite was to let her target thrill with hope, then plunge them into despair.
The sudden shock of that contrast was Evelynn's favorite thing.
So, was Evelynn the one secretly influencing him?
After thinking it over for a moment, Karya rejected that answer. It wasn't Evelynn.
A demonic imprint didn't form overnight. Even by the most conservative estimate, Karya should already have been tainted and influenced by demonic power when he used it in Freljord City to strengthen the allied soldiers and keep Lissandra from peering into their dreams.
After that, apart from the sudden burst of emotion just now, Karya had never felt the slightest desire for pain. Quite the opposite: pain had only ever caused him