As Abner thought it over, he shared what he could with Xio and Edwina, one detail at a time. Their opinion of the Night Emperor quickly took a turn for the worse.
"So the Night Emperor and the Primordial Demoness had been conspiring in secret all along. He sold out the ancestor of Monica's Witch Family to the Primordial Demoness, even though she had pledged herself to him and sought his protection.
"And that wasn't all. In the end, he even sacrificed Monica, who had escaped death only to fall to Sequence 2, and turned her into the Spectral Empire?
"No wonder the Spectral Empire suddenly disappeared instead of letting Trunsoest's descendants aboard!
"But seriously, what made the Night Emperor think Monica would keep serving him as a Ghost Ship after he betrayed her?"
Xio found it unthinkable. If someone had treated her that way, she would never let him get away with it, even if it meant the destruction of her soul!
Edwina suspected that the Night Emperor had some means of controlling Monica, but that it had later failed for unknown reasons.
Abner's guess was much the same. He also knew that after Ornia, the Night Emperor's queen and the Blood Moon Queen, died, her Beauty Goddess characteristic had fallen into the hands of either the Mother Tree of Desire or the Mother Goddess of Depravity. He couldn't help suspecting that the Night Emperor had made a deal with an Outer Deity, or at least had an understanding with one.
After all, when the Night Emperor had dealt with Mr. Door, the latter had most likely already been corrupted by an Outer Deity.
*And the ancestor of the Succubus Family was named Monica... while Medea, the Black Saintess, came from that family. Those names sound very much like