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Belos found an odd sense of comfort in watching the suffering of witches in the Boiling Isles.
He enjoyed hearing the furious screams of wild witches being captured and sent to the conformatorium. Usually they were full of rage and anger, upset that their freedoms taken away. Many of the wild witches would kick the coven scouts and try to use their magic to get away. But his scouts were well-trained and found them all eventually.
It felt nice to be the one to write the rules, to set things straight. Because no matter how many wild witches screamed "This is unjust!" when getting captured, it did not change the way things were done. Belos would make sure things were done his way in preparation for the Day of Unity.
The reactions of witches during petrification ceremonies were also carefully orchestrated by Belos to further spread his ideology. Witches sentenced to petrification would often try to use their last breaths to try to spread a message, to tell "the truth", to inform the crowd of the evil nature of the Emperor's Coven. But Belos always made sure that none of the audience actually took these words to heart. Crowds were told that these witches would do anything to avoid their own petrification, often lashing out at authorities and the crowds themselves. After the petrification, it was made clear that things were now better in the Boiling Isles because of this petrification. The audience was given a sense of accomplishment, as well as a sense of duty to continue to be on the lookout for other wild witches.
This all worked fairly well. There was that one time where the petrification of The Owl Lady ended up not going through, but that was a lost cause anyway. He made sure that an incident like that wouldn't happen again The Owl Lady and her sister [along with that human] wouldn't be able to ruin his plans, not by a long shot.
What Belos enjoyed most out of all of this was watching the hope leave wild witches eyes as they accepted their inevitable fate. Resistance truly is futile; all that time they spent trying to rebel was for nothing, if it didn't actively hurt those they tried to ally with.
Belos loved watching the will of wild witches shatter in front of his very eyes. Knowing that The Owl Lady and her sister were now powerless made him quite pleased. How the tides have shifted... the human now with all the power... the wild witch with none. He couldn't help but enjoy the irony of the situation.
He would not let his empire fail at the hands of rebellious wild witches. He wanted them all gone, every last one of them, if only just to watch the spark leave their eyes. He would consume all their palismen and have them be forgotten by time.
If only Evelyn could see what he'd done to her beloved Boiling Isles now! How he'd enjoy smirking at her with that frustrated look on her face as the light leaves her eyes too...