In this world, there’s a guild called Dark Demon, second only to the Mizumi Clan, its name spreading like a bruise across every map.
Inside Dark Demon, two night-born pillars stand tall—Dark Mages and Demon Summoners—seven in ten like black chess pieces set by moonlight.
Dark Mages study darkness, soul, and curse, their path ink-stained and thorned, and the world holds them in poor regard like a crowd wary of shadows.
Compared to ordinary mages, Dark Mages hit harder and stranger, their spells cutting soul and mind like cold knives slipping through fog.
At the Divine Realm, a Dark Mage can let the soul slip its cage, root in heaven and earth like a wind in pines, and stretch a life like dusk lengthening.
Demon Summoners, like Elf Users, fight with contracts more than muscle, a hidden hand pulling iron beasts like a puppeteer behind a curtain.
Unlike Elf Users, they call not elves but demons, monsters, and undead, opening rifts that breathe sulfur and grave-cold like a storm under stone.
Their summons rarely match an elf’s might, but numbers swarm like locusts, near-limitless if mana is deep and will is iron.
Yet the leash must be stronger than the beast, or the bite comes back like a serpent turning on its keeper.
Dark Demon was founded a century after Yugou Sage withdrew from the Central Continent, its ranks a mosaic—divine, demonic, human, and beastkin—mixed like pebbles in a riverbed.
Its footprints ink the world, and everywhere except the Central Continent you’ll find a branch, like embers glowing under ash.
Different races, same aim—overthrow the Mizumi Clan, one arrow aimed at the same distant moon.
You could say Dark Demon exists to topple the Mizumi Clan, a charter written like a vendetta on cold iron.
With time, their reason shifted—resentment for Yugou Sage cooled into jealousy, green-eyed frost creeping over old stone.
No one fails to envy the Mizumi Clan coiled over the whole Central Continent, a lone dragon on the heartland’s throne.
Only Dark Demon turns that envy into a cry for ruin, backed by thrones deep as mountains—God King, demon high ranks, human high ranks, beastkin high ranks.
Even so, for centuries they never set foot on the Central Continent, a ward by Yugou Sage ringing it like chains of light under a glass sky.
Helpless, Dark Demon watched from shade like owls at dusk, tracking Mizumi moves with eyes that never blink.
Truth be told, that tale only soothes Dark Demon; the Mizumi Clan moves like a tiger too busy to notice gnats.
And so it drifts to today, the wind vane of fate clicking under a pale wind.
On the Eastern Moon Continent, beneath Crescent Forest, a ruined palace crouches like bones tangled in roots.
Crescent Forest is one of the three most dangerous places here, a thicket that drinks moonlight and blood like a silent altar.
In the ruin, dozens sit around a great table, a meeting coiled like snakes of shadow under guttering flame.
They wear the same full black robes, a purple flame stitched over the left chest, with the characters for “Dark Demon” burning at its heart like violets in cinders.
“Hmm. The Guildmaster says someone from the Mizumi Clan left the Central Continent a few days ago,” the elder says, his voice gravel rolling under frost.
White hair like winter grass, wrinkles like dried riverbeds, eyes clouded like old glass, his aura hums like storm-wire as he scans the room.
His name is Guaosen Lat Fakedil, one of Dark Demon’s vice guildmasters, a Dark Mage at the Holy Peak, cold fire banked like coals.
“Vice Guildmaster, what are we waiting for!” a young man blurts, sparks leaping in his tone. “Grab him and make him tell us how to get in!”
“Grab him? What a joke,” Guaosen’s laugh rings like iron tapping stone. “You think the Mizumi Clan’s a small house you can kick?”
“If I told you their people leave the Central Continent without a heavy escort, would you buy it,” his words fall like sleet, “or choke on it?”
Heat drains and shame rises like a blush; the young man drops his head and swallows his voice like a pebble in a well.
“Ideas?” Guaosen’s gaze sweeps like a cold wind over reeds, thinning noise to quiet.
“Vice Guildmaster, we could probe first,” a seductive woman says, eyes painted like blades. “Test how strong that presence is.”
“A probe will do,” Guaosen murmurs, thoughts curling like smoke. “But I have to report to the upper ranks later, so the task…”
He closes his eyes, lets silence settle like dust, then taps names like nails. “Anying, Shahun—this probe is yours.”
“What! Master, that’s the Mizumi Clan,” the frivolous man protests, words fluttering like butterflies. “They’re stronger than us—why give us the big one?”
He’s Anying, one of Guaosen’s disciples, a Dark Demon prodigy, thirty-five and High-tier Sacred Realm, a Demon Summoner sharp as a silver needle.
“Anying, it’s our task,” the ordinary-looking man says, his bright eyes two stars in dull clay. “Do it right, not whining.”
He’s Shahun, Guaosen’s disciple as well, thirty-five and High-tier Sacred Realm, a Dark Mage, steady as a stone set in a stream.
In Dark Demon they’re the best partners, twin blades crossing in air, knowing each other like reflections in calm water.
“Hmm. Shahun’s right,” Guaosen says, patience flat as slate. “Even if you lose, you can run like stags, can’t you?”
“On Eastern Moon, High-tier Sacred Realm walks the land like lords, and you two carry life-saving trinkets like little shields.”
“That makes you perfect for this,” his words land like pebbles, small but sure.
“Eh,” resignation rolls like a lazy wave; Anying shrugs and stretches like a cat under sun. “Since Shahun and Master say so, I’ll try.”
“Rest easy, Master,” Shahun nods, a promise hammered like a nail driven true. “We’ll finish it.”
“Good. If I’m not wrong, the Mizumi folk have reached the Endless Sea, a slate that never ends,” Guaosen says, urgency tightening like a drawn bow. “Go now.”
“Yes!” they answer in unison, and with a soft whoosh they vanish, candles snuffed like breath under night.
