As Eli’s aura swelled like a rising tide, his senses sharpened a notch like a whetted blade. He scanned the blood-red sprigs that dotted the ground like embers, and he felt the rage of wronged souls rumbling beneath the soil like thunder under stone.

Eli sighed, breath like mist over cold water, and traced cryptic sigils in the air like fireflies weaving. A vast golden array unfurled from under his boots like sunrise spilling, and it draped the entire mountain like a luminous veil.

“May the holy light bless you,” he said, voice like a bell in fog.

At his word, the desert-dry earth stirred with green like spring thawing frost, and the Red Elves’ lingering spirits thinned like smoke in wind.

“These bastards slaughtered the Red Elves and burned the mountain clean like a kiln. All that just for my memory shards?” Eli frowned, disgust rising like bitter bile.

His opinion of the New Era Sect sank like a stone in deep water. “Looks like I’ve gotta chase those memories faster,” he muttered, the thought beating like a drum.

If they found him again, who knew what storm would break like a snapped dam.

Bottom line, Eli still wasn’t strong enough, like a blade not yet tempered. If he were, he’d sweep them in one stroke like a gale flattening tents.

If both sides had been ready earlier, he couldn’t swear he’d beat that white-robed masked man, the thought like grit in his teeth. Driving him back took a preloaded swarm of small arrays and a mana bombardment like hail, yet the man still slipped away like a shadow at dusk.

He scooped Edlyn up, whistled like a sparrow at dawn, and shrugged. “I’m no saint. Don’t stew on it. Let it be, let it be,” he said, the words drifting like leaves.

He slung her over his shoulder and hummed, feet ticking down the slope like a lazy stream.

A tickle brushed his ear like a moth’s wing, and Eli twitched, thinking it was hair. He pushed it aside and gathered his hair forward like a dark ribbon, tying a side-pony that draped his chest like a sash. “Side pony over the shoulder… I remember this was kinda dangerous back in my old world,” he mused, nostalgia flickering like a match.

“Something about women’s associations being dangerous,” he added, memory scrambled like a jigsaw. He shook his head, the doubt falling like dust. “Looks harmless. Whatever.”

He swaggered downhill like a carefree fox, when the tickle flicked his ear again like a teasing reed.

Eli narrowed his eyes like drawn slits and glanced at Edlyn hanging over his shoulder like a sack of feathers.

A heart-tipped tail slipped from under Edlyn’s skirt like a pink snake, twitching in the air like a metronome that wouldn’t behave. Eli squinted and caught it lightly, his fingers closing like a loop on a fish. “What’s this?” he asked, curiosity pricking like a thorn. The tail shivered harder, straining to slip free like a startled eel.

He let the tail go and studied her like a puzzling painting. “Doesn’t look like an elf,” he murmured, the guess hanging like mist.

“Ah! Got it!” He clapped, realization cracking like lightning. The tail snapped his face like a whip, and Eli toppled back to the ground, eyes staring at the sky like a blank lake. “Succubus…”

...

Edlyn pushed herself up from the ground like a cat roused from sun, rubbed her eyes, and stretched like a willow unbending. “Mm, feels like I slept forever,” she muttered, voice lazy as smoke.

She kneaded her sore head like dough. “Ow. Some jerk knocked me out just now,” she said, irritation popping like sparks.

She stood and frowned, nose wrinkling like a wary rabbit’s. “What happened here? Why did grass spring up all of a sudden?” She glanced around like a bird on a branch and saw no sign of Eli. Squaring her shoulders like a soldier, she called, “Um, Mr. Eli?”

Eli dropped from the sky like a hawk, eyes cold as ice. “Talk. Are you with the New Era Sect too?” he asked, suspicion coiled like a snake. Outside of them, he couldn’t imagine who else would care about him now like wolves scenting blood. The Demon Race that had long since faded? Impossible, like ashes reigniting.

“Huh?” Edlyn blinked, her mind blanking like a blown candle. What set the Hero off? “Mr. Eli, what are you saying? I don’t get it,” she said, panic fluttering like trapped birds.

“What’s the point of playing dumb?” Eli watched her with a half-smile like a blade’s edge.

“Eh?” Her confusion wobbled like jelly in a tremor.

Eli sighed, the sound falling like rain. “Spill it. A member of the Demon Race sticking to me—what for? You look like you know I’m the Hero,” he said, words steady as stone.

“I—uh. I, I…” Edlyn’s big eyes blinked hard like wet stars, and panic drummed in her chest like warbeats.

What do I do? Her heart plunged like a stone in a well. He found my real identity? Will he kill me off early? I’m doomed, doomed, she thought, despair swelling like a storm tide. I, the mighty Demon King, am gonna get killed by him again?

Eli’s face hardened like frost. “You’re Demon Race? How? The Demon Race has been erased in essence, gone like names cut from stone. No way someone like you just walks around. Speak! Are you with the New Era Sect?!” His shout cracked the air like a whip.

Edlyn stared at his advancing scowl like a wolf looming, and she lost her bearings like a compass spinning. She flailed her hands to keep him back like a scarecrow waving. “D-don’t come closer.”

What was Eli thinking now? He had checked the girl head to toe earlier like a healer, and she was in a half-demon state like twilight between day and night. That was a relic of war, a form built to slip past human wards like smoke through mesh. But the demon war had ended years ago, the years piled like fallen leaves, and he couldn’t think of any reason for a half-demon to remain—much less a Succubus half-breed—except the New Era Sect snatching locals for experiments like rats in jars.

The girl’s wit seemed short like a stubby candle, so she was likely abducted, just like the reason he’d first saved her, that thought sitting like a stone. He only wanted to tease her a bit, but her terror shook him like cold water, and he grew more certain those beasts had used her for human experiments like butchers at a slab.

His disgust toward them surged again like a black tide. Telling the girl he’d been the Hero was meant to ease her shadow like a lantern in a tunnel. At least, that was his thought, drifting like smoke. In truth, our Demonic Lord knew better than the current Hero, that irony gleaming like a hidden knife.

Lost in thought, Eli missed her shifting like a cat coiling.

Edlyn saw him blank out for a heartbeat like a clock skipping, and she swung her right leg up like a scythe. “Die, you jerk Hero!” she cried, the words biting like frost.

Secret Art: Lineage-Severing Kick! The effect was stellar, like a meteor strike.

“Mm—” Eli snapped his thighs together like a trap, eyes going wide like lanterns, and he crumpled weakly to the ground like a felled stalk. Edlyn tried to scramble away like a startled hare, but he toppled onto her and pinned her down like a fallen tree.

Their eyes met eye to eye, their noses pressed nose to nose, and their mouths touched mouth to mouth like magnets snapping.

Edlyn’s composure shattered like glass; she bristled like a puffed-up cat and bit Eli’s lip hard like a clamp. A coppery thread of blood slid into her mouth like warm wine, and she blinked, dazed like a sleepwalker.

Despair surged again like a riptide. Counting the days since she’d turned into a Succubus, this first hunger was about to hit, drawn by blood like sharks to the wake.

Eli startled, shock blooming like a flare, and then pain stung his lip like a needle. The little brat bit him viciously, which was almost funny like a bad joke, and then—she suddenly wrapped her arms around his neck like a vine, yet she still wouldn’t let go of his mouth.

Eli wanted to cry but had no tears, his thoughts scattering like startled birds. What the hell was this supposed to be?!