“Oh? Is the intel solid?” The red‑skinned giant grinned, heat rippling off him like a kiln.

“Of course. Beastkin instincts don’t miss.” Kait Osborne shrugged, casual as drifting smoke. “Do I look like I’m scamming you?”

“Human, you’re smart. You knew to come to us.” The red‑skinned giant laughed, a thunderhead breaking over stone.

His laughter boomed like rolling thunder, and the hall, sheathed in saint‑tier energy, shivered like glass in a gale.

Kait jolted, cold creeping up his spine like frost on iron. A voice alone could rattle a sanctified hall.

He squinted at the Beastkin leader, eyes narrow as blades. This one was a hard bone to bite.

Around them, the other Beastkin only sighed, calm as old trees in wind, used to the quake.

It was clear he wasn’t putting on a show; this was habit, a storm that visited daily.

Then Kait glimpsed, behind the giant’s back, a lion’s vast shadow, mane like a crown of flame.

His pupils pinched to needles. Pressure fell like a mountain, and he froze in place like a pinned moth.

The red‑skinned giant saw his stiffness and smiled, satisfied as a hunter seeing prey still in the snare.

He thumped his chest, thunder trapped in a drum. “Brothers, since the Holy War, we’ve been quiet too long!”

His gaze swept the hall like a scythe through wheat, and he wore a pleased, iron‑warm smile.

“Good. You haven’t lost your will to fight.” He kept smiling, voice steady as a war drum. “When the Holy War ended, Hero Birand Aste split lands and loot by ‘merit’ and other messy scraps.”

“We Beastkin fought like fire through dry grass, unstoppable as a stampede. Before us, the Demon Race’s iron riders shook like reeds. Under our charge, their will broke like thin ice. City after city, we leveled them. Our Beastkin earned every inch.”

He roared with a frown, voice like a blade striking stone. His anger hung heavy as storm clouds.

“Yet in the end—our land was only a hair more than the goblins’, those tinkerers who only fiddle with scrap! That makes a Beastkin’s heart go cold toward that Hero.” His face sank like dusk.

The shout hit like a hammer. Kait staggered back two steps and spat a bright thread of blood, hot as copper.

“Thinking now, the Hero’s roots were human, and humans get on well with the Elf Race.” The giant frowned, words slow as grinding millstones. “So aside from humans, the most reward went to the Elf Race.”

“That boundless Nofir Great Forest—rich with ore and sweet weather like spring rain—was handed whole to those elf fools and wastes. It makes my blood boil like oil on flame.”

He chuckled and lifted Kait with one hand, casual as picking up a reed. “But now, the wind shifts. This human brings us a fine piece of news.”

All eyes turned, sharp as spearheads, to Kait in the giant’s fist.

“Those foolish elves plan to tear themselves apart.” The giant laughed, teeth bright as steel. “Heaven helps us. The day our Beastkin rise is this very breath!”

He roared and flung Kait skyward like a tossed coin. “For the Beastkin’s honor! Crush the trash squatting on our land!”

A chorus answered like a tidal wave. “Oh!” The Beastkin’s killing will and battle heat filled the hall like wildfire.

Kait spun twice in the air, face down, expecting the floor like a stone’s cold kiss.

Instead, he sank into a soft embrace, warm as silk in spring.

He tilted his head back. A woman with serpent‑slit emerald eyes smiled, her gaze cool as a forest pool. “Dear human guest, not hurt, are you?”

He felt her aura coil around him like a python. He sprang away, legs trembling like reeds, stumbled, and fell to one knee.

She hid a laugh behind her hand, bell‑clear as silver chimes. “You’re rather amusing.”

“Uh… heh. Thanks for the kindness, miss.” Kait wiped sweat from his brow, throat dry as sand.

The snake‑maiden’s face was flawless, a blade of beauty that could cut light. Top tier, no doubt.

In all his years in the Miter Empire, the girls who could match her could be counted on one hand, fingers to spare.

Yet the memory of venom bit like a ghost. The poison that nearly ended him had a serpent’s fang.

So his fear was bone‑deep. See a snake, and the heart flinches like a spooked horse.

He excused himself in a hurry and slipped into a shadowed corner, quiet as a cat. He tugged open his shirt.

Across his chest, eerie black threads, faintly luminous like starlit silk, wrapped the green toxin gnawing his flesh.

Color told the tale. The green was being eaten by the black, swallowed like dusk swallowing dawn.

Kait sighed, pain sharp as frost in the lungs. “Demon Race, damn you. You shattered my country. Why save my life?”

His heart was now shielded in demonic energy, a dark shell hard as obsidian.

And the demon that entered him, under some distant will, devoured that green venom like fire drinking oil.

His body, against sense, was sprouting life again like grass after rain.

But when he woke, he saw only his father’s fading back, and empty cities like husks under moonlight.

He wandered the Miter Empire in a black robe, city to city, a ghost crossing ruins.

No humans anywhere. Wherever he looked, demon banners fluttered like crows over a field.

Among the Demon Race’s key ranks, he saw a name like a thorn—his fourth brother, Evan Osborne.

The cornered and hopeless felt it as shame, hot as iron fresh from the forge.

“I’ll rebuild a force, then make you—all of you in the Demon Race—pay in kind.” Kait clawed at the dark qi on his chest like a trapped beast.

“Hero Birand didn’t finish you. I, Kait Osborne, won’t repeat that sin. I’ll annihilate you, humiliate you, butcher you!”

Pain burst like sparks. He slapped the ground, tears falling heavy as rain.

“Damn the Demon Race!”

Thinking of his mages, his anger cooled, and silence settled like snow.

To erase the Demon Race wouldn’t be easy. He knew it like stone knows weight.

His country wasn’t weak. A vast empire guarding the north for the Hero’s coalition wouldn’t fall to a Demon King’s army whose peak held only Divinity.

He’d never believe it, not even with a blade at his throat.

So he laid it on a hidden power the Demon Race kept in shadow, a hand that turned cities into hollow shells.

His father had aged in a breath, then drifted off like ash on wind, lost without a trace.

Kait ground his teeth. “Endure. The day for revenge will come.”

Now he’d use the hatreds between races as tinder and raise a war like a storm.

He’d play both sides, build strength in the cracks. In chaos, heroes rise like swords from fire.

In this sleepy world with barely any war, the wind didn’t favor him.

So he’d use every scrap of intel to spark a great war. That was his first, ruthless goal.

He watched Beastkin sing and stomp, news passing from tier to tier like torches down a mountain.

The whole race celebrated, a festival like a sea of flames. Kait’s face stayed cool and distant as moonlight.

A banner isn’t a lover. Put feelings on a flag, and it cuts like a double‑edged blade.

Beastkin, lay me a strong foundation, stone upon stone.

Between you and the Elf Race, who’ll earn my elder seats? Kait smiled, bright as frost.

That smile held killing intent, calm, and cold, like a knife left in snow.

…

“Human, I’m weary. If you don’t name your sacrifice and offering, I won’t answer again.” The Abyss spoke, voice deep as a trench.

Eli shrugged, easy as a leaf on water. “You think I’m three years old and easy to swindle?”

“…”

“I summoned you. Have some self‑awareness,” Eli sneered, words like salt on a wound. “I can read most of your state. You’re starved for energy, a lantern low on oil. You can’t stay long across the endless void, and you bluff about going silent? Cut the act.”

“I dislike you, human.” The Abyss frowned, killing urge rising like black tide.

Eli sighed, whispering to himself like a mantra. “Be nice to the father‑in‑law. Be nice. Be nice.”

Edlyn smiled faintly, arms around Eli’s shoulder, her small face resting there like a trusting bird.

“Alright, alright. Since you asked, I’ll say it, you listen.” Eli sighed, breath steady as a drawn bow. “I’ll offer Light, the Celestial God, and the Holy Sword Tias in my hand, as your trophies. Abyss, tempted? If the heart moves, the hand should too.”

Silence pooled like ink. The Abyss liked the list, hunger coiling like smoke, but said, “You’re only pre‑spending your hoped‑for spoils. That’s not an offering.”

Eli’s eyes flashed like flint. “Why the speech? I’ll ask plain. Do you want the Celestial God? Do you want your seal undone? Do you want freedom? Do you want the Holy Sword Tias? The Light… maybe not your taste. Well, Abyss? Speak your mind and choose.”

The Abyss seemed to sigh, his low voice carrying a trace of weariness, like wind through a deep cave. “Human, you win.”

“Of course.”