They fought as they fell back toward Pandora’s chosen ground, trading blows for what felt like hundreds of exchanges, a staccato of sparks under a sky like torn silk.
Pandora slipped past the disc’s frontal smash like a fish darting from a net, then snapped a brutal kick into Birand’s gut, sending him tumbling back in hard, rolling arcs, like a barrel in a storm tide.
He opened space fast, a shadow peeling off the clash, and began coaxing demonic qi through himself to stitch his wounds, like cold ink soaking a torn scroll.
But the god-slaying ballista’s direct blast still clung to his bones like frost; Pandora’s control over qi was a shade worse than before, the river of power a little silted.
Against the Hero in Judge Mode, that thin falter showed like a nick in armor, and the momentum tilted, a weathervane swinging in a sudden gale.
Birand felt it in the exchange, a hunter tasting blood on the wind, and he knew this was the perfect window.
Subdue the Demon King, and the Demon Race’s overall casualties could be carved down like trimming a wildfire’s edge; he didn’t want a neat kill, he wanted a leash.
He needed that Supreme Demon Ruler authority to drive the Demon Race armies off every front, to roll back the dark tide like a retreating sea.
Such were the thoughts of a still-young Birand, a blade just out of the forge, heat bright and purpose sharp.
Simple as a moonlit oath: end this war with minimal sacrifice, keep the people behind him safe like lambs under a shepherd’s cloak.
Otherwise, he’d have loaded the ballista with the special powder it was designed to take, packing thunder into the bolt like a volcano’s heart.
It would’ve scarred the local ecosystem like fire through a forest, but with that much speed and force, this Demon King would’ve had no path to live, not even a thread.
Of course, the shot he’d already fired had burned through all the materials he brought; if the smiths saw the schematics and crammed in powder without full holy coverage, the barrel might bloom like a lethal flower.
Then the blast wouldn’t take the Demon King; it would take them, the dwarves and their iron dreams, in a heartbeat.
So he pared back the power out of grim necessity, banking the furnace before it cracked.
Birand slapped the disc, and the shock it spat tore through Pandora’s surging wave of qi like a bell-note breaking fog; he grinned at the panting Demon King. “What’s wrong? Burned through your core? Each hit’s getting weaker, isn’t it?”
Pandora frowned, cold moonlight in his eyes first, motion after; he was in the Transcender stage, a cocoon about to split to godhood, and his strength was throttled by the moment like a hawk in a cage.
Break through now, and the next breath might be the Hero raising his severed head to the cheers of a camp, a grisly banner in a wind of glory.
“You talk too damn much.” Pandora’s laugh was a razor on ice as he watched Birand clown.
Birand shrugged, breath a cloud, then sighed. “Can’t be helped. If I’m beating you head-on, looks like I’ve gotta use the real stuff.”
He murmured a spell, knuckles together against his chest like a prayer, drawing in holy power until it was thick as molten gold.
He stared at Pandora across the broken ground with a hunter’s winter-hard face. “Like this, I’m gonna want to kill you. I’ll try to keep the killing urge on a leash.”
He rose into the air, looking down like a hawk on a lone wolf, then flashed a crooked grin. “Hey, Demonic Lord, you’re prettier than most women.”
Rage flared across Pandora’s face like lightning in a night cloud; his howl cut the air, and a dense lance of demonic qi speared from his chest, slamming Birand head-on like a black river against a cliff.
The holy aura took it like sunlight on frost; the malice smoked, shivered, then unraveled into mist, and only the pure force struck the barrier that ringed Birand like a glass dome.
Feeling Birand’s aura climb like a mountain pushing through clouds, Pandora didn’t hesitate; emotion surged first, then movement—he turned and bolted, a dark streak knifing toward the horizon.
Birand opened his eyes wide, and sanctity spread over the land like dawn; where demon-qi had gnawed the earth, grass-breath stirred and color returned, a field waking from nightmare.
He watched Pandora dwindling, and a thin, mocking smile cut his mouth like the edge of a coin.
He wasn’t the carefree optimist now; the air around him smelled of iron and winter, his killing intent a black banner in bright wind.
Birand exhaled a thread of golden breath like incense smoke and sneered. “Run? You think you can run?”
His left hand flicked, and a golden longsword dropped into his grip like a sunbeam hardened, its power rolling out like a tide with no shore.
“Come on, Thias—show our strongest enemy your true strength!” Birand lifted the Holy Sword and shot after the Demon King, speed breaking sound like a whip crack.
“Aurora Slash!” The sword swept sideways, a ribbon of white-gold light cleaving through the air toward Pandora.
Pandora couldn’t quite twist away; the blade kissed his back, and he was flung like a struck kite, tumbling end over end.
He spat a mouthful of black blood that smoked on the ground, face twisting. “Damn it!”
“You don’t need to run. Demon King, surrender nicely.” Birand hung in the sky, cold as a winter star, looking down.
Pandora sat up slow, pride first, pain after, and smirked up at him. “Sorry. I don’t think I’m losing to the likes of you that fast.”
“Oh? One last thrash before the end?” Birand’s chuckle was a knife tapping glass.
Pandora’s aura guttered like a candle in wind; he coughed blood into the dirt, then set his jaw, a wolf baring fangs.
Birand, in Judge Mode fully fused, Holy Sword in hand, was at his peak like a bell at full ring.
How was the Demon King supposed to escape, with the net drawn this tight?
Birand snorted. “Demon King, you look decent too. How about this—surrender, and I’ll find you a nice household to marry into?”
Pandora’s face went iron-dark; the chuckle he gave was frost-bitten. “Strut now. You’ll cry later. Keep that filthy mouth moving—I’ll show you what a Demon King really is.”
“Heh.” Birand lifted the Holy Sword, laughter dry as tinder; light flooded the blade, holy power spearing up into the clouds like a golden pillar.
“Demon King, maybe it’s better to take your tongue first.”
Pandora’s eyes tightened to knife-edges; then he raised both hands toward Birand in the sky. “I am the Demon King, the Supreme Demon Ruler. All beings in this world who would bow to me—lend me your strength.”
The ground beneath Pandora blazed to life like a buried constellation; up above, Birand’s golden light punched through the firmament, a divine arbor you could see for miles.
Birand’s face went grave, like thunderheads piling up. Damn it—when had this fiend laid a Ten-Thousand-Demons Soul-Devouring array here?
It was drawing power from the living and feeding it back, a black tide reversed into one dark star.
No wonder the Demon King hadn’t fled toward Demon Race lands, but led him here like a fisherman to his hidden cove.
Pandora’s laugh was all edges. “What’s wrong, Hero? Where’s that swagger from before? Misplaced it? You want me dead? I’ve wanted the same for you. Leave your life here for me.”
Whoosh.
Their auras collided high above like two storms grinding, black and white fire sanding each other to sparks.
Pandora, rooted on the ground, drank in demon-qi from every direction like rivers seeking the sea, his well deepening by the heartbeat.
Abyss watched it all, eyes half-lidded, and nodded, satisfied—the seed had the makings of a peak-of-the-world tree, given light and time.
“Go,” Pandora pointed at Birand in the sky. “Flower-Tree Veils the Sky!”
Birand leveled the Holy Sword, then drove it down like a judge’s gavel. “Judgment of the Arbiter!”
Boom.
Black and white crashed together like day and night slamming shut.
For a breathless span, even sound was swallowed, like the world holding its breath in a snowfield.
In that swath of land, only black and white light devoured each other, chewing slow like salt in water.
No one knew how long it lasted before both lights guttered and died.
When the glow went out, the field was empty—no Demon King, no Hero, only a hush like after thunder.
At the same time.
In the Demon King’s main encampment, a purple portal bloomed over the army like a bruise opening, and a blood-soaked man fell through, hitting earth with a wet thud.
The demons roared in panic and devotion. “Your Majesty the Demonic Lord!”
In the dwarven main command, a golden portal spun open like a struck gong, and Birand staggered out, drenched in blood.
He looked over the stunned dwarves, mouth working like a fish in silted water, and fainted before a word could form.
This battle left both sides broken, a double ruin under a cold moon.
“Demonic Lord, must you really do this?” the demon lieutenants asked, worry pooling in their eyes like stormwater.
“If I don’t, how do I beat that man?” Pandora’s reply was a snap of flint; frustration flared first, reason after.
If not for the Holy Sword, how could he have lost to the Hero? The thought was a thorn he couldn’t spit out.
“No. I have to train. We will forge a Holy Sword of our own for the Demon Race.” Pandora frowned, the promise a brand on his tongue.
“I will not return in this… disgrace. Next time, I’ll carry the Hero’s head back and let our people spit into it like a chamber pot.”
“But, Demonic Lord—the Holy Sword’s base material is part of the World Tree. How do we even find that?”
“You’re right.” Pandora’s face tightened with pain, words drying up like a stream in drought.
“My lord, I might have a way,” said one demon general, a vulture’s glint in his eye.
“Speak.” Pandora’s brows knit, storm clouds drawing close.
“It’s said the Elf Race… their Tree of Life is linked to the World Tree,” he said, and his gaze slid, unfriendly, to the gathered dark elves.
“Oh?” Pandora’s eyes narrowed to slits, then he let a cold smile bloom and shut his eyes, thinking like a chessmaster over a winter board.
“No matter what it takes, the Holy Sword must be forged.”
“Dark elves, tell me—how do we find the World Tree?”
“Demonic Lord… this… we…” The dark elf delegates could only give bitter smiles, like men chewing bark.
“Tell me everything. I will compensate you well.” Pandora’s eyes thinned; a touch of madness flickered like foxfire in a night marsh.
“Demonic Lord! Please reconsider! Think twice, my lord!”
Abyss closed his eyes.
So, that’s how it is?
Was all of it drawn into this shape?
It’s so much like her and me—so familiar it aches, like a scar touched by rain.
Abyss sighed. “I thought I could slip the noose of reincarnation, but everything still turns around that one thing.”
“She and I are doomed to campaign against each other, to punish and be punished, again and again.”
“Chaos fell to ruin, and the world split into poles like ice cracking a sea.” Abyss looked at the sky. “You didn’t give up. When did I ever give up? You think I made a Demon King because I surrendered?”
“Heh. You’ve really underestimated me.”
