“Cast by feel; toss your power like stones into a dark lake. Luck decides.” Birand’s laugh rippled in Eli’s head like smoke through reeds, then faded like mist.

“...” Eli froze like a nailed post, standing still like a shadow pinned by moonlight.

“Hey, you’re a real handful,” Eli said with a helpless smile like a cracked mask.

From nowhere, Qiliad’s voice rolled in like surf in a cave. “What, Hero, scared stiff? With your level, how dare you vie with the Demonic Lord? I’ll end you here like snuffing a candle!”

Eli opened his eyes; one was black and one was white, yin and yang like twin moons, and three vast golden discs bloomed behind him like suns.

He glanced around like a hawk and clenched his fists like iron.

“Ah. Long-lost Judge Mode,” Eli smiled, pale as winter sunlight. “Though this power is a touch beyond what I expected, like spice burning the tongue.”

“Speaking of later times, why’s your Judge attribute so weak, like a blade left to rust?” Birand’s voice slid back in like a whispering reed.

“Yeah. It’s a pain to open, like a door with a hundred locks. I got lazy,” Eli shrugged, shoulders loose as drifting leaves.

“And it burns too much, lasts just minutes, not worth it,” he sighed, staring at the onrushing wave like a moving wall, then fell silent like a stone sinking.

“Bull. Me? I blink, and I’m in it, like flipping a lantern,” Birand snapped like flint.

“No wonder you feel like someone who’s barely fought, like straw in a storm. Do you often get beaten?”

“Ahahaha...” Eli scratched his head like a guilty boy, laughter thin as paper.

“Tsk. Most of your power’s the Hero’s. Without Judge Mode, where’s your edge, like chasing clouds? Dreaming?”

“I don’t even know what to say. This thing’s really handy, like a knife in the boot,” Birand kept grumbling like a brook.

“You just hate that it only stands tall for a few minutes, yeah, like a flash bonfire?”

“...Damn that metaphor. So you’re a dirty old rogue too,” Eli said with a fox’s grin.

“Please. Whatever I am, you are. Don’t you know yourself, like looking into a muddy mirror?”

“...Fine. You’re right,” Eli let the words fall like pebbles.

“Judge Mode needs Divinity to drive it if you want it to last, like running a mill with a river. You used mana to wake it. With that tiny trickle, if you could keep it long, there’d be no justice.”

He choked, the sound stuck like a fishbone. “Uh, uh.”

“This thing stands beyond normal power, like a tiger. Fuel it with normal juice, of course it won’t last. So try it,” Birand urged like a drumbeat.

Eli watched the wave nearing like a cliff and sighed like wind through pines.

Behind him, he let Birand’s Divinity switch into the pillar that supports Judge Mode, like setting a beam in a hall.

At once he felt lighter like a feather riding a breeze.

“Annoying as a greenbottle fly buzzing my ear, but you do have a point,” he muttered like a grudging nod.

“I’m the greenbottle? Then what are you, a maggot?” Birand snapped, words spat like seeds.

“Forget it. I won’t argue. Shut up,” Eli said, words snapping like a twig.

He hovered in the air like a lantern kite. Golden light poured off him, thick as honey, and he raised one hand like a judge’s gavel. A vast golden barrier covered the humans behind him like a shining dome.

“Bastion,” he intoned, the word falling like a seal on wax.

Seawater drowned the shore like a gray blanket, then without Qiliad’s push began to retreat, exhaling like a tired tide.

Qiliad was carried by his subordinates like a chieftain on a rough litter, face pale as fish belly, a little spent.

“I’ve used the Sea Emperor’s power too often these days, like burning oil at both ends. I’m overdrawn. Need something to replenish,” he said, voice dry as sand.

“As you command,” two fishmen nodded like bobbing buoys.

“Under a calamity like that, even a Hero won’t feel good,” Qiliad laughed like gravel rolling.

Eli knelt on one knee, soaked through like rain-drenched cloth.

He froze there like carved wood, gripping the Holy Sword Tias like a mute torch, and sank into silence like a deep well.

“Hey, Hero, you’re still not dead?” Qiliad bit into a golden strange fish like a gleaming knife, color returning to his cheeks like sunrise. He stepped up to jeer like a crow.

“No strength to resist, right? Men, pin him. We’ll take him to the Demon Race to meet the Demon King,” he snapped, voice cracking like a lash.

“Yes,” they answered like drums.

Eli looked at his hands like reading lines etched in stone, and stayed silent like falling snow.

Behind him lay the bones of the Hero’s vanguard like a field of bleached driftwood. In that special tsunami, countless vortices stripped their flesh like knives, until they fell as bare skeletons on the ground like scattered ribs of ships.

For the first time, Eli felt his smallness like a grain of sand in a storm. If this truly happened beside him—if those he cared for died because his strength failed to shield them like a broken umbrella—

Even Eli was knocked out of Judge Mode by that direct hit, his third-stage form shattering like glass, and he dropped back to a mortal shell like a shed skin.

The others stood no chance and went down like leaves.

Of course, it’s not that Qiliad is unstoppable; put him on dry land against a Hero, and a single glare would scare him dead like a pricked bladder.

Stunned, Eli was trussed up like a festival pig and sent into Overlord City like a prisoner swallowed by a dark maw.

“You’re something else,” Birand said, voice cutting like a cold wind. “I hacked a bloody path like a river through thorns back to the human main camp. You? You got gift-wrapped and delivered to the enemy’s camp.”

Eli stayed silent, spinning his sword like a slow wheel under dim light.

“Still not talking?” Birand frowned like a storm cloud, then appeared before him like a ghost in a mirror. “Shaken?”

“Mm,” Eli answered, the sound dull as damp ash.

“Sigh,” Birand breathed, the note heavy as iron. “You’ll have to walk through this stage, like crossing a winter pass.”

“I’m still too weak,” Eli said, smiling at himself like cracked ice. “Even with you riding me, with your power, I’m laughably weak.”

Birand said nothing, sitting beside him like a faithful shadow, and watched him like a patient guard watching a fire die.

“Honestly, my life feels fake,” Eli said, voice thin as paper in rain. “Everything is built on you. I just tweak it a bit. That’s all.”

“You won’t gain Divinity that way,” Birand shook his head like a tree in wind. “You must find yourself. Fix your place, like carving your own seal.”

“Sure. I’ve already fixed it,” Eli smiled bitterly like wormwood.

“Giving up so fast?” Birand asked, chill as a draft through a shutter.

“No. I don’t want to give up,” Eli said, head shaking like a rattle.

“I lack power. I must take it. But I can’t walk your road,” he said, eyes steady like cold stars. “Yet I have no direction,” he added, voice lost like fog over marsh.

“Direction is you,” Birand said, words clear as spring water. “I came here leaning on no one. Since you’re my later life, you can do it too,” he said, passing the thought like handing over a torch.

“Just me... what kind of crap is that?” Eli shook his head, but he smiled like dawn edging a ridge. “Thanks. You said nothing, but it helped.”

“Dammit,” Birand muttered, half laughing and half crying like rain under sun.

Holy Paris. The current Pope, Manstein, held the highest command of the Holy Court Church like a hand on the tiller.

With the church’s reach into humanity like roots biting soil, Manstein was slowly stepping onto the Human Race’s top seat like climbing a dais. After trouble in the northern Miter Empire, that rise paused like a stalled cart.

Why did the Miter Empire hand a vast land to the Demon Race like a platter? Of course, because the Miter royal house opposed the Holy Court Church moving into Miter like a tide.

Why was only the Miter Empire the one to suffer like a struck gong? Of course, because the Miter royal house opposed the Holy Court Church moving into Miter like a tide.

Why, when the Demon Race attacked, did Holy Paris send no aid like a silent fortress? Of course, because the Miter royal house opposed the Holy Court Church moving into Miter like a tide.

Rumors swarmed from every human faction like gnats at dusk. Manstein, catching strays while lying down, felt a headache throb like drums in a temple.

A race long exterminated—why crawl out and stir up so much trouble like ghosts? Nothing better to do than ask for pain like moths to flame?

Worse, the moment he got the first reports, he sent large cadres of high-ranked Paladins like shining lances to help. Without exception, a man in a butterfly mask smashed them like hammers on clay, left them fleeing in shame, stripped to their shorts, everything else blown apart by the one calling himself Zero.

He sent the main force after, and the result was the same, like a grim replay.

With no options, faced with Zero’s truce, he had to bow for now like grass in wind, and that drew a storm of loose talk like leaves in a gale.

To loyal believers, that gossip was an insult like spitting at an altar. If anyone dared badmouth Manstein before them, the outcome was miserable like carrion picked clean.

Of course, in Holy Paris you can’t say it, but you can’t muzzle other nations like distant hills, right? So the whispers poured in like rain on slate.

Power struggles inside the church were constant like tides. Manstein felt only irritation and a pounding head like a buzzing hive.

Now, with news that the Beastkin are preparing to strike the Elf Race like wolves eyeing deer, his temper flared like oil to flame.

“You lot, can you stop for one damn second?” he roared, his voice cracking the air like thunder over stone.