"Mm. I can’t break free." Akenachel glanced at Eli, who sat to the side gulping air like a bellows, and she frowned like a stormline.

"When did you get this kind of strength?" Akenachel asked, confusion cold as morning mist.

Her hands were tied tight behind her back, her whole body trussed in iron like a cocooned insect.

"Why ask so much? You’re a prisoner of war now, got it?" Eli grinned, his words flicking like pebbles on water.

He crossed his leg, showing off, heel tapping like a smug drum.

"So what do you want, then?" Akenachel burned, her voice flaring like a struck match. "Tie me here, then sit there saying nothing. You—you’re—"

"What I want, you know very well. It’s only whether you’ll give it." Eli turned his head toward her, gaze heavy as rain.

"What’s obvious doesn’t need repeating. You’re not that dumb."

"Tch. No room to talk?" Akenachel clicked her tongue, the sound sharp as slate.

"Talk? Got a way to let the girl own her body again? Then talk." Eli’s tone went level as a still pond. "Wait. When my wife drags back the other Angel, we’ll chat."

He shrugged, casual as a drifting leaf. He flicked a finger, and the chains clamped over Akenachel’s mouth like closing iron petals.

Eli looked around at the riddled, pierced ruin, then shook his head like a tree shedding wind.

"Forget it. This is the Abyss’s yard. When he’s back, he can fix his own mess." He tossed the matter aside like dust off a sleeve.

"Edlyn, hurry up. We’re about to enter hibernation." He bit down, voice winter-cold.

"Again!" Edlyn slipped past the slash like a shadow through rain. She raised her black sword and took Bernice’s head like cutting a flower.

She drew breath in thick gulps, wind pushing a broken gate.

"It’s useless. Kill me as many times as you want. I’ll revive." Her words fell like dry leaves.

Before the sound settled, the headless Angel behind Edlyn sprouted a new head, flesh knitting like dawn light.

She looked at Edlyn with a tired sheen. "I stand for the Celestial God’s purity. I hold the densest energy from the Celestial God. You alone can’t break me." Her certainty rang like temple bronze.

She stepped in, sword lifted, motion clean as a blade of ice.

"Storm!" Her finger tapped the blade, then she thrust with eyes cold as frost.

The blade moved too fast to see, a white squall. Edlyn staggered under the gale, then found a seam in Bernice’s guard. She burst through that crack, kicked Bernice’s back like a falling stone, then sprang away like a cat.

Bernice flipped in the air, a pale feather wheeling. Her wings beat slow, balancing her like scales.

Hands clasped behind her, she mused, voice deep as a well: "In every way, you outclass me. Your energy’s thicker, richer, vaster. Your battle sense eclipses mine. I admit, normally I’d never beat you."

She turned—and the black longsword met her like midnight tide.

"October Kill!" Edlyn switched grip and unleashed a flurry, strikes drumming like late-autumn rain on tiles.

Bernice neither dodged nor parried. She let the black sword chew through her like night eating stars. "Keep this up and you’ll die of exhaustion. Here, the outcome was sealed long ago."

Edlyn spun and hewed away half her wings, cutting her from the sky like clipping a hawk.

Bernice hit the ground and wore indifference like a porcelain mask. She smiled. "I said it’s useless. Demon King, accept judgment. You shouldn’t exist in this world." Her voice fell like a gavel.

Golden light burst from her again, sunrise breaking through cloud. The severed wings regrew, feathers whispering like reeds, and she fanned them once.

Then Bernice faltered, a ripple of wrongness crossing her face like a chill wind.

"Huh?" she blurted, startled like a sparrow.

She felt her divine energy draining, water slipping through a cracked jar.

By old measure, two or three deaths cost far less. Now it was only a cut arm, a few slashes, clipped wings. What was happening? The doubt swelled like fog.

Edlyn hung in the air, breath ragged, and smirked. "Little Angel, when I was scrapping with your master, you were somewhere nursing milk." Her words stung like a whip.

"Immortal, huh? Just borrowed grace, a few extra lives. Scare some backwater Hero, fine. Pull that stunt before me? That’s brain-dead." Edlyn shrugged, smoke-light.

Bernice fell silent, then said, steady as stone, "True. But you aren’t the former Demonic Lord—now you’re a flimsy little girl. I don’t believe you can kill me that many times."

Edlyn chuckled, soft as a hidden knife. "Naïve. The stinky Hero was right—Angels are a pack of idiots."

Bernice stared, speechless, watching the Demonic Lord joke mid-battle like a cat playing under a storm.

"Demon King, you’ve changed a lot," she murmured, voice drifting like rain.

"I’ve no time to reminisce. Fight properly." Edlyn rolled her black sword, wrists flowing like water.

The blood clinging to it didn’t fling off. It sank into the blade like ink into silk, a quiet swallow.

Below, Bernice noticed. Her gaze stayed pinned to that black sword like a nail.

"Could it be…"

Edlyn felt her stare and curled a mocking smile. "Oh? So you’re not blind. There’s hope for you yet." Her voice danced like a cold flame.

Birand watched, uneasy, and asked Yuris, "Old man, you’d better tell me where you’re taking this thing." His worry frayed like rope.

"My Hero, quit pestering me like a drumbeat," Yuris snapped, voice clanging like pots. "Your wives are bored stiff at home. Why aren’t you back? Why tail me? I said I’ll handle it."

He grumbled, smoke in his tone, words drifting like ash.

When Birand handed him the sword, he’d felt pleased, like finding a wise soul at last in a crowd.

Then Birand’s brain misfired like a sputtering lamp and drifted off course like a drunk boat.

They had left Overlord City for a while, but Birand still chased him, wanting to watch its end like a kid at a parade.

Yuris kept quiet, and Birand buzzed like flies, nagging like a monk droning scripture all the way.

"I’m just not at ease," Birand said, voice thin as paper.

"I swear, man. You’re heading into seclusion. What’s this thing’s fate to you? You’re uneasy? Why’s that my problem? So much to do—what do you want?" Yuris’s patience cracked like ice.

Birand watched him about to snap, swearing like thunder, and scratched his head, awkward as a stray dog. "Haha, I just want to know. You’ve got such a trick—to erase Ashir completely. I’m curious."

"Why should I care? Curious about what? Do you know how a hen lays eggs?" Yuris barked, words pecking like beaks.

"Uh… not really." Birand’s answer drooped like wet straw.

"Wanna know?" Yuris’s eyes glinted like flint.

"Uh… no." Birand shrank like a shadow.

"Bull. You do. Then get lost and go watch a mother hen lay eggs. Don’t bug me." Yuris flicked him away like a gnat.

"Come on, old sir. Indulge my curiosity. I’ll just watch quietly, won’t talk, promise. I’m just curious." Birand’s plea stretched like a begging bowl.

"Not my problem," Yuris said, rolling his eyes like slow clouds over hills.

"Hey, old man, don’t push it. I’m begging with my head down. You still won’t agree? You want a fight?" Birand’s temper snapped like a twig.

"Screw off. You hit me, and I’ll drop right here. Then keep yapping to the dirt." Yuris’s threat lay flat as a stone.

"I swear, I’ll say you’re Demon Race scum. See if anyone cares. One swing, nothing left." Birand’s words hissed like steam.

"…Fine. You’re amazing," Yuris muttered, a dry leaf.

"Ahaha, you’re cheap. Heh. Now I can watch you handle it, right?" Birand drawled, grin greasy as oil.

Yuris went stone-faced. He drew back the gold cloth wrapping the half-made Demon Sword Ashill, shine like sunset on metal.

He pointed at Ashill. "You wanna watch?"

"Mm-hmm." Birand nodded, head bobbing like a bird.

"Watching?"

"Mm-hmm."

Yuris brushed Ashill with one hand. Wherever his fingers slid, Ashill faded like smoke into air.

The whole sword scattered into the air, a dark flock dissolving into sky.

Birand stared, dumbstruck, eyes round as moons.

"Huh? What? How?" His voice wobbled like a loose wheel.

"Done watching?" Yuris’s tone cooled like night water.

"Uh…" Birand’s answer shrank like a snuffed candle.

"Then scram. Don’t interrupt my sightseeing." Yuris waved him off like wind through grass.

"Dammit. If you’re that good, why didn’t you do it the moment you saw the sword?" Birand blurted, words tripping like stones.

"Because I’d have to kill you for knowing." Yuris’s reply fell like a blade.

"Why aren’t you afraid now?" Birand asked, curiosity gnawing like a mouse.

"Because I figured it out. The Hero is a once-in-prehistory, never-again, super, unbeatable, colossal idiot. So I can relax," Yuris growled, thunder low and mean.

"Uh… hehe. Hehe." Birand laughed weakly, a dry cough in a quiet hall.

Once he finally shook the Hero, Yuris returned to the Abyss’s threshold, its breath cold as caves.

He lifted a hand and swept slowly. The half-made Ashill appeared in the air again, shadow summoned like a raven.

"That moron wasted a lot of my time." Yuris sighed, stones dropping into a well.

He smiled at Ashill. "A demon sword needs demon before it needs sword. Pandora, that foolish kid, couldn’t figure that out." His words curled like smoke.

He reached out. A black, glossy energy flowed into Ashill’s blade like tar, thick and gleaming.

Ashill shivered in the air, then fused perfectly, night swallowing a star.

Ashill began to blacken, shade by shade, like dusk soaking a field.

Yuris crooked a finger. The long sword flew off like a raven set free to the wind.

It streaked toward the direction Pandora’s wisp of soul had fled, a dark arrow.

"Since Pandora turned into Edlyn, I should show something as a father." He exhaled, a tired wind across stones. "My daughter’s enemy became her lover. What a… sigh."