"I can only take you this far," the guide said, his voice a lantern’s last pool of light to a listless Edlyn.

Confusion first, a small ripple. She looked up at him. "Huh? Why?"

He shook his head, wind through pines. "From here on, every stretch is yours to break through. My duty’s done."

"Oh..." She followed the line of his finger like a leaf following a current.

A cliff yawned ahead, and below it a bottomless Abyss, a mouth of night.

A row of bluish stone slabs jutted from the edge and hung in the air, each ten meters apart, a cold-stone path stitched across the void.

"From here it’s on you. Be careful." He smiled. Then he dissolved, from the waist down with a whoosh, into a pool of blue liquid, like ice melting at dawn.

It splashed across the ground, and the earth drank it slow like thirsty sand.

A breath later, nothing remained, like a dream swallowed by morning.

Edlyn startled, then exhaled, a lone reed in wind. "Fine."

She flicked one hand; the Demonic Lord armor bloomed back, wrapping her like dark bark.

She started forward; her armor rang bright, metal clinking like winter chimes.

Irritation first, a prickle under skin. She frowned, looked herself over. "Mmm... feels like you’re not that useful."

At that, the armor dimmed, color dulling like ash after rain, as if it were sulking.

She patted her chest, then strode on toward the endless road, a lone traveler on a sea of stone.

The moment her foot met the floating slab, weight slammed down; her body felt heavy as wet iron.

Annoyance flared, then a thought: Is the Abyss’s trial nothing but grunt work?

Dry mouth first. She swallowed hard and forced her feet forward, like trudging through mud.

Luck murmured like a cool stream: the gravity stayed the same; it didn’t grow with each step.

The sky burned orange-red, tepid as banked coals, while the bottomless Abyss breathed up a searing heat that stung the heart.

Sweat first, stinging like salt. She wiped it away and gave up on time; it was a rope fallen into fog.

Weariness shifted to resolve. Like last time, the trial would show itself, right?

She kept that thought like an ember and stepped steady along the cold-stone path.

And just as imagined, when she lifted her head toward the unreachable distance, a faceless youth sat cross-legged on a step, still as a statue. His left hand propped his chin; his right set a blinding white longsword to the ground like a sunbeam stake.

A flick of her hand and the Demon Sword Ashill answered, a familiar chill and razor edge flowing from its hilt. She smiled and gripped tight.

Pride swelled in the Demon King’s chest, rising like a black tide.

She strolled forward with the demon blade, steps like shadows on water.

"You’ve come?" The boy opened his eyes and smiled, like dawn slitting a cloud.

Heat first, then words. She leveled the blade across her chest. "Yeah. I’m here to settle the score."

Birand laid Tias flat across his thighs, a river of light at rest.

"Shame I’m only a phantom. Otherwise, after a few centuries, I’d really, really look forward to our rematch, my nemesis."

Disgust first, a thorn under skin. Edlyn set Ashir upright and faced him. "Cut it. You’re dead. What are you doing crawling back out?"

"Hey, don’t be so cold. We weren’t that bad, this life," Birand said, head tilted with a fox’s grin.

Her eyes narrowed, suspicion like frost. "Oh? You can read my memories? Not a bad illusion."

Birand tilted his head. "If that’s what you think, sure." He twisted the blade of talk, a playful smile grazing her pretty face. "Hey, Demon King, you want to save my second life, don’t you?"

Rage first, a wildfire. She raised her sword; her pupils burned crimson, killing intent and demonic miasma surging. "Right now, I just want to cut you down!"

"Want to know how I died back then? Want to know if my body still exists?" He smiled and lifted Tias level, like a moon drawn from its sheath.

They flickered and smashed together, fast as thunderheads colliding.

Clang!

Sparks burst like fireflies with the ring of steel.

They traded dozens of moves, tide against tide.

Then both skidded back, dust puffing like breath.

Birand rested the blade on his shoulder; its cold gleam masked eyes brimming with kill, like frost over a well.

Frustration first, bitter as brine. "I don’t want to know, and I won’t hear your nonsense." She clutched her left hand, but it trembled like a leaf.

His strength towered over hers; raw collisions like this were mountains her current body couldn’t climb.

He grinned crooked, a sickle moon. "Oh my, Demonic Lord, getting weaker? Can’t keep up with my speed?"

In the next blink, he stood before her, sword poised, a hawk stooping.

Panic flared, then focus. She barely brought Ashir across her face and caught the thrust like netting lightning.

Seeing her disheveled face, he whistled. "That all you got?"

Grit bit first. She swept wide and forced him back, wind hissing off the blade.

Three hard steps, a burst forward. In his awkward beat, she drove Ashir toward his heart, a black arrow through dusk.

He darted back, but not far enough; the strike bit like winter.

His weapon wasn’t the true Holy Sword Tias. He brought it to his chest, but Ashir’s needle point sheared it clean, and the sword aura raked his chest like claws.

He staggered two steps, stared at the wound, stunned. Then he chuckled. "My bad. I underestimated you."

Relief swelled, then snapped. He vanished like smoke in wind.

A tap hit her shoulder. She whirled and slashed back, reflex cutting like a whip.

Nothing there; the strike drank only air.

"What are you swinging at?" he laughed. He flickered behind her again and drove a kick into her back, a battering ram.

Thud!

The sound on metal boomed between them like a gong.

The kick launched her to the far stone slab, a dark comet.

Birand shook his left hand and sprinted for where she flew, feet drumming like rain.

As she hit the slab, he arrived and swept a kick at her waist, a scythe in harvest.

She couldn’t react; the kick sent her flying again, a leaf in gale.

She tumbled in air and only then halted, stomach lurching like a boat.

She braced on a stone and spat blood, red as a poppy.

Scorn first, sharp as vinegar. She glared at Birand. "Trash. That all you’ve got?"

He blinked, then sighed, a wind through reeds. "Really."

The words hadn’t cooled when he vanished again, a candle snuffed.

She glanced left and right. His shout dropped like a pebble. "Hey, up here!"

No time to think; instinct rose like a shield. She threw both hands over her head and blocked his downward punch from the sky.

She twisted aside, small body nimble as a langur, grabbed his back, flipped onto him, and drove an elbow for his neck.

He jerked his hips back and bucked her off, a mule kick.

In midair, the pull of the stone below yawned wider, like a pit opening.

Forced, she angled toward the nearest slab, a swallow seeking a ledge.

Birand clenched his left fist and hammered the air toward her, a cannon without smoke.

A hard gust slammed the same spot on her waist again, pain flowering like fire.

Boom!

The Demonic Lord armor shattered on cue, shards like black petals.

She sprawled on the slab, wiped blood from her mouth with her right, and used Ashir in her left to push herself up, a sapling in wind.

Birand stood upside down beneath the slab, a bat at roost.

"Good. That’s more like it." He shrugged; his form blurred and he rushed her again, a wave returning.

A thin smile first, stubborn as stone. "It’s not that easy."

His fist dropped for her face, a falling hammer.

Regret flickered across him, then shock; his hand was already severed, pain ringing like iron.

She wasn’t there; only a black sword stood planted in the slab, waiting like a trap spear.

The Demon Sword Ashill had ridden his punch and lanced into his arm, a venom fang.

He knew this arm was done, a dead branch.

That heartbeat of daze hung like dew.

Edlyn burst up from the stone like a sprout breaking soil.

Her right hand was clawed; all five fingers glowed blue, frost-fire.

She raked hard across his neck, a comet’s claw.

Pain first, sharp as needles. He lifted his left hand and cut off his own right, then booted her in the gut, carving distance like a wedge.

A quiet twinge of regret, then motion. She flicked her hand, and Ashir slipped from his severed arm and flew back to her grip, a homing raven.

"Hey. Feel good?" she said with a fox’s smile.

He felt it at his neck where her fingers had gripped, a prickling ache spreading like frost-cracks.

He gritted his teeth, startled. "Ice element?"

Annoyance first, a bite on her tongue. She recalled Eli teaching her this by hand, and how she’d been lazy, unwilling. She could gnash her teeth at that Hero; he should’ve pushed her harder.

Now look at her—this messy, like a kite in rain.

Birand looked worse; eerie blue glow spread from his neck like winter creeping across a lake.

And he was short an arm, a tree struck by lightning.

Satisfaction first, a warm coal. She held Ashir and sneered. "Still fighting? You’ve lost."

He shrugged, loose as drifting grass. "Alright, alright. You win."

In the next moment, the blue glow faded from his neck, and his right hand slowly grew back, flesh knitting like vines.

He smiled. "Not bad. I look forward to our next fight. Just don’t be this weak again, not then."

A dry chuckle first. She shrugged. "I’m not looking forward to it. Get lost. You’re long dead—stop haunting people."

A doubt stirred like a moth: Was Eli the same as him?

Calm settled like snow. She was sure now.

Eli is Eli. Birand is Birand.

One’s annoying.

One I li—well, not as annoying.

Edlyn nodded to herself, a pebble sinking in a pond.

Birand chuckled, then slowly faded, dissolving like mist at noon.

Only then did she collapse to the ground, rubbing her bruises like nursing cold embers.

"Ow... finally. Cleared this one."

Rest first, long as shade under a tree. Then she stood and stretched lazily. "So, the unpaid toll from last round—facing myself. Not coming out yet?"

The words barely fell like leaves.

The surrounding slabs began to stack, stone on stone like rising terraces.

They stopped when a platform of several dozen square meters formed, flat as a calm lake.

Hands on hips, she watched and couldn’t help muttering. "Huh? More fighting?"

Then eight portals bloomed at the center, lotus doors.

She saw what stepped from each door, and her mouth twitched. "Huh? What’s this supposed to be?"