Above the stars, Eli’s soul looked thinned like dawn mist, yet his gaze burned as he stared at the tentacle swarm he’d felled like storm-tossed kelp.

“Hahaha, I finally walked out of this damned place!” He barked a laugh, bright as sparks flung from flint.

“Whew… where should I go next?” He tilted his head like a puzzled bird, mind sinking like a stone into deep water.

He no longer knew how long he’d drifted in this patch of sky, like a leaf lost on a black sea.

Are they all right? The question rose like smoke that stung his eyes.

Birand hasn’t done anything to them yet, right? The dread crawled like frost up his spine.

Abyssal River.

Over the river, a boundless giant tree loomed like a night-black mountain, its crown blotting out stars like a tide of leaves.

It breathed demonic miasma like a sleeping dragon, then streamed it into the girl resting by the bank like moonlight pouring over stone.

The girl opened her eyes. Her amber left eye and emerald right eye bloomed like twin lanterns in fog.

She squinted, and the lines of light shooting from her pupils hardened like ice forming on winter ponds.

The beam tore through the wet haze of miasma like a spear of noon, and a distant boulder exploded into gravel like a shattering skull.

Edlyn had to close her eyes; her vast soul-force unfurled like a hurricane ripping canvas from masts.

At her thought, countless magic circles etched themselves in the air like frost patterns racing across glass.

Runic energy flowed over them like molten gold over channels, whispering like wind through reeds.

Edlyn spread her hands. At once, the circles compressed a sea of mana into lances of light, which shot out like meteor rain and erased every structure in sight like chalk in the tide.

She lifted her left hand, raised it skyward like a branch catching sun, and gently made a fist like closing a flower at dusk.

Every circle vanished in that instant like sparks snuffed by night; the ripples of mana and miasma stilled like a lake after thunder, as if those arrays had never lived.

Edlyn released her power again, vast as a storm front, and it draped over every Demon Race still in the embryo like snow on sleeping fields.

Demons mid-revival changed under that shroud like iron turning under a smith’s hammer.

Cocoons began to sway like lanterns in a restless wind.

Inside, huge budding life thrashed like caged beasts testing bars, straining against the silk like rivers against banks.

Seeing it, Edlyn nodded, satisfaction bright as a rising moon.

Then she sprawled on the floor, pounding with small fists like a child drumming rain on a drum, excitement fizzing like boiling water.

Her heart surged with visions like banners snapping in a gale.

How many years! How many years has it been! The thought rang like a bell struck again and again.

How many years since I was this glorious! Her joy flared like fireworks blooming in a night sky.

Soon! My army’s about to awaken! The certainty marched like thunder across a plain.

When I lead hundreds of thousands of Demons, I’ll flatten Beastkin and Elf Race alike like a tide sweeping sandcastles.

I’ll grab that damned Birand, beat him black and blue like a smith beating iron, then toss him into the Inferno like refuse into a pit.

I’ll remodel him for hundreds of thousands of years like a stone worn by relentless seas.

If that fails, I’ll have Eli finish that bastard with his own hands like a blade ending a knot.

Then I’ll tie Eli to my side, tight as red thread around a wrist, never letting go like ivy on old brick.

Hero missions, saving non-demon races—what a load of nonsense, blown away like chaff on the wind!

When I, the Demon King, descend to rule, I’ll cover the land like dawn covers hills.

I’ll govern the whole continent like a net cast over a silver lake.

Then I’ll proclaim to all under heaven like thunder over a valley:

Eli is my consort! The claim glittered like a jewel raised to the sun.

Ehehe, ehehe, ehehehe~ Her giggle skipped like pebbles across water.

Edlyn wiped drool from the corner of her mouth like a kitten after cream, then coughed twice like a sparrow clearing its throat.

Facing the soon-to-hatch Demons, she shouted with a voice both grand and bright, like horns on a mountain dawn: “My people! Awaken! Carry my will and set the whole world aflame!”

The demon cocoons trembled like hives before a swarm, the shells buzzing like drums under palms.

Edlyn clapped, pleased, and a black throne rose from the ground like basalt shouldered up by a volcano.

She smiled and opened her eyes like a curtain whisked back for a sunrise.

At once, the power in her gaze leapt forth like twin lightning bolts and shattered the new throne into gravel like a boulder blown apart.

Edlyn: “…………” Her silence hung like a held breath before rain.

“Ahhhhhh! What the hell! Am I not allowed to open my eyes ever again?” She clawed at her hair like a mad cat in a thicket.

She squatted and traced circles for a long while like a child drawing moons in dust.

She sighed, the sound thin as autumn wind.

With no other way, she gathered leaves shed by the colossal demon-tree like green knives scattered after a storm.

She fashioned an X-shaped blindfold like crossed blades, painted protections on it like talismans inked at midnight, and bound her eyes like moths tucked under silk.

Then she threw a V-sign at the sky like a gull’s wing catching light. “Yeah! Heavenly Emperor gamer!”

Inferno.

Birand sat where he was like a stone sunk in ashes.

He frowned, clothes in tatters like banners after battle.

He was strong, like iron under the hammer. But in this place, two weeks lasted like two winters.

His position and the six colossal statues never shifted, like stars fixed in cold heavens.

“Am I trapped inside the environment?” His voice sounded like a pebble dropped in a well.

He brooded in silence, thoughts circling like hawks riding thermals.

Then Birand dropped his guard like a cloak and pushed his will-world wide like doors thrown open to storm.

He aimed to fuse this place with his inner world for a heartbeat, like two waves kissing, then pulling apart.

With that crack in the loop, he could find a way out like a fox slipping a snare.

Birand opened his eyes, and blood-red flowers unfurled from his feet like fire spreading through dry grass.

Soon everything was covered by those strange blooms like frost overtaking a field.

He closed his eyes again, and before him rose mountains of corpses like dunes made of bone.

Blood welled from the ground like springs in a red desert and soaked the roots of his flowers like ink bleeding into paper.

Just like the scene Edlyn had seen, it unfurled like a familiar scroll.

In the distance, that nauseating blood clung to scattered remains like oil to feathers.

It hardened into energy that bound bones together like sinew, knitting monstrosities one after another like dolls sewn from scraps.

They roared low and rough like old doors in a gale, and empty sockets lit with dim red fire like coals in a brazier.

Endless blood mist curled around the peak, or rather the world, like a serpent winding a pillar.

The stench coated the whole space like rancid grease on stone.

Birand, eyes shut, breathed it in greedily like a man starving at a feast.

He knew then he’d reached the place for real, like a sailor sighting a black coast.

He smiled and opened his eyes; corrosive demonic miasma rushed him like surf breaking on rocks.

A white barrier flared around him like ice glass, sealing him head to toe like a pearl in a shell.

He swept the area with his gaze like a hunter reading tracks, and nodded like a judge satisfied with a verdict.

He stepped forward, boots thudding like drums on a bridge.

Soon he reached the high peak where Edlyn had once looked out, like a raven’s perch over a battlefield.

Below the peak, scarlet blood ran like a river of lava, and the ground glowed red like iron fresh from the forge.

Giant pillars and rock walls flashed with murderous light like blades catching sunset.

It was exactly the same, like a scene preserved in amber.

A small difference flickered like a fish under ice.

Near the statues, an energy alien to the Inferno washed out like clean rain, scrubbing back blood monsters that tried to touch the stone.

Birand smiled and took another step, stride easy as a stroll through a garden.

This time, something else shifted like a shadow slipping its owner.

His soul walked out of Eli’s body like a flame separating from a wick.

Eli’s body, bereft of soul, collapsed like a puppet with cut strings onto the stony slope.

It began to age and dry like fruit under a desert sun, ready to weather to bone like driftwood.

Birand’s abnormal crimson soul swaggered toward the six statues like a lord crossing his own threshold.

Every step in blood drew red into him like roots drinking rain, folding it into his soul like dye into silk.

The blood monsters looked past him as if he were mist, their gazes sliding off like rain on slate.

Where he passed, they lost drive like mills without water; their eyes went hollow as dead moons, and the bones fell like sleet.

Birand clasped his hands behind his back, a wild grin blooming like a red flower, and approached the stone images one step at a time like a pilgrim ascending.

Soon he touched the stone, fingers tracing it like a lover remembering an old scar.

“Heh. Long time no see.” His voice landed like ash on a cold hearth.

“Oblivion… Dawn!”

Thias swung up from below, a vast sword-light pouring over the crowd like a sunrise drowning stars.

In the unseen, everyone heard a taut string snap like a bow giving way.

After that cut, Birand’s body thinned and faded like smoke unraveling in wind.

Thias shattered into shards like ice breaking on rock and scattered across the floor like hail.

Then the floor of the Celestial Realm split like a crust over magma; black and white ghost hands thrust out like roots through soil, countless palms reaching for Birand in the sky like grasping weeds.

Birand looked at the unconscious crowd and smiled faintly like a ripple on still water.

“I won’t stop. Unless this world no longer has me.” His laugh rolled like thunder across empty hills. “Edward, the rest is your show, isn’t it? Hahaha. I know. You won’t let me vanish.”

Back then, Birand felt himself stuffed into an impossibly small space like a beetle in amber.

His head hurt, pressure building like a kettle about to scream, ready to split like a storm-swollen log.

Outside, the one he called Edward glanced at two bottles in his hands like a gambler weighing dice.

One red, one blue, they gleamed like twin stars over a black sea.

He rubbed his chin, smiling, thoughts drifting like clouds over a high ridge.

He reached in, took Birand’s ruined soul like a thread from a loom, split it into ten pieces like cutting a string of beads, and scattered them to the world like seeds on wind.

Then he drove the red bottle into the Inferno like a nail into dark wood.

Its shell became six statues, faces twisted like storm masks, all six glaring inward like wolves circling prey, and at the center they suppressed that red bottle like stone on a lid.

Edward took the blue bottle and left the breaking Celestial Realm like a shadow slipping through reeds, heading for the far horizon like a lone sail on dusk water.

“Edward, you old fossil, so this is your handiwork?” Birand’s chuckle rang like coins on a plate. “I thought an earthshaking trap waited for me like a pit under fresh snow. After all that fuss, you just shoved what I wanted into my hands right here?” He shook his head, amused, like a man watching a fox trip itself.

“I’m not sure what you were thinking anymore. Hahaha.” His laughter curled like smoke from pine.

“But whatever, it doesn’t matter.” His voice hardened like steel cooling. “What matters is, I—Birand Aste—once more, with endless wrath like a black tide, have returned to this world!”

Birand roared with laughter like a storm over cliffs, then drove his fist forward like a hammer swung at an anvil.

His punch crashed into the first statue like lightning spearing an ancient tree.