“Enough, fiend. I didn’t come to hear your drivel. Say what you want.” Birand sneered, voice like a knife skimming ice.

Ugillian eyed the mad “Hero” up and down, a weary sigh drifting like winter smoke.

“Maybe tearing you from him back then was that man’s worst choice,” Ugillian said, slipping past Birand’s sharp aura like water around stone, and sighed.

“You know quite a lot, don’t you?” Birand’s smile was a cold hook.

Ugillian held silence for a breath, then let a soft smile bloom like lamplight.

“No—maybe it wasn’t wrong. Maybe he found a way to dissolve a grievance older than star-dust.”

“What are you talking about?!” Birand’s rage rose like a storm-front.

His soul-body flared, molten like a volcano, trying to swallow the old man like lava eats sea-cliffs.

Just as he had done when he charged the Celestial Realm, centuries ago.

Ugillian sighed again and stepped forward, no killing intent, just a gentle palm on Birand’s shoulder, like dust settling.

A strange power seeped from Ugillian’s body, through his hand, into Birand’s soul like a quiet spring.

Birand’s lava-form froze. His eyes widened—his first time having the blaze cut short. How did this old man do that?

“Some things are sealed by fate. My time’s short. I can’t fully stop you from getting it.” Ugillian’s smile stayed warm, like tea in winter.

Birand’s eyes narrowed. Power boiled through him like a cauldron, every nerve on edge.

“Enough. Let our world be quiet for a moment, will you? You’ve fought for eons beyond counting. Why won’t you let it drop?” Ugillian shook his head, like a tired father at twilight.

The next heartbeat, magic denser than Edlyn’s surged from beneath Birand like a geyser.

Birand blinked in shock as, with his jar in hand, he was confined within six statues like a bird trapped in an iron aviary.

Under Ugillian’s pull, the statues pivoted. Each raised a grand weapon at the black fog-wrapped center.

Blue power flooded out, chaining Birand down like frost binding a river.

Ugillian stood before the barrier, hands clasped behind him, a quiet smile like a crescent moon. “If I can’t erase you, I’ll steal a bit more time for them.”

Yiyi cleared the blood fiends outside like wind through reeds, wiped sweat, and bounced to his side. She studied the eerie seal with bright eyes. “Hey, Headmaster, how long can you hold him?”

Ugillian gave no reply. He watched Birand’s hate-twisted face inside the seal, smiling as calm as stone.

Fear trembled first; Yiyi’s small body shivered like a leaf. She lowered her head into brief silence.

The binding barrier was exquisitely wrought, a lattice like obsidian glass.

Inside the black light, Birand hammered and roared, a storm caged in iron.

Outside, silence lay like snow. Not a whisper leaked through.

The Inferno stood empty now. No fiends, no blood fiends, none of those mangled wails. Only a girl and an old man before six statues, quiet as night.

After a long while, Yiyi wiped tears from her lashes, forced a smile, and patted Ugillian’s shoulder. “You know, old man, you were a good father. You treated me well. Both my true self and me think so. Really.”

The elder kept his smile, words tucked away like letters in a drawer.

“...Old man, let me send you home. Back to where you took me in, centuries ago. You looked younger then than now.” Yiyi sniffed, smiling through the ache.

Do fiends have souls?

Who knows.

Eli strolled among the stars, strength rising with every heartbeat like dawn brightening a ridge, and he couldn’t help but marvel.

“Stifled so long—finally, I’m feeling badass.” He clapped, eyes on a blue planet circled by black and gold rings crossing like blades.

He sat in the void, tracing the signal he’d snagged earlier when he reached out to Edlyn, like a fisherman reading currents.

“This is the place.” He smiled, a small sun.

“Home at last.” He stood, dusted his clothes, checked himself top to toe like a mirror’s ripple, and nodded.

“Not bad, not bad. Looking sharp.”

Walk alone in the void long enough and a mind corkscrews like vine.

Closer to the planet, his pulse drummed like warbeats.

He moved to dive into the gravity well, and something hooked him, holding him outside like amber.

He blinked, studying the unseen wall of air ahead, a sheet like frozen river-glass.

Black and gold rings crossed as an X around the world. He stood nearer the black ring, a shadow at its edge.

He thought a moment, shut his eyes. About five seconds later, he entered Judge Mode.

Pupils turned pitch-black. Colorless waves rippled from his skin like heat mirage. The halo vanished. Behind him, two vast spheres bloomed—one white, one black—like twin moons.

It was the balance he’d forged across the road, tuning Stellar Power and inner force till they locked like anchors.

He’d renamed it—cringe and all—Judge Mode.

Eli faced forward.

Between the rings spread a thick energy wall, invisible to naked sight, a bulwark like glass in twilight. In its torrents, faint giant chains surfaced like whales.

Eli rubbed his chin, thought piling like stones.

Birand’s old space lock, most likely.

It sealed the planet’s internal space—no planes meddle, no exit for those within, a lid on a pot.

Wait. He rolled his eyes. No exit? Then how did he get out?

Maybe he wasn’t human?

Pah. Pah.

He shook off those stray thoughts like water off a dog.

He summoned Stellar Power again, pushing his senses across the planet like a tide.

Around it, countless pocket worlds drifted, ring-fenced by forces, their scenes mostly ruined like broken temples in dust.

Eli slipped through them, watching the world from every angle like a hawk circling cliffs.

After a long while, he stopped.

Those pocket worlds had once been linked to the planet. The chains had severed them like roots cut.

Or their owners had died, too late to reel them back; they’d been dragged into space like lost lanterns.

He gave up on pocket worlds and decided to circle once more, a lone skiff on a dark sea.

After wandering for a long time, he confirmed one thing.

This damned planet—right now—he probably couldn’t get in.

“No kidding! (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻” Eli punched the energy wall. A thin chain, not thicker than his finger, snapped out and coiled his wrist like a snake.

In the next instant, his Stellar Power sealed. A massive rebound kicked him away like a comet whipped.

He was still in space. Without the stars’ backing—

Yeah...

He tumbled and spun, flung far into the dark like a leaf on gale.

“I’ll be back!”

All the fiends still knelt on one knee before the black giant cocoon, heads bowed like stones before an altar.

Angelo held the same posture, a statue in shadow.

Clearly, until Edlyn emerged, not a single demon lord dared twitch.

Crack.

In the dead-silent Abyss, a shell-splitting sound cut the hush like a knife.

Angelo lifted her head a fraction, eyes sharp as a falcon’s.

A fissure crawled across the black cocoon like lightning.

She frowned. Too soon. It shouldn’t be.

That thought had barely formed when—another crisp crack.

The black cocoon split, peeling away to reveal a yellow giant cocoon, a size smaller, like eggs within eggs.

While Angelo stared, the yellow cocoon shattered too.

Inside lay a scarlet cocoon, about Angelo’s size, far smaller than the first two, like a heart bared.

Angelo murmured, “...Matryoshka?”

Behind her, a demon general tugged her skirt. “Marshal, don’t be disrespectful to the Demon King.”

Angelo rolled her eyes, then knelt again, iron back straight.

Far behind the lords, on the Abyssal River’s abyssal tree, a twig cracked open with a tiny line, like a wink.

A girl poked her small head through, curious gaze sweeping like birds.

“Eh. So this is Mom’s birthplace. Pretty rad!”

A white-haired girl stepped out of the crack, slow as a cat falling from sunlight.

For some reason, none of the fiends sensed her at their backs, their awareness dulled like damp ash.

She had a little satchel. She hopped down the abyssal tree, light as dandelion fluff.

She stood behind the host and looked at the scarlet cocoon they worshiped. She nodded and pulled out a crystal orb, clear as ice.

She aimed it at the cocoon, light washing over it like water.

No reaction.

The girl: “...”

She lifted her hand again and waved the orb at the cocoon, a gleam like a firefly.

Still nothing.

The girl muttered, “...Darn dad, this freaking thing’s a fake!”

She sighed, walked to the Abyssal River, found a flat stone, and sat, like a heron by the bank.

Chin propped, lips in a pout, she watched the cocoon like a dull moon.

After a long while, she yawned, checked the pocket watch on her chest—silver ticking like rain—and licked her lips. “By the time, Dad should be close.”