Edlyn: “…Why am I back in a place like this again?”

“Sit. Have tea.” The man looked serenely refined, yet the proud twin horns on his brow marked him as high within the Demon Race.

Weariness first, then a frown. “Why is it you again?”

He smiled lightly, like moonlight on still water. “Oh? Not happy to see me?”

“What’s there to be happy about? Every time I see you, I end up exhausted.” She muttered, lips tilted like a bent blade.

“Hahaha. This time’s different. It should be the last.” He drained his cup in one smooth ripple.

Edlyn stood in the air, a lone crane above a ruined field. The tea table floated, chairs drifting like lazy clouds. The man sat the main seat, watching her with a calm sea gaze.

Below them spread countless town ruins, a shattered chessboard under gray light.

He poured for Edlyn, crossed one leg, lounging as if watching a slow river.

She sat softly, studied him with a quiet storm. “Hey. I don’t remember liking tea. What’s with you?”

He smiled. “I’m leaving soon. Liqianyu spoke of tea’s taste. I wanted to know. Turns out, bitter and astringent. Awful.”

Edlyn arched a brow, smile like a thin crescent. “Maybe your tea craft is bad. That’s why.”

“Who knows. You haven’t tasted it anyway.” His smile stayed, a paper lantern in a draft.

She folded her arms and held his gaze. “Care to tell me what’s happening, Pandora?”

The man was the Demon King’s original form—Pandora, back when he had no gender.

Pandora didn’t answer at once. He sipped, let calm ripple, then said, “This is your last moment as a Fiend. You can choose to become me again.”

Silence. A small ache, then steel.

“So I’m here. I represent all you were. Soon, I’ll truly merge back into you.” His smile carried dusk light. “You wavered only a heartbeat, then chose a woman’s body to stay by his side. So I know. I lost.”

“The Hero and I both started over. Yet I still lost to him. Lost completely. I even lost myself to him.” He laughed at himself, a dry wind over stones.

Edlyn bit her lip, a thorn under rose. “He and him aren’t the same.”

“Right. Not the same. But same root, same source.” Pandora’s smile flickered like a candle. “Without his Birand, how would you have your Eli?”

Her gaze sharpened, fixed like a blade. “You… or me… how did we grow so gentle? I remember you were a cold blade. I only gained feelings after reincarnating as Edlyn and fusing with her. You’re different.”

“You said you represent my past. Then why this calm?” Confusion hung like mist.

A low laugh. He looked to far ruins, a lonely crane in gray light. He shook his head and sighed. “I’ve let it go. All of it. I’m a relic in past tense. The future me has a better future, a better ending. What else should I seek?”

“From the moment I learned I was the Abyss’s last piece on the board, resistance left me.” His voice was a thin thread. “We only have Eli. Don’t we?”

A shiver, disgust prickling like frost. “Watching you talk about him with a man’s face is… really off-putting.”

Pandora only smiled, silence like falling ash.

“So now?” Edlyn pointed at his body, a question like rain.

He pulled a wry grin. “Just came to sigh, and to let you know you’re far from me now. Cherish it. Got it?”

“Tch.” Her gaze drifted; she stepped up, lifted the cup, and took a slow sip. The tea bit like bark.

“One more question. You really won’t become me again?” Pandora couldn’t help it, words like spilled beads.

“Enough. Get lost. You’re done here.” Her smile was silk over steel.

“Tsk. So hard on yourself.” A cold rain laced his tone. “I’m afraid the Hero will betray you someday. My heart aches.”

“Tsk. Will you leave already? So much useless talk! What’s it to you? Ate too full?” She glared, anger crackling like dry leaves.

They shared a brief smile. Pandora waved, breeze through reeds. “Alright, alright. I’ll go. Talking like this is fun. A shame.”

“You’ll have me from now on. Rest easy.”

“Don’t drop the Demon Race’s honor. Even if he does that to you—fight back! Resist to the end!”

“Go!”

His figure faded. The odd space around Edlyn began to collapse, dissolving like frost under sun.

She glanced down at the ruins. In a haze, she saw a knight at Sacred Rank, clutching a shattered longsword, standing before her Demon Race army. Behind him, human civilians fled like scattered leaves.

That knight had nearly no strength left, yet he stood brave, a lone pine in storm, shielding those behind.

Edlyn smiled softly. She swept a strand down to her ear, hooked it back, and sighed. “Come to think of it… this guy’s a lot like his father.”

Then a new chaos drew her in again. She vanished, a spark into mist.

“Rain?” Birand stood atop the Elven City, gazing at a blue sky like polished jade, murmuring.

He shook his head, scattering messy thoughts like sparrows from a branch.

He tapped his heel. A roof layered with countless defense spells cracked like crusted ice, and he stepped through the opening into the Elven City.

Hands clasped behind his back, he walked like a king inspecting his halls, admiring murals along the corridor walls, color flowing like river paint.

All the way, he met no one. The empty halls felt like a held breath before thunder.

Clearly, the elves had spotted the invader, but a command from above had pulled them all back, tide drawn off shore.

Birand was pleased. He had grown a bad habit: when crowds gather, he wants to clean house, a broom in a blood wind.

He strolled to the corridor’s end. He looked at the woman ahead, stared at her face, then sighed, helpless. “Elavis, you’re being naughty again.”

The Elven Queen’s gaze was complex, clouds over moon. She sighed. “Brother-in-law. Stop here.”

He blinked, then shook his head, a stone in a stream. “Even you say that?”

“You won’t get a result. All your work only dresses that thing in a wedding robe!” Elavis blurted, fear a cold wind in her throat.

She clearly dreaded the one behind Birand, a shadow beyond the gate.

Birand shook his head. “Say no more. I know. I know what the Netherworld is thinking.”

“Then why—” Her words stumbled like rain.

“Elavis… I’m just a revenger.” His voice was flat, iron under snow. “For revenge, I paid price after price, clawing my way out of that place. Do you think I could bury the thought and be put back in the ground? Elavis, don’t be willful. Be a good queen. Wait for me to avenge your sister.”

She bit her lip, unwillingness blazing like a trapped fox. “You’re always like this. You never hear anyone!”

Birand frowned, pinched his brow, a shadow between eyes. “Could you just be obedient?”

She ignored him. “If you hadn’t been so stubborn back then, dragging my sister to your so-called hometown, she wouldn’t have been taken by the rules—”

“Shut up!” Birand roared, thunder under a clear sky.

Elavis kept going, words like knives. “Why are you always like this? Can you look at me? Can you listen? My sister died because of you. Did I seek revenge on you?”

Birand thrust out his left hand and clamped her slender neck. Anger burned, wildfire up a slope. “I told you to shut up.”

Outside the corridor, elves and Yiyi panicked, ants on a hot wok, feet a scatter of rain.

Elavis shook her head in sorrow, showing a cruel, beautiful smile, moonlit and cold. “Now you’ll kill me too, will you?”

At that, Birand slowly cooled. The fire withdrew like a tide at dusk.

He released her throat. Elavis collapsed to the floor, coughing hard, eyes full of grievance, dew on thorns.

Birand’s cold gaze slid over her face. He narrowed his eyes. After a long breath, he sighed. “So that’s how it is? If you’re that set, I guess I know the Elf Race’s stance.”

“I’ll remove your last hidden danger. That will repay Lena for raising me.” He closed his eyes, a gate of stone. “After that, in the coming calamity, your elves’ lives and deaths won’t concern me.”

“You—!” Elavis cried, voice breaking like brittle glass.

“I’m leaving.” Birand turned, expression blank, and walked away, a shadow through pillars.

Far below the elves’ lands, thousands of meters underground, in a carved-out space—Fallen Angels trudged through unchanged days, boredom like stale air.

Suddenly, every Fallen Angel felt the space shudder, a drum under a giant’s hand.

As confusion spread, Birand’s voice rolled into that space, thunder in a sealed cavern. “I am the Hero Birand. I’m about to take revenge on the world. You will leave with me. Obey, and I won’t erase you. Otherwise—”

Hidden among them, Era and Reni met eyes, wore wry smiles, and shook their heads, reeds in a hard wind.

Now they were in big trouble.