In the Abyss, Edlyn lay cocooned, body folded tight like a sleeping moth, ringed by demonic miasma liquefied into ink-dark currents.

Her eyes shifted, small stars turning, and the cocoon drank everything dry in a single breath; three heartbeats later, the miasma refilled like a tide.

That loop held, a wheel grinding slow.

It was only a weakened echo of what should be.

With the Abyss asleep, the air’s magic gathered like frost—slow, reluctant, thin.

Before, the cocoon never got to swallow the room clean.

Outside, the demons stayed kneeling, like a black field of stone statues under a moonless sky.

Angelo stood by the Tree of the Abyss, eyes shut, sweeping stray magic back like spilled smoke being bottled, then sending it to Edlyn’s side.

It was a drop in the ocean, but a drop still glints.

It was the only way left to pass time, like counting breaths in a cave.

The Demon Race knelt, unmoving, like roots sunk deep.

Eli had vanished with his daughter, a wind that left no footprints; the Demon King and the Abyss slept in fathomless depths.

Angelo was out of roads, out of maps.

As she tugged at the drifting miasma once more, she felt the cocoon shiver, a note off-key.

Her eyes opened like knives; she tilted her head at Edlyn’s cocoon, puzzlement bright as frost.

Something tied to the Demon Race—old and crown-still—had bled away in part; the rest seeped into the cocoon like rain sinking into loam.

A life-breath both ancient and noble settled after fusing with Edlyn, stilling like a lake after wind.

Angelo rubbed her nose, thinking like a fox in winter; she could only decide this wasn’t bad.

Edlyn’s aura now carried that same starlit weight.

So maybe the last threshold was here, like a door half open?

If Eli brought back the consciousness that had flown out of the Abyss, maybe everything would close cleanly, like a book.

She smiled, the thought warm as a brazier—and then the shock hit like thunder.

Under the demons’ blank stares, Edlyn’s “egg” cracked again, a shell shedding its silence.

It slowly broke apart, shard by shard, until it was wholly undone.

Edlyn floated, a pale flame in midair, wreathed by endless black fog that hid corners like curtains.

She drifted upward, the height unspooling; at a certain point she opened her eyes, and the fog wrapped her like silk.

She smiled, a knowing crescent; she lifted her hand, and with a soft grasp, the scattered eggshell and surrounding miasma merged like molten ore.

A flash split the gloom, and a silver-gray woman’s armor took shape, moonlight hammered into plates.

She slid her hand aside; a pure-black longsword fell from nowhere, its hilt stopping at her waiting palm, hovering like a hawk mid-hover.

Edlyn’s fingers tightened, a quiet click, and she gripped the blade; her gaze cut cold across the kneeling host, frost-layered and unblinking.

A heart-stopping pulse rolled from her body, like a storm breaking out of deep sea trenches.

She spread her hands, looking at the armor-sure frame, feeling the terrible thrum inside, thunder under ice.

Her smile sharpened; she pressed her fingers to her forehead, as if smoothing a crown.

Under the demons’ eyes, she laughed wild and loud, a bell in a vault: “Hahaha! I finally—finally reached the Supreme Seat of Divinity! Back to the peak! Huhuhu, hehehe, hahahahahaha!”

She was all bright teeth and triumph, watching the demons kneel like waves around a cliff; she kept laughing, careless as a spring gale.

With her true power reclaimed, she could finally swagger.

No more hiding, waiting for someone to yank her out and beat her down.

Her Demon Race could walk with heads high, banners snapping.

She could snatch Eli into the Demon Race by force, like a comet drawn by a black sun.

Edlyn laughed in midair like a small mad thing, laughter shaking her like blossoms in wind.

The demons traded awkward looks, temples aching at their Demonic Lord’s… style.

Angelo coughed twice, right on the beat, pulling Edlyn’s thoughts back like a kite string.

“Ahem. Your Majesty the Demon King. You… how did you get out?”

“Uh. Huh?”

...

Eli kicked down the makeshift snow hut, one boot, one crash, then tightened his gear and kept moving into a white silence.

The blizzard had stopped; the world felt cleaned to bone.

He was near the pole, where compasses die; he couldn’t find a single living thing, not even a breath.

He dropped to the ground, spirit drained like embers going black.

Was he still useless?

He sighed, face tired as an old road, and stared at the sky.

He cradled his head and lay in the snow, gazing at a field of stars that looked close enough to pick.

Drowsiness climbed him like ivy; he watched the view and let a small smile thaw his mouth.

Three years of running had burned him thin, and only now did he notice he’d forgotten skies this clean.

He closed his eyes and felt the weighty, vast power trickle from the stars, a shared ocean pouring into a cup.

Pale-blue energy fell slow, like ink feathering through water, spreading thin in the air.

It contracted again, a breath taken back, and flew into Eli’s body like birds into a roost.

Snow around him slid aside, gentle as hands, moved by that power’s touch.

Where Eli lay, the leaking force pressed the ground into a shallow bowl, a cradle of ice.

He stayed in the hollow, face unchanged, quiet as a sealed jar.

Above, the pouring strength grew broader, widening like storm clouds, and the space before him filled with it like fog in valleys.

When it reached Eli, he swallowed it all like a whale, nothing refused, everything gulped down.

Strangely, his inner energy barely swelled, steady as a held note.

No visible change, as if the ocean poured into a well that stayed level.

If not for the glowing energy-cloud and his skin brightening like lantern paper, he’d think it was a trick of the night.

The weirdness lasted three days, a long dream with no edges.

On the third night, Eli opened his eyes, slow as dawn.

He saw nothing but boundless blue spreading, a sea hanging in the air.

His mouth twitched; he had no idea what to do.

The pale-blue field covered dozens of kilometers, a thick, wide dark cloud that smothered moon and star.

He swallowed, smile awkward, nerves humming like wires.

He felt trouble coming, like hooves in fog.

Next moment, the energy lost its gathering point; the sky’s blue flood dumped straight down, a falling ocean, pressing toward Eli.

“What the—fack squid.”

He got the words out, and then the unstoppable torrent slammed him flat, weight like a mountain dropping.

The shock rippled the range; the snowy peaks shuddered like waking beasts.

Blue energy roared, avalanches broke loose, and together they charged downhill, a stampede of light and white.

Eli was swept up, rolling inside the force like driftwood in rapids.

His face went ash, a cold stone. This time, he’d really done it.

...

“Uh? Huh? What do you mean, how did I get out?” Edlyn stared at Angelo, baffled as a cat at rain.

Wasn’t she supposed to pop out once the energy was done? Simple as a seed sprouting?

Why did it sound like she shouldn’t be out yet?

Angelo stepped close, eyes raking up and down, then poked Edlyn’s cheek, cautious as testing hot iron. “Your Majesty, did some other creature take your mind?”

Edlyn swatted her hand, disgust flaring. “Hey. What’s that supposed to mean?! Do I look that weak to you?”

“And you’re the commander of the Demon Race, yet you doubt me, the Demon King?” Her sneer was sharp as glass.

“But… Lord Abyss once told the Hero…” Angelo’s voice drifted, unsure, like fog thinning.

“Hm? Told him what?” Edlyn’s interest pricked; she turned, eyes bright.

Angelo said, “The Abyss said the Hero barged in by accident and cut your link to the eight subordinate races of the Demon Race. Your divine soul got stuck outside and couldn’t return. So the Hero took his daughter to find your soul out there.”

“Oh… Then Dad probably lied to him. I’m fine.” Edlyn shrugged, casual as flicking dust.

Angelo frowned, thinking hard, then steeled herself and said, “Um, Your Majesty… Do you remember calling the Hero… ‘Dad’ earlier?”

Edlyn’s smile froze on her lips, ice setting fast.

If Angelo hadn’t said it, fine.

But once she did, the memory hit—clinging to Eli, calling him Dad like a child in a storm.

She’d lost her memory, and until Eli stuffed her back in the cocoon, everything was chaotic as a broken hive.

Instinct had latched onto the closest person like a drowning grip.

Great. He’d laugh her to death over this.

Edlyn scratched her head, frustrated, frantic, tearing at the order of her beautiful white hair until it looked like wind-snarled snowgrass.

“Ugh. Whatever. Where’s that damn Hero? Where’d he go?”

Angelo rubbed her nose, thought a beat, then said, “I don’t know where he is now, but earlier he said his first stop was the snow mountains. He probably went back to the Pole.”

Edlyn nodded, then strapped the black sword to her hip and set off in her armor, metal clanking like bells.

Angelo rushed to bar her path, arms up.

Edlyn frowned. “Hey. What now?!”

Angelo explained fast, words tumbling like pebbles, “I got word from outside spies. A Hero resurrected and is tearing through the major races. No one knows his aim.”

“Mm? Yeah, I know. Eli’s out there.”

“Not your lover Hero… the one who’s truly your mortal enemy… Birand…” Angelo hesitated, then dropped the name like a blade.

“Huh????”