“You really are full of tricks. You even sniffed me out.” Ghoulia lounged on a throne of skulls, a winter-bright smile cutting across his face.

“Just didn’t look that way at first. You’re impressive too, hiding in the Netherworld.” Edward stood below like a spear planted in ice, grinning up. “Who’d think a mangy runaway would turn into the Netherworld’s emperor in mere decades?”

Ghoulia drew breath to sneer back, when a mountain of force slammed down like an avalanche. The skull throne shattered like dry bone, and he was ground into the floor like a nail.

Edward’s voice fell like a blade of frost. “I don’t like looking up when people talk. Stay down.”

Murder flared in Ghoulia’s eyes like coals. Face flushed, he heaved on a tide of the dead, and the sea of wraiths lifted him inch by inch.

“So you pacified the cosmos. Must feel grand.” Ghoulia spat blood like spilled ink and forced his feet steady.

Edward’s laugh was a curl of smoke. “Don’t dare claim that. Before the lord of the Netherworld, I’m not worth a glance.” The cold grin stayed like a crescent moon.

“Say it. Why are you here? You crash in, give me a slap, and ring my Netherworld Temple with your Fiend legion—just to trade pleasantries?” Ghoulia wiped the blood away like smearing paint.

“Ghoulia. Let’s talk.” Edward’s smile was a silk glove over iron.

“Oh? Let’s hear it.” Ghoulia’s smile was a knife’s reflection on water.

Their clashing auras bucked like storm fronts, and every bystander shrank like grass in hail—save for a cloaked figure nested in the shadows like a moth.

“You know how to seize authority faster?” Edward’s tone was warm as tea, eyes sharp as needles.

“Snatch primordial cosmic energy. What are you angling for?” Ghoulia frowned, a thunderhead gathering over ice.

“Hahaha. Right—steal the base energy, fuse it into our flesh. But it’s slow as winter sap.” Edward shook his head like a tree shedding snow.

“You—” Ghoulia’s gaze narrowed like a bowstring, fixing on him as if pinning a butterfly.

“Know where energy pools deepest?” Edward’s eyes skimmed Ghoulia like a scalpel.

Ghoulia’s lip twitched, a hooked fish. “You tell me.”

“Besides us? Those vast epochs heavy with change—like that fresh Big Bang not long ago.” Edward smiled like a lantern in fog.

“You want me to help take that?” Relief loosened Ghoulia’s chest like a knot undone, and he laughed.

“Heh, no need. I’ll fetch it myself.” Edward shrugged like a hill sloughing dust. “Guess what I’ll do now?”

“You!” Ghoulia sprang back like a startled hawk.

“Strip your Divinity from your body, bathe it in the blast’s residue, scrub your energy signature clean, and use it as the purest breakthrough fuel.” Edward’s gaze swept the space Ghoulia fled to like a scythe.

Ghoulia reached to tear space like wet paper, aiming to quit the Netherworld.

Edward sighed like wind over graves and gave chase like a black tide. “I’ll absorb your authority and rank myself. Let’s see if the method works.”

“Ghoulia… no—Netherworld. I let you live too soft.” Edward raised both hands to the sky like a priest at eclipse. “Now, sleep.”

A colossal phantom dragon claw fell like a storming peak.

“Aaaah! You always do this—always think I’m a pushover you can leash!” Netherworld roared, and behind him, endless wraiths vented their rancor like blizzards, cold biting to bone.

The claw hammered Ghoulia midair like a comet strike, and he dropped like a felled star, arms crossing his chest like iron bars.

Edward frowned, a line cut in stone, and raised his hand again. “Die.”

Pure black energy spilled from Edward like ink into water, eating the world like acid, and surged toward the Netherworld like a night tide.

“Silent Immortality.” Two fingers lifted like fangs, a tap toward the heavens, and endless black mist peeled from the black sea to devour the falling Ghoulia like locusts.

The black flood stopped spreading, cored into a vent that kept coughing mist like a volcanic throat.

“Hahahahaha! Kill me with this? You’re dreaming!” Ghoulia flung his arms wide, and his body knifed across space at a crooked, impossible angle like a sparrow slipping rain.

Edward didn’t turn; he let the near black mist hunt him like hounds on a scent.

Elsewhere, Fiend elites harvested Ghoulia’s followers like reapers in a frostbit field, the pitiful dead scattering like dead leaves.

Rage crawled over Ghoulia’s face like firelight. His hands clenched something like a secret seed, knuckles refusing to open.

He ran through space with the black mist dragging behind like storm surf.

The mist gained speed like a downhill river, and the gap shrank like ice in sun.

Ghoulia became a streak of light like a meteor, pierced the veil of space like silk, and his hands turned to blades like twin moons. At that instant he opened his fists, and a globe of light wrapped him like a cocoon.

Edward’s senses suddenly found no trace of Ghoulia, like a scent lost in rain.

The mist, too, was shaken off like burrs from a coat.

Edward narrowed his eyes, a cat before pounce, and smiled. “You’ve got moves, Netherworld. Much stronger than before. I thought you only knew how to run.”

In the next heartbeat, two pitch-black hands pierced Edward’s chest like spears. Behind him, Ghoulia stood with eyes closed, cold as a sealed tomb.

Edward blinked, surprise a ripple on still water, and looked at the hands in his chest like foreign iron. “You have improved.”

“You think this lets you escape?” Netherworld’s eyes snapped open like breaking ice. He shredded Edward’s phantom like paper and lunged again like thunder.

Edward stood further back, smiling like a crescent hook. Black energy coated him like armor, and he thrust out a hand to crash into Ghoulia like two hammers meeting.

“Seems we’ll do this the old way.” Edward’s smile was flint on steel.

Ghoulia closed his eyes again, long hair streaming like a dark banner.

“Abyss, you never should’ve set your sights on me. I’ll show you how ignorant and foolish you are.” Ghoulia’s laugh was a knife’s edge in wind.

“Come on, fool. I won’t let you go.”

Edward only chuckled and shook his head like a willow, then shot a fist at Ghoulia’s face like a falling star.

Ghoulia slipped the straight punch like a fish in current and stabbed low at Edward’s base like a gust under a tent.

Edward twisted into an odd angle like a dancer, sheathed his foot in energy like fire, and drove a kick into Ghoulia’s gut like a battering ram.

The blow caught clean, and Ghoulia streaked toward distant stars like a launched rocket.

His body flew like a meteor, threading the space between worlds like a needle through silk.

Edward rolled his wrists like loosening steel and chased like a hunting hawk.

They traded fists and met knuckles like thunderclaps, blasting the air with bloom after bloom of energy like storm flowers.

Among the stars, they spilled ruinous power like spilled wildfire.

They even brawled out of the Netherworld, and their ripples rang through the cosmos like bells in a cold night.

Eli let out a breath like fog and rose from the shadows like smoke. He brushed aside a lunging dead thing like dust, and he aimed to fly toward their battleground like an arrow.

A voice drifted over, halting him like a hand to the chest. “And you are?”

..............................

Eli listened in the dark like a fox at the eaves, weighing their words against his own scars like stones on a scale. His mood tightened first, then thought followed like echo.

Edward didn’t know the cost, yet he wouldn’t drop that matter, like a dog on a bone. For that, he hunted the Netherworld so long, like a shadow at noon.

Eli tilted his head, a wry smile like a bent reed. It all sounded neat, but honestly, wasn’t it too much on the Netherworld? Enemy or not, the line felt thin as ice.

For Netherworld’s lot, Eli could only laugh and sigh like rain on eaves.

Too miserable, really—like a lantern in wind.

The avatars Eli sent hadn’t even started to shine like fresh embers, and the Abyss smashed Netherworld head-on like a tidal wave, nearly erasing his home like chalk in rain.

He scraped together a kingdom of the dead like stacking bones, and Edward still found him like a hound to trail.

Another ruthless beating—what a fate, like a drum under many sticks.

Eli sighed, the sound a leaf falling, but he had to see this fight through like a pilgrim to a shrine.

It would feed his growth like spring rain to seeds.

He slid from the shadows and flew toward the duel like a hawk stooping.

Then a voice he knew too well rang in his ear like a bell, and the world tilted.

Eli froze midair like a moth in amber, turned in disbelief like a tide, and saw the Fiend who called to him like a figure from a dream.

His heart surged with joy like a flood and heat like sunrise. He swallowed hard, looked at the frowning Fiend, and said, “You… are… old geezer?”

“Mm? Sir, why say that? Do I look old?” Fiend One smiled like polished stone, baffled and mild.

“No… you’re Ugillian?” Eli’s smile flickered like a spark catching tinder.

“Sir? No. You’ve mistaken me.” Fiend One’s tone was proud as a banner. “I am Number One, the most perfect Fiend.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You’ve chanted that by my ear a thousand times, like a mantra in wind.” Eli actually laughed, bright as a crack in clouds.

“Sir, you seem to know me?” Fiend One tilted his head like a curious raven.

“Sure. Only… you probably don’t know me now.” Eli’s regret was a shadow over snow.

“Heh. Spare me the riddles, sir. If you won’t say your business, I’ll treat you like any dead thing and deal with you together.” Fiend One smiled, and killing intent poured out like a winter gale.

Eli parted his lips like breaking ice, wanted to say more, then only smiled like a secret. “Forget it. You’ll understand me.”

His body vanished from space like a candle snuffed.

Fiend One blinked, stunned like a statue—then Eli appeared behind him like a ghost, and his hand chopped down like a falling guillotine.

The perfect Fiend’s head tilted, and he blacked out like a lamp blown dark.