Chapter Thirteen: Heaven Above, Earth Below

“Honestly, cutting down those rebels back then kept your authority like an iron seal,” Eli said with a wry smile, “but it also slowed the Demon Race’s march for years, didn’t it?”

“I’ve forgotten—dust over dust—it’s been too long,” Edlyn muttered, pout sharp as a crescent blade. “I only vaguely remember stopping to rest for some reason. Why spend strength remembering someone who could be turned to ash with a flip of my hand?”

Eli’s laugh spilled like warm sunlight through cloud. He let it go.

Day after day, they drifted above the vault of sky, two shadows on a sea of blue. They watched lives drop like leaves in a storm, families splinter like brittle ice. Their hearts bent, then changed, like rivers carving new paths through stone.

Edlyn felt her life-flame pulse, a lamp in wind. A faint smile touched her lips like dawn on frost.

Two years left. The thought was a quiet bell in her chest. She tilted her head, drew the soul-fire inside her to its brink, a star burning so clean even Eli’s senses slid off it like rain off jade. Only then did she step out of the room.

He caught the pallor on her face, snow laid over peach. Eli’s brow pinched like a tightened bowstring. “Edlyn? Are you feeling off anywhere?” Fear stirred in him like thunder rumbling below a calm horizon.

“No.” She forced a small smile, soft as silk. “Let’s go walk?” Her hand rose, a whisper of spring wind, and touched his cheek.

Eli trembled like a plucked string. Heat stung behind his eyes, but he walled the tears like a dyke holding back floodwater. He shaped a smile, thin but steady, like a lantern held in rain.

He took her cool hand, frost against palm, and held it carefully. Inside him, a universe-fire roared, a red sun under a calm surface.

“Come on. Let’s go see.” He smiled, tangled their fingers, and the two of them lifted like swallows into high air.

Soon this pocket of space would crack and fold, a shell collapsing at Luxiao’s arrival. Their purpose here was almost set, a knot tied neat.

Soon they would return to their own strand of time, to face the strongest enemy, a mountain looming beyond the foothills. Everything now felt like an appetizer, spice on the tongue before the main course.

“The Demon Race army breached the city,” Eli said, voice steady as steel in shadow.

Edlyn nodded, eyes unfocused, mind like mist over water.

“Edlyn? What’s wrong?” Eli dipped his head and gathered her small frame, a wounded sparrow sheltered in two hands. His chin rested against her hair, and he breathed in her scent, green like bamboo in rain.

“It’s nothing. Just… a lot,” she whispered. “War… shouldn’t be. I’m lost. The world’s chaos—wasn’t it me who made it like this?” She hugged herself, a birch shivering under winter wind.

Eli sighed, wind leaving a bell. He’d known this would shake her—this vision of torn lives and ash.

She had once been the Demon King. Now she was simply a girl named Edlyn, asked to bear too many mountains at once. Much of it wasn’t her debt to pay.

He tightened his embrace, a shield around a candle. “Pandora already failed. He paid for his violence. The Demon Race was nearly wiped out.”

He turned her face gently, moon cupped in hands. His gaze was calm as deep lakes. “You’re Edlyn now. You’ve got your own life. You’re not a tyrant anymore, are you? I know you pity mortals with no defense. I know you care about the small creatures in river and hill. But, Edlyn—believe me—your debts are washed clean.”

“And don’t be afraid. Whatever happens, I’ll be right here. I’ll support you, guard you, love you—always.”

“Really?” Her pretty face was all rain, voice catching like a reed in wind. “Really?”

“Yes.” Eli sighed and ruffled her hair, fingers warm as sunlight on black pine.

Edlyn leaned into his chest, a boat finding harbor.

Her grief wasn’t only for the thousands fallen like stars. It was also for the fool before her, the one who would burn to ash just to warm her hands.

Her father’s words echoed like a drum, and she tallied the time she left Eli, stacking years like thin paper. She thought of the strange states that sometimes overtook him, and even with a slow mind, the shape formed: he wasn’t quietly fetched back when the time was ripe. He had walked those lonely ages alone, a traveler on a night road, never letting her name fade like chalk in rain.

He was the same as the day they met. He made her laugh with small tricks, like fireflies flickering in dusk. He did so much, piling deeds like stones to hold back the flood.

Edlyn lowered her head. The ring in her hand caught light like a lake. A single tear fell and kissed the gemstone, a drop beading on blossom.

Suddenly she felt unworthy of the fool before her, unworthy of his fierce spring.

Holding his warmth, her heart settled like snow after wind. For the last two years, she would stay. She would make them bright, leave as few regrets as autumn leaves left on the path.

Long ago, humans raised a church called the Holy Court Church, its banners white as cranes. They worshiped the Celestial God who created all living things, laying offerings like dew at dawn.

Iron hooves of the Demon Race crushed the allied lines, shields cracking like thin ice. The world sank into a deep fear, a shadow down to the marrow.

The current pope of the Holy Court Church seized the moment like a hawk, spreading doctrine like seeds on spring fields. It felt like favor from above, a gentle rain on parched earth.

Over the main cathedral, the gate to the Celestial Realm opened, vast as a mountain’s mouth. Countless Angels stepped through with holy breath, their presence heavy as thunderheads, eyes falling on the mortals below like stars.

The Demon Race, busy with slaughter, felt it at once—the swathes of beings that restrained them like iron chains.

Angels drove off the lesser demons nearby, light scattering shadow like dawn. They slammed a harsh warning onto many high demons, a spear planted on a ridge.

Under the Celestial God’s pressure, the Demon Race pulled back like tide receding.

The pope pressed the advantage, sending chants and creeds across borders like migrating geese, reaching other nations, other races.

Eli and Edlyn stood behind the gate to the Celestial Realm, watching the strange currents ripple like heat over sand. Eli smiled, light bending at his mouth. “The Celestial Realm is forging a conduit linking my world to this one. It should be good news. But it’ll fail, and that failure will invite the outer universe in, like wolves through a broken fence.”

“Mm.” Edlyn buckled her armor, motions clean as flowing water. Her face was calm, a stone under the stream.

“Hey—so cold.” Eli’s eyes glittered, a fox under moon. “I thought you’d be curious.”

“I’m not.” She turned her head, keeping him from seeing her tears, rain hidden by a tilted umbrella.

Her voice dropped, steadying like a blade. “Get ready, you stubborn Eli. I want to see what monsters crawl out of the outer universe.”

Eli lifted his left hand, fingers spread like winter knives. “Five.”

He folded one finger, a petal falling. “Four.”

Edlyn swallowed, throat tight as a bow. She scanned the air, wary as a cat in tall grass.

Eli nodded to her, a soft smile like warm tea. “Three.”

Clouds drifted below, slow whales in a pale sea. “Two.”

Angels had already descended into the hall of the Holy Court Church, faces turned to the devout, smiles serene as sunrise on temple stone.

All his fingers lowered, a fan closing. Eli drove both fists forward, violence coiling like a dragon, punching into the cloud-bank ahead. “One.”

A sharp scream knifed out of empty air, thin as glass breaking. The cloud tore apart like cotton, revealing a single violet eye, cold as amethyst flame, staring at Eli.

Edlyn’s hands fell, and a great black sword-qi surged, a night tide spearing the pupil in the rift. “Bloodbane!” she hissed, voice a gust through graves.

Demon qi turned into the purest corrosion, acid rain gnawing at the creature in the channel.

“Ah!” The second scream was wilder, fear cracking like timber under axe.

A massive claw forced the space open, ripping a hole wide as a canyon’s mouth. A bizarre creature loomed, all wrong angles, its one huge eye sweeping over them like a lighthouse searching a storm.

Edlyn brought the Demon Sword Ashill to guard, blade black as a moonless lake. Her gaze cut cold. “Is that all? The outer universe looks weak.”

Eli smiled and laid his hand on the hilt of the Jade Seal Sword, gesture quiet as a monk’s prayer. He closed his eyes, calm deep as a well. “He’s not alone.”

“Celestial God, my lady—did you feel the lower realm shake?” An Angel asked, voice taut as a stretched string.

The Celestial God frowned, a shadow crossing sun. To her, the disturbance was firecrackers at the ear, noisy as a festival. Of course she knew.

But this was the crucial moment to ferry a perfect test subject from the Celestial Realm to this world, to strip the cosmic imprint of his original universe grain by grain, sand rinsed from rice. None of it was easy. If anything slipped, the harm would spread far beyond herself.

The entire Celestial Realm could be bound by cosmic constraint, power bleeding like color from old silk. Facing the Abyss’s declaration of war, that loss would be a bad bargain.

For now, nothing had happened. Her mood loosened like a loosened knot.

Fine. If trouble rose, she’d intervene—a miracle staged to awe the low-level beings, thunder rolled for rule. Better for her throne.

When the crowd below lay half-injured, she’d descend like a savior with that soul in tow, light pouring like rain through a cracked sky.

Besides, nothing’s happened yet. If any accident appears, she’ll deal with it then.