Last night, Terracafe stirred like a hive; many brushed past Death like a cold gust, then rose with the sun as if nothing changed.

Street hawkers cried like flocks of sparrows; the smithy hammered like rolling thunder in a storm-dark cloud.

“Ugh, I’m dead tired,” Irina groaned, her voice a spent ripple after a long tide. “That Demon King was damnable, like soot clinging to the wind.”

She’d hauled Xi—out cold like a fallen willow—up the clock tower, but the crisis melted like frost at dawn before they saw the Demon King.

That irresponsible White Elf chased that so-called Demon King like a pale kite and never drifted back, a blank moon lost behind cloud.

Irina even wondered if the Demon King had swallowed her like a snowflake in black tea, a quiet gulp under night.

“If those siblings hadn’t helped, I’d have dropped like a stone,” she muttered, her hands heavy as rain-laden leaves.

Last night, Nabelia had poured out their tragic past like spilled ink, and Irina took the two in like sheltering eaves.

By the White Elf’s claim, Xi—meant to stop the Demon King—had slept on like winter earth under frost.

Rubbing her eyes, Irina jolted like a bell struck. “Xi?! You’re awake!”

Joy burst like sunlight through shutters; she dove in and hugged Xi, bare as a new moon and heedless as a wild fawn.

Luck held like a closed window; no one else was in the room, two girls in quiet starlight, nothing to fuss about.

“Mm, I worried you last night,” Xi smiled, her hand patting Irina’s back like warm rain on bamboo.

Calm seeped in like tea heat; Irina felt Xi changed, faint as a scent on wind, yet sharp as a blade’s reflection.

It clicked—eyes. Xi’s eyes glowed like the last ember of dusk, red as sunset bleeding across a low horizon.

“What happened to you?” she asked, fear fluttering like moths. “You dropped without a word, and I nearly broke like thin ice.”

“That Demon King almost crushed the world like a peach pit, then turned aside like a river finding a new bed.

Anyway, that dangerous Demon King still runs free, like a wolf in mist.”

Irina raised her fist like a small hammer, ready to thump a demon’s crown.

Xi nodded, her voice calm as night water. “Irina, let’s judge that Demon King; I can feel him like a needle tugging thread.”

“Huh…” Irina’s brows lifted like two sparrows on a rail.

At the appointed place, Ouyang arrived like a steady step, and Ang had waited like a stone under sun.

It wasn’t Ouyang late; noon hadn’t climbed yet. Ang had simply come early like dew before dawn.

Three sat beside Ang—two men and one woman, their eyes like lanterns in fog.

“Ouyang, this is my team,” Ang said, his tone warm as brazier coals. He pointed at a man whose muscles swelled like coiled ropes.

The man’s aura was blood-and-iron, like a soldier carved out of a mound of corpses.

“Ya. That’s what you call him,” Ang said, the name clipped like a blade’s edge.

Ouyang smiled like a crescent moon and bowed a little. “Mr. Ya…”

Ya waved, quiet as a cliff; he was decisive, cutting words like he cut throats, no sound wasted.

Ang gestured to the lone woman, a figure under a straw hat like shade on a field.

“Jie,” he said, her name light as a bell; the last was Shuo.

Jie’s black veil hid her face like midnight silk, but her robe shone like fine weave only mages wore.

Shuo was bald, first glance like a street tough, but his eyes held wisdom like deep wells.

“Then let’s move,” Ang said, his tone a clean wind on stone.

Before they started, Shuo’s look weighed Ouyang’s gear like scales in a market, careful and steady.

Ouyang wore no mage robe, no armor—just a thin short shirt like summer cloth against heat.

A big bag sat on his back like a humped hill; its mouth showed a shovel, a hoe, a cross-pick like iron teeth.

Shuo saw the bag was large but unbulging, like a drum without grain; there was no food or medicine weight.

Ouyang’s Demon King body needed no bread, like a flame needs no blanket; medicine was a joke like rain on stone.

He’d brought those tools to strip a lair like autumn strips a tree, clean and ruthless.

They walked in silence, words folded like paper cranes, heading for the city’s edge.

Say too much, and a hunter’s eyes would hook you like fish under rushes.

Ouyang followed at the rear, quiet as shadow, his mind sifting memories like fingers through sand.

He hunted which unlucky Demon King lay sealed here, like picking a thorn from a briar.

Soon the gate sank behind them like a receding tide; fewer people moved like scattered leaves on a road.

On the wall, Xi and Irina watched Ouyang’s group like cats on a roof.

“The one with the shovel is the Demon King?” Irina whispered, her breath thin as silk.

Xi nodded, sharp as a needle. “Follow. He’s winding up to break things again, like thunder gathering behind hills.”

After they slipped out, Nabelia and Eika appeared where they’d stood, like two shadows sliding under lamplight.

“These two creep after the Demon King, like rats on grain,” Nabelia hissed, her words cold as mist.

“Kill them, and we can claim credit like stamping a seal for the Demon King,” she said, hunger bright as a wolf’s eye.

Eika clenched her fists like twin stones; Nabelia had told her everything last night, and spirit burned like kindling.

Up front, Ouyang didn’t know two waves trailed him like twin currents; even if he did, he wouldn’t care, like a hawk above sparrows.

Once in a Demon King’s palace, he could shake them off like water from feathers—

if that palace was real and not smoke, like a mirage on hot sand.

Ang led, taking a quiet lane like a stream through reeds, winding until patience thinned like thread.

Just when Ouyang’s temper tugged like a tight string, they arrived.

They stood in a mass grave like a field of tired stones, skulls under soil like seeds that would never sprout.

It lay near the city gate—close as a breath. Ouyang had seen it when they stepped out, like a mark on a map.

Ang’s wide detour felt silly as a goose chase; but Ouyang’s brows soon knitted like tangled cords.

“Looks like you’ve seen it,” Ang said, respect tucked like a note. “No wonder you read Warring Magic script like stars in a clear night.

Without an astrologer, we’d never find the flaw, like a crack under ice.”

Ahead, a giant skull rose like a pale mountain.

Its mouth gaped like a cave of ink, a black maw opening to the unknown like winter water.

Ouyang nodded, his mind steady as a peg. This mass grave wasn’t that mass grave—two moons overlapping in one sky.

Their positions overlapped like palimpsest, but without the right path, you’d never reach this one, not in ten lifetimes.

From here, he could still see people at the gate, like ants on a ridge.

But those at the gate wouldn’t see them, not through this warp like heat ripple over stone.

Two graves stacked like folded paper; they stood in the inner space, a room inside a room.

“That skull marks the Sealed Land,” Ang said, reverent as a monk. “Inside is a road to the Demon King’s palace.

It’s the Sealed Land of the Demon King of Demon Kings—Kooson,” he breathed, awe like incense in air.

Ang held anxiety and respect like twin jars; the other three bowed to the skull like willow to wind.

“Demon King or not, his legend blazes like a comet,” Jie said, her clear voice a silver bell.

“Years ran long, yet people still remember his undying tale like a song.”

Shuo and Ya looked at the skull and sighed, their breaths like cool smoke.

Ouyang puzzled, his thought a ripple. Since when did we Demon Kings have a Demon King of Demon Kings, like a crown on a crown?

We only had a council, like a round table under storm.

He heard the name Kooson and eased like a knot loosening.

“Fits him,” he muttered, voice a quiet draft. “A king puffed up by hot air.”

No one heard; his words dropped like seeds into dust.

In his memory, Kooson loved to brag, his mouth a drum.

Over time, other Demon Kings flattered him like layered hats on a fool.

Every meeting began, “Ah, Kooson, Lord of the Abyss,” like wind praising thunder.

“Ah, Demon King of Demon Kings, Kooson,” like waves bowing to the moon.

Years later, he got his wish like a fox snaring a hen.

But as council’s chair, Ouyang would never recognize that crown, not under any star.

“That big oaf…” Ouyang’s smile curled like a fox’s tail. “Too easy. He modeled his lair on mine, like a shadow copies a tree.”

“So stepping in will feel like home, a return to my old nest,” he thought, mirth bright as sparklight.

Ang’s four didn’t know Ouyang almost laughed himself over, joy fluttering like birds.

“If he wakes and finds a note—‘Ouyang Was Here’—stuck on his vault like a leaf,” Ouyang mused, greed gleaming like frost.

“And the vault empty as a dry well—what face will he make? I can’t wait, like a child before lanterns.”

“Let’s move,” Ouyang said, impatience drumming like rain.

Ang heard the urgency like a quickened pulse and took it for scholar’s heat, the thrill of old bones under hands.

“Ouyang,” Jie said, cool as shade, “you read Warring Magic script, so you know that era’s tricks like snares in brush.

Check the area for traps, in case this Sealed Land bites like a snake.

Step into that skull, and you might never return, like a boat swallowed by fog.”

The mass grave felt eerie, a chill that spoke no name, like a wind that forgets its path.

The inner space itself was strangeness, layered like lacquer.

Jie’s words doused Ouyang’s fire like water on coals; he saw his own haste, a horse biting its bit.

Though these people were near the end of usefulness, they’d brought him here like ferrymen across a black river.

He chose to go in with them, a shared path under cloud; otherwise he’d have rushed alone like a hawk stooping.

He set his eyes on the surroundings like a craftsman measuring beams, studying grave positions like chess stones on a board.

His brows tightened like storm ropes.

He crouched and wiped dust from headstones like a sleeve over glass.

He read the carved words, and his frown deepened like clouds piling before rain.