A Demon King—a living storm given flesh.

Xi had stayed with Ouyang, that so-called Demon King, yet in her eyes he never wore the crown. He was a lantern with a painted face, not a thunderhead. Kooson before her fit the legends, like a mountain’s shadow swallowing the plain. Next to him, Ouyang wasn’t a Demon King at all.

Last night, Ouyang had done one thing worthy of that title, but Xi hadn’t seen it. Kooson was her first true sighting, like opening a cave and finding a dragon’s eye blazing inside.

“Demon King… how could—” Irina’s words broke, and her whole body shook like a leaf in winter wind. She had shouted about stopping a Demon King, defeating a Demon King, but the instant truth stood up, a long-buried fear flooded her like night tide over sand.

Xi felt the wrongness rise like cold mist. She wrapped Irina tight, like throwing a warm cloak over a shivering child.

“Mortal, come up and pull out this Sealing Sword…” Kooson’s green eyes gleamed like swamp-lights, and their glow caught Irina like a hooked fish. In a blink, all color drained from her pupils, like ink washed from rice paper.

“Irina? What’s wrong? Wake up!” Xi’s voice rang like a bell in fog. She shook Irina hard, untouched by the glamour, but Irina pushed her away, her palm as cold and flat as ice.

“Lord Demon King, Irina Reyes is honored to serve. All that I am will exist for you.” Her voice came hollow, like a bell tolling in an empty hall.

Irina walked toward the skull throne step by step, a puppet pulled by unseen strings. She was following his command, moving to pull the Sealing Sword, like a moth drawn to a candle’s blue heart.

“No, Irina, you can’t!” Xi rushed and clung to her, trying to drag her back like a swimmer against a riptide. Irina stared forward with vacant eyes and kept going, inching on. Entangled by Xi, she advanced only a finger at a time, like the tide creeping up a stone.

Is there no way? Panic clawed Xi like thorns. This wasn’t Ouyang’s harmless glow; this aura pressed down like deep-sea water. This was a Demon King. She felt naive, tricked by Ouyang’s long-running mask. A Demon King—this is a Demon King. Stand before one, and your bones quiver like reeds. Your legs turn to mush, and the thought of lifting steel is a dream.

A Demon King isn’t Ouyang’s laughing face. A Demon King isn’t Ouyang, who let her order him around like a leashed dog.

A flash of white flared behind them, bright as fresh snow. Four figures rose out of the light and landed on the stone.

“Ha, we’re back. Treasure secured!” Ang laughed, sunlight after rain. Then he froze. Two girls stood by the throne. One moved like a clockwork doll, hands an inch from the hilt, no more than four inches away. The other dug her heels in and dragged, but it was like pulling a cart tied to a winch.

Hearing voices, hope blossomed in Xi like a lantern catching flame.

She turned and shouted to the four, “Please, help. My friend’s under the Demon King’s control. If she pulls the sword, he breaks the seal, and the world drowns in blood.”

Their smiles died like candles in wind. They sprinted over at once. A freed Demon King wasn’t a joke. Sealed for ages, their resentment would be a wildfire in dry grass.

Just like Ouyang back then—he laughed and joked, but if not for the nine seals left on him, he’d likely have started a massacre, a blade singing for red snow. A year after year in darkness, counting seasons by your own breathing, talking to the void—anyone would go mad, like ice cracking at last thaw.

Of course, as Ouyang put it, a certain big lug wouldn’t have that issue. Once you’re dumb, you’re simple, like an ox blinking at rain.

Ang was fastest. He lunged and punched Irina. She flew back like a leaf caught in a sudden gust.

They closed in, but her eyes stayed empty, two dead moons. At least she no longer reached for the Sealing Sword, like a tide finally turned.

“Irina, what’s wrong?” Xi shook her hard. Irina’s face twitched, a ripple on still water. Doubt surfaced, then sank. Her pupils stayed dim and hollow, like a doll without a soul.

Jie sighed, soft as wind through reeds, and gently pulled Xi aside.

“It’s useless. Unless we unknot what’s inside her, she’ll keep wandering in her fear. That child holds a terror of Demon Kings, deep as a scar. Without fixing the root, she won’t wake.”

Jie stroked Irina’s brow, a faint halo rising and fading like breath on glass. She lowered her hand and spoke, her tone even as a steady flame.

“So the source is the Demon King. If we kill him in front of her, she’ll recover?” Xi looked to the bone throne. Kooson met her gaze with a smile sharp as a knife.

“Mortal strength can’t kill a Demon King. Only a god’s power can,” Shuo said, words dropping like stones into a well.

Xi’s face went pale, the color rinsed away like chalk in rain.

Beneath the veil, Jelinka’s features shifted like shadows under water. She wrestled with herself, a rope drawn taut. Then she saw Xi’s tear-streaked face and Irina’s empty eyes, and pain twisted in her chest like a sudden cramp.

“How can I be this selfish? They’re citizens of the kingdom. I… I have the duty to shield them.” She set her resolve like a blade. She patted Xi’s head and said, “There’s one more way.”

Ang, Shuo, and Ya looked over. Their mouths opened like fish in a pail, but no words came out.

“To guard every smile in the kingdom—that’s the mission of House Layedi. I, Jelinka Layedi, swore it before the Goddess of Light.” Her vow rang like steel struck on stone. Ang and the others knew they couldn’t stop her. This was Jelinka, through and through.

“To dispel Irina’s fear, we don’t have to kill the Demon King. We can make them equals. Under the Goddess’s witness, they sign a pact. She becomes a Pactbearer.”

Jelinka read the question in Xi’s eyes and continued, voice steady as a priest’s chant. “In the last few centuries, Demon Kings have woken too often. To seek their hoards, many adventurers were assimilated by their power and turned into claws and fangs.”

“So, three hundred years ago, the great Goddess of Light, Clafias, sent down an oracle. Her heralds and angels descended like stars. She offered hope. If a Demon King awakens, we can help unseal them—but only if they form a pact with a human.”

“With the Goddess’s blessing, they can’t resist the pact. Not with her hand pressing like sunlight on frost.”

“In three hundred years, many Demon Kings were quietly unsealed. Those who bind them and wield their power are called Pactbearers. They aren’t limited to humans. And if a Pactbearer dies, the Demon King is dragged back to the Sealed Land and locked again, unless a new bearer rises.”

The lesson clicked for Xi like a lock turning. But her pact with Ouyang hadn’t been equal, and no goddess had lit that altar. It was the fruit of the Glachidor Clan’s ancestor, carved with mortal hands.

To force an unequal pact with a Demon King by mortal power… was that truly her ancestor?

Elsewhere in the hall’s shadows, Ouyang’s teeth clacked, clack-clack, like pebbles in a jar. His whole body shook, not with fear, but with anger boiling like oil.

“Clafias… that little b—… that b—ch. She’s grown wings, huh? Daring to pull this stunt.” His whisper was a knife scraping stone. “Time to summon the old crowd and hold council. We Demon Kings have sunk to this. We take it back. We bring our era roaring back like a storm.”

He took this personally, like a father seeing his child slapped. Back then, he had sweet-talked those odd-looking freaks out of the Abyss and the Demon World. He forged the Demon King Council. He lit the fuse for the Demon-torn age, a wildfire racing the wind.

Seeing them reduced to this made his anger blaze, a bonfire that needed no tinder.

Kooson snorted at Jelinka, a cliff throwing back waves. “Mortals, don’t dream. Our glory won’t be trampled under your boots.”

“The hardest kind is this,” Jelinka muttered, pinching her brow like soothing a headache. “The other side won’t even sit at the table.”

“If only the Grand Scholar were here,” Ang said, a wistful breeze. “That arrogant Demon King earlier got his head rapped like a drum. He blurted out where the treasure was.”

“Exactly. If the Grand Scholar were here, would this Demon King dare strut?” Shuo fumed, steam off a kettle. The image of Ouyang browbeating Kooson had branded them like a hot iron. They felt a strange, new reverence.

Ya noticed the floor Ouyang had pried open, a scar in the stone. “Huh. There’s more treasure down here. Guess we didn’t clear it out.”

“No, don’t! That’s my last savings!” Kooson dropped his pride like a robe in mud and yelled, voice cracking like a snapped bowstring. “Leave my final hoard, and I’ll sign the pact with that human!”

Everyone froze, stunned, like birds scattered by a sudden clap. Even Ouyang in the dark blinked, dumbfounded.

Seriously? Kooson, shameless as a beggar? Just like that—folded? Where’s the glory? Where did our Demon King glory go, blown like ash on the wind?