The day was gentle as silk; sunlight pooled like warm honey; the grass held them like a green quilt. Xi and Irina sipped juice in the duke’s courtyard, eyes drifting with blue sky and white‑cloud sails.

Irina stretched like a cat in a sunbeam. “This is what a holiday tastes like,” she murmured, letting the last few frantic days blow past like dust on a road.

A twinge pricked Xi like a thorn in a rose. She called toward the maid by the shrubs, “Bella, those two—how are they? Go check.” A bath should be brief, yet Ouyang and Kooson had vanished into steam like stones dropped in a lake.

Bella soon hurried back, breath fluttering like a startled sparrow. Her words hit cold as a wave—the two Demon Kings were gone again.

At that moment, Terracafe shivered like a drumskin, and the eastern wall folded like wet sand. Dust rolled up like a gray storm, visible even from the city’s heart, and Xi and Irina spoke together like echoing bells: “It has to be them!”

On the fallen wall, Ouyang and Kooson stood high like crows on a broken branch, looking down at the streets below like a riverbed.

“Kooson, remember this like a carved stone,” Ouyang’s voice flowed cold as a night wind. “Our glory never faded.” “Our mission is a blade in the dark: bring fear to all realms.” “Plant the Demon King’s banner on every world, and let our footprints scatter across the starry sky like sparks.”

A black cloak wrapped Ouyang like moonless smoke; the wind tugged it, and the cloth whispered like reeds by a lake. Mystery clung to him like shadow, and handsomeness flashed like a blade. Beside him, Kooson wore an oversized black cloak, the bulge of his horns pressing up like two hidden peaks.

“Boss Ouyang, relax,” Kooson rumbled, voice rough as gravel. “The era of the Demon King will descend in our hands like a storm front.”

“Good,” Ouyang spread his arms like he meant to hug the horizon. “Let the mortals gathering on the wind taste fear like bitter frost.” The two cloaked figures stood above the rubble like dark scarecrows, looking down from a height like a ledge over the sea.

Drawn by rumors, onlookers clustered at a distance like wary deer at a riverbank. No one stepped closer; caution hung like fog.

“That’s… a minotaur!” a portly man pointed, finger shaking like a reed. “Damn beast must’ve rammed the wall like a bull through a fence! Those two in black probably beat it!”

Only then did Ouyang and Kooson notice the unconscious minotaur at their feet, sprawled like a felled tree.

Irritation spiked Ouyang’s mood like a thorn through silk. They’d come to unfurl dread like a storm banner, not stumble into slapstick like clowns in the rain.

A blue‑haired girl with glasses crouched by the beast like a physician at a battlefield. She peered, and a new conclusion surfaced like a fish in clear water.

Annoyed, Ouyang snorted, the sound sharp as a pebble striking ice. Yes—let them believe fear was our craft, and all this our design like a weaver’s pattern.

“This minotaur’s gone berserk,” the girl said, voice cool as shade. “Those two mystery men dropped a berserk minotaur, and from wall fall to finish it took barely a breath—so easy it was like swatting a fly.”

She glanced up at Ouyang and Kooson, eyes bright as glass. “Each of them is at least Tier One, Seven Stars.”

This world grades strength in broad strokes like steps on a mountain: Tier One, Elite; Tier Two, Legend; Tier Three, Epic; Tier Four, Demigod. Names shift by class like colors in a sunset, but the climb stays steep.

For mages, a magic‑user sits at Elite, a mage at Legend, and an archmage at Epic; the titles stack like stones in a pagoda.

“Seven Stars? That’s about the captain of the city guard,” someone gasped, breath flying like leaves. “Didn’t expect those two to be that strong!”

Murmurs swelled into a tide like wind through wheat, and beneath his hood Ouyang’s features twisted like a knot. He’d planned the opening like thunder, but the ending had gone soft like rain.

“Hey, you two!” someone shouted, voice carrying like a bell. “Was it you who took down the minotaur that wrecked the wall?”

Kooson didn’t know when the beast had shown up. The fallen wall was likely the hammer that dropped it, like lightning felling a tree. By that logic, it was their work like a mark on wet clay. He answered in a rough baritone like a drum: “Yeah, we did it.”

“Knew it,” someone sighed, relief spreading like warm tea. “Good thing we had two heroes, or that berserk minotaur would’ve flooded the streets.”

“Exactly; my kids live close,” another said, worry loosening like a thaw. “If it charged in, my two little ones would’ve been gone with the wind—thank the heroes.”

“Two heroes, you’re amazing!” a child called, voice bright as a skylark. The sweetness spread through the crowd like spring rain. None of them guessed the wall‑breakers were their “heroes,” and the minotaur was just a stray fish caught in their net.

The girl in glasses had said the beast was berserk, so maybe it had planned trouble like a wolf eyeing a fold. Ouyang’s thoughts cleared like fog lifting. Turned out it was a colleague on the road of chaos. He’d caused a flood that swamped the Dragon King’s own shrine like kin tripping kin.

“Boss Ouyang, we’ve drawn a crowd like moths to a flame,” Kooson said, confidence ringing like steel. “Should we start a massacre and paint the street like a river?”

With the Divine Grace Crystal, Ouyang could drop a forbidden spell on Terracafe like a night collapsing. No living thing would outrun that shadow like prey before a hawk.

But—he swallowed the impulse like a spark under snow. “Idiot,” he hissed, voice cold as a blade. “You’re an insult to our Demon King intellect.”

“A true Demon King doesn’t strut in broad daylight like a peacock, and he doesn’t swing first like a drunk.” “Learn: that minotaur’s a fellow traveler.” “Tonight we slip into the jail like mist, free it, and let it churn the city into chaos like a stirred hornet nest.”

“Got it, Boss,” Kooson nodded, acceptance falling into place like a stone in a wall. “We work from the shadows, and let the minotaur be the cannon fodder like a decoy duck.”

Ouyang dipped his hooded head like a nodding raven. “Kooson, you’ve grown; that comforts me like a warm fire; we withdraw.”

They vaulted past the wall and vanished into the dense forest like two knives into a scabbard. They hid their merit and their names like moons behind clouds.

Half an hour later, the two shed their cloaks like snakes casting skins and walked back into the city like locals. At Ouyang’s order, Kooson tucked his horns and drew in the bone spurs like a turtle retracting limbs. Now he passed for ordinary like a pebble among stones.

People were clearing rubble from the fallen wall like ants moving grain; the minotaur was gone, likely dragged to a cell like a netted boar. “See?” Ouyang smirked, pride rising like steam. “We knocked down the wall, yet we stroll the streets.”

A voice cut in like a knife through silk. “So that’s how it is—we heard you; you two toppled the wall!” From an alley that seemed empty as a well, two girls popped out like cats. Xi and Irina glared at the Demon King duo like twin moons.

Of course—once the Demon Kings vanished, trouble bloomed like weeds. The pattern was a drumbeat like thunder.

Ouyang scrambled for a save, guilt prickling like sleet. “About that... I was bragging; the minotaur actually did the damage like a bull in a gate.”

Xi and Irina knew their Demon King identities like readers who’d peeked ahead, and they weren’t buying it like stones that don’t float.

“Can it, Ouyang,” Xi snapped, anger sharp as frost. “Today you stay in your room and reflect like a monk facing a wall.”

And so the Demon King duo got hauled back to the ducal manor like two truant dogs, with soldiers patrolling outside like a ring of spears. Irina clearly meant to keep a tighter leash on the restless pair like reins on wild colts.

“Hmph, you think that stops me?” Ouyang sat in the room with arms crossed like bars, waiting for a chance like a hunter at dusk. After a bit, a maid opened the door with a tray like a moon on a plate.

The maid wore black‑and‑white like snow and ink, and her long green hair flowed like willow leaves. It was Nabelia, poised and composed like a swan. Ouyang had summoned her from the Hericot Clan like a card drawn by fate. Instead of one champion, he’d gotten a brother and a sister like twin dice.

“Great Demon King, it’s an honor,” Nabelia bowed, voice soft as rain. “Nabelia pays her respects like a flower bending to wind.”

“Skip the fluff,” Ouyang said, words clipped like cut wire. “Here’s your first task—fail, and you crawl back to the Abyss like a stone to the riverbed.”

“At the collapsed wall today we saw a minotaur; find where it’s held like a hound on a scent, break it out, and let it spread panic through the city like wildfire.”

“Yes,” she answered, the word firm as a nail. She set down the food like offerings and hugged the empty tray close like a shield, bowing deep as a bow to the earth.

To Nabelia, this task was a crossroads like two roads in a mist; it would decide her future like a judge’s gavel.

If she failed, she would return to the Abyss like a stone sinking, and the elders’ mission would splinter like ice. She might not even get to return; for such simple failure, the Demon King could erase her like chalk in rain.

This mission could not fail like a bridge over a gorge; after days skulking in the manor like a fox in brush, she finally had work like a spark in tinder.

“Should I bring Eika?” she wondered, doubt curling like smoke. “No—when he’s around, good turns bad like milk left in sun; better to go alone like a knife.”

A voice floated from nearby like a kite on wind. “Nabelia, where are you going? Take me along; I’m bored like a caged cat.”

“No,” she snapped, fear biting like frost. “You’ll ruin the Demon King’s plan like a loose thread.”

“The Demon King?” Eika brightened like a lantern. “I’m going; I have to show him my worth like a hawk in flight!”

“No,” she said again, refusal flat as a stone.

“I’m going, I’m going, I’m going,” Eika chanted, stubborn as a goat on a cliff. To a stranger they’d seem reversed—he the younger brother, she the elder like tides switched.

In the end, Nabelia yielded like ice under sun; to slip into a jail, Eika’s space magic was a key like a silver fish, so she took him along like a shadow.

In the ducal manor, Ouyang watched the window like a hawk, while the patrol captain outside kept throwing him looks like pebbles. Ouyang’s grin went thin as a knife. “It’s not over,” he murmured, voice quiet as snow.