It was still that mini castle, but now it felt frost-cold and hollow. No more Devila’s roars, no Ruola’s sweeping silhouette. Only three lives haunted this place.

“Yo, so our great Demon King has a high-end flying toy. Why didn’t you use it before? Stingy Demon King, huh?”

Inside, Xi watched blue sky and porcelain clouds through the window. Her heart tightened first, thoughts then spilled. She’d bled herself dry trying to get home back then, nearly died twice. If Ouyang had pulled out this moving castle, would she have suffered like a stray dog in a storm?

She cut him a sidelong glance. Ouyang rolled his eyes, said nothing, like a stone in a stream. Her suspicion took root like vines. He’d done it on purpose.

She guessed right without knowing. He hadn’t hidden a castle back then, but he had enjoyed making her miserable. Even if he’d had one, he wouldn’t have shown it.

She looked like Lian. Fresh out of a seal, Ouyang’s heart was a nest of thorns. If mercy hadn’t pricked him at a crucial moment, Xi would’ve been played to death.

He stepped onto the balcony and unfolded a lounge chair, like a crane finding an old perch. The wind brushed by like a cat’s paw. The sun poured down like warm wine. A drink would have finished the scene.

He thought about it, then let the thought die like a spark in water. Ask Valiant, that big lug, for a drink? The idea flashed and vanished.

As for Xi… sure, she wouldn’t poison him, but she’d slip in a laxative with the gentleness of a dagger. In the end, he’d have to do it himself. He was a god-tier cook, but his bones were lazy reeds; if he could sprawl in the sun, he wouldn’t rise for a drink.

Xi watched his elderly-grandpa act, an ember of anger glowing first, then she tightened her jaw. He’d promised to go to Dragon Gorge and find the kids. With that loafing face, did he even care?

Her sharp eyes caught a silver thread of drool at his lip. Doubt thickened like fog. His Dragon Gorge motive was never simple. She remembered Terracafe, the mess he’d brewed. She pictured Dragon Gorge—chickens scattering, dogs yelping. A chill ran through her; she mourned quietly for everything living there.

The flying castle stopped dead like a startled horse. The sudden brake made the whole stone body buck hard. Ouyang and Valiant stood like trees. Xi, a mortal reed, took the blow.

She pitched forward onto Ouyang’s lounge chair. Wood snapped like dry bone under two bodies; the antique lounger exploded into splinters.

Dizzy stars pricked her eyes. Xi shook her head, anger first, then focus, trying to clear the fog.

Heat flared across her chest. A voice rasped up from beneath. “Hey, easy… that one still… needs, uh, development…”

It was muddy, but the last word rang like a bell: “developing.”

Her brain stalled, then hit like thunder.

“Ah! Ouyang, you pervert!”

Scarlet lightning erupted through the castle, crackling like a storm of dry leaves. To Ouyang it sounded like the world ending.

“Stop! You idiot, quit it! Ah—idiot woman—!”

His scream tore through the hall.

Valiant stood in the lobby, blank as a granite idol. He couldn’t grasp why Ouyang feared those harmless scarlet bolts. To him, the lightning was rain on steel. He could stand there for centuries, unbothered.

Ouyang didn’t know Valiant’s thoughts. Valiant wasn’t Devila; nothing showed on his face. Even if Valiant were Devila reborn, Ouyang had no mood for faces.

He’d sensed a familiar aura and braked hard, like a hawk folding its wings. The crash sent a certain girl flying, and his antique lounger died. Pressed under her like a flatfish, he gasped, so he had spoken—to alert her, to breathe.

Yes, his tongue had been poisonous. But still—

“The deadliest poison is a woman’s wrath.” He’d lost count of how many times Xi’s lightning had cooked him. The great Demon King Ouyang was very unhappy. “You… just wait…”

Charred-black, he trembled and pointed with a charcoal finger. Then he dropped like a felled log and lay there, looking thoroughly dead.

Xi’s curiosity flared first. What was he about to do? The castle suddenly lost power, and it plunged like a stone. Crisis tightened its jaws. Ouyang stayed on the floor, a burned offering. Valiant sat on a stool, statue-still. Xi shouted at both; silence answered like cold water.

Fake. You two are so, so fake. She bit down hard, arms locked around a pillar like a ship’s mast. As the castle fell, everything inside swung and rolled like a storm-tossed boat. The charred stick of a man glued to the floor didn’t budge a hair. Fine—maybe he’d been shocked into bonding with the boards.

But that orc over there? Come on. You think you’re a statue? You expect me to buy that? Cabinets were rolling end over end, yet his stool stuck to the floor, and he stuck to the stool, like resin and iron.

“Enough! Do you take me for blind? Or for a fool?” Weightlessness rushed up like a cold wave. Xi shut her eyes. Her gut said the castle would kiss the ground any second.

We’re going to die.

She didn’t doubt the castle’s craft, but she was only flesh. When stone met earth, the shock would pulp a mortal body like fruit in a press.

Nightfall Forest held four figures, ringed by a pack of Redsteel Dragons. Three women, one man. The man was massive, his scalp bare as a polished stone, bone spurs jutting everywhere—each one snapped.

Among the girls, one hugged a slender sword and stood at the rear, calm as snow.

The red-haired girl’s worry fluttered first; then her voice followed. “Kooson, are you okay?”

The big man was Kooson, the so-called Demon King of Kings. The red-haired girl was his contractor, Irina. “I’m fine. But I just brawled another Demon King. I can’t take these drakes right now.”

Drakes—he meant the Redsteel Dragons ahead. Iron-hard scales from head to tail. In his state, he couldn’t match a tide of them.

Irina understood. So she pinned hope to another Demon King—the girl at the back, always hugging that sword like a winter companion. Beside her stood another girl in a white cloak, the one bound to that Demon King by contract.

Irina glanced at Fei, the message clear as a bell. Fei, white-robed priestess, felt the danger first, then helplessness unfurled like smoke. “Amelie, we’re all spent. Can’t you step in?”

Fei asked the sword-hugging girl. The girl didn’t blink. Her voice fell cool as dew. “I don’t draw my blade lightly.”

She always said that. Ever since Fei had somehow signed with the Demon King who called herself the Nine Hells’ second swordswoman, Fei had never seen her draw. No matter the crisis, whenever Fei begged, the answer was the same: I don’t draw my blade lightly.

What was that supposed to be?

“I know you don’t. But if you don’t draw now, we’ll die.” Fei clutched her white robe’s hem, agitation coloring her face like a rising sun.

Amelie, the self-styled second swordswoman of the Nine Hells, still cradled her sword. Her gaze stayed cold on the path ahead.

“They’re not worthy of my blade.”

Plain and sharp. Amelie disliked words; her face was winter, her tongue a locked door. If not for clarity, she wouldn’t answer at all. Irina’s forehead beaded with sweat. With a diva Demon King like this, she could only mourn for Fei.

Her Kooson? He listened well enough. Unless he shared space with someone named Ouyang. Then Kooson turned bad like milk in heat. Irina wiped her sweat and felt the chill of coincidence crawl her spine.

The Redsteel Dragons drew closer. The ground trembled under their steps like drums. Amelie finally shifted, no longer just hugging the blade. One hand settled on the hilt; her stance flowed into a ready arc like a drawn bow. She still didn’t plan to draw—she’d use the scabbard. But even that eased Irina and Fei’s hearts.

Was the unsheathing-averse sword saint finally going to move? Even Kooson’s eyes shone. As the Demon King Council’s fourth seat, Amelie’s power left Kooson far behind. Her refusal to draw had become a legend among Demon Kings.

Even if it was only the scabbard, Kooson’s blood thrummed.

How many had ever seen Amelie fight?

She was a loner shadow. No one had seen her strike. Kooson swore to widen his eyes and finally witness the fourth seat’s strength.

Just as Amelie’s aura crested like a wave, ready to whip the scabbard, the sky birthed a black speck that grew and fell. The air went strange, heat rubbing it raw. The black mass dropped fast, friction painting it in a veil of fire.

“That’s… run! That’s Boss Ouyang’s castle—”

Kooson hadn’t cared at first. Then he looked hard, sight sharp beyond mortal limits, and saw the truth. In that instant, he trembled like a leaf. Cold sweat poured down his back.