Kavasha was an age-old realm, a weathered cliff facing tides of kings and empires. Kingdoms rose and fell like waves, and war smoked across the land like winter fog. Yet this old empire sat at the far southern edge like a hermit in pine shade, watching the world in silence.
Speak of Kavasha, and people don’t name its history first. They look up. Sky City hangs there like a moon caught by chains, a capital floating in the blue. They say the Allied Armies forged it in elder days, a fortress to strike the Demon King. Years rolled like drifting sand. Its god-shaking engines went quiet. But its shell still gleams like a miracle, a proof carved against the sky.
“Snow, welcome back from your travels.” Inside the grand Sky City, on a dappled path under thick leaves, a young man with short, golden waves held a fistful of roses. He dropped to one knee like a lover under a summer storm, the flowers bright as a wound.
“…”
Snow said nothing. Cold slid over her heart like frost on glass. She walked past as if he were mist.
“Snow, don’t ignore me!” His voice buzzed at her ear like a fly. He blinked, stunned, then sprang up and circled her like a moth to a lantern. He talked and joked and pleaded, but she gave no word, no ripple of expression.
She stepped into the council hall like a swan into still water. He halted at the threshold, breath snagging. He stared at her back waning into the corridor, a line of light swallowed by dusk. Silence pooled at his feet. His shadow shivered like spilled ink, and a man pulled himself out of that black water.
“Kid, keep working with me, and women will come to you like fruit in season. That little girl will be in your pocket sooner or later.” The newcomer had cropped black hair, his skin veined with black streaks like burnt lightning.
“Heh. Cooperation? Whether it’s your Demon World or those Demon Kings, you’re all outsiders. You think I’d buy your sugar-coated words?”
“You will. Once you taste the fruit of power, your teeth won’t let go. Power, rule, glory, wealth—they fall like ripe pears into your hands. Even knowing you’re trading a pelt with a tiger, you won’t refuse.”
The man from the shadow was Lagu. Lately he had counted the odds like stones in a pouch. He wasn’t a match for Ouyang in a straight fight. Ouyang had Demon King lackeys like wolves at heel. The world-gates were sealed, and Lagu’s supply lines snapped like frozen reeds—no reinforcements, no help. After he met a man called Cataclysm, Lagu gathered his advice like tinder.
Stir the hatred between the Sky Council and the Demon Kings—that was Cataclysm’s spark. Let the natives and the fiends gnaw each other like dogs in a bone-yard. However the blood ran, the Demon World would profit most.
It didn’t go smooth at first. The old fossils on the Sky Council were timid as quail under a hawk; they would never start a war. Then Lagu shifted his gaze to green wood. The young ran hot-blooded, like spring rivers after thaw. They dared what the old would not. It worked. With power humming in his palm, that young man’s confidence swelled like a storm front.
Under his methods, senior elders stepped down like autumn leaves. New faces rose in their slots like shoots after rain. The Sky Council now looked bright and brisk, a house full of morning wind.
“The Twelve Houses have always followed our Tenia House. They did before; they will after.” Dylan Tenia stared into the July sun, a burning coin nailed to the sky. He chose to partner with the Demon World to let the Sky Council rule the continent once more.
The Sanctum of the Sky stood where only the most senior elders could tread. Even Dylan, who steered the council, had no foot there. For the council’s reins, the elders would half-close their eyes like old lions. For the Sanctum’s law, they bared their teeth. No one broke those ancient rules.
“Snow Colenphis greets the honored elders.” In the Sanctum, Snow bowed to the line of elders like a reed bending to wind. The white-haired elder at the fore nodded. He lifted a white staff from a crystal table that glowed like iced water.
“Girl, you know what’s been happening on the continent lately?”
“I heard it. A capital of the Karosen Kingdom vanished like smoke. Another turned into an insect paradise, a hive humming day and night. In the Land of Light, a remote city saw insects storm the walls and force themselves on humans…” Her voice thinned like rain trailing to mist. The past two years had been a drumbeat of calamity. Each blow felt closer.
“Grand Elder, are those events tied to why you called me here?” Unease brushed her skin like cold silk. The Sanctum was never for the young. Today’s summons had snapped an old cord.
The Grand Elder cupped the white staff, and his voice unspooled an old tale like a scroll.
“In an age far away, when the Twelve Houses were only sprouting, five stood together. The races had crawled out of the chaos of demon wars. To be precise, it was a brilliant time. The gods of the Divine Realm set their agents across the land, and angels crossed the sky like silver fish.”
From his words, Snow felt the color of that age, vivid as spring banners. Scholars argued like swallows under eaves. New magics sparked. Alchemists and smiths hammered wonders. Adventurers mapped edges like lanterns in fog. Neighboring worlds took pride in visiting this one. Those who hadn’t dared not call themselves high-born at home.
“Then a disaster fell like a black curtain. Things called the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts appeared on the continent. No one knew their source. No one knew who brought them here.”
It became an age of confusion, blossom turning to rot. Even the gods shut the gates between worlds like doors in a storm. Demons of the Abyss, who longed to wreck the world, fled like roaches to their depths. The elder didn’t name the damage the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts had done. The recoil from the Abyss and the Divine Realm spoke for them like thunder over hills.
“Despair, fear, madness—we all tasted them. When every living thing thought the world had cracked and reason went rabid, the sky filled with auroras like silk fires. The Goddess of the Sky appeared.”
Sighs drifted through the Sanctum like wind through pines.
“So the Twelve Houses were entrusted by the Goddess of the Sky to guard the sealed Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts…” Understanding landed in Snow’s chest like a stone in a still pond. If those artifacts were walking the world again, somewhere the Houses had failed.
The Grand Elder’s next words matched her fear.
“The Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts were so terrible that the Twelve Houses dared not use them. We watched them like wardens, generation by generation tightening the seals. But time rubs away memory like river stones. As years passed, the Houses forgot the disaster, forgot the fear. They sat on artifacts they could not wield. Grievances budded. Doubts sprouted about that old charge…
“Not long ago, each House lost an artifact, stolen from its vault. Our reports say the thieves were resentful clansmen. They smuggled the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts from under our locks.
“Those artifacts bear the Sky Goddess’s seal, and the layers our Houses stacked for a million years. We thought no one could undo them. That was our first thought. But now, we were wrong. The Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts are in the open.”
An old woman, hair white as frost grass, tapped forward with her cane. “Among you young ones, Dylan’s heart is higher than the sky; he won’t learn humility. Daphne has talent but is pampered like a hothouse bloom. Eugene is fine in all, but he clings to rank between races like a chain. Only you, Snow—you are the lone hope.” She took the white staff from the Grand Elder, her gaze steady as winter stars.
“Child, our only hope now is this staff. The Goddess of the Sky left it to give mortals a way to face the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts. It holds fierce power. If your mind is strong enough, your strength won’t find a ceiling. But if your mind can’t bear it, its power will seep into you like ink into silk. We won’t force you. You are simply the most likely to wield it.”
A chill beat first in Snow’s ribs, like wings in a cave. Then thought followed, sharp as flint. A staff that scales with will—power measured by the spine of your heart. No meal is free. To take its strength, she’d have to wrestle it with iron will. If she failed, what would she become?
She looked into the dark like a swimmer testing night water. She had no choice left. Without strength, the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts would keep feasting on the world. If she failed, the world would birth one more monster. If she succeeded, even a guttering flame could become dawn.
“Since you’ve decided,” the elder said, “take this staff. Its name is Clear Day.”
