The Land of Light—strongest on the continent, most prosperous, most civilized. Crowns stacked like halos, honors draped like banners. In recent years, seven Contractors who signed with Demon Kings belonged to it. So the Land of Light grew bolder, like a peacock fanning its tail.
But where there’s light, shadows pool. Even its glittering capital holds a slum. In alleys choked with trash and trickling filth, a barefoot girl picked her way. Her rags hung in tatters like torn flags, yet the weave whispered of former finery. She looked twelve, maybe thirteen, a sapling bent by storm.
As she stared into the sky like into a cold lake, another girl appeared before her.
“What are you looking for?” The newcomer wore a jade-green dress. Her eyes were dim, like lamps filmed with ash, a blind girl’s night. Yet every step skimmed past the garbage with dancer’s precision. So she didn’t move like the blind.
The two simply watched each other, silence coiling like mist around them. After a while, the ragged girl spoke, her voice flat as rain on slate. “I’m searching... for the meaning of existence.”
The green-dressed girl frowned, confusion like a leaf caught in eddy. “I don’t really get it... but I don’t dislike you. I’m Saya.” A rare smile touched her lips, a crescent over still water.
“Sin.”
“Sin?”
After giving her name, Sin lowered her head and walked on through the reek. Her steps were slow, like drifting ash. Watching that small back, Saya’s chest ached like a bruise. They were the same, two wanderers pacing a lonely road.
“Sin... let’s go together.”
The words made Sin lift her head, indifference cracking like thin ice. “Together? You hate this world too?” Her black eyes flushed crimson. Her smile bent, a thorned flower, eerie and sharp.
“You want to destroy all of it, like me?” The slum ignited at her whisper. Black fire rose like spilled ink and covered everything. It burned without light, it devoured without smoke.
The people wrapped in that dark blaze did not char and fall. The flame ate at them instead, gnawing like locusts. Their pupils turned blood-red. They screamed and roared, human skins with monsters twisting underneath.
“Destroy... everything?” Saya looked at the countless faces eroded by black fire. Joy lit her features like dawn on frost. “Mm. Destroy them.”
Emerald radiance burst within the black blaze, a spring leaf amid soot. When it ended, those humans became insects. They hissed and raged, their terrible cries rolled over the capital of the Land of Light like thunder.
——
“Monster howls? Monsters here?” The king of the Land of Light sat on his throne like a mountain of carved gold. He listened as ministers argued about attacking the Karosen Kingdom. Then the howling rose, not one beast, but a pack like a storm.
“Heresy! Those monsters are heresy!” A male angel in war-plate swept his long spear, agitation crackling like dry straw.
The king, a man in his forties, slit his eyes and glanced at the angel. Heresy? Of course. In the Light Church’s eyes, anything not kneeling to the Goddess of Light is heresy. He also thought the angel’s nerves were frayed like rotten rope. With poise like that, how would he face Demon Kings?
If this angel weren’t an envoy from the Divine Realm, the king would already be cursing like thunder. Crown and altar always grind like millstones, wherever you go. Even with a living goddess, he still wanted his chance to turn the tables. Without certainty, he buried that ember deep, but the smoke of resentment stayed.
“Divine envoy, please be calm.” Only the king had the rank to address an angel, so he offered the reminder. The angel steadied himself at the prompt. “Mortals, go. Investigate the heresy at once.” He stood level with the king yet looked down on all below, arrogance like a winter wind. The king’s palm itched to slap that face.
The thought burned: The Goddess of Light shines for ages, so why send such a blockhead? He never said it aloud. Could this bumbling angel really lead them against Demon Kings? Will you force me to join the Demon Kings’ camp? Dangerous sparks flashed and died in that instant. No one saw.
He sent the envoy away. When the council ended, the king returned to his chambers, the corridors quiet as a grave.
“Father, there’s unrest in the city. What’s going on?” Soon his youngest daughter hurried in with her contracted Demon King. Princess Besha of the Land of Light was one of seven Contractors. Borrowing a Demon King’s power, she held strength beyond mortal reach.
Her Demon King bore long gold hair. Rex—Artist Rex—that was the name he chose. In the king’s eyes, wherever Rex went, he carried a painter’s board. Whenever he idled, he painted. Yet to onlookers, the board stayed blank as winter sky. No one could see what his brush traced.
Some said it was a divine scroll, a canvas only gods could behold. The truth matched the rumor. Three years ago, during a war, Rex faced the Vaan Empire’s host and painted. When he finished, a hundred thousand soldiers vanished like sand in a tide. At the same time, the once-blank board showed a hundred-thousand-strong army. On the scroll, every man lived in ink. They shouted, swung, and ran, frozen and vivid.
No one knew where the hundred thousand went. Many believed Rex drew them into the painting itself. After that, most thought this. If Rex finished a subject on his scroll, it would be sealed into the board. It would become a picture.
“Master Rex, tell me—how many Demon Kings like you exist? Against the Light Church, do they stand a chance?” Even the king of the Land of Light knew little of Demon Kings. He had only scraps from broken journals. Only the Kavasha Empire, with its Sky City, understood them more clearly.
“Like me? No, no.” Rex smiled, words falling like dry petals. “I’m among the weakest. Demon Kings are stronger than you imagine. They reach layers you can’t conceive. In truth, the ending was set from the start.”
His smile held no warmth, only a chill that made the king shiver. These Demon Kings were not the storybook kind; the king knew that much. No hero rises here to slay a Demon King.
“Is there really... no hope?” Despair weighed on him like wet mail. He hated the Church’s leash, yet feared the Demon Kings’ storm. He was no ruler who’d burn his realm for private desire.
Rex saw through him at a glance, an ancient gaze like moonlight over ruins. He said nothing. His brush moved over the blank board, sketching a picture the world wasn’t meant to see.
“Father, don’t be afraid. The Goddess of Light will punish those Demon Kings!” Though Besha had a contract with Rex, she disliked him. She’d been very young when she signed. Afterward, the palace maids avoided her like cats skirting fire. Even her brothers and sisters feared her. They feared she’d lose control of borrowed power and kill them all. So she loathed Demon Kings, like a thorn lodged under the nail.
“The Goddess will wipe you out!” She bared her teeth at Rex and waved her hands, all bluster and sparks. She could do no more. A Demon King could still retaliate under contract, even at the cost of backlash. A case a hundred years ago had proved it. So Contractors treated them not as servants, but as equals bound by chains.
“The Goddess of Light?” Rex kept painting. “Back then, she was only an orphan adopted by Lord Void.”
Orphan? Adopted? Besha flushed scarlet, rage blooming like a wound. She smashed tables and stools to vent it. The king was no innocent. His pupils pinched to pinpoints, and cold sweat slipped down his brow like a thaw.
“This... is a Demon King?”
