Clutching the pitch-black demon sword, Angela slipped back to her quarters, a storm knotted tight beneath her ribs, the blade like a strip of midnight in her hands.
The sword came from that man who called himself the First Demon King, yet its purpose was fog on water; she couldn’t see a single ripple through it.
Did it carry the fabled instant-death curse, a touch like frostbite that stopped the heart? The thought flashed like lightning, then died like wet tinder.
She was still only human, a lamp in the wind. How was she supposed to butcher the royals—rush in with a sword and invite a monsoon of arrows?
Before she even reached them, their arrow rain would turn her into a sieve, like leaves riddled by hail; a frontal charge felt like walking into the sea with stones.
The First Demon King hadn’t explained a thing; his impatient gaze was a slammed door, and she knew more questions would be smoke against stone.
She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the blade as if it were a dark mirror, when a strange voice dropped into the silence like a pebble into a still pond.
“Hey, aren’t you going to take those people out? If the Master finds out you ignored his order, you’ll die ugly,” it said, bright as a boy’s flute under the eaves.
The voice sounded young, the tone untouched by dust, yet it seeped from a sword; Angela flinched and let go, but the demon sword hung in the air like a crescent of night.
“Kids these days have no manners…” the sword added, a sigh like old wind through bamboo, an elder’s taste poured into a child’s cup.
In truth, Youwen wasn’t wrong; he took the shape of a young boy when he became an exclusive weapon, but years had piled on him like sand on a dune.
Following Ouyang, he had weathered tempests and suns; next to him, centuries were fallen leaves, and even legends were only migrating geese.
Not just Angela; even her great-great-grandfather’s grandfather would be a new bud before Youwen, a green shoot under an ancient pine.
“You… you’re the sword?” Surprise flickered and then steadied, like a candle caught by a breeze; thinking of the First Demon King’s unkillable body, she let the impossible sit.
Youwen twirled his blade-body with a cool spin, a dark leaf riding an eddy; he hated being a sword, hated blood varnishing him like sticky lacquer.
He’d rather become hot steel or black tech, a remote particle cannon that burned sky and earth, a sun-lance carving mountains like butter.
But Ouyang had told him to be a charcoal-black sword. Orders were iron rings; he could only rattle the chain.
Worst of all, Youwen was in a foul mood. With Ouyang, the weakest foes had been gods, storms wearing faces; now he had to mow mortal grass.
If he were a hot weapon, long-range would be a clean wind; as a cold blade, he’d wade a red tide, mortals’ blood lapping at him like brackish surf.
He couldn’t stomach it; it felt like falling from the clouds into mud, a comet plunged into a ditch.
“Let’s go. The sooner we cut those fools, the sooner we go back,” he grumbled, a knife of impatience tapping stone. “How did that flock of idiots provoke the Master?”
Thoughts churned like millwheels, yet Angela set out with the demon sword to hunt the royal bloodline, a lantern moving through fog, courage glowing like a coal.
Before, she wouldn’t have dared; with guards thick as reeds, she’d be a moth to flame. A strong sword was useless if the hand was only human.
But now, her spine felt iron under silk. A sword with a will was a storm at her back.
Her first target was an Anyao prince—by blood, her uncle. In duty, a hollow log. He’d let the pack nip at the weakest princess and ordered her to poison like a snake in grass.
So she set her path by hatred’s tally, a ledger written in bone; the highest score would be first to pay.
“Um… demon sword, what should I call you?” she asked, voice soft as rain on eaves.
“A name? Hah. Years blur like ink in water. Call me Demon Sword,” the child-ancient voice replied, winter-old through a spring throat. “Our worlds won’t cross after this.”
“Won’t cross… from now on?” The idea fell like ash; the First Demon King would rule this world like a storm crown, and she hoped to be his puppet king, a mask on a throne.
How could there be no intersection? Did he plan to cut the string once the puppet danced, a smile behind the knife?
Youwen couldn’t read her shadows. “Yes. We’re passersby in your life, dust on your sill. In our long road, you won’t even raise a ripple,” he said, an inn lantern swinging in endless wind. “This world is a way-station.”
She couldn’t grasp it; the words were constellations, and she had only a candle. “I don’t understand,” she said, honest as a clear stream.
“Exactly—mortal wisdom,” Youwen intoned, striking a pose like borrowed thunder, a catchphrase he’d once picked up and polished.
The jab didn’t cut; a talking sword wasn’t bound by common sense. To Angela, his pride was a mountain’s shadow, natural and cold.
If Ouyang had been present, he’d never believe the shy Youwen could spit lines like a street cat; somewhere along the road, the kitten had learned to bare its fangs.
Unknowingly, they reached the prince’s manor. The gate loomed like iron eyelids, and she couldn’t slip through; the guards were stone-faced and blind to the least-known princess.
“What now, Demon Sword? Call him out?” she frowned, weighing stealth like a dagger in the sleeve, luring him close for a quiet cut.
Her ignorance showed like white under bark; she knew too little of the demon sword, too little of the First Demon King. Youwen snorted, a flint spark. “Mortal wisdom! I’m the First Demon King’s exclusive weapon. Skulking isn’t in the script.”
“Forget calling him out. We go in. We slaughter this manor,” he said, a storm promising to kick down the door.
His domineering tone poured steel into her veins; confidence rose like tide against a seawall. “Really… can we?”
Her palm closed on the hilt. In an instant, knowledge flooded her skull like a river after rain; her blue eyes turned to crystalline blood-red, not gore, but gem; her golden hair sank into black like dusk swallowing wheat.
The guards noticed the ripple in the air, but before shock became sound, the blade whispered whoosh, and two heads fell, gourds thumping on stone.
Angela no longer looked fragile; her face was a winter cliff, as if she’d read the ledger of life and death and found it thin.
“Enemy attack! Enemy—” The alarm cracked like a bell in a fist; heads leapt, bodies knelt, and blood painted the threshold a red carpet.
“So weak…” Angela breathed, the words a drift of frost. The mortals before her were dust motes compared to memory shards sleeping in the sword.
In those shards, the weakest enemy unstitched horizons; the strong crushed sun, moon, and stars like brittle porcelain.
No wonder the demon sword’s voice held scorn; this was ants shaking fists at thunder, a farce in a storm.
One swing, one fall; cut and someone folded. It was simple as slicing vegetables on a wet board, strokes clean as rain on bamboo.
Soon the courtyard was a basin of blood; heads rolled and clattered, bowling along the flagstones, gurgling as they went.
“Angela, you—” A man stared, trembling like a reed in a black wind, watching her drenched in red; recognition dawned like frost creeping over glass.
As her uncle, he knew her softness, knew she couldn’t be this. His mind jumped to the First Demon King like a deer to a shadow, and he understood too late.
“Uncle… rest in peace.” Her voice was a falling leaf.
He tried to shout for guards, but the world flipped like a tossed tray; he saw a headless body in the distance, familiar as a mirror—his own.
Angela raised the demon sword high, a scythe against a clouded sky. The corpses stood as if jerked by night-strings, picked up their heads, and pressed them to their necks.
Their eyes glowed crimson, blood-tears threading down like rain on a mask.
Black clouds rolled in like a lid on a boiling pot; day dimmed to dusk in a single breath.
“Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts,” Angela murmured, and her smile bloomed eerie as a flower in moonlight.
