Newborn beasts imprint on the first shape they see, like dew clutching the first shard of dawn.

That—roughly—is how Stardust feels toward Ye Weibai, like a lost cub trailing a warm shadow.

Bound by Misfortune—

She floundered in loneliness, a boat adrift on a lightless sea. The world around her bloomed or withered, yet all of it was mirage and mist.

In those barren years, she spoke only to herself. Petal by petal, she closed up, sealing herself in a sleep of Nightfall, so the cold of being packless wouldn’t gnaw the bone.

Ye Weibai called that self back from the dark, like a voice across a winter river.

When Stardust opened her twin pupils and looked at Ye Weibai, calm eyes like still ash mirrored his face. Lifeless on the surface—yet who could guess the spring thaw bursting under the ice?

If the gray cat hadn’t swallowed her expressions, she would’ve bloomed into a smile then. Not for waking, but for finally touching a soul that wasn’t her own reflection.

Ye Weibai thought of this as he slipped the drowsing girl from his arms, laid her upon the bed, and drew a thin cover over her, like laying frost over quiet earth.

When he first lifted her—her lids already shut—her hand clung to his sleeve. She held it like a life-treasure, afraid that if it fell, it would vanish like a star into the Void.

He soothed her in a soft voice. In sleep, the girl seemed to hear; her fingers loosened like a leaf letting go of wind.

He watched her drift off clutching the bedsheet. Moonlight pooled on her brow like quicksilver. He thought, even if she’d been sleeping before he woke her, only now did she truly sleep, like a field finally at rest.

…

…

Night.

The moon was bright, and the stars were thin, like silver seeds scattered too sparingly.

Cool moonlight seeped through the lattice window into the practice hall, droplets of liquid mercury falling in quiet on a golden shoulder. The girl seated in the chair seemed faintly luminous.

Aerin’s gaze was steady, like an arrow nocked. Holding a silk cloth, she cleaned her blade, strokes as patient as rain.

At her waist hung a silver longsword. It was her father’s secondary sidearm, the previous Hero King Ory’s spare. The true blade was lost in the war with the Demon King—lost along with the Hero King himself.

Aerin’s father—Ory—ranked among the top three in all Hero Kings, a mountain on the horizon. Even so, he had to trade life for life to cut down the Demon King, like two storms colliding and ripping each other to shreds.

The Hero King grows stronger. The Demon King grows stronger.

What makes the World tremble is this: the Demon King seems to be gaining a step faster, like a tide rising one inch higher each breath.

In battle power, a single step ahead is a cliff with no bottom.

Before, no matter how fierce the Demon King raged, the World stood with the Hero King. He would win and return alive to a crown of glory—even if it was a blood-won, hollow victory, paid with every comrade’s last flame.

To live meant passing one’s ultimate craft to one’s heirs—the next Hero King—like a torch unbroken in the wind.

But Ory and his companions died with the Demon King, swallowed by a black detonation that made the continent shake for three days and three nights. In all duels of Demon King and Hero King, never had the ending been so charred and absolute.

He didn’t even get to hear his daughter’s cheer rise like swallows in spring.

The World wept for him, raining pitch-black for three days and nights. Everyone grieved—and feared more deeply—for the Hero King’s silent departure let them feel, for the first time, the darkness thickening, viscous as tar, spilling its stain.

No one knows which time—perhaps the very next—the darkness will grow so heavy that even a Hero King can’t cleave it.

And then—that will be the day the World ends, like a candle snuffed in a single breath.

Maybe… the next time.

In that wire-taut air, like a bowstring never unstrung, Aerin received a weight of hope heavier than any before her, a mantle thick as winter fur.

They wanted her to inherit her father’s fierce gift, to temper a blade sharper than his, to kill the Demon King and save the World—or, failing that, to die dragging him into the abyss.

But Aerin had no talent for being a Hero King. Not an ember. Not a spark.

Hum—

She finished polishing the scabbard. The girl drew the sword.

The silver edge split the moonlight, sending rings of pale ripples across the air. The mirror-bright blade was a finger wide, its face stitched with thin, white runes from tip to pommel, a forest of sigils winding and deep.

Even if it wasn’t Ory’s primary sword, its power was beyond doubt. It could lift a warrior’s strength as the wind lifts a kite.

“Too bad I don’t deserve her.” The smooth steel caught Aerin’s face. She bit her lip, a petal pinched by frost.

“Milady.”

An old voice cracked the stillness like a twig snapping.

“Ah, Uncle John.” Aerin turned and saw the white-haired elder, a winter tree standing in the doorway.

For as long as she remembered, Uncle John had been at her side, a hearth in an empty house.

As a child, to temper himself, her father often roamed the nations, challenging the strong like a thunderstorm looking for high peaks. Stories of him filled the World—besting another Saint-class master, cutting down a monstrous criminal, subduing a rampaging beast.

In each tale, her father was tall as a cliff, mighty and righteous, flawless as a polished spear. But stories pile up like leaves, and a real face stays blurry—she had barely seen him as he was, and even then, only in passing.

So, more than the distant Hero King, the steward who never left the manor—Uncle John—was like a father. He bore the duties like an old ox pulling a plow.

First illness, first lesson, first birthday, first tears… At so many crossroads, the golden-haired hero’s figure was rare as a comet. But Uncle John—the white-haired, stooped old man—never missed a day, steady as a milestone.

Aerin’s feelings for him ran deep as roots. That’s why, when Ye Weibai hinted that Uncle John might be the Demon King, her heart flared like dry grass.

Uncle John could never be the Demon King.

His bond with her father was carved in stone. She remembered when the news came—her father had perished with the Demon King—Uncle John vanished for a while. When he returned, his hair had gone all white, like winter overnight. He’d aged decades in a single fall of snow.

“Milady, it’s late. Why aren’t you asleep?” Old John stood in the door, his clouded eyes like fogged glass, set on Aerin.

“Uncle John…” Aerin hesitated, then asked, “Do you remember what Father’s companions were like?”

Old John paused, a breath held like rain in a leaf. “Milady, why ask this?”

“Today—” At that thought, Aerin smiled, a lamp lit within. “I met my first companion! A tiny, very cute girl! She doesn’t talk much, but she’s really adorable! Meeting her—I’m really—happy!”

“I see…” Old John let out a quiet “ah,” and the furrows on his face unfolded into a slow smile, like ice melting in sunlight. “That is, indeed, good.”

“Right!” Aerin nodded, joy bright as a bird’s call. “Thinking I’ll meet more companions later, I’m even more excited! So—if you don’t mind—could you tell me about Father’s companions?”

“Of course I don’t mind.” Old John nodded, came close, and sat in the chair beside her. They faced each other, knees almost touching, like a fire shared. “Your father—Milady, forgive me for saying this—was actually quite foolish.”

“Ah!” Aerin’s eyes widened, twin moons startled. It was the first time she’d heard Uncle John judge her father—and foolish was not a word the World would dare.

“Yes. He wore long gold hair and looked free as a breeze, but he was a clumsy man.” John leaned back in the chair, lifted his old head, and let his gaze drift to the moon outside. Memory rose in his cloudy eyes like tidewater. “Like calls to like. His companions, therefore, were all very strange.”

…

…

While Aerin and Old John spoke by lamplight, Ye Weibai walked through Nightfall.

Clouds covered the moon. The long street held no lamps. Darkness pooled thick as ink.

The black Demon King swam through the dark as if returning home, like a fish slipping into its native stream.

He belonged to the dark.

He’d been out for a while. In that hushed span, he tore space, hid within shadow, met with someone, spoke a handful of words, and fixed a few certainties like nails in wood.

Heaven didn’t know. Earth didn’t know. No being in the World knew—save him and that person.

When he left the manor, a sheet of cloud slid over the moon like a lid on a lamp. Only after he passed beyond the manor’s lands did the cloud dissolve without a sound.

The bright moon—the eye of the sky—pushed its light through the clearing mist.

It fell on him again, inch by inch, dragging the black Demon King out of the dark as if by a silver hook.

He chuckled.

Ye Weibai tipped up his chin and slanted a look at the moon, that silver pupil watching from high cloud. His mouth curved with a thin smile, edged with scorn.

It was unhidden mockery—aimed at the presence that watched from some unseen crest of cloud.

Then he lowered his head. The smile went out, like a blade sheathed.

Click—

Right then, footsteps rang in the alley behind him. Cold bled from each step.

Red cold-iron struck blue stone, each impact a clear, wintery chime.

Ye Weibai looked back and saw her.

Blood-red armor threw back the moon’s chill, heavy and complete. A matching helm left a mane of crimson hair streaming in the wind; behind the mask, twin burning eyes glowed in the dark.

She was tall, her figure a bow’s proud curve, though the armor hid every line. Even her hands wore golden gauntlets, and every joint was bound in tough beast-hide.

Not a finger of skin showed. She faced the night like someone afraid of touching air.

She held a black long-spear as tall as a man. She didn’t move. Her red hair flew. The scent of bloodstorm seemed to gather, the battlefield’s iron tang rising like fog.

She was—the Crimson Blossom.