“Your real reason—you don’t want him to become a true Hero King, do you?”

The Demon King bared a smile black as spilled ink, and said it to the Hero King’s companion.

“No—!”

Her life’s deepest secret cracked like a sealed jar, and even Crimson Blossom’s composure shattered; a plosive burst tore up from her throat.

A heartbeat later she caught herself. Her voice dropped, hard and low, a thorn of mockery pricked in it. “N-no—nonsense.”

But the tremor in her tone fluttered like a leaf in cold wind, and it betrayed her.

“If I truly am a Warrior, why would I kill the Imperial Tutor and halt the Hero King’s growth? What would I gain?” She bowed her head, hiding the quiver in her twin crimson pupils, as unease pooled like black water—about to harden into Despair.

“Ha. Reasons are many.” The Demon King’s smile turned hazy, like heat above a road. “I can hand you ten thousand.”

“Maybe you envy the title Hero King. Maybe you just dislike the man. More likely—you fear that once he crowns as Hero King, you must march to war and cross blades with the Demon King—and you’ll die.” Ye Weibai smiled, mild as autumn light. “You fear death, so you block the Hero King. All reasonable. But—”

That “but” clamped around Crimson Blossom’s heart like an iron trap.

“I can see you’re not in that headspace. Not fully. So strip out those maybes, and add recent clues—the arena mess, and yet no one troubles Aerin. Someone’s shielding her. Put it together. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Ye Weibai’s palm felt it plain: with each word, her body cooled like stone in shade, and the shiver in her frame grew like rain.

He might as well have stood in a public square, peeling away her last disguise thread by thread, leaving her bare under a hundred staring moons.

That was the first bite of Despair.

“The reason is you—”

“—Shut up aaaaaaaah!”

Boom.

A formless gale erupted. Every plate of armor on Crimson Blossom exploded into nothing in that instant.

Red armor fell as ash, whirling on the wind like a crimson storm.

A red firework unfurled. Blood-red hair lashed the air. Scarlet eyes opened to the night; their bright glow held a dead sea’s stillness.

Ash couldn’t veil the Demon King’s gaze. Ye Weibai saw clear: the woman beneath the cold steel—her brittle core under the shell.

Why did she load herself into blood-red armor? What did she hide? Now it was daylight on snow.

Her tall, lethal grace stood bared in moonwash, curves unhidden, only her chest and pubis bound tight with white bandage like pale seals.

Ye Weibai looked at her, but his gaze didn’t linger on lines and shadow; it settled on her long neck.

Crimson Blossom was a beautiful woman; any part of her shimmered like warm wine, even the line of her throat could dry a man’s mouth.

But there, a ring of dark red, toothlike scars gnawed the skin.

Any pet owner would know at a glance. A chafed ring from a collar and a yanked chain.

Who dared—who had the power—to collar the Crimson Blossom who could silence the entire imperial capital?

The mark was old. It spoke of years. Likely carved when she was still a child.

Who, back then, made a child a pet? Ye Weibai did not know. But whose hand tugged the chain now, that he could try to “see.”

With gray fire kindling in his eyes, Ye Weibai saw an ornate collar cinched tight on her long throat, the whole piece a cold gray, forged of Misfortune itself.

From the collar’s front dangled a chain of the same gray particles, long as a road, lancing through the Void, vanishing into some distant hand.

Who was that? Who kept Crimson Blossom bound?

He watched the heatless blaze in her eyes, a hearth with no flame, and an answer rooted in his chest.

At the same time, he added a new actor to his game.

He let the gray ebb from his gaze. He looked at her and stepped back.

The Demon King turned. Darkness rose like a spring tide, swallowing his path and footprints.

Crimson Blossom still knelt on the floor. Suddenly her body felt light as shed armor; the weight along her spine lifted like fog. Dazed, she looked out. Ye Weibai’s silhouette was about to merge with the dark.

He—why—is he leaving?

Something tugged her tongue. “Where are you going?” The words slipped out soft and thin, the edge of a sob misting them.

The frailty iced her skin. She snapped awake, surged to her feet, and cut her right hand back. The spear lodged in the wall whooshed free and dropped into her palm.

The softness burned off. Her face set hard and cold again, worthy of the name Crimson Blossom.

Spearhead leveled at the black-haired boy, blood at her lip, she wore a killing frost.

“You don’t kill me—I’ll kill you, sooner or later.”

“Why bother?” Half of Ye Weibai stood inside the dark. Half his smile hid there too. “Even if you kill an Imperial Tutor, the World’s gear turns. Another Tutor appears, quiet as dew, guiding the Hero King to grown manhood. How many Tutors can you kill?”

Her body flinched. She had never walked that thought to the end. Or she had, but refused to look, because the road showed no finish—only Despair.

So she chose a blindfold and marched as a stubborn fool. “As many as there are, I’ll kill that many. If it gets me there, I’ll butcher the whole World!”

“As many as there are, kill that many? Butcher the World? Moving. Stirring.” Ye Weibai laughed softly, like bells in fog. “But you know? The ones who think that way are usually—the Demon King.”

“Ha—? Still calling me the Demon King’s hound? Even if I look like him, so what?”

“No. Not look like.” Ye Weibai’s smile stayed faint. “I’m saying you might really become the next Demon King, my Warrior.”

“Wh—?!” She went rigid. Her mouth fell open. Her pupils pinched to needles. The words he let slip like crumbs struck like thunder. In her mind, all the truths, legends, reports she’d scraped up about the Hero King beaded into a straight line. The line stabbed through fog, reaching a single Real, brutal and iron. It was a Real that flayed human nature raw.

It had never left the World’s gearwork. She was only another cog. She had thought herself free of Fate, above the wheel.

The World had never spared her. Nor him.

Cold flooded her. Her sight went black at the edges. She fell into an ice well. The childhood Despair, the helpless thrashing, rose like a tide and covered her.

Just before it drowned her, the black-haired boy’s mild voice drifted from the dark.

“Don’t be afraid, little girl.” Lids lowered, shadowing pitch-black eyes, the Demon King spoke soft. “You won’t be the Demon King. This era already has one.”

“And I should praise you.” He smiled as he said it, a small sunrise. “You’re sharp. You see more than most. It’s a pity… you’re a bit stupid.”

“Be a fool, and be at peace with it.” He paused. “Leave destroying the World to the Demon King. That suits better.”

“As for you—”

He stopped, then flung both hands up. No wind blew, yet she heard a world-storm scream past her ear, so sharp it cut, so loud it shook bone, a roar straight into the soul.

A formless hurricane, broad as a nation, rose like a dark sun. The gale beat its wings. Every shadow in the World answered like troops to a banner, and climbed the sky like an inverted waterfall, in a breath swallowing the silver-washed dome above, veiling the moon like the World’s Eye.

The Demon King held every black and every dark.

In that instant—all light and bright burned out. The World went ink-black, a hand before your face gone.

In that grand black banquet, when she could see nothing, Crimson Blossom felt a breath at her ear, and a gentle voice there.

It was the black-haired boy.

His lips brushed her ear. In a thread of sound only two could share, he said something.

She jolted. Her pupils snapped tight, then softened, melting like foam on surf.

The next beat, the sky split. Silver moonlight came down as blades, tearing the black curtain.

With that sudden, honed light, a power vast enough to make you shake surged. The Demon King’s curtain, flung with all his might, held for a heartbeat. Then it broke. The World righted.

Darkness drew back. Ye Weibai still stood ten meters away, watching her.

As if nothing had happened. As if what she’d heard was earthless echo.

Yet the faint smile on the black-haired boy’s lips rooted her where she stood.

She knew it wasn’t a hallucination.

“I—”

Her fingers tightened on the black spear. She glared at Ye Weibai. A cold smile squeezed through her teeth.

“I—will—kill you.”

“Good.” Ye Weibai smiled and bent in a small bow. “I’ll await your visit.”

He melted into the dark.

He left Crimson Blossom alone, standing in a ruin washed by moonlight.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Her fist curled tight on its own.

Long lashes lowered, hiding the red in her eyes. Those eyes were turning with a light she had never held.

“I really am—”

A midsummer wind, soft and stifling, combed her long red hair.

Her hair flew and veiled her sight.

Her voice turned softer than ever, fine as silk.

“—a fool.”

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