"Uncle John."

"Mm?"

"Why didn’t Master Bai let me go with him? He still thinks I’m deadweight, doesn’t he?"

The talk took place in the Hero King’s courtyard, dusk like ink sinking into a pond. They’d walked back under a heavy sky, silence piling up like snow, until Aerin finally cracked it.

"Aerin," John looked at her, voice like a worn whetstone, "do you want to get stronger?"

"I do! I dream about it!" Aerin’s answer hit like a hammer on an anvil.

John only shook his head. The ripple faded; he shifted the river. "Aerin, did you know? Your father—he hated becoming the Hero King."

The girl froze, like a deer in winter light. "My father—?"

That man of blinding grace, a peak among the Hero Kings through the ages, and he—hated being the Hero King.

"Yes. He hated it." The old man sighed, a leaf falling without a sound. "To him, ‘Hero King’ was hurt. Your father only wanted to be a bard, to roam the continent like wind and rain. But every profession can be chosen—except Hero King and Demon King. Those are written in bone by birth. He had to walk that road."

"But—my father still became such a powerful Hero King!" Aerin couldn’t accept it. She stepped in, heat rising like a stormfront. "If my father didn’t love it, how did he become that strong?"

"Love doesn’t guarantee success. Success doesn’t prove love." John said it lightly, like tossing a pebble, yet it struck her heart like lightning.

"But—!" Her breath hitched. Words tangled like thorns. She cried out, raw and loud, "No way! I’ve always—always wanted to be the Hero King, and I’ve barely improved. I thought I just lacked talent. So I ground away, day and night, and still kept losing. I decided it was because I didn’t love it enough—but you’re telling me love has nothing to do with winning—then what—what am I supposed to lean on—"

Her voice sped up, her pulse like drums in a war camp. She felt the altar she’d knelt to all her life begin to crack—the thing she used to soothe herself, her last line of defense, the fig leaf for her own weakness.

"Aerin, remember when I said your father was an idiot?" John continued, gentle as rain that hides knives, as if he hadn’t noticed her rising storm. "It’s more than that. Your father wasn’t just a fool. He was a coward. He didn’t want to be Hero King partly because he preferred the bard’s road. The other reason—he was afraid of dying. He feared he’d die fighting the Demon King. That’s the smallness he carried."

"You—shut up!!!"

Her shriek ripped the air like glass.

She panted, eyes reddening like embers, and stared him down. Her teeth clicked together; each word fell like a stone. "Even you, Uncle John—don’t get to insult my father out of thin air. I—I’ll be mad."

"No proof? No right?" The old man, hair white as frost, was silent for a beat. Then he smiled, slow as a moonrise. "Aerin. In this World, I’m the one most qualified to say it—and the one who needs no proof."

"No!!" Aerin’s fists clenched, knuckles pale as ice. "Even if you really were Father’s companion—you can’t say that!"

"Companion?" Uncle John echoed with a faint smile. "No, I wasn’t the Hero King’s companion. I—"

"I said—shut up!!!" Her voice lashed like a young lion’s roar, breaking his words again.

She glared at him. Light began to churn in her twin pupils like starlight in a well. If he spoke one more word, she looked ready to strike.

And then, sudden as a blade of cold. John’s face went worse than hers.

His smile vanished. His eyes went deep and dark. His hand shot toward her face like a hawk stooping.

She flinched, eyes squeezed shut. But what hit her wasn’t a slap—

Boom—!

Golden hair snapped like silk in a gale; a cyclone detonated behind her.

An old fist met a gauntlet of black iron, and the shockwave tore the air like a canvas.

"Run!"

John yanked Aerin and hurled her back, then shoved her away like tossing a boat into a current. Wind howled around him. His left fist drew from the hip like a thunderbolt from the horizon.

Boom—!

Another crash split the courtyard like an axe.

Aerin staggered, dirt skidding under her boots. She looked up, disbelief widening like a tide.

A Black-Iron Knight had fallen from the sky, crushed the earth, and lunged for her. Now it tangled with Uncle John in a flurry of steel and storm.

She watched that hunched, often-complaining old man fight like a tiger on a cliff against a cold knight clad in iron night.

They were even. Silver hair flew like winter grass in a gale. His momentum rolled like thunder down a mountain.

Aerin had never imagined—Uncle John was this strong.

Her golden eyes dilated, holding his figure. In the sunset, he burned like a lantern in wind.

What he showed now was the very back she’d chased in dreams. The very stance she had always—

Shlick—

"Huh?"

Aerin froze.

"Go—" The old man hung high on a tree, a knife-hand black as midnight thrust through his belly. Blood spilled like plum blossoms in snow. He roared, voice shaking the leaves, "—go!"

…

…

Outside the Purple Blossom manor.

"Go!"

Ye Weibai’s pupils pinched to points. He flicked his right hand, and the girl flew on a transparent current, thrown a hundred meters like a leaf in a gust.

Stardust barely caught her balance. She looked up, panic fluttering like trapped birds, and saw a colossal cage of pale-violet sky descend. It locked Ye Weibai and the manor inside a shimmering dome. Just before it sealed, the black-haired boy turned his head. His lips shaped a silent promise: "Wait for me outside."

—Wait?

Stardust’s feet slowed. Memory, thin as frost and full of holes, still found the same pattern. She had watched this scene many times, knotted like Misfortune tangled in her fate. From opening act to final curtain—it never changed.

This time—the girl chose to believe once more. The last time. She was tired to the bone of living with the ache that someone might vanish any second.

She bit her lip, soft as a peach blossom petal. Then she sat, hugging her knees, like a small island in violet surf.

Inside the purple canopy, Ye Weibai turned back. His gaze slid down the manor road, bracketed by deep rows of flowerbeds like twin waves. At the closed gate, a hundred meters away, stood an old man.

Under the violet glow, his posture was a drawn bow.

He wore a dark-purple brocade coat, a cloak snapping like a banner in a high wind. Silver hair was combed neat, tied into a small ponytail that looked both dashing and austere.

In his black eyes glimmered two dim purple stars. His face was blank as stone. A dark-purple cane stood by his side like a rooted spear. As Ye Weibai watched, he pulled on gloves, unhurried as snowfall. Black gloves, stamped with a Purple Blossom blazing like a torch.

He was the current Patriarch of Purple Blossom—Aofan Bonia.

This seemingly frail elder carried a pressure that made even the Demon King’s heart go still, like water under ice.

Ye Weibai hadn’t spoken yet.

The old man spoke first.

His voice was raspy and ancient, like a brittle scroll slowly unrolled. Yet it brooked no doubt, like a crown set on a brow.

Like a king from before the rivers had names.

"Welcome, the 9,679th Demon King."

"Before I kill you, allow me to introduce myself."

"I am the 8,999th Hero King—"

"Augustine."

…

…

Hero King Apocrypha—

Augustine.

The most enigmatic Hero King.

He left no other record of battle.

Yet he’s widely held to be No. 1 across the millennia.

Because his single record was this—

The first in continental history, the only and perhaps the last—

To bring no companions, to refuse the World’s every aid.

One man. One sword. One quarter hour. Not a scratch on him. He slew the Demon King.