[World] Origin

“[Demon King]—what is it like?”

He spoke the two words like a curse scraped from rusted iron, and a chill skated the room like winter wind over black water.

No one had heard that name before, yet every spine stiffened; pupils tightened like pinpricks; glances collided like startled birds.

After a dead hush, someone finally asked.

“What is the [Demon King] like?” The [Hero King] asked back, voice quiet as a blade laid on ice.

“Yeah. You must’ve seen it, right?”

“It has to be hideous!”

“Absolutely steeped in evil!”

“Is it huge?”

“Nine heads, countless eyes?!”

“Bloodthirsty!”

“Devours living things!”

“Commands every kind of darkness!”

The [Hero King] stayed silent, watching them spill guesses like stones into a well, their urgency beating like drums.

They threw centuries of fear about the Unknown like sand into a storm, threw it—all to cover something buried.

Voices tangled and rose, until one cut clean through like thunder over a plain.

“It must be the source of all sin, misfortune, and death!”

Silence fell like a shroud. The next heartbeat, the room boiled louder, heat and cold clashing like fire and snow.

“Right!”

“Exactly! It has to be!”

“Yeah! No wonder...”

“That earthquake back then...”

“Remember that old string of murders...”

“So cruel! It had to be under...”

“The [Demon King]’s lure and whisper...”

“No! Don’t say [Demon King]—[It] will hear. Use [It] as a name.”

“Right! Right! Call it—[It].”

The [Hero King], meant to answer, said nothing. Those who’d never seen the [Demon King] reached a quick accord like a flock turning in the wind.

He watched their fervor burn and their fear smoke, watched them paste every misfortune and sin onto a mist that wore the name [Demon King].

As if—there truly was such a figure.

For no clear reason, the room felt colder than river stones at the deepest bend.

A sudden chill bit his heart. He turned to the window.

Night outside. A tree under the moon. Branches trembled like a sleeper’s breath.

There—

A shadow stood, silent as frost.

It met his gaze.

...

“Master Bai, why...?”

When Ye Weibai returned alone to Aerin’s manor, the blond girl knelt in a pond of blood, clutching a cold body like driftwood in a black sea.

The body’s chest was punched through by claw-like steel; the face was a mask of blood, features blurred like wet ink. By build—Uncle John.

Footsteps reached her, but Aerin didn’t stir. Only when he stopped before her did she lift her face.

Her hair was in tatters, strands stuck to her cheek with blood; her eyes were vacant, pupils shattered like glass catching a pale sun; the rims were red; tears had long dried, leaving salt tracks like faded rain.

Ye Weibai’s shape rippled in that kaleidoscope gaze like a shadow in a pond. He crouched and, gently, touched her hair like smoothing a storm-torn reed.

The girl, soul drifting like smoke, finally fell back into her body. Her broken pupils trembled—autumn water stirred by wind. Master Bai’s outline wavered in her eyes.

“...Master Bai?”

Her body jolted. She woke as if from a nightmare; her voice was hoarse, stones scraping in a dry riverbed, threaded with a sob.

“I’m here.” Ye Weibai reached out and held her hand. It was cold as snow.

“Master Bai?” She whispered again, fear clinging like dew, as if she dreaded the answer.

“Mm. I’m here.” The black-haired youth answered, calm as a night lake.

“Master Bai!” Her pupils cleared, his silhouette bright again, sharp as stars after rain. Her lips pressed tight; her body shook; she gripped his hand like a lifeline thrown in a storm. She stared at him; gold eyes brimmed fast, tears glittering like broken sunlight, and she cried, “Why—Master Bai—why—”

“Why am I so weak?!”

The blond girl collapsed into his arms and wailed, voice tearing like cloth in wind.

“I couldn’t stop that black iron knight!”

“He sent me flying with one palm!”

“He killed Uncle John!! Stabbed straight through and hung him on the tree!!”

“But—sob—But—sob, sob, sob—I could do nothing! I could only watch!!!”

Her ragged confession spilled in fits and starts, despair beating like rain on ruined eaves, echoing through the manor’s hollow halls.

Ye Weibai lowered his lids, shadow covering his dark eyes like night covering a field. He said nothing. He just held her tighter, arms like a shield.

She felt like glass—touch could break her; breath could scatter her.

“Master Bai—I—why am I this weak?!” She trembled head to toe, face buried in his chest, voice muffled and aching like thunder under earth. “If—if—I were stronger—just a bit stronger—then none—sob, sob—none of this would’ve happened!!!”

Her self-blame and regret rang through the manor like bells tolling for the lost.

Ye Weibai understood. Aerin hated that black iron knight, but she hated her own helplessness more. For years, she’d fretted and grieved about being weak, but never like now—never this sharp, this hopeless, this knife-edged lesson in the price of weakness.

He understood Augustine’s words too—use the “price of weakness” to force Aerin to grow. That price was to watch kin die under a sky that wouldn’t help.

Humans don’t break their cage without pain. They don’t step past the door until they face death. He’d said the same in the last [World] to a twelve-year-old girl under a cold dawn.

Augustine, an old man who’d lived centuries, understood it deeper. He knew Aerin—once a fierce candidate for [Hero King]—was trapped by some [Misfortune], dwindled until even an ordinary person outmatched her.

He wanted to shock her, to draw out her real power—the kind of power that makes [It] shiver like a candle in a gale. So he sent someone to kill John.

Yet Ye Weibai thought: had the dead Augustine ever doubted—was this also [It]’s inducement? A lure to make Augustine become [Imperial Tutor], then to murder him?

Of course, perhaps it did also aim to spur Aerin’s growth.

Ye Weibai had seen it: Aerin wasn’t merely weak. Her power was frozen like a river in deep winter—no growth, no thaw. So stunted she might truly fail to kill the [Demon King]—the [Hero King] killed by the [Demon King]?!

Unacceptable.

It would shatter the [Cycle], a crack [It] would never allow.

So, while pushing Augustine into the [Cycle], [It] let Aerin recover a part of her strength—enough to reach a stalemate of doom, enough to die together with the [Demon King].

There was no hard proof, but the black [Demon King] sensed the thread like a scent in rain.

He strained to read [It]’s mind—cunning as a fox, secret as a root, cruel as winter. [It] was the condensation of human awareness after all. Only humans know how fearsome—and how filthy—humans can be.

Even so—

Even knowing it was [It]’s arranged play, Ye Weibai had to act the role [It] had pinned to him.

It was an open stratagem, bright as a banner—what if you do understand? Inside the [Cycle], there’s nowhere to run. The moment the [Label] stuck to your brow, fate hardened like ice.

Unless—you can kill [It]. Otherwise the [Cycle] never breaks. Sooner or later, you’ll be culled like a lamb in snow.

And even a hundred Augustines plus a hundred Ye Weibais couldn’t beat [It].

This was simple, crushing—power grinding stone to sand.