[World]: Origin
Sails up. We cast off.
A gale slapped his face; his long hair streamed like storm-tossed banners.
He stood alone at the prow, while the shouts behind him thinned like windblown threads.
In the mist, his figure drifted lost and solitary, a lone reed in white fog.
Behind him, they shouted again, words thrown like stones into cloud.
“Make sure you kill [It]!”
“You have to succeed!”
“You can do it!”
“Win on the first charge!”
“Don’t let [It] go!”
So many blessings, yet not one said—“Even if you can’t kill it, come back alive.”
He lowered his gaze, face blank, a wasteland opening in his chest.
So many cared, yet the world still felt like a species with only him left.
How pitiful is that.
“Don’t you think?”
He turned and looked up at the black silhouette perched on the mast.
…
…
“Aerin, do you want to grow stronger?”
“I… I do!”
It happened in a silent courtyard under a bleeding sunset.
Blood-red light glazed the blonde girl’s profile; her shadow fell across a new tombstone, with Old John sleeping beneath.
Aerin stood with fists at her sides, lashes down, pupils trembling like struck bells.
Behind her, Ye Weibai glanced at the stone, then at the girl. “Aerin, do you want to grow stronger?”
He asked again; the last time had been that very morning.
Déjà vu tugged her, then resolve cut through. “I do.”
“Even if you must pay a price,” Ye Weibai pressed. Last time, those words iced her heart and ended the talk.
This time, Old John’s death was a knife that pierced and also lit a fire. Fear stayed, but the blaze hurt hot enough to face it.
No more hesitation. She turned and met Master Bai’s eyes. “Any price. Even—my life.”
“No. I won’t take your life.” Ye Weibai shook his head. “When the pact is sealed, I’ll give you something instead.”
“Give me?” Aerin blinked. Then her vision swam, and pain flowered in her chest.
Her breath hitched. She looked down and saw a hand inside her left breast.
It was Ye Weibai’s hand.
“Don’t regret this. Catch it, Aerin. What I give you—”
The black [Demon King] smiled.
“—[Fear].”
…
…
The palace was vast.
Lustrous lamps burned bright, noon caught in glass.
A slovenly emperor sat cross-legged upon the throne like a lounging trickster.
He hunched, scratched, grinned, a monkey in gold.
Such was the truth as well.
This emperor’s absurdity was famed across the continent.
Dull-witted as a three-year-old, heirless, the court would have collapsed without the chieftain of the Purple Blossom clan.
Under the lights, the emperor played a rattle-drum. He smiled, utterly absorbed, a guileless child in a gilded hall.
The empty palace rang with crisp clack-clack.
No one else was there. The knocks seemed they could go on forever.
Suddenly, they stopped mid-beat.
As if thunderstruck, the emperor froze rigid.
His pupils pinholed; his face twisted into something no minister had seen—shock, fear, and a sorrow sunk deep.
“Augustine… you too…”
He breathed a name no louder than dust.
Then he shook, teeth chattering, and turned his head toward the dome.
The dome blazed with light, but his gaze cut through it to the sky dimming beyond.
Far off, a silver moon was slowly rising.
Silver poured over the land and swarmed into the palace like cold water.
In the darkening sky, that bright moon became a single, enormous eye—[Its] eye.
At the sight of it, terror ruptured the emperor’s face. Sweat poured like rain.
He yanked up his yellow robe, hooded his head, curled tight, and clamped his eyes shut.
“N—None of this is my fault—not my fault!”
“I told you, I told you—we can’t fight [It], we can’t fight [It]…”
“Why wouldn’t you listen, why wouldn’t you believe… why…”
The empty palace held no one else. Only the emperor, robe over his head, sight smothered, babbled like a man trapped in a nightmare.
The hall shone so brightly, yet in that moment, it turned eerily black.
As if all light had been swallowed—swallowed by that silver moonlight.
…
…
When Aerin woke, it was the next night.
It was also the [Fourth] day since the [Demon King] was born.
Night again.
As always, the moon hung high; the stars were dim; no cloud veiled the sky.
The silver moon blazed, almost a false noon.
She opened her eyes, and the moon sat right above her. Its light crossed the frozen miles and sank into her pupils, then into her bones.
Too bright, or maybe she’d slept too long. For a heartbeat, nothing felt real—her soul drifted to some forgotten far shore, and her body was no longer hers.
Fear surged first, sharp and breathless; she almost screamed. A hand reached in time, touched her brow, and steadied her like a warm stone.
Master Bai.
He pressed the back of his hand to her skin. “Mm. No fever.”
His hand was warm. That warmth seeped through her, driving out the cold the moonlight left.
Aerin couldn’t help catching his hand, just like that evening—clutching it as if it were the last thread of hope in the world.
Ye Weibai paused, then smiled. “Nightmare?”
Her lips parted. She wanted to speak of that drifting terror, but a feeling rose and hushed her.
—No. Don’t say it. Don’t make Master Bai worry about trifles. I’m not a child anymore.
She swallowed the words and only shook her head.
Only then did she realize she wasn’t in the manor, nor on land.
She was on a river.
Wind bellied the sail; a leaf-thin skiff ran with the current.
Water stretched on both sides, perhaps a hundred meters wide. The gale kicked up waves; cold spray flecked her clothes.
“What is this?” Aerin braced on the gunwale and sat up. She saw she wore a new soft cuirass of dark silver, and even her bloodstained underclothes had been changed. She flushed. “My clothes?”
“You changed while dreaming—do you buy that?” Ye Weibai said evenly. “Of course I changed them.”
“B—but—” Aerin stammered, words failing as heat rushed to her cheeks.
“I saw your body.”
“Eh—eh?!”
“What’s there to fuss about?” He flicked her forehead and shook his head. “In front of your teacher, why be shy?”
“No…” She covered the spot, muttering, “Master Bai, you’re only in your teens too. We’re not that far apart.”
“Shouldn’t you be asking about the other thing?” Ye Weibai meant the moment his hand pierced her chest.
But the girl spoke without a care. “Master Bai, you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“You.” He blinked, then sighed with a helpless smile. “Idiot.”
“W-what’s that supposed to mean.” She wrinkled her nose.
“Aren’t you afraid I’m the [Demon King]?”
Aerin frowned. “You asked me that before, Master Bai.”
At her words, both of them thought of Old John, now buried forever beneath the manor’s earth. Ye Weibai had asked if she suspected John might be the [Demon King].
Silence fell between them.
The night wind ran hard; the skiff flew.
Aerin and Ye Weibai sat side by side.
“Master Bai,” she said at last, unable to hold it. “Where are we going?”
“To find the [Demon King].”
“Ah.” Her golden eyes widened.
“Ah what. Don’t make a fuss.”
“B—but—it’s the [Demon King]!” Aerin couldn’t believe how calmly he said it.
“Why be surprised?” Ye Weibai looked at her. “Isn’t that your duty?”
She flinched, then pressed her lips firm. Her eyes cooled. She nodded. “Yes.”
“I already know where the [Demon King] is,” Ye Weibai went on.
“Where?”
“When we arrive, you’ll know.” He rose slightly. “Before that, you’ll meet your final [companion].”
Final…? Have I met the others?
Aerin stared, startled. Before she could ask, the boat thumped.
She looked up. A strip of sand, a run of rock, and a distance of deep green.
They had come to shore.
