Different Now.
The World doesn’t sway for human will; people shift with its tide.
At every heartbeat, people change, like shadows under passing clouds.
It’s only drift in quantity—small grains.
Without enough accumulation, no qualitative leap; without that, a person barely notices their difference.
Aerin knows this, like a blade feeling its own temper.
So she feels adrift; when did something tug her anchor loose?
She was born haloed as the [Hero King], faith ironclad for sixteen winters—now it creaks.
What was it, who...
In truth, a name had long pooled in her heart.
A black-haired, black-eyed, slender boy rises in her mind like smoke.
“Master Bai.” Her breath stutters; she can’t help a soft murmur.
No doubt, it was Ye Weibai’s chain of acts—he taught her a Brazen Heart, taught her recklessness, taught her [Fear], led her into the forest...
He guided Aerin into this change, like a river carving stone.
But the girl also understands, with the calm of dusk.
As Master Bai said, [Fear] wasn’t gifted; it lived in her chest already, like a moth in cloth.
Likewise, the hairline crack on that rock of faith was hers from the start; no one else to blame.
Once she sees it, she holds no grievance against Master Bai, like rain passing.
She knows, in any weather, he would never harm her.
From the first sight, Aerin’s trust in Master Bai was unconditional—almost worship, like a lantern lit at night.
She hasn’t yet realized—one belief often replaces another.
Belief is a jealous flame; it rarely shares a shrine.
This is the deep tremor in her [Hero King] dream and resolve, the faultline under the mountain.
She hasn’t thought that far; her gaze stays on the nearest wave.
But Ye Weibai could never have missed it.
He sees the tide beyond the reef.
...
...
She doesn’t get it.
She can’t read him.
She can’t read Ye Weibai.
Not just his appearing from thin air.
Not just that gray teardrop crystal from another [World].
It’s his doings that knot her thoughts.
If he bowed to the [Cycle], bowed to [It], then why keep threatening the [Cycle]?
He tried to tell Aerin That Thing.
He even tore the boundary of [X] and [Y], going alone, an ant, to challenge her.
Useless, yes—yet brazen to the bone, like a torch in a storm.
Across so many [Cycles], few dared to kill their way into the [Y] layer to face her.
To do it as the [Demon King]—that feat is singular.
Yet on the other hand, he didn’t resist; he stepped into her game.
In the fight with Augustine, he cut him down clean, no mud, no drag.
He kept following her orders, raising Aerin, letting her grow.
Especially when Ye Weibai woke the [Fear] in Aerin’s heart; her power surged like tide.
She now had the foundation to slay the [Demon King].
That pleased her.
If these contradictions were just “scared yet angry,” if he saw their gap and gave up—then his attitude still baffles her.
Too... ambiguous.
Like twilight that won’t choose dawn or night.
That black-haired, black-eyed human boy, the 9,679th [Demon King], always wears a light smile.
It isn’t joy; it’s a layered, ambiguous mood.
That smile is unlike anyone who survived the [Cycle]—calm water where others are scars.
No frenzy, no joy.
No dread, no swagger.
Like a quiet blade under silk.
A smile like fog—chaotic, untouchable.
A smile [It] has never seen in those of the [Cycle].
It makes [It]—uneasy, for no clear reason.
...
...
“They’re here.”
“And you?”
The words spill in cold, water-like night air.
The sky is boundless; stars dim; the moon burns bright.
Cloud and mist coil; hair and hems ride the wind.
The black-haired boy glances at the figure in cloud and fog; [It] is still turning pages.
“I won’t take part.” [It] speaks as the outline blurs, then fades. “I only record.”
Right before vanishing, a slim quill appears in [Its] hand.
“Then you can already start—” The [Demon King] lifts a hand.
“Hm?” [It] is puzzled; then the pupils snap tight.
“—start writing.” Ye Weibai’s mouth tilts. He speaks and flicks his right hand to the back-right, casual as a painter.
He moves loose, fingers splayed, as if holding air.
The motion is freehand—clouds and flowing water—a splash of ink from a landscape scroll.
Then the [Demon King] throws ink.
No—it’s not ink.
It’s black light, condensed into substance.
Thick as tar, braided into one beam.
Boom—the blast rings.
Ripples spread.
In a heartbeat, clouds within a hundred meters stain ink-black.
Before the boom, the black beam had already punched through cloud on cloud, crossed a thousand ridges.
It tore a black phantom trail in the Void, straight into a mountain peak.
“You dare—?!”
Before it strikes the peak, a shout—startled and furious—roars from the forest.
A white arrow rises with a hum.
Trees shudder, leaves whirl, and it spears through Nightfall, trying to break that bucket-thick black beam.
Like snow under a blazing sun, the white light vanishes at once.
A black figure, cloaked in a gale, bursts skyward, trying to ride that brief stall to leap free.
Too late.
Mid-air, a single scream, and the black light scythes him in a blink.
An instant later, the peak shows no tremor.
In perfect hush, everything the beam swept—rock, forest, fallen leaves, flying birds, and that man—vanishes.
As if vaporized in a moment—without even vapor to witness.
Just like that, all drowned in black light.
The mountaintop is gone.
Trunks and stone show mirror-smooth cut faces, as if sliced by the sharpest edge under heaven.
The man never even showed his face—he evaporated from the world.
Ye Weibai, who flung that strike like a casual toss, doesn’t even look back.
He watches the figure in cloud and mist.
“Got that down?”
“...”
Staring at the light and at the peak that seems never to have existed, [Its] hand with the pen goes stiff.
The eyes quiver.
No words come.
Not only [It].
Many watching from afar, like bystanders on a riverbank, those who lived through the [Cycle]—fall silent at once.
In their hearts, at the same moment, one thought cracks open—This [Demon King].
How could he be—this strong?
Outrageously strong.
...
...
