Your Majesty.

Nightfall was thick as ink. The imperial capital crouched in silence, and in the only hall blazing with lamps, a lonely king sat cross‑legged.

Heavy footsteps rolled like drums. A minister in a purple robe drifted in from the door. His long, hawkish eyes swept the hall. As always, no one else. He strode in until only ten paces remained; one step more and he'd mount the dais of supreme rank.

He didn't bother hiding the greed in his gaze. Patience had ripened too long; he’d thought he was fated to remain the empire’s third.

Lucky for him, that undying old Patriarch of the Purple Blossom finally died.

He’d climbed to the summit by predicting news of the Demon King, then died to the Demon King’s hand—wasn’t that justice, of a sort?

Moonlight silvered the minister’s cheek as a wanton smile tugged his mouth.

“So it’s you, Minister.” The emperor didn’t look his way. He stared dumbly at the moon beyond the eaves.

That posture made the minister clench his fist. Idiot. Fool. Without that old man propping him up, he’d have been toppled long ago, the empire in ruins.

The elder hid in shadow and held the reins backstage. Hmph. I won’t.

His gaze rose to the golden wall behind the throne, where a sword‑and‑shield crest was carved. Fire bloomed in his eyes. He would not be the hand behind the curtain. He would stand in the light. He would sit on the throne. He would carve his raptor sigil into that wall.

He could barely wait.

But the emperor, so vacant and simple on the surface, doused him cold with one line.

“Don’t rush,” he said.

Ice slid down the minister’s spine. He dragged his eyes back to the emperor.

The emperor still stared at the moon, then dropped his head. He looked like a wild, ragged monkey, clothes in disarray—yet beneath his fringe, his pupils glinted with a blade-sharp, soul‑stirring light.

That light pinned the minister like a knife at his throat. His tongue froze. Air stuck.

Then the emperor looked up again, toward the sky where the moon drifted away like a ship.

In the next breath the minister caught himself. He knew what he was—steel‑willed, decisive, cruel, cunning. He’d outlasted even that old man. Power’s peak stood one step away. To be cowed by this idiot king? Shame, fear, and fury crashed together. His face flushed. He moved.

“Tomorrow,” the emperor said, stopping the surge with one word, “we start preparing the Festival, don’t we.”

Festival did not mean any feast. On this continent, only one deserved the name: the Night of the Hero King—blessing and celebrating the Hero King for slaying the Demon King.

Its date was fixed: the seventh day after the Demon King’s appearance—the day he descended to break the World, and the Hero King and his Companions turned the tide.

Ages passed. The Festival’s first spark was lost to the river of time, yet its customs flowed on.

Even now, its Blessing, Prayer, and Hope still lingered, changed into fireworks, flowers, feasts, and laughter—but—

“But the Festival didn’t begin for ‘Hope’.” The emperor wore a clownish smile. He tilted his head loose and lazy, one eye on the sky, one on the minister, long hair falling to veil the other.

The pose looked absurd, yet the minister couldn’t smile. His jaw locked. His eyes didn’t blink. Sweat crawled down his cheek as fear rose like a tide. That single eye felt like a dragon’s stare.

“Minister,” the emperor asked, “do you know the Festival’s origin?”

…

…

Mist lay like a sea.

“Fear,” Ye Weibai said softly to the swordsman. “Fear is the first spark of everything.”

“Good story.” The plain‑faced man in coarse cloth and boots nodded. “Can we fight now? My patience is thin.”

Ye Weibai sighed. “Besides Fear, there’s something else—no, it comes before Fear. That is the true beginning. But if you don’t care, forget it.”

“Come.” Ye flicked his sleeve.

“One thing first.” The swordsman fixed his eyes on Ye. “Unlike ‘them,’ I can’t hold back.”

The black‑haired Demon King smiled. “Not can’t. Won’t. That’s the truth.”

His pupils flashed bright, lightning flowering in his gaze. The other man laughed, open and real. “If there were wine, I’d drink with you, 9,679th Demon King.”

He said it plainly. “Illusion or obsession, given by others or forged by self—it’s all the same. This body’s single pursuit is to fight the strongest.”

“This isn’t Its order. It’s how the I apart from the body defines me.”

“I am what I am.”

He set his hand on the scabbard mouth as if gripping a hilt—and drew.

Vmmm—!

The sword’s cry tore like a thunder‑chariot across the sky.

A tingling ripple spread. Pale blue, translucent lines crawled like cracking glass. They ran like water, soaking mist, moon, and stars, and pulled, thread by thread, the “souls” from whatever they touched.

The Void birthed a second, misaligned, half‑clear world. In that instant, everyone who looked up saw a ghost of another sky.

They gaped, struck dumb.

In the empty high, two moons crossed. Two starfields merged. Two long roving cloud‑seas entwined—two identical night skies interlocked overhead.

“Th‑this…” even the [Impurities] who had clung to life for a thousand years fell mute.

With one cut, he cleaved the seam of the [X World] and the [Y World], let both worlds fall and grind together.

How strong was that stroke? How strong was this swordsman?

Even the Pope, Shez, felt his smile cool.

No wonder he was the master before whom even the strongest Hero King, Augustine, felt small.

The black‑robed reader froze mid‑turn. It wasn’t fright. It was the pressure of real death at His neck.

He ground His teeth. “Damn it. That Demon King, and this Demon King—what monsters. Two Worlds are gears. Mesh them right and nothing breaks. Force them to overlap and they grind, sparks sharper than any god‑forged blade.”

Don’t trust the beauty—two nights layered like a jeweled veil. It’s peril pure, a meat grinder that powders whatever falls in.

So He didn’t dare move, fearing a twitch would turn Him to dust.

Yet He puzzled. By right, two Worlds colliding should erase their space, their people, their things.

Not like now. Around each body, space laced with razor cracks, ruin at a touch—yet some dynamic balance held, shattered and serene at once.

“Ah. So that’s it.”

After that stunning cut, his face held no pride. His lids lowered with a hint of regret. He sighed. “Still can’t break the [Worldline] directly.”

This… doesn’t count as breaking the Worldline?! The thought detonated everywhere.

So strong. So ruinous. And still—not—enough?!

In that beat, the era’s titans tasted bitterness, the shame when a mountain towers beyond reach.

Under a sky gorgeous as a dream, all beings hushed. Only the black Demon King—Ye Weibai—tilted his chin, nodded in accord, and smiled faintly. “With that method, you can’t touch the [Z World] layer.”

At once, every whisper about the swordsman snapped off.

Like ducks seized by the throat, the last sound died, swallowed raw.

Those hidden under ice, inside volcanoes, beneath the sea—those mighty ones—heard the black Demon King’s words and blanched. Fear flooded their limbs. Though buried deep, they sealed the five senses. No seeing. No hearing. No scent. No speech. Not even thought. Flesh and soul sank and locked in darkness. None dared look again.

Their naked fear sounded like a pledge.

Afraid. They were afraid. Afraid of It. Afraid of death.

Touching the [Z World] and It—these ancients, these darlings of their ages—wouldn’t just refuse to join. They wouldn’t even listen. They wouldn’t even think. The able tore out the memory and ground it to dust.

They didn’t fear Ye Weibai or the swordsman, nor Ye’s last line. They feared—what they knew the two would say next.

“Oh?” Starlight burned in the swordsman’s eyes as he locked on Ye. “Then what method reaches the [Z] layer?”

Boom—!

A purple bolt split the night between Ye and the swordsman. It rose like a colossal violet god‑tree, blooming in the Void, trying to fence them apart, the two of them only leaves at the tips.

No doubt whose hand that was. It was from [It]. Just as It had stopped Ye from telling Aerin certain truths, It didn’t believe any method could touch the Z layer. But It would not allow even the intent to chase it.

Yet even Its terrifying might—fallen across an entire World, shaved thin by layer after layer—couldn’t withstand the annihilation from two Worlds colliding. It unraveled at once.

The purple lightning fell to motes, violet dust spinning around them, then fleeing outward. Once past that World’s grinder, the glow swooped back and circled the two in a ring.

In that moment, no light, no sound, no sense could pierce the violet haze.

Not worth great effort to block a “secret.” But It could easily stop Ye’s foolish words from spreading. People don’t need truth to burn. Nonsense can spark them to charge.

And that, It loathed.

Still, It wanted to hear it—the so‑called method to touch the Z layer.

…

…

When that “pretty” knight said he sought Stardust, then began to fade, Silver’s pupils snapped to pinpoints. Her face warped. Every muscle locked. Killing intent burst like a winter gale.

“Oh?” The woman knight with the giant shield glanced over. “Nice edge. You’ve killed plenty.”

Silver ignored the jab. Her body twisted at a wrong angle, a silver viper uncoiling. She spun and rocketed for the spot where the short‑haired girl would land.

Clang—!

A giant shield crashed into her path mid‑flight.

The rebound shattered Silver’s stance. She stumbled down, guts lurching like loose cargo. Her eyes still hunted the silver‑haired girl—but the woman knight stood like a wall, blocking all sight.

In a life‑and‑death fight, that lapse should never happen. Silver panicked.

She didn’t know what had happened to her. She had never tasted this flavor. At the instant she heard the little girl might be in danger, her heart burst like a startled flock, a tremor she had never felt. That tremor was sour as unripe fruit, as biting as that pitch-dark, lampless cabin from back then. Yet within the sour ache ran a thin thread of honey.

That sweetness was plain as water. It had been there these past two days, like a soft breeze at dusk. Only now, inside the wrenching sourness, did she finally notice its quiet glow.

Yin had always believed this World was crowded with the unlucky, like leaves in a storm. Yet she thought she’d never find someone who hated the World as fiercely as she did and still clung to hope with a hysteric grip.

At the instant she saw the little girl, at the instant she met those eyes, her heart leapt like a deer breaking from thicket. They had never met. They were strangers. Yet she felt a sudden bloom.

Even Crimson Blossom had never given Yin that feeling, that shock of spring under frost.

It was the joy of seeing “herself,” a mirror lit by dawn.

It was the tremor of finally spotting “one of her own” in a tide of people.

In those pupils—an ocean of stars gone cold and dead—she saw a wintered hope and a despair near absolute zero.

People can have countless friends, like lanterns along a road, yet the best friend is always “yourself.” That saying might not fit those sun-drenched souls who radiate outward; perfect suns scorch each other when they meet. But the broken, the drowned, the ones dragged by the river—can warm each other with shared fire.

Yin was not fine-spun in her thoughts. She couldn’t dissect her feelings like a scholar with a blade. She was a person who charges forward, almost to the point of stubbornness and strain, like a bent bow.

She only knew this: after so many years, she had finally—

Bang—!

Yin staggered on landing, and before she could plant her feet, a great shield fell from the sky and slammed her spine like a falling boulder.

She spat a mouthful of blood with a raw “wah,” her knee hitting dirt, her body folding like wet cloth.

“Finally—” She rolled with the hit, smearing herself in mud, ragged as a stray dog, then fought her body into a sudden burst, shooting forward like an arrow.

Finally—she had to find Stardust.

“Finally what?”

Dropping her sword, the female knight reached out, clamped Yin’s ankle like iron, and yanked her backward. Her knee drove up, clean as a dagger point, spearing the woman’s belly.

A dull blast roared inside Yin’s body. Her pupils snapped tight. She vomited blood laced with minced viscera, the taste metallic as rusted rain.

“Boring.” The female knight tossed Yin to the ground like trash. She drew the weapon she’d pinned in the earth, looked down from above, her eyes behind the helm dark as a moonless pond. Her voice was cold. “Why put on a play of comradeship? All you did was expose your weakness.”

“Expose?” Yin lay limp, a thin laugh leaking between sharp breaths, like winter wind through cracks. “I’ve always been weak…”

Yin’s gaze still chased the distant Stardust. In eyes that should be dull and blood-soaked, hope rose like a pale flame. That sight pricked the female knight’s heart with a thorn. She burst forward and kicked Yin’s abdomen. The force slid under skin, wrung the five organs like soaked cloth, and Yin gave another raw “wah,” spitting finer shreds of meat.

The pain pinched Yin’s pupils to pinpoints. Life ebbed like tide, and silver eyes began to blur.

“Then die with the name of the weak.”

A blade of light fell.

…

…

Light.

A spear moved like a dragon, raising red light that surged like tide, and hurled it in a roaring flood toward the black knight who sat beneath a chair, sipping red tea with calm grace.

The wind rose fierce. Behind the black helm, a red ponytail swayed like flame. The next moment, that light, that wind, and the lunging Crimson Blossom—all snapped back like a torn paper kite.

Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka!

Crimson Blossom tumbled across the floor in a mess, smashing tables, smashing the door, smashing the stone bench in the courtyard, until she hit the wall ten meters out. Then she let out a raw “wah,” spat a mouthful of blood, and stopped moving, breath shivering like reeds.

“As disappointing as ever.” Without lifting a finger, he had swatted the famed Crimson Blossom of the Empire’s young generation dozens of meters and made her spit blood. The black knight’s tone stayed flat, without pride, dusted with mild regret. “Tea, your fighting—no progress at all.”

His voice carried a deep familiarity with Crimson Blossom, like rain that knows the roof. It sounded less like an old friend, more like an elder correcting a junior.

Yet Crimson Blossom had no elders. Her family always had few children. Her only kin—the former clan head, her father—she had killed with her own hand.

She remembered clearly. That storm-bitten night, she slipped into the man’s room and drove the dagger her mother left her into his heart, killing the demon.

Her hand had trembled, and kept trembling like a winter leaf, but she was certain of the feel—steel sliding into a heart. She had killed him.

So what was this man before her?

Crimson Blossom’s pupils quivered, reflecting the tall figure on the clan leader’s chair. He wore heavy armor. A greatsword lay at his side, breathing a keen chill. His posture wasn’t sharp or brash; it flowed with a noble ease—the same charm that had driven countless socialites in the Empire mad for him. After his death, many noblewomen sighed and even wept, their dreams haunted by his silhouette like a phantom at dawn.

To Crimson Blossom, that figure was more hopeless than any demon.

No—he always was. Her father had always been the demon in her life, from her first steps to now, a shadow that swallowed the horizon.

She had thought that killing him would free her from that shade. Only today, only in this instant, did she grasp the truth—she had never once been truly free. She had never escaped the black mud of the swamp called “love.”

She began to doubt whether she had really pierced his heart back then. She, so young then, clutching a dagger—what had she stabbed?

Was it a man’s flesh?

How could she have killed so easily the one hailed as the strongest under the Hero King? Back then she was weaker than now by a thousand cuts.

Or had it all been his theater? Never doubt that man’s twisted taste. He could fake his death for ten years, just to set this scene, just to watch Crimson Blossom’s shock and fear like a cruel sunrise.

Cold, fiercer than pain, scoured her body. Her mind flashed a thousand possibilities, each steeped in despair. In that breath, she fell back into the chill of her childhood.

A dim room. Her father. The demon’s smile. Gentle strokes. Repeating whispers, coiling like snakes. The vomiting sweetness of “love.”

Crimson Blossom remembered, too, the words he tried and failed to speak as he died, a sound like a mosquito’s hum, murky and unclear. What had he wanted to say?

…

…

“What did you say?”

“What in the hell are you?”

The exchange happened in a sea of blood built from heaps of severed limbs, a tide that lapped like night water.

A red pool of meat slurry gathered and rose, already drowning the black knight’s ankles. Look closely, and you could see bone chips drifting, torn organs bobbing, even fragments of faces like broken masks.

All this was the handiwork of the black-dress girl lounging on a crucifix, lazy as a cat in a sunbeam.

More precisely, all this was…her.

Just moments ago, black light swept over Lustrous. She became a black Witch. With a lift of her hand, she called forth countless versions of herself and sent them swarming at the black knight, Long.

Those “Lustrous” weren’t much stronger. To Long, each was a punch-and-pop, meat and mist. The horror lay in the endlessness. The clones kept coming like ants after rain. Even killing the girl on the crucifix did nothing.

She simply rebirthed.

And the trouble was, even Long felt tired.

Not in the body, but in the soul. He had killed many in short spans, yes, often by firing a magic cannon to erase a city like a sandcastle. But he had never killed the same person, mechanically, one after another, like a clock beating its seconds in blood.

He lifted his foot, stomped, and ripples of force went out like rings in a pond, grinding dozens of girls to paste yet again. Finally the black knight couldn’t help asking.

“What are you?”