The sound cut off, clean as a blade. In its place came thunder, eardrums shattering. Before that, violet light had already devoured everything.
Whether it was the black book or the words it tried to spit out, [It] ground it all into cinder-dust.
The book never finished its last line. The only figures it held—the First [Demon King] and his wo—who were they?
Wo—
“Wo…” Ye Weibai’s lids drooped halfway, a curtain veiling the shimmer in his eyes. Emotion rose first, curious and tugging, stronger than his awe for the First [Demon King]; the half-named figure hooked his mind like a line in deep water.
When he tried to part the fog and follow that hook, he found only a muddied pool, ripples blurring to nothing.
Some [Something] had thrown a veil over the truth.
Ye Weibai tilted his head. That [Something] felt familiar, like a mist that had eaten his memories once before.
He let the chase go, fast. The more he reached, the more it thinned, then vanished, as if “someone” had sensed his search and was wiping the chalk from the slate of his mind.
Was it [It]?
Ye Weibai looked up at the fading violet lightning and shook his head within. No. Not [It].
Even [It] couldn’t rub out my memory so lightly. If [It] could, [It] wouldn’t be cornered like this now.
The black [Demon King] smiled.
...
...
Her right hand tightened, knuckles like a pearl clenched in silk.
It was a human gesture for anger and displeasure. She noticed, released her fist, and became [It] again.
[It] owned no kinship with the species called human. [It] sprang from human grudges and wishes, yes—but rose above them, like smoke above a pyre.
[It] deemed itself higher; because of that, what had just occurred sat in her like grit in a shell.
[It] should have erased that book the instant it opened. But the [World]-crashing domain checked [Its] strike. One breath late, and the book spilled words that should never breathe.
The key “person,” identity and name, never came to light—but it was still [Its] misstep.
And all of it seemed tied to the man before her.
The 9,679th [Demon King]—Ye Weibai.
On the [Z] [World] layer, [It] stood before Ye Weibai’s projection, cast across a whole [Y] [World] layer.
Only a sheet of paper separated them. [It] fixed its gaze on him.
Because the [Y] and [X] layers interlaced, his [Z]-layer projection blurred. Yet in his palm, the flower braided from gray particles swayed alive—stem, languid leaves, bloom, pistil—each detail razor-clear.
At first sight of that flower, [It] erupted with a loathing never felt before. [It] wanted to spring and erase the flower and its master, Ye Weibai. Then erase anything that had seen, touched, heard, or smelled it—scour them to nothing.
That hatred felt blood-borne, the killing urge when a lifelong nemesis steps from the haze.
Then, in the next blink, [It] caught the flaw. [It] had no blood; [It] never possessed what humans call “spirit.” How could [It] have instinct? Instinct is the beast-root beneath fragile human reason.
Humans meet danger and their first ripple is fear, a need to back away as far as possible. Only then do they weigh flight or fight. That’s instinct.
[It] was different.
[It] was not—
“I’m not human,” [It] said, pinching out the rise of destruction like a candle-flame, and faced the scene again with a cool, level gaze.
[It] could skip useless impulse and enter computation.
So, staring at the flower, [It] began to calculate—to grade the threat of this flower fallen from beyond the sky.
A problem rose at step one.
Any calculation needs enough reliable data, or it’s wind-dream and guesswork. Before, everything in this [World] lived under [Its] “eyes”; [It] never lacked data.
This flower was different. It didn’t belong to this [World]. [It] couldn’t query any library; [It] had to observe directly.
[It] had never tried direct observation—too much unknown, too much uncertainty, a taste [It] despised. Yet it was the only road.
The black-haired boy before [It]—before her—left her only that path.
Only? She felt, for a heartbeat, like the one driven to the cliff’s edge.
Without thinking, her hand tightened again.
Just then, Ye Weibai’s mouth curved with a faint smile.
Gentle as wind, that smile brushed her eyes, and she read in it a needle of cold irony—irony? Aimed at whom?
Expressionless, her cherry lips pressed once more. In that beat, she had to admit it: the willful swordsman, the babbling book, the flower steeped in danger—all unsettled her less than this black [Demon King].
What unsettled her most was his smile, always like this.
That smile was easy, careless, playful; as if he saw everything, and as if he cared for nothing, letting it drift past like passing cloud.
That stance made him seem less human than she was.
It made her, like a human, bite down—pearl teeth on edge.
...
...
