Down, down, down—ever down!
In the water screen, the blond boy fell like a shell hammered into earth, a spear cleaving wet bamboo toward the deep.
The [World] held its breath; only the screen crackled, like roots gnawing through soil without end.
People watched Ye Weibai. The joy that sparked when his blade pierced the [Demon King] Aerin’s throat bled of color, like dusk over ash. It cooled, it paled, then turned gray with despair.
How—
"How can this be?!"
They clenched their fists, knuckles white as bone. They stared at the violet-haired girl floating in the Void; her dark-violet hair and sleeves streamed like a storm river. She only tipped her chin, and the once-unruly [Hero King] got kneaded like wet clay, flimsy as paper.
Was that truly Aerin?
The Aerin they always belittled?
Just a [Demon King]—how could she be this strong?!
They had clawed out a way to live, like fish against a flood. They had unmasked Aerin as the true [Demon King]. They could finally cross this [Cycle] like a pass after snow.
Is the [World] truly ending?
"Get up."
"Fight back."
They bit down hard, iron on the tongue like rain. They glared at the new [Hero King], and their voices rose like low thunder together.
"Don’t betray our trust!"
"You’re the [Hero King]!"
…
…
"Terrifying, this power."
Mashed like trash and driven toward the earth’s marrow, Ye Weibai still found a smile, thin as frost.
Behind that smile lay a cold awe, a winter wind that bit bone. He feared not Aerin, whose body [It] now wore, but—the [World].
He feared the [World]’s warp.
While prayers, curses, and stones of hate flew his way, Ye Weibai felt the [World]’s power flood him again, like a tide under moonlight.
Unlike the sudden crowning as [Hero King], this time the power came fine and long, like silk rain. It let him taste it—this force from the [World], from people, from air thick as incense.
It was an unreasonable force, a storm that never asked. It didn’t wait for choice. It walked straight into your bones like cold fire.
You didn’t choose the power. The power didn’t choose you. The people of this [World] chose you, like a jury under one sky.
They chose you to be the [Hero King]. They chose you to kill the [Demon King]. They chose you to—[Sacrifice].
"Terrifying, this power." Ye Weibai’s smile cooled, like a blade laid on ice. "So terrifying it churns the gut."
The power rose from grievance and vision, a smog of prayer and fear. In it, he tasted the shadow in countless hearts across the lands, like ash in tea.
To live, even if selfish as a rat. To fear their children dying to the [Demon King], like chicks under a hawk. To sincerely wish for peace, like lanterns on a river. Hearts weren’t all cruel, nor all cold. Yet in this one breath, they made the same choice, like reeds bending to one wind.
They chose Ye Weibai as [Hero King], and they chose to “have him kill Aerin.”
Mind pressed into matter like a seal into wax.
Ten thousand thoughts converged. They crossed a bottleneck like spring water breaking stone, and the power in him rose and cleared.
In the next blink, though he had been hammered thousands of meters deep, almost through the outer shell toward the liquid layer, Ye Weibai stood before the violet-haired girl, a gold spark in night.
[Voidwalk].
Light flared around him, gold as dawn over frost. Grime and filth blew off like chaff. His waist-slung sword howled free like a winter hawk and lunged for Aerin’s—[Its]—right heart.
The thrust ran like thunder. Speed and force both climbed more than tenfold, like rapids after rain.
Through the water screen, they saw only a streak of golden chill slice the Void, burning an afterimage like a scar across their retinas.
They flinched to close their eyes, like shutters in wind, yet forced them open. Joy barely rose like a spark, and despair drowned it like a bucket of ink.
The screen flickered. The scene leapt to cloudbanks thousands of meters up, a sea of cold wool.
Ye Weibai arced like a shrimp, spine hooked, spinning as he was blasted into the sky like a fired dart.
The violet-haired girl only let the corner of her mouth lift, a crescent like a knife.
A vast force slammed his abdomen like a hammer on a drum. He spat blood with a wet “wah,” a red flower in air. He shot up fast, smashed through the castle’s hard dome with a boom, and kept flying toward the sky’s edge like an arrow.
The speed cracked the air into a sonic bloom. The view reeled backward like a tide. Layered clouds shattered and rippled outward like rings in a lake.
Yet her voice threaded clear into his ringing ears, a silver needle through felt.
"How shallow."
Boom—!
A deafening blast rolled above Witchwood Forest like thunder ripping a mountain.
Ye Weibai didn’t pierce the [World] to drift in outer night. His back slammed a half-transparent membrane, thin as glass ice. Power burst from him as a center, streaming outward like rain-born shockwaves. Webbed cracks crawled across the barrier that wrapped the [X] World layer, like frost racing a window. He looked up. The sky seemed punched by a giant fist. Clouds blew clear, and ugly ice-vein lines scarred the blue.
Ye Weibai hung at the very heart of those lines, pinned by crushing force like a fly glued to a web.
The whole [World] went still.
Civilians froze like reeds in a hush. The barely-surviving clung on like moss. Even the stray things winging this way halted like dust in a sunbeam.
They all stood stunned by the violet-haired girl’s terrible, peerless power, a cliff face before a wave.
No one spoke. Only heavy, fear-thick breathing piled up like stones, a mountain on every chest, each rock etched with despair.
Then the violet-haired girl spoke.
Her voice fell from above like cold rain, indifferent, deep, and vast. Her red lips barely parted, yet the sound swept the [World] with one brush, like wind over wheat. Common folk heard only harsh static, like cicadas. Those who had crawled through thousands of [Cycles] heard every word like bells in snow.
"And then?"
As that voice fell, she stood before Ye Weibai, close as a shadow.
I came down. You had your way. And then?
"You humans never understand. You never grasp where our gap lies."
"It isn’t world against world, like stones across a river."
"It’s essence."
"In essence, you and I are as different as fire and water. That is the true ‘gap.’"
"And that ‘gap’ is a canyon you’ll never bridge, even with a thousand ropes."
"I thought you’d learn that, sooner or later, like winter teaching bare trees."
"But I still underestimated your stupidity, a fog that never lifts."
"Your so-called duty and justice, without power to bear them, are only suicide. You dress it up in heroic costume because the burden breaks your spine."
She raised a hand, slow as a falling feather. A slender, pale finger touched Ye Weibai’s brow, cool as moonlight.
"I only need a little pressure, and you die," she said, voice flat as steel.
…
…
