“Then—the final prep countdown,” her voice falling like a gavel.

Like a Daemon toying with lives, she handed out despair like a noose tightening on the last breath.

But Alicia wasn’t here as a Reaper to take Rafi’s life—more like an angel with a thorned crown; Rafi’s life meant nothing to her, only the world’s pain did.

So—innocent, she ruled, like a judge stamping a cold seal.

“Three—”

Alicia called herself blameless inside, yet Rafi felt heaven close like pale silk curtains, and the cruelest angel’s method for dealing with a Daemon iced her bones.

“Two—”

She lashed a kick at Alicia’s knee like a trapped deer, but a thin red aura bloomed like a veil and drank in all her force.

Refusing to yield, she left the ground and hung like a glitch in Newton’s laws, then windmilled both feet in a storm of stamps.

Face, chest, belly—every opening she could reach, she tested like a rain of pebbles; the red film felt everywhere, like skin stretched over the world.

Each contact only raised ripples like a pond stirred by rain; beyond that, nothing changed.

“One!”

The count wasn’t a joke. On the last syllable, Alicia’s hand muscles coiled like springs, and that coiled force clamped Rafi’s hand like an iron vise.

Then… she squeezed, hard, like a press crushing green cane.

Had she used the uninjured hand, the Demon King’s iron body could’ve tanked it, maybe even turned it, like steel under a hammer.

But the arm Ling had torn earlier was doomed; unknit muscle was crushed, the scab ripped like old paint, and arm-pain knifed deeper than heartbreak.

When pain turns true, even tears dig hard; it crawls like ugly maggots, chewing the heart to pulp.

Rafi tasted that truth; the wound’s pain swelled beyond reason. Before, a pierced stomach barely drew a frown; now it felt wrong, like a compass spinning.

“So… it hurts…” she breathed, a leaf in a cold wind.

Nerves forced themselves to knit like fraying threads, and her main mind surfaced like a drowning swimmer breaking black water.

From beastlike roars to human words—that alone was progress, like dawn edging a long night. A little more would do.

Seeing it, Alicia tightened her grip, pouring in all she’d trained with Remi, like deadlifting road rollers under a red sky.

Spend today’s strength, borrow tomorrow’s, mortgage every future dawn—drag the river of time into this one moment.

Rejoice, a power braided from past, present, and future, vaulting time like a comet and—

Krrr-crack! (bone out of joint), a dry branch snapping in winter.

Alicia paused, then glanced at the arm in her grip, calm as a knife above a board.

The scarred arm had “put on” a glove woven from its own blood; a blood-thread hung from the limp fingertips, and the floor below bloomed like spilled ink.

“Ah-la-la-la…” A wry sound slipped out, like a sparrow scolding itself.

Realizing she’d messed up, she drew back, sheepish as a cat, but first rammed the joint back in place like a mallet finding its peg.

Bone torn by force, set by force—could that ever be fine, like a warped door slammed shut?

“Aaaaaaah!” The scream split the air like a steam whistle through frost.

Who knew why the pain lagged so long; only after Alicia finished and stepped back several meters like a shadow retreating did Rafi finally howl.

And that howl went past heart-rending; like glass scraped with a penknife beside you while you pry off your own nails—both together, maybe thirty percent of her pain.

For no clear reason, Alicia felt she’d blundered badly; making Rafi bear this out of nowhere felt cruel, like salting a fresh wound.

Or should this count as punishment for back then—long ago—and when Rafi recovered, call it even, like debts scored and burned?

That thought worked like a balm; guilt and shame thinned like mist, and she quit chewing it.

“Aaaahhhhh!” The wail rolled on like gray surf.

Hiding in the hole he’d drilled like a nervous mole, Gill tensed, eyes flicking.

“Hey! Make her stop yelling! My device’s acting up!” His voice rattled like loose nails in a can.

The “device” was that small wooden box used on Rafi earlier; its surface now spiderwebbed with cracks like ice on a puddle.

The longer Rafi howled, the wider they crept, like drought fissures; if she kept on, the box would fail for sure.

That’s why Gill wanted Alicia to stop her, but Rafi had no love for this “king,” a thorn you’d best not touch.

And now he ordered Alicia around; her mood darkened like a thunderhead piling up.

“Hey! I’m here to save her, not to cater to you,” she said, voice flat as a blade. “Like if a bear had you in its claws and you wanted me to save you without scuffing the hide—I’d aim at your head first.”