Crimson Flame and sea-blue Thunder whispered across her fingertips like twin fireflies. Once she felt her power untouched, Aphelia pushed the sun-gold doors and peered into the dark.

"How...?"

Cold shock hit like river water as the doors yawned. Aphelia froze mid-breath.

She spun toward the outside; the world there still bloomed like lantern-lit festival. Cheers, laughter, and salute cannons braided into a bright river of sound.

Yet the palace that boomed even louder didn’t match what she heard. The hall howled like a market, while the space lay empty, barren as wind-scoured stone.

Against the glossy splendor outside, the gold-and-jade within showed a ruin sanded by years; still the uproar rolled like surf on rock.

Instinct clawed at her to slam the doors. The whiplash contrast reeked of sorcery; any sober mind would smell the trap a mile off.

However—

"I really am bent on courting death, aren’t I."

With a wry smile like cracked porcelain, Aphelia stepped into the desolate hall and drew the gilded doors shut, sealing them like a coffin lid.

A thorny hunch pricked—if she didn’t look, she’d regret it for life. The world, cruel as a tide, proved her right.

"Well, well—if it isn’t Ophelius. It’s been ages—so long I’ve lost count."

From the barren throne, a figure Aphelia knew by heart descended, palms clapping like dry leaves. A taunting smile curled; a chill seeped out like night fog.

"Demon King?!!!"

She stared at the young man on the throne, disbelief cracking her voice like lake ice.

"What, seeing me here is rare? Ophelius—no, I should call you Miss Aphelia now, shouldn’t I?"

He measured her like a collector savoring a piece of art; his gaze trespassed, yet his poise stayed elegant, high and cold as a cliff. He watched like a hunter admiring prey, dreamy until the trap’s teeth closed.

Be afraid. Regret it. Cower beneath your own ignorance.

The more you fear, the more I thrill, poor little Hero.

Watching Ophelius’s—no, Aphelia’s—shaking frame, the Demon King’s smile sharpened like a knife. He waited for the moment her mind would crack. The sweet fruit hung before him, and joy beat against his ribs like caged wings.

So he left the desolate throne, plucked a ghostly violet that had clawed up through a stone crack, and stopped before Aphelia.

"Don’t you want to know why you went to the Demon World, why you ran into Sigdrifa?"

At the words, Aphelia trembled harder, emotions swelling like a storm tide against a dam.

Yes. Yes. Just like that.

This slow-roasting pain tastes awful, doesn’t it? Choosing between reason and rage burns like a brand, doesn’t it?

As the source of Aphelia’s tragedy, the Demon King looked delighted, a vulture circling a stag. He didn’t mind grinding her defenses to dust. Give him a chance, and he’d drop the final straw without blinking.

Aphelia shook more; power seeped around her like heat haze, only to be forced down hard. The sight pinched his eyes into slits of laughter.

He leaned to her ear, voice soft and honeyed, a velvet blade. "I know everything about you, because I let myself die by your hand, just to drag you into this hell."

Saying it, his heart hammered like a drum. He could already see the girl shatter under his words, cry like rain on petals, then drown him in a storm of blows—only for him to tell her the truth, that in the Land of the Dead, the dead won’t die again.

Ahhh—just thinking about it sent pleasure to the bone, sweeter than sex by a thousandfold, that feeling of breaking a doll with your own hands—

"Mind cutting the fantasies? I’m standing right here, Mr. Demon King."

Aphelia laughed instead of raging, slung an arm around her old nemesis like an old friend, and lit a pinch of Crimson Flame at her fingertips. It hovered an inch from his cheek, a red star about to fall.

"Aphelia, what is this—threatening me?!"

He barked the words with winter-cold breath. His eyes narrowed to feral slits; the butcher of the battlefield loomed back up like a blood moon.

"Yeah. I’m threatening you. Got a problem?"

Still beaming like a blade catching sun, Aphelia pinched a bead of Crimson Fire and pressed it to his neck. The air filled with the scent of singed hair, sharp as burnt feathers.

They locked there, neither yielding, two blades in a held breath. The Demon King even kept a show of spine; a power stirred around him like distant Thunder—right up until the Crimson Fire bit flesh.

"Ow, ow, ow! Miss Aphelia, please let go—spare my life!"

"Spare you?"

Aphelia looked him over like he’d grown a second head and snorted, cold as frost. "Aren’t you already dead? You still fear death?"

At that, the Demon King flailed with hands and feet, shaking his head so fast it blurred. "Dead or alive, anyone should fear that flame! The Primordial Flame—whatever it burns gets erased, wiped from existence!"

"Oh?"

Aphelia smiled and drew back the Crimson Fire. In its place, a wall of heat roared up around them like a living furnace.

"Then you’d better explain, every last word."

So, under Aphelia’s gentle violence, they sat on the floor beside the throne like gamblers on cold stone, and the Demon King began to explain for dear life.

"If I start from scratch, it’ll take forever. Why don’t you ask, and I’ll fill in the blanks."

He flicked a hand, casual as tossing a pebble into a pond.

She’d heard from those powerhouses that this vessel plan wasn’t cooked up overnight. If she waited for the Demon King to lay out every cog and wheel, days would bleed away. Besides, Uroboros and Odin were still gods-knew-where; she needed to wrap this and hunt them down.

"Then start here. Back then, why did you lead the demon host in a full-scale invasion of the human world? I’ve been itching to know. Hearing it from the man himself is best."

Aphelia thought it over and decided to cut this knot first.

Whichever way she sliced it, the demons had no reason to invade. Their lands were vast, their stores abundant, their tech and power ahead of the human world. If it was about expansion, the Abyss and crown-prince infighting were fires at their door.

If it was colonization, why not field their top force from the jump? In the early wars, the demons showed only void warships, baseline tech. Their so-called elites were below Titleholder tier.

After she reached the Demon World, these red flags kept buzzing like flies in her skull.

"That one’s simple. When war breaks, who becomes the core first?"

"...Me?"

"Bingo." He snapped his fingers; the sound popped like a spark. "At the start, your precious Church hoisted you up as the Hero, didn’t they?"

"Hero, huh... So including Lena, you’d paved the road even before the invasion began, hadn’t you?"

Aphelia nodded, thoughtful as a monk by a bell. It fit, grim as rain.

"Exactly. Your Church—under Sigdrifa’s infiltration—the core members had long been replaced. The rest was slow rot. Frankly, even if we only committed forces you could barely handle, that war was over on day one."

If the Demon King spoke true, the human world had lost the moment the drums started.

Never mind the nations; the Church that linked them had rotted from the heart. Aphelia could recall a string of crucial battles, the Church’s so-called selfless aid—each now stank like spoiled meat.

In that so-called Hero party, Lena’s motives were tainted from the start. Yi was a plant for Shilwen. Phoenix turned his cloak for no reason worth spit. Only Augustus, maybe, was the poor fool dragged along.

"So we were doomed from the first stroke of war..."

Aphelia let out a long breath, heavy as rain. She knew it was true, but being the one who lived it still knotted her chest.

"But you were a variable—one that laughed at common sense. Early on, we were startled too. Maybe it’s because you carry traces of those two gods. In battles where death was certain and we didn’t touch a thing, you made miracles."

The Demon King shook his head, a rueful tilt like wind in grass. His regard for Aphelia wasn’t small; as one of the architects behind the curtain, even he had to marvel watching miracle after miracle bloom.

"Originally, the war was meant to raise you up—to make you someone who could stand alone before you entered the Demon World. But you? On your own strength, you even scrambled the plan for a time. For that, I have to applaud."