As he said it, the Demon King’s heart drummed like a trapped bird, beak knocking against his ribs. He could already see it: the girl cracking under his words, tears shining like rain on blossoms, drowning him in a storm of blows, before he told her the bleak truth—here in the Land of the Dead, the dead don’t die again.

Ahh—thinking of it sent pleasure down to the marrow, like hot wine on a winter night. Better than sex by a thousand tides, this act of pushing a doll to despair with his own hands…

“Could you stop daydreaming? I’m standing right here, Mr. De-mon-king.”

Aphelia didn’t rage; she smiled, bright as a blade in sun, and slung an arm over her old enemy’s shoulder. Flecks of Crimson Flame lit at her fingertips, a candle’s breath from his face.

“Aphelia, what’s this supposed to be, a threat?”

The Demon King’s voice iced over, wind off a glacier. His narrow eyes showed the beast beneath, the butcher of the battlefield stepping out of smoke again.

“Yep. I’m threatening you. Got a problem with that?”

Still smiling, Aphelia pinched that Crimson Fire and fed it toward his neck. Burnt hair curled in the air like incense ash on a shrine breeze.

They faced off, neither yielding, two swords point to point. The Demon King even had power gathering at his side, like thunder in a shut sky… right up until the Crimson Fire kissed skin.

“Ow—ow—ow! Lady Aphelia, please let go! Spare my miserable life!”

“Spare you?”

Aphelia snorted, gaze flat as a cleaver. “Aren’t you already dead? You still fear death?”

At that, the Demon King flailed, hands and feet scrambling like a crab on hot rock. “Not just the dead. The living fear your flame too! The Primordial Flame—anything it burns gets erased from existence!”

“Oh?”

Aphelia smiled and drew back the Crimson Fire. In its place, a wall of heat roared up around them, a red tide hemming them in.

“Then you’d better explain, word for word, without a drop spilled.”

So, under Aphelia’s “persuasive” weather, they sat on the floor beside the throne. The Demon King began explaining to save his skin, voice a steady drizzle.

“Starting from the top’s too much. You ask. I answer. Quicker that way.”

Aphelia nodded once. Uroboros and Odin were still missing, like stars behind storm-clouds. Wrap this up, then hunt them down.

“Start with this. Why did you lead the demon legions to invade the human world? I’m truly curious. If the culprit can explain, all the better.”

She’d turned that thorn over and over. By reason alone, the demons had no need to invade. Their lands were vast. Their stores were rich. Their tech and might outpaced humanity’s by a mile. If it was expansion, the Abyss and the crown princes’ infighting were blades at their throats already. If it was colonization, not fielding your top strength from the first step made no sense. Past invasions showed void warships at best, and “elites” under the Titleholder line…

After she reached the Demon World, the mismatch only gnawed deeper.

“That one’s simple. When war breaks out, who’s first to become the axis of it?”

“…Me?”

“Bingo.” He snapped his fingers, a spark in dry grass. “At the start, your church put a laurel on you. They crowned you Hero.”

“Hero, huh… So even Lena had paved the road for you before the invasion started?”

Aphelia frowned in thought, the line fitting like a key in a lock.

“Exactly. Your church—under Sigdrifa’s infiltration—the core members were swapped out by demons long ago. The rest was slow rot and patient poison. Frankly, even if we sent forces just at your threshold, the war was over from the first move.”

If that was true, the war in the human world was lost at dawn. The nations aside, the church that linked them had already decayed from within. Aphelia could recall a dozen decisive battles, the church’s so-called selfless aid. Now, bile rose like smoke from a burned pot.

In that so-called Hero party, Lena’s motives were muddy from the start. Yi was a plant from Shilwen’s side. Phoenix betrayed for no clear reason. Only Augustus seemed an innocent dragged into the net.

“So it was lost when it began…”

A heavy sigh slipped out, like wind through old pines. She knew it was truth, but being the one inside the flame still stung.

“But you were a variable. A stone skipping outside the current. Early on, we were shocked too. Maybe because you carried traces of two gods. In scenes where death was certain, we didn’t intervene, and you made miracles.”

The Demon King shook his head, rueful as dusk. He didn’t rate her low; not as one of the hands behind the plot. Watching miracle after miracle flower would soften even him.

“The war was meant to raise you. At least get you strong enough to stand alone before you entered the Demon World. But you—by your own strength—you even knocked the plan off rhythm. I should applaud.”

“Thanks for the compliment… Now stick to the point.”

“Right, right…”

Cowled by her smile like a drawn bow, he stopped drifting. Sensing her mood curdle, he didn’t dare ramble.

“You said the war’s purpose was to raise me. Explain.”

Aphelia cut straight to the throat, not giving him time to fog the air.

“Your body used Brynhildr’s gene—call it a human’s unique imprint—and was infused with Sigdrifa’s power. How could that power mature in a mere dozen years?”

He tossed the question back like a hot coal. To him, it sounded obvious as daylight.

“How do you prove it?”

“I can’t. Here in the Land of the Dead, I’m just one more dead soul. How do I prove anything?”

That turnabout jammed her tongue, a pebble in the reed flute. This was the realm Odin spoke of, the Land of the Dead, a field with no time. By one reading, meeting the Demon King here meant this was the world Aphelia belonged to. No living had been here. Who knew the rules written in this cold sky?

Aphelia exhaled, face dark as soot. Being kept in the dark, led by the nose—this is the kind of thing that drives people to the cliff edge.

“…You’d better not be lying. So the war that engulfed the human world aimed to grow the power in me, to prep for Sigdrifa’s possession.”

“Exactly. Especially after you reached the Demon World, your strength leapt again. Didn’t you feel how abnormal the pace was? Under a year to become a True God. Your domain wasn’t even formed. You were propped up by Titleholder force alone.”

These doubts had gnawed at Aphelia for a long time, like worms in a beam. Hearing them laid out now, she wondered if past-her had been too sunny by half. But then, life and death were a knife at her back, and revenge a star ahead. The hunger for power had taken root in her bones, shaping her choices without asking.

“Yeah, not normal. But if I’d had time to dwell on it, I’d have died to your people already. No story to tell. Since we’re on it—your loss to me, that was also planned? And the heart you swapped into me…”

She saw the not-quite-smile on his face and knew.

“So…”

“So, I only sent that so-called ‘heart’ to the human world to trigger your bloodline. It wasn’t a heart. It was pure Aether crystal.”

At that, even Aphelia felt hollow wind in her chest. She’d been made as a vessel. She’d climbed from weak to strong step by step. And the life she held was a staged play. Anyone would question why they exist.

Only Lilo remained, a warm ember cupped in both hands.

“You don’t have to look so crushed. I’m telling you all this, and I’m not standing with Sigdrifa’s camp.”

The Demon King patted her shoulder, a dry leaf on a still pond. That stopped Aphelia cold. She pressed in at once.

“You executed Sigdrifa’s plan. Yet you’re not on her side?”

“Of course not. If I were in her camp, I’d already have been fished out of the Land of the Dead. Would you still get to threaten me?”