"I don't know… things like that sit too far on the horizon. All I want is to grow strong, a windbreak for the people at my side. Your vow is too far away; I can’t grasp it."
Aphelia answered in a low voice like frost-bitten wind. Those two goddesses lived beyond the mortal world, like peaks above the clouds; she couldn’t guess them, and she wouldn’t try.
As if he’d expected her reply, the Demon King chuckled. Then he laughed openly, rough and unbridled. His dim eyes, like lamps guttering in rain, welled with tears on their own.
"Reaper, get out here! This time, I won!"
At last he roared, no awe-inspiring Arcane Power in the voice, no thunder to sway crowds—just the stubborn howl of a wounded beast, fierce and final.
His cry shook the vaulted dome. It collapsed completely, and starlight spilled down like a river, flooding the barren palace. Standing there felt like drifting in an endless sea of stars.
"Reaper? What Reaper?!"
Her question got its answer fast. The palace doors pushed open. Along with a tide of shadow, a figure in a ragged cloak stepped into view.
He—or she—looked like a weathered traveler who’d walked deserts and rain. The cloak was torn to threads, yet it covered them whole, a silhouette of a person with nothing else exposed to Aphelia’s eye.
Even with his sight gone dark, the Demon King felt the arrival like a cold hand on flame.
"Reaper, the 108,941st time—and I still won!"
His tone held the bold chill of one marching into death with a smile.
The cloaked Reaper paced forward. From beneath the cloak, they drew a pocket watch with two faces opposed like day and night. They stopped before the Demon King and spoke in a voice hollow as a bell in mist.
"You won. By our pact, I take your last shred of humanity."
"Wait!"
The word tore out of Aphelia. She felt death’s presence like ice in marrow, yet she still stepped in and raised her voice.
The hooded figure turned. The gaze beneath the hood was fathomless, an abyss behind gauze. That cold cut her to the bone; her throat seized. Even so, she moved to stand in front of the Demon King.
"What is this? He clearly won. Why strip away his humanity?"
"Exchange."
The cloaked silhouette spoke coldly, airy and without feeling.
"Exchange what?"
Aphelia tried to press, but the Demon King caught her arm, his grip like rain-soaked vine.
"Trade you out, of course. Do you think someone who reforged a soul and cast it into the Primordial Flame can leave the Land of the Dead unscathed? Your sea of consciousness is shattered—that means you’ve died more times than you can count."
He smiled as he spoke. He tried to rise, but on that desolate throne, pale vines sprouted and coiled up his limbs, binding him tight like winter roots.
"Wait—wait, we’re sworn enemies! Even if you trade me out, Sigdrifa can’t touch me now…"
"So? I said I’m not on Sigdrifa’s side. Honestly—get your body back as a woman and your thoughts reset to a schoolgirl’s?"
The Demon King gave a wry smile. Aphelia flushed; she lifted a hand to strike, then let it fall like a leaf that lost its wind.
"Give me a little time, Reaper. Call it a reward for playing this game with you the 108,941st time."
The cloaked figure stayed silent. They stepped back, and with one simple motion held the tide of shadow behind them like a moon holding back a night sea.
"Thank you… Then, Aphelia, after this meeting, we truly won’t meet again."
"Heh… I was your mortal foe. Now you want to leave me your last words?"
Aphelia smiled and shook her head. Seeing him bound in vines and starlight, she calmed, half in mockery, half in self-mockery, like a mirror catching rain.
"Of course. Time’s short. Don’t lose yourself on your road. However bleak the future, don’t forget the priceless fact that you’re human."
What kind of last words are these…
Aphelia bit her lip. Anger rose like fire through ice—why thrust such sudden sacrifice onto her?
He pushed her aside gently and nodded toward the cloaked Reaper.
"One last thing. Keep traveling, and you’ll learn why I existed today. Don’t hand the world to a lunatic like Sigdrifa."
The moment the words fell, space beside the Reaper ripped open with a harsh whoosh, like silk torn in winter wind. Before Aphelia could react, it yanked her from the barren palace. In a blink, only the cloaked Reaper and the Demon King remained.
"Cough… ha. So waiting here for the 108,941st choice, crossing inverted time like a crooked river—turns out I was right."
Satisfied, the Demon King gazed up at the bright starfield, speaking as if to the constellations.
The Reaper took out the pocket watch and laid it on his brow like a cold coin on flame.
"Even if the future won’t remember you?"
The airy voice carried a thin edge of ridicule, like frost beneath a smile.
"Ah… even if I’m never remembered."
He didn’t hesitate. The Reaper’s lips curved in a cold smile. She shook her head and pointed at the still-trembling rift where Aphelia had vanished.
"You watched 108,941 shifts in world-lines. So many paths—why choose her from this one?"
He laughed, head tilted, eyes full of mischief, like a fox in snow.
"Reaper of the Coffin, has time stretched so long you’ve forgotten what human feeling is?"
"Does that matter?"
The reply was glacial. She flicked the watch open. The hands began to turn, like stars in a dim clock.
As the hands moved, black souls shuffled forward, forming a ring around the Demon King. Frost spread over him, layer by layer, like winter claiming a field.
"I saw more than a hundred thousand lines. Some brutal, some craven. Some stronger than this Aphelia, some kinder. Yet every one burned away her humanity for a god’s power."
"Those Aphelias—I sacrificed my own humanity to send them back. The result was plain. As a Reaper, you’ve seen it clearly."
The Reaper’s hand stilled. The gaze beneath the hood pinned him like a spear. He didn’t flinch; the corner of his mouth lifted like a blade.
Silence held for a long breath. Then the cloaked Reaper spoke.
"Without exception, they all destroyed everything."
"Hahahahahahaha!"
His laughter surged, wild as storm. Even so, the Reaper didn’t anger. She stopped the watch and moved it aside, like setting down a heavy stone.
The black souls withdrew like a tide receding. The frost on him did not melt.
She lifted her hood. Beneath it was no skull, no legend’s ancient sage.
She was a brown-skinned woman with an ordinary face, more common than common, save for eyes drained of color like snowed-over lakes. Without the hood, no one would guess she was the Reaper ruling the Land of the Dead.
"You’re that certain she won’t choose ruin?"
Her voice stayed cold, but the edge had turned to thought, like steel laid on velvet.
"Whether she turns to ruin—you know. Reaper of the Land of the Dead, Brynhildr’s keeper of the coffin—your eyes aren’t blind. If you can’t see Aphelia’s ending, you wouldn’t ask me."
She didn’t answer him directly. She raised her chin to the blazing stars, fell into quiet thought, then spoke.
"Demon King, after all our long wars, you truly believe Aphelia can cross ages and end this sorrowful cycle?"
Her dim eyes seemed to gather starlight, a galaxy settling on still water.
He shook his head, then nodded, like a tree bending and righting in wind.
"I can’t be sure of her future. But if you can’t see her end, that means she’s the single hope in 108,941 tries."
A faint smile touched her lip. She turned back to him, set the pocket watch on his brow once more, and moved its hands without pause.
"If so, then for that one hope, exchange me your last humanity. Even if the world forgets you, I’ll inscribe you at its ending."
"Ha, better not. Being written at the ending is never a good way to go."
With his final laugh, pure white light poured from the watch. Under that light, his body drifted into ash, scattering from the desolate throne like dust in star-wind.
When all was done, the brown-skinned woman put the watch away with care. She drew up her hood and took his place on the barren throne, a shadow beneath the starlit dome.
Aside from that sea of stars, nothing in the Land of the Dead remained to prove the Demon King had ever been.
