Stini jogged, her high-grade light armor whispering like a shadow folding into stone.

As the patrol neared, she slid down and hugged a house-corner, a leaf hiding under eaves.

She held her breath and watched a few minotaurs lumber past like oxen under a storm.

The Son of the Demon King recruits human vassals in the mortal world, like nets cast into a bright sea.

After conversion, mortals change a lot—ugly or unnaturally beautiful—because humans spring from an Ocean of Light.

Only when stained by the Ocean of Darkness do they warp, like silk dipped in ink.

But monsters are low-grade spawn of that Ocean of Darkness, reeds grown in black water.

They kneel by instinct to a higher-rank Son of the Demon King, moths to a darker flame.

When converted, they only take on the Son’s domain traits, lacquer on old wood.

These minotaurs had oversized genitals like swollen gourds, and their drool gleamed with a strange sheen, like oil on water.

The shine felt aphrodisiac, a spice in the air, yet nothing else about them changed.

Stini stared for a breath, a hawk narrowing its eyes, then remembered her true prey.

The Hero Academy and the outer city had fallen, a chessboard flipped.

Every room stood empty like shells at low tide.

“Where did they drag everyone to…”

She murmured, a reed in the wind, and sprinkled herself with a potion that masked her scent.

The lead minotaur twitched, a hound lifting its muzzle.

It bellowed once, a horn in fog, then began to drink in the air around it.

They say minotaurs smell keenly, but they’re meat-eaters; by rights, their own breath should knock them cold.

Her monster-ecology grade hadn’t passed, a clay pot with a crack.

Not important.

She trusted the masking potion, but for safety, she drew her Holy Sword, a moon pulled from its sheath.

Three seconds… no, two will do.

She measured the distance like a carpenter marking wood.

But no.

She couldn’t kill them.

If she blew her cover and the swarm came, even a Hero would get dragged under like a swimmer in riptide.

“If I’m found, there’s no choice. I’ll kill.”

She tightened on the hilt, a hand on warm iron, and flooded her body with mana, a tide through channels.

The ruby set in her Galewind gauntlet flashed with a thread of gold, lightning in a gem.

The minotaur drifted her way, uncertain, like a compass that wobbled.

Yes, it was her direction.

Thirty meters.

Twenty-five.

Twenty.

In that squeeze of danger, her heart calmed, a lake under frost.

She was born to battle, Hero bloodline forged for storm.

Her body muted nerves and gnawing fear, weeds cut at the root.

At fifteen meters, the minotaur stopped.

It snorted twice, like bellows.

Then it shook its head and left, a bull turning from a red cloth.

“Hah. Maybe that ‘stealth must fail’ trope isn’t law after all.”

She waited until the minotaurs vanished, then uncoiled from her corner like a cat from shadow.

She scanned left and right, stitching the patrol’s route onto her mind’s map.

She held the town’s map like childhood chalk lines—every road, every roof.

With that patrol added, her small head now carried a rough deployment of the Demon King Army, storm-lines drawn.

The tightest patrol hub usually marks the heart, a drum at the center of the parade.

“Good, that’s enough. One team from Lincoln Street to Florida Street. One on Ouchi Avenue… so the center is—”

The hottest spot of the Hero Academy in better days: the Goddess of Life Shrine.

“That fits. The tightest ring of spears.”

She dropped the twig she’d used to sketch on the dirt, a twig snapping like a thought.

She rose and looked two blocks out, gaze like an arrowhead.

Black clouds were drawing toward this city, a flock called by thunder.

Joy never lived here; the air itself felt bereaved.

Nothing had changed in the scenery, yet standing here, laughter died on the tongue.

She felt it: something nameless about to descend, a whale turning in deep black.

Her dad had spoken of it—the deepest darkness in the Demon Realm, the Malefic Abyss, root of all evil.

The wind on the street no longer smelled of summer; it carried rot, a cellar opened.

It scraped her throat, sand in a reed pipe.

“Cough. Is the Abyss’s erosion nearly done? Damn.

If the Hero Academy fully turns into the Demon Realm, that’s a joke no one can laugh at.

Cough… wait, that’s my wound?”

She rubbed the blood on her hand, a smear of dusk with a nauseating tang.

Gritty flecks clung to the red, ash in the river.

“The Abyss sharpened my injury?

It hasn’t fully descended, and it’s already biting like frost.

Dad was right—sneaking into the Demon King Castle isn’t a job for humans.”

She ran through the gaps in the patrols like thread through a loom.

Years of local life turned every possible hideout into a stepping stone toward her goal.

Her stealth was trained, a dancer’s silent steps, practiced and precise.

“Looks like all that sneaking practice to dodge Dad and go on dates actually paid off.

Turns out everything you do in life has meaning.”

She muttered nonsense to bleed off nerves, a kettle letting out steam.

At last, the shrine loomed, an island of marble.

“I still hate this place, even though I came here often.”

Her brows pinched, storm-lines on a smooth lake.

When the last bloodsucking banshee in the cordon turned its head, Stini burst from the grass, a hare bolting.

She landed on the parts of her body without armor, a cat on velvet.

She rolled without a sound past the line of alarm, a ripple under reeds.

After that, she only needed to creep to the main building, a moth slipping toward a lamp.

Few Sons of the Demon King would ignore a palace to camp on the lawn; vanity builds nests in spires.

She disliked the Goddess of Life Shrine, a place that meant a wound too deep to knit.

Her father, Augustus, guarded her safety like a wall of iron.

If she was gravely hurt, he wouldn’t let her out until every scar was gone.

By the way, Stini had dated plenty.

With men, it never went past free dinners and gifts, sweet wrappers in a pocket.

She kicked men often, and got dumped often, a coin flipping both ways.

For tiny-boyfriend dates, she was forced to memorize every sneak-out route and every lookout post in the shrine, cracks in clean stone.

Now she slipped through a small back window and dropped into the basement, a sparrow through a eave-gap.

“Lucky—no enemies. And supplies.”

It was a storeroom of HolyWater, every healing model, a glass garden under dust.

The enemy hadn’t noticed, a door left in shadow.

Stini pulled from memory, grabbed a few bottles for internal and external wounds, and drank, cool rivers down a dry gullet.

She couldn’t afford such high-grade HolyWater before, a beggar staring at jade bowls.

But Dad seemed to have a relationship with the shrine’s gorgeous high priestess (thirty, always in full vestments, sometimes spotted in plain clothes with Augustus).

So Stini enjoyed the high priestess’s Greater Heal, sunlight poured into bone.

Even without HolyWater, her recovery was quick as spring grass.

That, too, was one reason Mom, Ibera, went home, a storm leaving the house.

There were others: a mechanic in town (twenty-seven, cold beauty, only smiles when Augustus appears) always handed her piles of Balo cakes, sweet moons in paper.

A glamorous widow (thirty-two, husband died early, inherited title and fortune, whiles away days on hero novels) would sweep Stini into a lavish lunch and ask after the Hero, a fan clutching the stage.

A new female apprentice at the forge (twenty-three, worried about her future, shuts the shop for half a day when Augustus visits) kept her armor and weapons flawless with bright-eyed zeal, plus discounts, a smith’s kindness.

While slipping through enemy lines, Stini found herself agreeing with Mom’s anger, thunder rumbling in her chest.

But she also hated to lose the perks of this city, sugar she couldn’t spit out.

Not the time to think on it.

“Where are the captured students and civilians?”

She downed an invisibility potion sponsored by a friend, a cloak of glass.

She pushed the basement door and hunted the lower levels, a fox nosing tunnels.

Many rooms showed the marks of a search, drawers like ribs pried open.

But the Sanctuary of Life shouldn’t have prison space for that many souls.

Stini slid past a few banshees, a breeze ducking pillars, then aimed for the upper floor.

As her foot hit the stairs, dizziness crashed over her, a wave flipping a boat.

“What… is this?”

When her senses cleared, she was already on the first floor—no, she’d been transported, a chess piece moved by a hidden hand.

Huge.

That was her first impression of the shrine, a mountain wearing marble.

She’d never seen it this vast, and it looked holier and sterner than the old Sanctuary of Life, a temple polished by new gods.

She caught on quick.

Space magic at work, walls folded like paper.

“I wonder how Demonfolk magic differs from human craft.”

She turned a corner and froze, a bird hitting glass.

Below, a colossal hall sank into a circular pit like a pigpen for souls.

Countless humans were bound within, rings within rings, like tree growth rings laid bare.

Every person, man or woman, was stripped, faces flushed like ripened peaches.

They were latched to restraint frames, and no one was awake.

They all dreamed blush-worthy dreams, a whole field caught in fever.

Above the pit, on a second-tier altar—

Raven hung on a cross, mind clouded like fogged glass.

A few glassy-eyed girls stood by, sprinkling water over her, rain on a bud.

“That scent… HolyWater?”

So the basement stash wasn’t untouched; it was being used for ablutions, purity twisted like a white robe dragged in mud.

But why Raven?

HolyWater—pure, symbol of stainless light—splashed over Raven’s body, a flower bud on the verge of bloom.

A single thin veil soaked through and clung to her lines, dew hugging petals.

A faint red at her breast showed through, a cherry under frost.

There was no extra flesh; the Creator had carved her like perfect jade.

Each cold pour made her brows pinch, frost on porcelain.

She twisted against the chains, a swan caught in reeds.

Droplets beaded on skin like jade and slid down her legs in slow, sensual arcs, moonlight on a streambed.

The soaked veil added a hazy, taboo beauty, mist over a lake.

Her usual puffed-up scowl had melted into helplessness, which only made the forbidden allure sharper, a thorn with honey.

Sanctity and blasphemy coexisted, white and crimson braided.

In the shrine’s light, Raven was a saint offered up: beautiful, tempting, and helpless, like a candle before a storm.

Stini almost used a capture spell to snap a picture, a thief’s hand itching.

She held herself back, a bowstring refusing to loose.

She couldn’t save everyone, but she would save most, a vow pinned to her heart.

She knew what she wanted, a compass point that never wavered.

She drew her blade and rushed the altar, a gust up the steps.

She used the flat to knock out the girls controlled by the Son of the Demon King, wheat laid low.

With the Holy Sword, she sheared the chains, links snapping like ice.

She caught Raven as she fell and shook her hard, a bell rung to wake sleepers.

“Raven! Wake up! If you don’t, I’m taking nudes!”

“Mmh~ mm.”

Raven’s body was free, but her mind still drifted, a boat in fog.

She slid along Stini’s arm, looped her neck, and kissed her hard, a stamp of heat.

“Smooch~”

“Mm—hey, I’m happy you’re kissing me, but this isn’t the moment. Wake up.”

Stini gently pushed her off, a palm against a tide.

Raven seemed to find kissing not enough.

She pressed her whole body to Stini’s, moving up and down, searching for deeper sparks like a moth nosing flame.

This time Stini yanked her away without mercy and pinched her nose, a firm clamp on a faucet.

“I don’t object, but now really isn’t the time. We’ll do this after we win.

Was it Andor who said you must never say that, or always say that?

Can’t remember. Not important. Just wake up!”

“Mm—ah. Huh? Stini? Weren’t I supposed to be…”

“On the Ironwood Forest field assignment.

Which means the Demonfolk hit Ironwood Forest too?”

“Uh, after I got caught…”

“Listen to me. Gather materials. Speedrun alchemy.

Crank out combat Constructs and weapons.

Free the people below.

We need the whole flock stronger, or we won’t get out.”

Stini stared at Raven…

At the red dot on her chest, a berry on snow.

“You—”

“Go. Do it. I’ll hold the door till you’re done.

Hurry. I might not last long.”

Stini wiped the sudden trickle from her nose, a hot line, and stood.

She gripped the Holy Sword and walked to the front doors, a sentinel under storm.

She shouted:

“Come out. I know you’re there.

Thanks for waiting this long.”

The main gate slid open. A sanctified man in a priest’s cassock strolled in, lazy-faced, like moonlight drifting over an altar.

“Oh? You noticed? I meant to wait till you finished talking before making my entrance.”

“Thanks, but I don’t need your pity. If you want Raven, you’ll have to step over my cor—”

Stini didn’t finish. A knife-hand lunged in and cut her words clean.

Golden petals burst like sparks from a sacred brazier. Stini braced her sword with everything, yet she staggered back.

“Since you neither need nor will thank my goodwill, let’s skip to the fight, cutie. You may call me Master, or His Majesty Yakfarro.”

He stayed holy and elegant, like a smiling statue in a storm.

Damn it—power like a tide, speed like a lightning strike. He’s in the Godspeed Realm. Stini’s jaw tightened, her thoughts a drumbeat.

I can only step there through a secret sword. That means no time to counterattack, and even defense is shaky.

Time is what I need to buy. I’m wounded. Victory isn’t on the table.

He looks like the leader. He’s still fighting up front, not calling in grunts.

Good. If he split his forces and hit Raven, whose combat Construct isn’t ready, we’d be ruined.

Stini lifted her guard, setting the Hero’s defensive secret sword—“Empty Valley.”

The gentleman smiled. “Have you decided?”

“I have.”

“Then, are you ready?”

“Come on. Careful, I might kill you.”

“Good. Unlike you, I absolutely won’t kill you.”

Yakfarro vanished, like a candle’s flame snuffed by wind.

It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine.

He only stepped into the Godspeed Realm. It’s normal I can’t see him. As long as the secret sword can hold.

“This body is forged of iron—”

Iron Fortification. Her flesh took on iron’s bite, like winter running in her veins.

“This valiant form won’t wither on a sickbed—”

War God Unparalleled. Her reactions leapt, a war drum under her skin.

It’ll work, as long as he attacks through the Godspeed Realm—

Shnk—

Yakfarro bloomed into being behind her. His hand speared through her flank. Blood poured like a torn wineskin.

No organs hit. But blood loss drained her strength like an ebbing tide.

“H-how… how is that possible…”

“Stini, you can be my queen consort. I’ll tell you more in time.” Yakfarro took her hand and dragged her, strolling toward trembling Raven like a wolf to a lamb. “But now it’s time to savor my queen. She didn’t become the most delicious, but thanks to you, the current Raven has a different flavor.”

“I’ll let you and Raven witness the most wonderful thing in this world. Watch closely. Banshee, hold her eyes open. Don’t let them close.”

He undressed with perfect grace, silk slipping from a branch, yet the air reeked of rot.

Behind Stini, the banshee’s hiss rose like rust on a blade. She didn’t shut her eyes for a pointless struggle.

A loss is a loss. She wasn’t the type to throw a fit. Regret only that she failed to save the suffering.

Death or defilement—she’d long made peace with either.

“Let me go! Let—mmph…”

“Relax and enjoy it, Raven. You’ll hurt less.”

Sorry, Raven. I gave you hope, and I couldn’t keep it lit to the end.

But I still miss that guy. If only he’d step out of that Shadow and save me.

Ha. Even a Hero carrying everyone’s hopes still hopes for someone else.

She laughed freely in despair, like a bell chiming in a storm.

“Yakfarro! Go to hell!”

A cocky voice barged into her despair like a thrown stone skipping the surface.

A man burst from the Shadow. He raised his Greatsword and cut once.

The blow hurled Yakfarro to the far end of the shrine, a leaf in a gale. He casually cut down the banshee behind Stini, like snuffing a candle.

He pulled a heap of alchemy materials from the Shadow and tossed them to Raven. He fished out two bottles of HolyWater and threw them to Stini.

I knew it. This guy would come back.

“Yo. Tables turned. Adorable ladies, I’m here to save you.”

“You bastard, you’re late, Andor.”

Stini was laughing through tears, her feelings the mirror of moments ago. Choking up, she got the words out.