In the official chronicles of the Silver Era, it begins with Andor, the Demon King’s firstborn, leading other demon princes into the mortal realm.

They moved like winter wolves through lambing fields—killing, conquering, swelling armies. As usual, that drew a Hero: Augustus Saya.

After that, the script broke, because I killed Augustus.

In the records, Andor was arrogant, unfamiliar with mortal champions. When Augustus came, he only thought, huh, this guy’s a bit strong.

And, weird—why doesn’t my Authority Domain work on him. We fought for real, steel against storm, and I still won.

Then I turned him into a Headless Knight, a midnight charger without a head—strong, hero-tier material.

Since he wasn’t willing when he entered the Ocean of Darkness, he was weaker than Augustus at his peak.

Though I don’t plan to poke Stini with that stick anymore, back then she grieved to madness.

She brought her team to raid me. I was drained after fighting Augustus, and demon princes can’t recover mana in the mortal realm.

So I sent the freshly-made Headless Knight to meet them.

In grief, Stini cut down the Headless Knight built from Augustus’s corpse and took back the holy spear Thousand Gallop.

Then she ran into Vega and lost, badly wounded, escaped. From then on, Andor and Stini were mortal enemies.

Honestly, I was just recycling a body, waste not, want not. But that pulled a long chain of consequences.

Blame Haydon.

Cough. Moving on.

When Andor amassed enough troops, the Ocean of Darkness recognized him. He ascended to full Demon King—thus the reign of Demon King Andor.

Stini and her Hero Squad then fought a stream of wars, banners whipping like storm flags.

The retreat at Beatrice, royal capital of the Country of Azure Wind. The surprise strike on the Mechanized Mirrorworld Obelisk.

The border defense of the Iron Kingdom Colonna. The grand melee in Skyward City Atlante.

One third of those messes were my doing. One third came from that relative holding the Authority of Slaughter. The rest were Golden Era leftovers.

These days being a Hero isn’t easy. If you reward by merit, a Hero could empty a kingdom’s treasury.

If you don’t, others who bled feel wronged. Even fallen soldiers get pensions.

So the world settled on this: the greatest Hero who saved us marries a princess. Everyone else gets standard rewards.

After all, love is priceless. Smile.

Years later came the crescendo. Stini and her team grew stronger fight by fight.

They sealed Andor’s generals and maids one after another, so Andor couldn’t recall or revive his dependents—isolated, alone.

When Andor moved personally to unseal them, the Hero Squad sprung an ambush.

All the big moves I mentioned earlier fell like thunderheads.

Void-Null Annihilation Magecannon. Demon Slaying Sword Gloria. Perfect-form Hero. Creator’s Host. Surekill Arrows.

However—

Andor didn’t die.

He could be wounded, but not killed. Sealing failed too.

Ordinary Demon Kings have significant immortality, but Andor was abnormal among abnormals. No matter what, he wouldn’t die.

In the end, the squad’s Divine Healer—not Elina, a man serving the God of Strength—sacrificed himself.

His soul pierced the Demon King’s Authority Domain and reached a Divine Being.

The God of Strength Bell struck Andor straight into the Demon Realm, invoking the primal covenant between gods and demons.

A Demon King who falls into the Demon Realm cannot invade the mortal world again. That bound him away.

That was mid-Silver: the Andor era.

The next time history puts me center stage is late Silver: the Endless Demon King Andreas.

By then the Hero wasn’t Stini. She and the other short-lived folk in her team had died of old age.

The familiar face I met after was Princess Golia.

She didn’t die, didn’t even get hurt, and fought like a typhoon. She gave Andreas no end of trouble, so she stuck in my mind.

During the interlude, I kept killing demonfolk in the Demon Realm.

Because I discovered I could absorb other Demon Kings’ Authority Domains for myself.

I was lonely, missing my old vassals, too impatient, and didn’t notice the mental shift brought by this seeming protagonist halo.

Late Silver, Andreas went berserk.

He slaughtered the demonfolk, devoured every negative Authority Domain, became the Ocean of Darkness made flesh.

He dragged the whole Demon Realm from the Arctic Tundra up into the mortal realm and warred with mortals and Divine Beings.

In the haze, Andreas didn’t sense the Authority Domain for killing Divine Beings had gone missing.

So when the last Wisdom God Haydon died, the Eternal God Feriel descended on behalf of the Ocean of Light.

Following Haydon’s wish, Feriel and Andreas fell together into the place of ending, becoming the foundation for mortal fecundity, returning authority to humankind.

Then came the Bronze Era, the Black Iron Era, the Clay Era.

After that, I snuck back. That’s all. Nothing special.

We can skim the official settings and start from the return to the past. Feels like I’m the novel’s protagonist, right?

Actually, the protagonist is Haydon.

Everything moves toward what He wants. Even with no proof He did it, outcomes line up with His goals.

It feels like both Andor and Andreas were caught in His calculations, the world’s flow within Haydon’s plan.

Owners of fate and foresight are basically the ban-hammer wielders of reality.

Haydon’s version is top-tier, lucid, zero side effects. That’s why I say life’s a trash game.

When Haydon saw reality diverging from the futures He observed, He knew I was back.

Because only four beings can alter a written timeline.

First, the Time God Tim. His duty is guarding stability. Unless the world’s ending, he won’t change the route.

Second, Haydon himself. He can see the future and tweak his actions to nudge it.

He knows how strong he is, so he’s cautious, not a frequent meddler.

Third and fourth are me and Feriel, the world’s bedrock. I don’t know Feriel’s side.

Andor didn’t have foresight, and Andreas, in that form, was too mentally shattered to use it.

What I can do is rerun the game.

Back-propagate and reclaim the concepts, mana, and existence that belong to me in the mortal realm. Return to the past.

Yet even that, my return, seems counted in Haydon’s ledger.

I smell the Authority of Slaughter—a scent like iron rain—the domain of my fiercest rival.

The Demon King’s trueborn daughter, Anna. The name sounds plain, but her Authority Domain is one of the most dangerous in the Demon Realm.

She cannot stand me.

It sounds as special as firstborn of the Demon King, right. Truth is, she’s among the few I can’t utterly defeat.

When I first came to the mortal realm, she was the first sister to ambush me.

Across ten fights, I might win seven.

She has two high-ranking lieutenants: Liebich and Nan Lu.

Strong, certainly. Strong without obvious weaknesses—second only to me.

Cross-measuring, even Augustus likely couldn’t beat her.

If our Hero Squad runs into them, we’d brawl even without grudges.

Anna isn’t a mid-boss like Yakfarro. She’s the gauntlet boss before the final boss.

I lift my head toward the vast ceiling, raise the torch to push light farther. Still, only a black sea looks back.

The concept of Slaughter is spreading, a chill like raven feathers. This scale isn’t something a mere dependent could create.

Feels like another part of Haydon’s arrangement, turning a simple trade into a maze.

I can’t do much about Him. There’s no proof He broke the contract. Complaining to Appoint would be useless.

Decide now. If wild Anna jumps out in a moment, what do we do?

Run or play dead—pick fast. Even if Stini goes seed, she won’t win.

Gloria only knows Slaughter, and Anna is the Slaughter concept itself.

Who can kill Slaughter?

No path to victory. Affection’s finally rising; I don’t want casualties here.

I sigh deep, like fog leaving a valley. This is trouble, through and through.

“What are you doing there? Move your feet and help! No loot for you if you laze.”

Stini slashes twice in a flat arc, severing a clutch of tentacles, then back-steps out of reach.

“I really don’t want to go up there.”

The third-floor guardian of the Tower of Final Stars is, as always, a colossal beast.

It looks like a giant sea urchin. Swap spines for tentacles and you’ve got it.

You can smash its formed mana circuits, which means element-driven magic barely tickles it—magic resistance, a common trick of the Sorcerer Emperor’s creations.

It can rely on brute force. Its tentacles swim through earth like fish through reeds, so piercing a human is child’s play—colossal strength, some lost alchemy no one understands.

Even sliced in half, it regrows fast. There’s no core concept—hyper-regeneration, the bane of sustained-DPS adventurers.

Flight, heat-melt beams, magecannon, element drain, anti-magic factor, corrosion mist—every one a mad-mod variant.

So the conclusion is—

“Easy fight. You don’t need me, right?”

Elina, our top-tier support—Divine Proxy—wraps us in a Divine Being’s blessing, shields layered like moonlight on water.

Stacked-damage AoE? We shrug it off.

Raven is piloting a squad of Constructs, going toe-to-toe with Golden Era alchemy.

Catherine snipes from afar. She burned a lot of mana on the Swamp Hag, so now it’s normal empowerment scripts.

Stini’s swordplay is sharp, and her magic is no slouch.

She’s a natural airhead, but her instincts pick the right spells to boost her strikes.

She’s extending sword aura with mana, chipping tentacles apart inch by inch.

Honestly, everyone here could solo this tentacle monster. We just don’t want to go all out.

At an Adventurers’ Guild, its bounty would match the first floor’s Swamp Hag and the second floor’s tyrannosaur.

Ah, right—the tyrannosaur, we dismantled it in thirty seconds. Not exciting enough to mention.

Point being, we can win. But can win and perfect-clear are different animals.

“Get up there, Andor. I order you as captain—break its core!”

“There isn’t one. We break those annoying alchemy-tech systems, then we one-shot the tentacle monster bare.”

“How do we sell it, then?”

“The Sorcerer Emperor’s gear is great, but break it or you won’t kill the thing.

You’re eyeing loot before the kill’s even done!

Also, my ranged is only Shadow magic. I don’t have your extended sword aura trick.”

“Just join the fight already! Don’t stand idle!”

The captain has spoken.

Adventurers’ chatter says, if you ignore orders and act all arrogant, you die fast.

And yet—

I still don’t want to move.

It’s not that we can’t kill this tentacle beast. We just can’t do it without scratches.

Look at Princess Golia fighting at the center.

She never minds getting blood on her. When we reached the third floor, the tentacle monster’s fresh slime made us gag.

Her Highness charged through falling, nauseating mucus anyway.

Right now Gloria only fights physically.

Remember when we hunted Yakfarro? Even his physical-limit form got snatched midair by an octopus-type Construct.

Same as now—Gloria’s getting tentacled.

She’s strong, so the tentacles won’t punch through and kill her.

But they’re nimble, deny her footholds, and smother her power.

Her clothes burn away under the corrosion mist—ah. She’s flashing.

In midair, Gloria hacks free one tentacle after another, but regrowth outpaces her blade.

The tentacles kept lunging at her beautiful body—no, call it what it is: jabbing hard, like spears in a rainstorm.

It left a stain on the mind, a different kind of spiritual contamination than staring down a Demon King.

A bit sultry, sure, but Gloria’s face didn’t blush, so it wasn’t porn—just a cold moon over a murky pond.

“What are you staring at? Andor, you lust-starved ghoul—go save her!”

“So you want me to charge into that thicket of tentacles, under the Sorcerer Emperor’s mage-cannon, and save her?”

“You know it, so move.”

No.

I’m not doing it.

Elina, acting examiner, just confirmed the slime has corrosive bite, neurotoxins, anti-magic factors, and an aphrodisiac—like poison fog rolling off a swamp.

Her blessings can cancel it, but the stench is brutal—fish-rot thick as a harbor at low tide.

The kind of smell that makes you turn a corner and flee the whole street.

So is King Yumira insane or what? I don’t know if that elf Sorcerer Emperor’s a man or woman, but adding this kink to a gate-beast is deranged.

I don’t want that turbid white sludge on me, shield or blessing or not; I bet the girls think the same—like silk refusing grease.

“Think of something, Andor.”

You say that, but I’ve got nothing.

Raven’s Construct host can only pen the thing in; it can’t suppress it, and my Shadow won’t erase it in one go.

Worse, the “Slaughter” domain keeps thickening—like iron scent heavy in the wind.

In the material world that means higher damage output; it’s a tiny buff, but the concept is biting into matter now.

No idea if Stini and the others noticed—storm lines crossing their brows or not.

“So yeah, no way… wait, what’s happening?”

The Tower of Final Stars starts shuddering hard, like mountains grinding their teeth; it looks ready to cave in at any moment.

One small comfort: the ground under us hasn’t cracked—praise the Golden Age’s craftsmanship, solid as bedrock.

Experience says, at times like this, guard against your own side shouting “What?” and spacing out—then the enemy strikes like a hawk through fog.

So no matter the quake, no matter the slime’s stink, for the sake of not losing girls, I raise my sword and push in—like a wave hammering a jetty.

Careful! They’re still attacking!—That’s what I meant to say.

I sprint to Stini, snap into a guard stance, only to find the tentacle thing didn’t go for a cheap shot.

Uh… looks like Stini and the others spaced out for a beat, and the monster did too—like clocks stopping at the same second.

I draw Shadow mana, max output within safe limits—cold night flowing down my arms.

“Shadow Erosion.”

Dark rings bloom from inside the beast, like ink spreading in clear water.

Ten meters around it turn into lightless mass, a clotted eclipse swallowing the floor.

It forgets to resist; there’s no proper scream—only silence, and a one-hit kill.

Gloria drops from midair like a petal shaken free; out of gentlemanly habit, I toss her a pair of jeans.

“Here, Your Highness.”

“Eh? Andor, you popped that ball?”

Stini finally catches up, like thunder after lightning.

“So what’s with your reaction? If I hadn’t moved, and if that thing hadn’t spaced out, we’d be down a fighter.”

“Relax. We’ve got a Divine Healer. Full HP, full status in three minutes—like rain refilling a lake.”

Don’t talk about the dead like snacks dropped on the floor.

“And what’s with these jeans? Andor, can’t you act like a gentleman all the way through?”

Raven spots the opening and dives, sharp as a swallow’s turn.

“But don’t you think chest-wrapped denim is ridiculously cute?” A cherry ribbon on a blade.

“Where’s your chivalry? Did your gentleman’s spirit just die?”

Fine.

I hand her the largest shirt I carry, ask the jeans back—like trade in a marketplace.

“Pervert!”

She puppeteers a Construct and cracks me with a brutal forehead flick—clang in my skull like struck bronze.

“I’m the MVP here. I just deleted that tentacle freak. Can’t I play a little?”

Even so, the girls’ eyes are bad weather—cold rain before dawn.

People might die in a minute; laugh while you can. I think heroes become heroes by dying, but I don’t enjoy tragedy—ashes without warmth.

Maybe only Gloria thinks I’m right; she passes back the jeans, fingers clean as river stones.

…Her figure’s average; the turbid white slick makes it look sexy, but her blank face docks points—standing unfazed kills the mood like frost on a bloom.

Men, surprisingly, are delicate creatures—glass under silk.

“Don’t give it to him! Are you dumb?”

Raven snatches the jeans, shoves them back to Gloria, covers my eyes with a Construct palm, and forces her to dress—discipline like a school bell.

“As compensation, I’ll dissect that tentacle thing.”

I shrug, heft the Greatsword, and split the corpse that won’t regenerate—meat and metal parting like reed and ice.

I cut out the Sorcerer Emperor’s alchemy tech, piece by piece—gears like pale bones—and stow them in Shadow.

“Don’t slack. Work.”

“Shut up, Stini. I’m not staring at your body. You’ve got no right to yell.”

While we bicker, the “Slaughter” concept gets thicker—smoke clinging to clothes.

Cranking the Authority Domain this high—yeah, Anna’s going for no survivors, snow that won’t melt.

I need to decide fast: play dead or run. I keep my corpse-face, think without ripples—moon on still water.

The Greatsword hacks through the module that glows with cold blue, and the crisp clang of steel on steel rings out—winter chimes in an empty hall.

Then, my decision is—