Storm and thunder rose again like mountains of bruise-dark cloud, which wasn’t strange at all, since Sorek no longer wore the blessing of Slaughter like armor.

He had his Elven beauty back, cool as moonlit jade, a sword in one hand and a scepter of wind and thunder in the other like a caged storm.

“Final warning, leave,” his voice rolled like distant surf, “if within three minutes—”

“If Stini isn’t revived in three minutes, her soul will fray like worn silk,” I cut in, ice first, words after, “she’ll suffer amnesia, shaky control, mismatched motor skills, mana bleed, even detonation, and some of that’s near-permanent.”

Even with a human shape, he kept frost on his face like hoarfrost on stone, and my interruption made him pause like a stalled clock.

“...Right, I’ll tell you,” he said, voice flat as iron, “I’ll go all out to stop that Divine Healer girl from using Soul Return Prayer, and with your power I estimate you’ll beat me in two hours, so withdraw, this is my last—”

“Shut up,” I said, the word a knife of cold wind before the first punch, the old Demon Realm prelude coming back like winter thunder.

Annoyance first, hands later; I’d been trying to keep a gentleman’s mask on, thin as rice paper over fangs.

“Catherine, Your Highness, let me handle this,” I said, breath steady like a drawn bowstring, “don’t intervene.”

Sorek, let me show you what kind of blood-hungry fangs hide beneath this gentleman’s porcelain like a wolf under silk.

“Young man, I admire you, but... burst forth, thunder that’s rung since before creation,” he intoned, voice like iron rain on a shrine roof.

High-tier magic, Solidified Thunder Ring, bloomed around him like a halo of storm-iron, a ring fixed in place that lashes lightning when touched.

The axiom of magic stood like a stone stele in rain: the more limits you chain on, the stronger the spell turns, like a river channeled tight.

Stini had stacked me with all kinds of utility spells like talismans on a traveler's pack, but one touch here could still leave me dead or worse.

“...Wind is formless, free, doing as it pleases,” he whispered, the words like reeds breathing beneath a gale.

High-tier magic, Discordant Blade Chorus, spun up around him like an orchestra of razors, pure cutting power and high-frequency pain given wings.

Elemental domination and control are the twin pillars for a mage, and as an Elven prodigy Sorek stood at the summit like a pine on a cliff.

After bargaining with the Demon King, he leaned toward the Ocean of Darkness like a ship crossing night, so the Sea of Light paid him back less.

Now Sorek stood in his prime like noon sun, without that Godspeed scythe that one-shot the world, but with his old rank and most familiar style.

He wouldn’t die the instant I closed like a moth in flame, not anymore, and the battlefield smelled like rain and steel.

More spells circled him like guardian kites, all passive wards, and even his sword carried a mid-tier Knockback like a coiled spring.

Trying to stall for time, are you, like a spider spinning cold silk in a corner?

“Know why I didn’t cover their retreat first, then come back to kill you?” I asked, my tone flat as frost, my eyes a windless lake.

“How so?” His brow flicked like a branch in breeze.

“Because I don’t need three minutes,” I said, patience a snapped thread, “three seconds is enough, and dragging corpses around is a chore like hauling wet logs.”

My style has always been running, a hunt over grassland wind, breath like hooves on the earth.

I skim with speed, break a foe’s rhythm like waves breaking a sandbar, and use force to pin their steps like nails through shadow.

Not today; today I only need a charge, a straight line like a falling star, the fastest path into Sorek’s chest.

I can’t use the Godspeed Realm, but it’s fine; even plain kilometers-per-hour math slices the air like a clean knife.

I took the momentum of the charge like a river taking a bend, and I swung the blade like lightning breaking a tree.

“You... how—” His shock fluttered like a startled bird, then drowned in the noise.

Fun, right; amusing, right; satisfied, right; my grin tasted like iron rain.

Restless Thunder hit me head-on like a storm hammer, and my flesh blurred into red mist like petals in a gale.

Wind’s Terminus sheared anything moving too fast like a butcher’s wire, and my legs lost their tendons like snapped harp strings.

Storm’s Blessing paired with Discordant Blade Chorus, and each wind blade passed through me like moonlight through reeds, my body coming apart like rotten wicker.

Thunder’s Blessing boosted the Solidified Thunder Ring, and it cooked most of my muscles and organs like fish on hot stones.

More mid and low-tier spells beat me like hailstones on tin, and even Iron Fortification cracked like old bark in a blaze.

“Impossible...” he breathed, the word a dying candle flickering in draft.

People who say that line die like leaves in frost, and you’re no exception, I wanted to say with a swagger like a banner in wind.

But my lungs were wrecked like torn bellows, so no sound came, only heat and copper and the drum of blood.

In theory my body couldn’t move, a puppet with cut strings, dead weight under a storm.

But Raven’s machinery was fine, a steel sparrow built for thunder and wind, because I’d insisted on resistances like runes hammered into plate.

The exoskeleton didn’t fail under the spell-squall, it carried me forward like a tide pushing a skiff, and my arm still swung true.

I had Raven build for the opening rounds of Sorek’s fight, a net set before the fish leapt, so I could stall him when he peaked.

Then Catherine would loose the killing arrow like a winter star, a neat end to a messy storm.

When Sorek still had two lives in him, I hadn’t expected he’d drive Slaughter to a one-shot edge like a guillotine, but I had no gas left anyway.

So I still planned to pin him like a nail and let Catherine finish, and it’s a pity Stini rushed in like summer thunder.

Her move was valiant but foolish, a bright spark in dry grass, and it rubbed me raw like sand in a wound.

I felt the feedback of his head parting like bamboo under a knife; good enough; I’d sleep now like a stone in a riverbed.

I’ll gamble that the Divine Healer Elina can cast the Divine Art Soul Return Prayer on two people at once, or my mask shatters like thin ice.

Old news, but I’ll say it again like a bell at dawn: one of Son of the Demon King Andor’s settings is not dying.

I sank into heavy sleep like a ship into fog, and I’d wake soon like dawn shaking frost from branches.

When I come back, what will greet me like the first birdcall; I can afford a sliver of hope like sunlight under a door.

“Good morning, everyone,” I murmured, voice rough as gravel after rain.

I rubbed my eyes, fog still clinging like dew, and crawled off the alchemical bed Raven threw together like a workbench miracle.

“An unfamiliar ceiling...” I said, the line floating up like a paper kite.

“You literally ran on it just now, don’t ‘unfamiliar’ me!” Raven snapped, her words crackling like sparks.

“Wait... has it been three years since then?” I asked the rafters like an earnest fool under stars.

I looked up at the very familiar ceiling and sighed like a reed in wind, the joke landing like a pebble in a pond.

“No it hasn’t! It’s been under three minutes!” Raven barked, temper bright as a forge, “Are you not worried about Stini and your own body, and you’re still joking?”

Hearing Raven roast me felt good, warm as a brazier, and I knew my own body would be fine like spring returning to limb.

As for Stini, she was playing around with Gloria like kittens in sun, so that worry was a leaf on water.

Raven puffed her cheeks like a stormcloud, but she still helped me down like a steady branch.

No need, no need; I waved her off like a fan in summer, pushed up, planted my feet, and listened to my body’s echoes like a drum.

Power output felt a bit rough, stuttered like a wheel in mud, which is normal for a fresh revival like sap starting to run.

“Ah, right, where’s my sword?” I asked, the question dropping like a stone.

Stini’s Galewind was of course intact, a Holy Sword that’s killed several Demon Kings like meteors felling trees, not erased by the concept of Slaughter.

But my Valor had no blessing from a Divine Being and no Demon King slaying feats, so it likely broke like glass under a hammer.

“Uh... I’m very sorry, your sword...” Raven said, lifting a hand like a conductor, and a Construct lugged the blade in like a pallbearer.

The shell was fine like a polished sheath, but inside was nothing, a Greatsword-shaped hunk of metal like cold bread, maybe softer than real iron.

It’s fine; my true love is the arcane Long Halberd Nandu, a river of edge in my hands, and Valor was a showpiece like a court fan.

I sighed and waved it off like smoke, though a splinter of discomfort stuck like a thorn, because we’d been together for long miles.

“Well then... time to tally the spoils,” I said, counting silver in the mind like fallen leaves, “Hm? Sorek’s not dead?”

Stini held up Sorek’s skull, a lich’s grin of bone like moon-white chalk, and offered it to me like a cup.

“Um, Andor, if you don’t mind,” she said, voice shrinking like a candle in wind, “I should take Sorek to my mother, since he’s her brother...”

Her voice got smaller and smaller, like a mouse under the table, which isn’t like her at all, not the Stini who runs like wildfire.

In my head, Stini is a free spirit like a hawk, not a girl who blushes like dawn.

But you all know what I’ll say; to raise favor, I go with what Stini wants like a river seeking its sea.

“As you wish, it’s yours,” I said, palm on her head like a quiet blessing, and Stini, small as ever, shook like a puzzled pup.

“But... Andor, Sorek killed you,” she said, eyes wide like wet glass, “don’t you resent him?”

“Mm... I sell fairness and justice,” I said, calm as winter water, “and I killed him a few times too, so call it even.”

We always say bad guys have no rights, sure, but nursing our own private hate is graceless, like mud on silk.

So take it; it’s all yours,” I added, and Stini’s eyes got shinier like stars in a well.

Favor up, chime lit like a lantern; no idea if it’s temporary or permanent, like weather in spring.

Either way, this hunt was a success, a clean cut on a tough knot, except—

“Then let’s go plunder the Sorcerer Emperor’s legacy!” Stini declared, her voice bright as a trumpet.

“Yeah!” the team answered, their cheer a flock taking wing.

We risked our necks to trade for coin like merchants in a storm, and the twentieth floor is the Tower of Final Stars’ top, masked in an artificial sky.

It’s got a gorgeous fake firmament like spilled diamonds, and I’d planned it as the last stop of a date, a quiet, romantic night sea.

Problem is, Anna is very likely waiting there like a panther on a ledge.

I have contingencies, tucked like knives in sleeves, but Anna doesn’t fight neat like Sorek; she plays like lightning.

In game terms, Anna, the Demon King’s blood daughter and owner of Slaughter’s domain, is a world-class boss like a mountain that walks.

Or was it super-dreadnought boss; whatever, to kill Anna without my true body, we’d need a new expansion, a divine nerf, gods cursing her into the dirt.

Only then could a Hero party scrape a win like a cat stealing fish, and by Hero I mean Augustus, the strongest under heaven, not half-baked Stini.

Winning is impossible; at best Stini goes seed and carves a scratch on her cheek like a comet’s kiss, or snips a few hairs like cut silk.

Then we get styled on like leaves in a cyclone, and it’s normal for a few of us to die like candles in a gust.

The right strat is turtle hard and stall like a fortress in rain, make Anna more interested, and get treated like toys she won’t break in one squeeze.

It all hangs on Anna’s mood like a blade on a thread.

I don’t want to go; I really don’t, the death rate spikes like a cliff, and Sorek was nothing like this mountain.

But I’ve got no good reason to refuse, none that won’t sour the room like milk, so I stood with the girls in the elevator going up.

Sorek couldn’t open the big door earlier, so he rode this elevator down to nineteen like a stone in a well, then took stairs to find us.

We laid a web of trap spells at the elevator mouth like spider silk, chewed up his adds like wolves, which is why he raged on sight.

The elevator doors opened with a sigh like lungs, and a chill slid in like a shadow.

Nerves tight as bowstrings, I wondered if we’d meet Anna; best case, we wouldn’t, like rain skirting a field.

Starlight poured down like cold milk, and we stepped onto the Tower of Final Stars’ twentieth floor, a vast stone plaza weathered like old bones.

The light felt almost solid, a snowfall of glow sketching thin shadows from our bodies like ink lines on parchment.

The plaza ran for kilometers, an empty sea of stone, with chipped edges and stray gravel like teeth, and weeds pushing up like stubborn fingers.

What drew the eye was the magitech in the center, a pressure like deep water, with a glass tank filled with ghost-lit liquid like bottled moonlight.

A human body floated inside like a drowned dream, the stillness heavy as silt, and that should be Sorek’s dead wife, held like a relic.

It’s nice Anna isn’t here... which is impossible, because with Stini’s luck we run straight into storms like sailors born to wrecks.

All I can do is keep watch in secret, breath low as mist, my Greatsword resonating in the shadow like a deep bell, warding against Anna’s ambush.

Everyone else kept searching for valuables like magpies on a ruin, blissfully unaware of the hawk above.