Stuff from the Golden Age is a pain to use. Every switch feels like frostbitten iron.

She clicked her tongue, rude and impatient, yet her hands kept moving. She traced Sorek’s handwritten procedures, step by step, like feeling along a cliff in fog. She matched the Unified Tongue to Demon Realm script, translating this instrument one stubborn line at a time.

Nan Lu’s surprise intel said a pre–Golden Age beast was sealed here, like a thunderhead corked beneath stone.

“…You Sorcerer Emperors all probed the source anyway. Why not operate through a concept domain? Why this damned contraption?”

As the Son of the Demon King, one only gets Manipulation in their Authority Domain, a far cry from the Demon King’s Dominion. The gap between the two is a canyon. Anna, though, pushed Manipulation until it nearly kissed Dominion. That’s why they called her the Demon King’s trueborn daughter.

Even so, what the Demon King does best is still a feel-based control, steering by instinct, wind in the bones. It’s nothing like the Sorcerer Emperor’s precise spellcraft, all gears and gauges, like a clock that breathes.

Put simply, it’s like forcing a numbers kid to defend a literature thesis.

“It’s just unsealing ‘Sky-Bearer’ Beozwulf. Why’s it so fiddly—input error? Ugh, start over? Damn it, I can’t read this!”

She slammed a fist into the control panel. Her Slaughter domain twitched on reflex. The panel’s very material was killed—concept severed—collapsing to ash-like nothing, a thing without name or value.

“Forget it. I’ll do this my way. Ku-ku-ku. I’ve cracked almost every lock I can crack anyway.”

Anna caught the Giant Scythe drifting behind her and let its blade kiss the floor. The Tower of Final Stars’ own concepts began to fade under her touch. Anything with a concept was killed, peeled away into hollow void.

Nan Lu had sent someone to check a sudden “Shadow” blooming below. No one came back for a long while, so he sent Liebich to rendezvous—still no reply. Silence pooled like oil.

Anna felt for her own domain. As the Demon King’s offspring, she could never be the Demon King—she couldn’t become the concepts themselves, couldn’t be all-knowing and all-powerful, the storm and the stillness at once.

She’d been busy unsealing the Sky-Bearer, no time to handle the ruckus. Besides, what are retainers for if not to make your life easier? If they cause trouble for their master, that’s their problem, not hers.

She gave the scythe a few idle swishes, thin cuts in the air. She sensed Slaughter flaring below the Tower of Final Stars—Nan Lu likely had trouble, and Liebich was locked in a fight.

“Ah, Andor’s retainer really did come. That taste is… ‘Madness.’ Berenz. Ku-ku-ku. If I kill her, Andor will be so upset.”

“Hm? Someone else, too. Adventurers?” She flicked her fingers and moved her Authority, stirring Slaughter like a black tide. “No effect? A Hero, then? Ku-ku-ku, that’s fun.”

She dragged the Giant Scythe, etching a death-mark across the floor like soot that won’t wash off.

“Like Brother said—charming as I am, I draw death. Ku-ku-ku. Come on then. I’ve been irritated for too long. Bring me a little joy.”

She folded away the abyss behind her. Her outline softened toward human. The persona of Slaughter—a knot of concepts wearing a face—tightened and refined, becoming the most flawless woman under heaven.

Her swaying figure and black gauze dress were a soul-leading lotus in midnight water—elegant, still, blooming for no one and everyone.

“Raven, tell me—must a mortal admit they’re ordinary?”

We sat together on an alchemic bench, gazing up at the Sorcerer Emperor’s artificial sky. The stars hung like silk ribbons, so lovely it hurt.

“To admit we can’t touch that sky?”

“To admit we can’t seize that star, or reach that far shore, and so on?”

“I think… most people don’t think that hard,” Raven said. “If you say ‘no,’ it’s arrogance. If you say ‘yes,’ it’s inferiority. There’s no right answer. The question is a trap, designed to corner you.”

“A very capable person once asked me that. Maybe they were being mean on purpose. But I think, if I refuse to answer either yes or no… isn’t that just admitting I’m ordinary?”

Not unwilling to be arrogant—just lacking the courage to risk it. A meek and honest answer.

“Could be,” Raven said, nodding. “Not everyone wants to live like Stini—proud, brave, staring down every wall. That life’s exhausting.”

Exhausting. That word covers everything like rain covers the road.

She smiled wryly and pointed at Stini, who was happily dismantling alchemy rigs like a child unpacking sweets.

“You’re brave, Andor. You can’t demand everyone be as brave as you.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Andor, you’re trying to condemn someone, aren’t you? You want to, but you don’t have the grounds.”

“Stini, of course. That ditz has botched how many things? Take alchemy tech—she just tore a unit out and had to help carry it. No clue about ‘handle with care,’ broke the machine. And just now with the door-sealing spell she—”

My tirade poured like a river until Raven cut it short.

“That’s not it.”

“…”

“You’re anxious about something urgent. You’re scolding yourself, Andor.”

“Don’t joke. I’m not some self-loathing weakling who does nothing but complain.”

“Women’s intuition, relax. I think precisely because you’re capable, you throw real tantrums when something can’t be done.”

“Oh, yes, I think so too.”

Elina, on my left, finally seized a gap to speak. Catherine had dragged her here—our Divine Healer didn’t have the muscle for heavy work. While Raven and I rested, Elina kept trying to butt in, never finding an opening.

I ignored her. Head’s spy should stay far away. I wasn’t letting her slip into our circle.

Elina’s mournful face was a little pitiful, a little cute, and absolutely not moving me.

“If there’s anything, you can confide in me,” she said, prim as a temple bell. “I’m the Divine Being’s agent. I can help.”

“You can’t.”

“Uu… Catherine already cheered me on, and still…”

She muttered under her breath. Hey. What’s Catherine got to do with your deal with Head? Are you two in on it together?

What a mess. Head and Anna both—what a mess.

I tilted my head back to the sky. Still as an ending, beautiful as a shut eye. Starlight rippled gently—then the ripples grew. I wanted to stall longer, but Anna was losing patience.

Which makes a villain happier—being outed by us, or popping out on their own?

Like hide-and-seek: is it fun if the hider leaves the seeker wandering until they give up, or fun if the seeker finds them after a fight?

Obviously the latter. Exposing Anna’s game might make her more interested in us. Maybe she won’t squash us like bugs.

I sighed deep. Who knew freeloading in a Hero’s party would be this hard?

“Hey, don’t you think the sky looks off?”

“What’s off? The Sorcerer Emperor’s alchemy was unreal. Making a sky prettier than the real thing isn’t surprising.”

Raven pulled out a few metal plates. With some sly alchemy, she assembled a tripod telescope right there. A polished machine under quick hands.

…Alchemists are terrifying.

“Star of Wisdom, Star of Might, Star of Elements… ah, and Elina, your Star of Far-Reach is here too. I can find all twelve— the Twelve Crowned Seats.”

“Mhm, it really is my Divine Being’s divine realm. Andor, come see.”

Elina leaned into the eyepiece, happy as a cat at cream.

I thought: what’s the proper body language for ‘hesitation’ again?

While I weighed how to pop Anna’s balloon, Stini trotted over, sunshine in boots.

“Look, look! Even the Sorcerer Emperor makes mistakes.”

“How so?” I took the cue, grateful her intuition finally did something right.

“I remember Genesis said—uh—Your Highness, do you remember it?”

“Genesis says: ‘The Sorcerer Emperor hid away, and the Golden civilization dimmed. The Creator died, and from his corpse the gods were born.’”

Princess Golia walked over and filled in the line.

“Right, that. So when this tower was built, the Sorcerer Emperor didn’t know the gods’ divine realms would rise into the sky. Why does this artificial sky record a future sky?”

“Uh… that’s a great point. I’m speechless. Could he have prophesied it?”

“No,” Raven said. “Elina, we alchemists have records on Golden Age relics. The Sorcerer Emperor probed the source—omnipotent, but not omniscient. The Divine Being’s authority stayed with the Creator. Ah, unless Sorek modified the artificial sky…”

“My uncle can’t do alchemy. He only borrowed the Sorcerer Emperor’s devices to revive my aunt!”

Then who?

Everyone but me chewed on that.

“This matters,” I said. “We need to figure it out.”

“Did you find something?” Elina asked, careful as stepping on ice.

“No. Just a hunch. I’m sticking to it.”

“What’s the point? Don’t sweat details. You’ll fry your brain.”

“Stini, you idiot, I’m not joking! Hey, wait up—wait.”

Stini patted my shoulder, smirking. Finally got one over on the guy who calls her a ditz, huh?

The others shrugged it off and kept moving. Just a history riddle—not worth the time.

Except Catherine.

She said nothing. She wove enchantments onto an arrow—Acceleration, Godspeed, Sure-Kill—and fired into the artificial sky.

The jeweled heavens flipped to utter black in an instant. Even the arrow Sorek feared—the surest kill—was stopped like a moth on glass. The concept of “Speed” was killed. “Killing Intent” was killed. Finally, even “Existence” was killed.

It was batted aside with ease.

Dirty color seeped from the zenith, a black fluid in mortal eyes, dripping like tar.

Slaughter doesn’t need a name. One look at that color, and you know.

Those who see go blind. Those who listen go deaf. It acts on its own—if your senses exist, they get dragged toward madness. No—even before madness, a mortal is soaked through by Slaughter, untouched and unwounded—and dies.

“Ku-ku-ku. Which one’s the cute Hero? The handsome boy? Or that lovely girl?”

She was Slaughter, walking out of Death itself, clotting into a human shape.

We couldn’t even look at her face, let alone fight. With mortal strength, how do you resist the sky’s weight?

All I could do was shout:

“Don’t look—!”