In the end, he just said, “It’s work time. I’ve got music to play,” and walked off, like a curtain dropping mid-scene.

So unwilling… It was only idle fun, yet being toyed with stings like vinegar in a fresh cut.

It felt like a Hero who’d trained through a thousand trials, one step from felling the Demon King, storming his hall only to find he’d led his army into another dimension.

The world doesn’t need saving, yet when hard effort grants a wish in a sidelong way, the hollow clings like fog in the lungs.

He understood my mood. He dangled the bait, then kept the hook empty.

“Mm… I’ll be back. Don’t try to fob me off then.” I paid, coins landing like a gavel, and let that be the period.

“Who knows? Maybe I won’t be around by then,” he said, smiling like smoke that slips through fingers.

Leaving the tavern, the man on stage felt out of key, a lone note that didn’t fit the chord.

He looked ordinary, no spark at first glance, no bright edge to cut the eye—like a background silhouette, an extra, a corpse in a war film.

Like a patch of gray shadow. Yet that shadow carried a strange gravity, enough to blur who the lead even was.

Interesting guy. I stepped out and pulled the door closed. The door creaked, and the hush inside split from the street’s roar like two worlds.

I walked the street, hand out to feel the near-winter bite. My breath drew a white plume. Maybe it’s time to add a layer.

The streets blazed for the Academy Martial Festival finals. Near midnight, the road still seethed, a tide of voices, and I thought that.

Then came the next day.

“…In sum, under the witness of the Divine Being…”

After I went home and rolled in the sheets with Vega, my mouth wanted something to bite. I got up to look, peeked into Stini’s room, and she still hadn’t returned.

“…For glory and faith, we’ll point our swords to the horizon…”

I wrote out plans till dawn. I introduced Vega to Lady Light Jade and warned her of what to mind. In an invisibility cloak, I toured the headmaster’s office. I didn’t find where Stini was sealed.

“…May the light reach every last corner of the world…”

I chatted with Berenz by magic till morning. I polished Valor again and again.

And now…

“…Now, the Academy Martial Festival Doubles Final—begins!”

The blood-thirst that boiled day and night finally didn’t need a leash. Battle, killing—at last I could bare my power in daylight.

I lifted the greatsword, then remembered to bow.

I bent, caging the feral surge in my chest. I lowered my head. I guessed Abigail was doing the same, swallowing his flame.

Now, no more waiting. I straightened. We could finally measure steel against steel.

I ran, heel cracking the earth, straight into his blade—

No need to talk. We both knew this fight would prove nothing.

For Raven? No. She hasn’t accepted anyone. Abigail has no chance at all.

For glory? Neither of us cares for that shine.

We aren’t fighting “for something.” We simply can’t stand each other and want a clean verdict.

So yeah—two childish men, staging a childish duel.

I remembered what that nameless extra said yesterday. Life has no meaning. Giving value to the meaningless—that’s what humans do.

I found myself agreeing, like a silent nod in the dark.

Greatsword and rapier collided—not iron on iron, but stars colliding in the night.

Furious force ran down our bodies into the ground. The arena crumbled like a sandcastle. Stones burst and leapt up like startled birds.

If Vice Principal Gugwen weren’t holding the barrier himself, the surroundings would already be a ruin.

Dust and gravel veiled my sight. I’d already locked on Abigail’s place.

Step in, cut.

His rapier pierced the haze too. Abigail mirrored me, matching my posture like a twin shadow.

We kept attacking with a kill-or-die aura. Every cut hunted a vital. Throat, heart, skull—before life, we danced a scarlet reel.

Valor broke through his guard and carved a mark on his sternum. His thrust slipped past my defense and parted the artery at my side-neck.

At knife-fighting range, both of us swung with the resolve to trade life for life.

My greatsword smashed his shoulder. His left hand was almost severed. Most of his ribs cracked.

His rapier bit my waist, sliced through a handful of organs, then stopped just shy of my spine.

Pain—of course it was unbearable. Pain proves I’m alive. Lucky enough.

We both hopped back, a breath’s reset, yanking our blades from muscle locks and dragging threads of flesh like torn banners.

Mutual ruin.

Normally, we’d pause. Toss a cool line or two. Farm some goodwill.

I joined the Festival to show my face. I’m called a Hero already, but if you don’t keep saving the world, the title fades. A dead hero washes away in history. I have to keep looking fierce to keep being called Hero.

Farming favor with Raven wouldn’t hurt. Maybe blow a kiss to the stands.

Abigail’s a leader; he knows what fame buys.

But we both knew this fight isn’t cool. It isn’t legend.

It’s just male competitiveness, stripped bare.

So we left no time to breathe for each other or ourselves. We pounced like beasts.

We used no magic. Maybe because the reason for fighting was too ugly to dress up. Maybe it was pride. Either way, it was blade and muscle only—humanity’s oldest, rawest grapple.

I didn’t use Shadow magic. No body buffs. Abigail didn’t call on that godlike sword-mastery we’d seen before.

One-on-one. Speak by sword. Answer in blood.

Wind off his blade tore my arm muscle. Force from my greatsword rattled his bones like dice in a cup.

We bled. We grinned. We fought.

From the first clash the arena lost its shape. Now it looked post-apocalypse, a world after the last bell.

Cut over cut, trade for trade. At the height of brute strength and grit, a gap appeared, abrupt as a blink.

I didn’t slow. He didn’t slow. Yet I felt a hitch, the tiniest pause, solid as a pebble underfoot.

He’s pulling his trump card.

No mistake—one of the pinnacles of sword arts: the Godspeed Realm.

My battle instincts flashed red. Don’t rush. Feel that nameless boundary. Step through, like pressing my face through a thin film.

In an instant, the world went silent.

The crack of air. Stone shattering. The crowd’s roar. My heartbeat. Blood thrumming through veins.

All gone.

The world froze. Dust hung in midair like solid fog. Pebbles drifted like lazy planets.

Only then did I steal a glance around. Elina and Catherine were a knot of motion. The Divine Healer girl, still sane, had opened a portion of a legendary spell. The wreckage matched ours.

Raven covered her mouth in the stands, eyes bright. Gloria kept eating popcorn, calm as a lake.

Vice Principal Gugwen stroked his beard and laughed, spell-light coiling around him. Alpha sprawled on a table with a bottle. Saint Mire hadn’t come.

I glanced up by accident. The stars were gone. A single vast golden eye spanned the sky, flashing like a comet.

The Time God Tim.

I wanted to say that, but opening my mouth cost too much. Forming sound cost too much. Even squeezing air from my lungs cost too much.

Forget talking. It’s cheaper to trade cuts with Abigail.

I could see it now—Abigail gathered himself, coiled and ready to thrust.

My reaction was fast, but my body couldn’t get up to speed. I could only haul Valor up as a shield.

In a near-motionless world, only the two of us kept moving.

His rapier jabbed Valor’s side and skated back. No sound. My angle couldn’t see, but the tremor in my arms told me.

Also—

From his blade came a voice, half cry, half yearning. It traveled through Valor and rang in my skull.

“…a curse…”

That’s what the sword said.

“…a curse…”

I don’t think Abigail can send thoughts directly. That’s a merman specialty, and it’s useless here.

Besides, that “curse” sounded so sad, so pained, so helpless. It wasn’t cursing others; it was cursing itself—so much it hurt to hear.

Only now do I grasp Abigail’s change. Maybe, when he wielded that sword’s authority, the emotions inside it bled into him.

In the original history he didn’t shift like this. He didn’t bear the aura of a lord of armies we saw in the semifinals.

Who knows?

The thoughts didn’t slow my hands. I stepped forward and began to add speed, bit by bit.

The tremor had reached Valor’s tip. I swept the greatsword like a bat through rain.

Only the drag of a massive cut through air—no impact bite in my hands.

Missed? Doesn’t matter. The real peak comes next.

Since the Tower of Final Stars, Elina learned the legendary spell, Guardian’s Fervor. Gloria went home, upgraded her system, and gained magic immunity.

Raven… My head started to ache for no reason. She’s probably brewed more black tech.

As for Stini, every member of the Hero Squad has leapt ahead. And the Hero upgrades fastest of all.

And me?

If I don’t grow, I get cut. Being the Hero’s companion doesn’t mean I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder forever. The Hero will instinctively pick those with talent.

I know that well.

So I mapped out Shadow Artisan Andor’s growth plan a long time ago.

Compared to last time, what I had to advance now was—

A normal person’s speed hits a ceiling. Wind drag is one reason. The biggest is balance at top speed. One foot strides, the other pushes, but the center of gravity lags.

In the Godspeed Realm, that flaw gets magnified.

People can enter it mid-fight. Almost none explode with power and end the foe. The first time, most get badly hurt.

Because you can’t tune your own balance. Every motion compresses into an “instant.”

Force acts in a slowed world, but consciousness runs too fast. Forget running; even standing and swinging is hard. Back at the Tower of Final Stars, to kill Sorek, I entered the Godspeed Realm and ran a few laps on the wall—then my legs gave out.

So as Hero Stini’s teammate, Shadow Artisan Andor, my first breakthrough is “adapting to the Godspeed Realm.”

It’s not a fundamental breakthrough, but don’t underestimate it.

Abigail still stood where he was. He didn’t dare run. He didn’t even dare extra motion. My speed kept climbing. In Godspeed, it’s only normal speed. In the common world, my sprint would tear a gale, the wind sheer alone shredding the earth.

If he leaves the Godspeed Realm, he won’t see me move. If he stays, he can’t match my mobility.

And then comes the crowd-favorite— the classic backstab.

In the Godspeed Realm, every motion wears the idea of “fastest,” a lightning brand burning on the wind.

So even a simple turn of the head, crossing into the normal world, becomes a neck-whipping snap like a loosed bowstring.

Abigail saw nothing and heard nothing; my speed outran sound, a hawk outpacing thunder across a clear sky.

Each step gouged the earth with craters like arcane cannon strikes, dust geysers bursting then vanishing into clean blue.

I kept swinging, fixed on the crown of his head, the blade a falling waterfall.

He shouldn’t have seen me; his intuition is dull, a cloud without lightning—at least, that’s how it should’ve been.

But I forgot what that state—Saster reborn—really meant, a grave lamp still burning in daylight.

Abigail abandoned his off-hand, gripped the sword one-handed, and swept behind him flat and level, scholar’s poise thick as ink.

No Endless Codex of Wisdom in his palms, no thorn-iron crown on his brow, no sacred etched armor on his shoulders.

Abigail held only a sword, lonely as a reed in wind.

And that strike wasn’t the Beatrice royal style, but Saster’s traveling art—a lone swordsman’s life-tether in the four corners.

Dad, you still give me trouble even from the Demon Realm!

Greatsword met thin blade; rubble ground flat under pressure like storm-wind, and dust blew clear, revealing day-bright sky.

Our bodies froze at once, two statues staring through sunlit air.

“…A curse…” The thin blade’s sigils etched on me kept singing low with sorrow, like winter rain.

Truly, it was a curse of a sword, a single stroke like fate knotting.

The breeze off his thin blade pierced Valor’s guard and severed half my ribcage.

Yet Abigail, forcing a swing inside the Godspeed Realm, and struck by my godspeed rush, bled visibly head to toe.

His organs were likely failing, a lantern guttering in storm.

We dropped out of the Godspeed Realm and still didn’t fall; without aid, we had minutes left, yet we stood.

“That sword…” I whispered, eyes fixed on Abigail’s thin blade, like a needle threading night.

Endless Demon King Andreas is ageless and undying, unbreakable and indestructible; only Eternal God Feriel could die with him.

Andor, his former self, even with less authority, should share the same immortality, like iron in iron.

Yet I felt true danger to life—something I’d never known before meeting Feriel in my past life.

It brushed me like frost at dawn.

And that’s interesting—an unknowable road at last; in my past life, Abigail wielded this blade but never to this release.

Now its seal feels open, like a river flooding its banks.

Demonfolk crave destruction; their souls yearn for annihilation, not just of humans or the human world, but of all things—including themselves.

It’s a winter tide that wants every shore.

Even if I die, I want to test myself against Abigail and settle the height between us.

With strength for only one last strike, I swung my greatsword Valor on the final flow of blood.

Abigail struggled too, raising his thin blade high, a reed catching sun.

Even like this, even with awkward posture, we were stubborn enough to fight one more bout—

two worn banners in the wind, refusing to fall.