The sky felt rinsed clean, yet the ink-dark Slaughter domain clenched in Stini’s hands, crushed to shards, and the living world broke through.

Anna’s peerless face began to crack like porcelain, krrak-krrak, brittle glaze spidering.

“Aaaaah—damn it—aaaah—!”

She dropped the Giant Scythe and shook, body rocking like a wind-blown reed.

A light with no shadow pooled around her; in that frame, we looked like villains and she the wronged.

She covered her shattered face, denying our eyes, yet through her fingers we saw—

—flaxen braids, freckles on her nose, big wet eyes, the timid girl who trailed me, saying—

“Aaah!” That glimpse of her true self snapped a cord of memory in me.

Unable to summon the vast Slaughter domain, Anna staggered back, swaying; Stini and Raven pressed their strikes.

Yet her frenzy ignored blasts and blades; she moved like in a dream, as if we weren’t attacking.

Terror tightened our hearts; her body was ruined, muscle turned out, blood springing like a red fountain.

Our hits landed; we felt impact and saw results, yet her indifference made us doubt what was happening.

Maybe we feared the not-knowing itself, a fog that froze the gut.

Anna kept howling, clutching her face; then her fingers burrowed inward, gouging skin and meat, tearing strings of bloody tendon.

She clawed her eyes blind and ripped out all her flaxen hair in a single fistful.

“Hey, hey… what is this…”

Stini was first to stop; the always-sunny girl couldn’t smile, her mouth twitching, heavy.

“Bastard—!”

Anna roared from a torn mouth, pain-laden and raw.

Her face was gone; two empty holes where eyes should be, a fresh-flayed corpse made woman.

She tottered toward us, steps uneven, like a drunk crossing a frozen stream.

“You shredded your own face! Don’t pin it on us!” Danger pricked at Raven, nearest to Anna.

She drove her Titan-class Construct, a steel fist swinging like a falling anvil.

Bone should’ve shattered in logic, yet this was a Demon King; pulp pressed through the knuckles in clots.

“Wh-what? Did that kill a Demon King?” Raven spread the Construct’s hand; flesh and bone stayed, not a trick.

She flexed the steel fingers and crushed a larger chunk again, confusion ringing.

“Did we win like this?”

“It feels wrong. What just happened? This consort didn’t keep up.” Elina came to sense the life thrumming in the meat.

“This flesh brims with life. Far beyond a slain demonfolk minion. If not a Demon King, someone alive just died here.”

“A Divine Healer’s judgment stands.” Gloria nodded.

“I mean, really? I tossed out a Throne Shatter and killed a Demon King?” Stini looked stunned, disbelief clouding.

“What did happen?”

“That’s the issue—I don’t know either. My skill breaks legend-tier magic and Demon King effects, but—”

It’s not that simple.

Stini wasn’t hiding it; she likely didn’t fully grasp it herself.

I bantered with the girls, listening to feedback from the Shadow domain, and recalled the decades I death-matched Stini before.

Hero bloodline skills share a tilt. Trace their history. Look to the Bronze, Blackiron, and Earthen Ages. A pattern emerges.

Through Immunity Privilege, their applied abilities drift toward making a world of concepts turn material.

Maybe in the early Silver Era, Wisdom God Haydon chose it. His plan for mortals was a world purged of mystery.

Strip the incomprehensible, convert all to matter. That was his road.

So it’s not just “dispel magic and domains.” It’s a deeper override, outranking Balance, Element, and Power themselves.

I’ve always thought Haydon used Heroes as testbeds for his future order, though I’ve no proof.

Back to the point—Stini’s specialty is a peak of the Hero line.

It hasn’t reached the Earthen Age credo: all matter and order from quarks and charge. But it fully projects concepts into matter.

When Throne Shatter triggers, Stini affirms what a mortal believes exists, and denies what a mortal can’t comprehend.

She understands mana circuits and spell structure, so we can use magic.

She can’t grasp Alpha’s legend magics, “Burning Moonlight” and “Resigned Awakening,” so Alpha gets forced into material projection.

The original world held no “matter.” All things should’ve been built from concepts alone.

“Matter” is a word born from mortal half-sight, a tool to name what they could touch.

I take a long breath of materialized air, not a weave of “nutrient,” “respiration supply,” and “possession.”

Nostalgia washes me—years like ten thousand tides, spent with Ferrel.

But I don’t want to go back. I can secure a better end. My lips lift; I still like the thin Slaughter tang in the air.

Even materialized, I relish the blood-reek of Slaughter. That’s a demonfolk’s nature.

And Stini, sharp as a fox, must feel it’s wrong too…

Mid-argument, Stini shivered; if it were Elina, ears and tail would’ve pricked.

She waved us silent and raised guard. “Wait, wait—something’s off!”

In physics, it shows as the sky darkening, day sipped away.

Even without the Shadow domain’s feedback, everyone felt a darkness brewing, brooding, hatching.

Pitch-black clouds rolled and writhed midair, more sickening than a nest of long worms.

The unnameable evil, now material, met the naked eye, and the deepest dark showed itself, stark.

Anna was never stupid; her scythe solves most problems, so she rarely has to think.

When she focuses, battle turns unsolvable.

She knew she couldn’t summon a permission domain or wield concepts as blades, yet concepts can still be moved.

You want matter? Then she’ll beat you with matter. That was her thought.

No certain kill, yet she massed materialized Slaughter concepts, pooling them into a torrent.

We couldn’t stop the black smoke-surge gathering; we could only wait and brace.

Everyone set stances, ready for a Demon King’s strike.

“By your words, a wind-up this long means a big hit.” Stini joked, a thin smile like a knife-edge.

“You still cracking jokes? Full alert! Raven, back in the Construct’s cockpit!”

“Stini and Gloria, guard yourselves! Elina, prep the Divine Art ‘Life’s Benediction’—no, wait…”

The clouds shrank and folded, collapsing toward a single origin.

It looked like world’s end, a terrible beauty that begged forbidden awe.

A black dot drifted sideways, then became a line.

That was the Line of Death.

“…Elina, use ‘Heroic Spirit Return’ instead.”

I tossed the Greatsword to the ground, better to avoid being weaponless in a reboot.

Endless Demon King Andreas cannot die, no matter what, yet mortal wounds still trigger immortality and false death.

Lately, I’ve had far too many of those. You never get used to it.

The black line swept and grew into a plane.

The Plane of Opposition.

Above and below split into two disjoint spaces. Stini’s Holy Sword was batted away.

Gloria’s guard was blown off. Raven’s special-enchanted Construct was cleaved in two.

Elina’s Divine Being blessing felt like nothing. None of us stopped the force of the blow.

Consciousness cut out… for maybe two seconds.

“So this is the ‘Heroic Spirit’ state? My strength and reactions feel sharper.”

Stini picked up the Holy Sword Galewind, checked her arm and waist that should’ve been severed.

Only a white ring marked them; otherwise a lake of blood proved the wound just now.

“Don’t make it sound easy! Without a Return Soul Rite within three hours, we’re reporting to Death together!”

I touched the new white ring on my chest, sour and unwilling.

“No holding back. Techniques we honed shouldn’t be shipped to the Death domain along with our bodies.”

“Of course.” Princess Golia’s voice went mechanical.

Rings of mana burst and shrank around her, forging a knight’s heavy armor.

“Dying isn’t in my expectations.” Her true self, inside the Demon Slaying Sword, manifested Stability.

‘Stability’ and ‘Sharpness’ domains applied—Concept Armor.

“I’ve got homework undone! Dying here won’t do.” A vast Construct pushed from space.

Raven stepped into the cockpit and fired the magic reactor.

Godslayer weapon. Hundred-Handed Giant, Prototype One, online.

“I’m going in too! Everyone, fight like you’re ready to die!”

Shadow rose and wrapped me. I hefted the Greatsword Valor.

We rushed the newly hatched Demon King Anna, fresh to these new rules.