Since the retreat at the Tower of Final Stars, everyone in the Hero Squad has leapt ahead. Some trained in the open like steel on a whetstone. Some researched in secret like roots drinking midnight rain.

Princess Golia could already lace the “Sharpness” concept into a knife-hand that cut like wind over ice. Now she can draw the root order “Stability” from her true blade, the Demon Slaying Sword. She coats herself in that order as armor, and tanks Anna’s magic weapon head-on like a cliff taking surf.

Stini’s sword rose another tier. She found new angles in “Iron Fortification” and “War God Unparalleled.” The effects hit harder, like drums in a storm. With her blessing on me, even a non-buff warrior like me could match Anna’s steps like a shadow keeping pace with fire.

Elina can cast more Divine Arts. She just used “Heroic Soul Recall,” letting the dead rise as heroic spirits for a time. They don’t tire, their mana flows full like a spring. If they get proper resurrection within three hours, there’s no aftertaste, only dawn after night.

There’s also “Divine Dewfall,” which rinses minds fouled by corruption like rain washing dust. “Authority Barrage,” an attack blessed by the god of strength. In theory, nothing exists it can’t shatter, like thunder splitting a tree. “Wind and Sand Settle,” which clears the surplus concepts summoned by the Demon King and restores the world to its original lines, like a desert calming after a gale.

And then the legendary magic “Guardian’s Fervor,” a true killing move, hot as a comet and cold as judgment.

Raven… I’ve lost count of her black-tech. Names blur like stars in a river. The one thing I remember is the “Godslayer Weapon” prototype that can arm-wrestle a dragon—the Hundred-Handed Giant, Unit One.

So what about “me”?

As Shadow Artisan Andor in the Hero Squad, I can sweep mobs with Shadow, I can swing a greatsword, I can enter the Godspeed Realm. But the others can cover all that. Am I just the errand boy, a spare wheel rattling behind a chariot?

Heroes have always walked beside beauties, like moon and tide. If I’m optional, how do I step onto history’s stage? How do I even chase those proud, powerful girls who shine like winter stars?

So…

I glance around and sprint. Power doesn’t fall from the sky. I run beneath the two figures dueling in the air, and jump toward Anna’s flank like a hawk cutting up through cloud.

…So, as a Hero, as a suitor, I have to grow stronger—fast. Strong enough to tower over my whole team like a mountain over the plain.

First, correct a fallacy. A girl’s nature isn’t to cling to the strong. That’s the weak talking to their own fear. But by the decree of the Life Goddess Liv, the next generation inherits power from both parents. For their children, people instinctively seek a strong partner, like birds seeking high boughs.

Shadow climbs my body like ink flooding silk. After my Heroic Spirit form glowed with pale silver, it turns pitch-black again, night swallowing moonlight.

I tuned the jump just right. I come down above Anna’s head, and bring the blade down like a falling star.

Her giant scythe is tangled by Princess Golia. She’s clumsy at magic flight, her motion slowed like wings wet with rain. She can only lift her left hand to block my greatsword.

The impact hammers Anna into the ground, earth coughing dust. But a pure-white small scythe blossoms from nothing and bites my side, right under the left ribs, and slams me down too, like a kite cut from its string.

Anna’s constructed body sits at the edge of physical limits. That’s no boast. The Demonfolk don’t have material bodies. They’re high-purity clusters of concept. To descend into this mortal world, she gave herself a material order like a law written into stone. Even with stacked buff magic and all my strength, my heavy chop only smashed her left forearm and scapula, like a hammer cracking granite.

Toughness. Rigidity. Edge resistance. All maxed, like dials pinned to the right.

“…What an excellent body. Why can’t we mortals just… set our bodies like this?” My voice tastes of iron.

I claw up from the dust and spit blood from a split lip. I lift my greatsword and run on, breath hot like forge wind.

“How… You took ‘Death’s Woe’…”

Right. The artifact of the Slaughter domain. The pure-white small scythe, Death’s Woe. Different from the giant scythe Life’s Rapture, which only retained the inner authority of Slaughter. Death’s Woe was never caught in the space Stini sealed with Throne Shatter.

Death’s Woe lives in the domain of Slaughter. It waits in the Ocean of Darkness until Anna calls. Then it tears our world’s space like silk, and strikes straight at the victim.

If the giant scythe Life’s Rapture embodies “irresistible extinction,” then the small scythe Death’s Woe exists for “unforeseeable assassination,” a knife in the lamplight.

It never stayed in the mortal world, so Throne Shatter never materialized it. Its authority remains whole, like a blade unscabbarded.

Something that can even tear space hit me dead-on. And I’m not dead.

“My legendary magic, Defiant Death.”

Its effect is—

“Demon King, you can’t shatter my bones!”

My side is a mess of meat, my clothes dyed red like autumn maple. But the flimsy ribs didn’t snap. They gleam with a dull metallic sheen, moonlight on iron.

Human bones both shape and shield—frame and armor in one, a bridge and a bastion.

Even at the human limit—legendary magic isn’t omnipotent. To manifest a human concept in reality is to abandon others, like a river cutting one channel and forsaking all paths.

Legendary magics vary like stars, but one rule holds like a north star. The harsher the trigger, the stronger the effect.

On the surface, it fits that I, Shadow Artisan Andor, use this legendary magic. My youth holds a black past I won’t speak of. And lately, the Demon King killed a comrade. Enough obsession to fuel madness. Plausible as thunder before rain.

But remember? I’m the firstborn of the Demon King. The Son of the Demon King who holds the domain of Shadow. I don’t use legendary magic.

Demons don’t use it, not just because we lack mortal-grade obsessions. We don’t need frenzy to wield authority to the same end. We touch the spring directly.

This time I used Shadow authority to make my bones unbreakable, like night refusing dawn.

Shadow doesn’t contain “hardness” as a concept. But against a weakened Anna, it’s enough. No one will catch the seam in the paint.

Besides, I won’t die easy. My true body is a bundle of concepts, quick to mend like water knitting after a stone’s thrown. If she really broke my warding, I’d repair the flesh before Stini and the others noticed, like a mask retouched between scenes.

By the story I’m telling, Defiant Death makes your bones indestructible and your endurance long. I matched that with authority well enough, a shadow playing armor.

The Hundred-Handed Giant, Unit One, raised multiplex particle cannons from its back like porcupine quills. It took aim at Anna and fired. The blast flung her like a leaf in a gale. Then tracking shrapnel chased her, a flock of hot birds.

“Where’d that come from? Raven, how’d you build that big thing?” My words whip on the wind.

I land on the Construct’s arm and signal Raven to throw me. She gets it at a glance, like sparks catching tinder.

“I built it myself, of course.”

Her voice comes tinny through the loudhailer, like wind through a tin roof.

“I mean, you’re broke. How’d you afford a Construct like this?”

“I joined the school Catherine recommended—the Truth Seekers Assembly. They’re good people. They funded one of my projects!”

“Whoa, sounds like a cult!”

“It is not! It’s a proper school exploring the power of the Golden Age’s Sorcerer Emperor! Not a cult!”

Even through the distortion, I hear the flare in the girl’s tone. She ramps the Construct to max and hurls me like a comet.

The arm’s acceleration slams me flat. I have to shut my eyes. Even blind, I feel the aura of that single-concept artifact—the giant scythe—like cold on the skin.

I arrive by Stini’s side, lift a hand, and guard her against Anna’s strike like a shield catching hail.

The giant scythe wedges between the two bones of my forearm. I swallow the numb, blinding pain and twist hard. The reverse hooks catch on bone. It’s physically stuck, fishhook in rib.

That’s the scythe’s flaw. It’s strong and versatile, a reaper in the field. But if it jams, its wielder’s in peril, caught in their own swing.

She kicks my wounded arm to wrench it free. I bare my teeth and grin like a wolf. One-handed, I sweep my greatsword and carve Anna’s flank in return, a scar on marble.

No blood yet, but I feel bone crack. Anna’s flawless face knots, a rose crushed in a fist.

A small scythe howls through the air, arrowing for my heart. From the bite in my flesh, Anna’s guessed I’m hardening bone. She aims for the gap—the heart, a lantern in a cage.

I’m not worried. I have teammates I trust like anchors in a storm.

The pure-white scythe nails my breastplate and only sinks millimeters. In the Hero Squad, besides Stini in light gear that guards only what counts, the only one in heavy plate is Princess Golia, our brawler.

Her Highness throws her body in the way and stops the small scythe cold. She clamps both hands on it and won’t let it flee, a hunter gripping a snake.

Anxiety pricks Anna at last. She’s stronger than me, and swings my whole body around by brute force, trying to shake me off or use me as part of her weapon, like a flail.

I add another cut to the scapula I hit earlier. Once a body is materialized, repairs aren’t as simple as patching a concept-shell. The surface can look fine while the inside’s rotten wood. Two hits on the same weak spot. Anna finally bleeds, red like a seal broken.

If, after this fight, the greatsword Valor still stands, then it too will be a legendary arm. A blade that once wounded the Demon King, a name sung like iron on stone.

The scythe bucks wilder and wilder. My stance is about to break when Stini’s pursuit arrives like winter wind.

She’s been coiling power behind me. One thrust lances past my cheek like a falling star.

The Godspeed Realm is just the setup. Anna’s left hand snaps out and grabs the blade, a thunderclap of reflex.

But that peerless sword-light shreds her fingers like paper and drives into her forehead, a needle of frost.

The Hero’s secret art, A Single Cold Star, is high difficulty even among secret arts—one spark, one kill.

Stini only grasped its form after watching Abigail’s vast sword-light, a river of dawn.

Anna’s pupils bloom wide. Before she can struggle, the Construct seizes her in both hands. Heat seethes in its grip like a furnace door flung open.

Raven’s black-tech, the Stellar River Furnace.

A human shape writhes in light and fire. At last, it sifts to ash. The wind takes it like snow.

“We finally killed her this time… right?” The words fall like pebbles into a well.

That thrust weighed on Stini too. She pants hard, and only after a moment finds her voice, thin as smoke.

“Yeah…”

I keep my face flat as always and say:

“…We did ‘kill’ her.”