We swung our weapons and hacked at each other, like lightning cleaving stormclouds.

We unfolded our Authority Realms, yet stayed human, kept our voices. Inside the Godspeed Realm, we clashed, time splintering like glass.

Against attacks that cracked heaven and earth, our defenses were paper shields in a monsoon.

I lopped off Anna’s hands; she whipped her Giant Scythe sideways and split my collarbone like bamboo.

I brought the Long Halberd down and crushed her skull; she raked from above and cut my pelvis, stone meeting chisel.

Blood geysered from both of us, mingling midair, crossing like braided rivers.

We took wounds in a red rain and recovered in a furnace blaze.

I wouldn’t die. She died and rose again, a phoenix without rest.

We both hurt, yet neither stepped back. Fever-blind for our aims, we bit like wolves and wouldn’t let go.

“Why choose light? Why would the one most favored by darkness betray it?”

With her lower face sheared off, Anna couldn’t smile, yet words still crawled out like ants.

“None of your business.”

“Always, always, always—you keep saying ‘none of your business.’ You never tell me why! I’m the Demon King closest to you—why won’t you accept me? Why won’t you look at me?”

One eye mashed to pulp, the other fixed on me like a pinned star.

I knew it wasn’t that sweet, gilded thing people call love.

Even if I didn’t know her, I knew.

“No reason. If there were one, I’d be the one asking why.”

That line sharpened her assault. Her fist cratered my flank and blew away two-thirds of my organs like leaves in a gale.

“Only I can parse your words! Only I ask what your strange names mean! But I still can’t grasp what those far-seeing eyes are trying to see!”

“Nothing. Just zoning out.”

Anna stayed human only to talk; otherwise she’d unseal her highest true form and pull every authority to kill me, mountains opening to swallow the plain.

But I didn’t want to talk. No reason. Like refusing to click a roadside NPC with no quest—time down the drain.

So her anger never reached my mind. It smoked in a sealed jar, piling up, turning to confusion.

“Why think about useless things? A fight is a fight. You want me dead, I want you gone. Why so many whys? Those answers mean nothing to us.”

“Fair point, so let’s kill… Did you think I’d end there?! Think I can’t beat you? Think you’re still the ‘firstborn of the Demon King’ who stood against armies? Our gap widened while you were playing house!”

Concepts from the Slaughter Realm wrapped her, dragged her into deepest night. From that abyss, her will rolled outward like expanding tide.

In that moment, Anna became heaven’s thunder.

She shed the human form and seized the tide of Slaughter.

The Slaughter Realm surged at me like a tsunami.

It hammered cliffs in my mind, pouring slaughter into me, wave after wave.

Even so, I had room left; my undying nature sat like a stone in a stream.

“Ha! Yes, this, this pressure! Authority to rival a Demon King, a challenge to a Divine Being! I can kill all things—except you!”

Her will leaned into her realm, into rabid Slaughter. Her voice blurred into vast intent; to the ear it was a murmur, to the mind a clear blade.

That stance was too ugly; beside her, my relative grace looked like a hero’s moon over a muddy pond.

“What are you watching? The sky? Divine Beings? Mortals? It doesn’t matter—tell me! Only I can understand you, only you can understand me! Why do you walk alone?”

I could hear it—deep malice and anger, thunder under earth.

It wasn’t some corny love fixation. I can’t remember any unforgettable tale between us. But I’d studied Anna as a prime enemy; her psyche profile lingered like a dossier in frost.

One thing was certain—she wanted a companion, a lamp against winter.

Even as a Son of the Demon King, Anna held authority close to a true Demon King. In the panic-struck Demon Realm, everyone was wary; no one to share a cup at the empty banquet.

Murder-urge, malice, joy, achievement, pain, weakness—she swallowed them alone, cold draught to a colder night.

No one can beat loneliness, not even the Creator; that’s why He planted stars and birthed children.

When she looked up to the higher sky, she saw only her mother—the Demon King of Sorrow—and me, Andor, firstborn of the Demon King.

Anna wanted someone to walk with her. Even as an enemy, even in hate. Anything but alone—too lonely, the highest throne too cold, ice on gold.

Immersed in her realm, slaughter soothed her like a drug. Time dissolved. Then, once out, emptiness doubled, a desert after wine.

Her glory was scheduled: grasp Slaughter, rise into the mortal world, wreak havoc, ascend as a Demon King, descend with a domain into the Demon Realm. Obey the primal pact, enjoy eternal authority.

Everything she imagined doing wasn’t hers first; all Demon Kings tread carved paths, their legends set like grooves.

Self-important, extraordinary power, no extraordinary thought. Vega’s sober verdict.

So she watched me—the one she couldn’t read, the one whose gaze stayed on a horizon she couldn’t see.

Anna hoped to stay by my side, walk with me, even retreat with me. Ignored, she chose to be my enemy, to earn my gaze through battle sparks.

I knew. In the Demon Realm, I don’t just eat and roll in bed; intel gathering is one of my self-assigned jobs.

“Like a girl scrambling to make friends, busying herself with useless errands…”

I muttered my jab, but Anna couldn’t hear. She sank most of her soul into the Ocean of Darkness; her spirit tilted fully into killing frenzy, deaf, mute, thought burned out like paper.

She shed so much; that’s why she rose beyond imagining, mountain shadow taller than mountain.

“Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill—”

No words needed. The air was iron-laced with that intent, a storm that smelled of blood.

All-covering Slaughter slammed into my Shadow Realm, black surf against black cliff.

Sinking your soul into the Ocean of Darkness is how most Sons of the Demon King fight before their ascension. With rank too low, over-immersion cracks the mind—Anna gained power but lost reason, like Yakfarro before.

By the script, I should open my Authority Realm, take a little less power than Anna, and stall till Augustus returned.

Her stance was uglier, so my partial realm wouldn’t shatter mortal nerves.

However—plans lose to change. My body’s been off; plunging my soul into the Ocean of Darkness would be dangerous, a dive into knives.

Yeah, I don’t want the Endless Demon King Andreas showing up at mid-silver stage. So I’ll resist with shallow applications, rough tools against deep tides.

The first slaughter-wave fell. I swung my Long Halberd, warped into an unnameable shape, to meet heaven’s might.

Ah, this sucks.

I don’t want to move. Feels like I’ve died three hundred times… three hundred forty-one. If Ferrel weren’t the only one who can kill me, I’d off myself.

Even if every tendon tears, every bone grinds, every organ flattens—three hundred forty-one mortal wounds are a dream to me, smoke in a mirror.

My hands still had strength, my core still had fire. Being killed 341 times felt like a nightmare that wouldn’t stick.

But the next wave about to crash reminded me I wasn’t in my soft bed with Vega warming the side.

This won’t do. Even if I won’t die, if my mind snaps, Andreas takes the stage, the world ends early… maybe. I’m not betting.

So, use the arcane weapon. My beloved halberd Nandu bit the earth and called up the deepest Ocean of Darkness—my Authority Realm.

Shadow Authority Realm, Extended Application: Abyss Uncrossed.

Shadow is broader than Slaughter. Where there’s light, there’s shadow—breadth equal to radiance.

I projected the Ocean of Darkness into the mortal world and made it manifest, night poured like ink.

I stood on this shore; she, on the far bank, two horizons split by abyss.

Across, vast Slaughter roared, rolled, twisted, slapped, yet could never cross the uncrossable chasm.

Shadow is too wide. Slaughter alone isn’t enough; half a wing can’t cross a sea.

After a long while, Slaughter settled. It drew in, and a blurred human silhouette took shape, a lantern in fog.

“…What are you guarding?”

“Guarding my allies. Guarding the Hero Academy, sheltered in another space.”

“No, it’s deeper… more ineffable. Not that simple.”

“Still none of your business.”

“Right, right, ku-ku-ku, none of my business… But you know? Some grow stronger because they guard. You’re the kind who grows weaker for it.”

“Is that so?”

“You’re still like this, unwilling to speak to me… One last question. What are you really looking at?”

“None of—”

“Right. Still none of my business.”

Barbed, too-sharp shapes burst from Slaughter’s realm and lanced through the Ocean of Darkness’s projection, thorns in ink.

Slaughter Authority Realm, Extended Application: Prohibition of Return to Life.

“So I won’t ask again. I won’t wait. Die, Andor,” Anna said in a lover’s tender tone.

Her Giant Scythe pierced my heart; a small sickle threaded my skull, ritual and cold.

A ritual kill, like when I pinned her to the earth before, nails in shadow.

Well, damn, I thought.

Then I fell into the realm of Death—into the domain of Death Himself.