They all died because of you... I’m not making excuses. If you weren’t set on killing Raven, I wouldn’t have left warm sheets at midnight to come spill blood.

...So what? What’s the point of dragging me from the shadows like this?

Head, your voice sounds so young—whose body are you wearing? Who died for you to wear it?

I swept out my Authority over Shadow like a black banner in the wind.

Shadows danced, howled, and praised, then raved like a storm of crows, tearing down everything on the earth.

Including the child Dulan was torturing, not yet dead, a kite with its string cut.

Does a Divine Being not love the Creator’s youngest? Aren’t you going to save him?

I lifted the body on the tip of my Long Halberd and faced Head, moonlight cold on iron.

I can’t save him. No matter how hard I try, it’s useless.

I can imagine Head glaring, a face like thunder. I can’t see, but the thought pleases me like dusk rain.

You can. Manifest your true form in the world. Wield the Authority of Wisdom and cast me back to the Demon Realm. Save him. You already have a body to walk among mortals.

I hurled the corpse at Head and laughed with reckless scorn, like knives ringing.

Fools go with the current. The wise bide their chance. Those who see through all keep silent like deep water.

As one beyond and one who sees through, Head never meddles directly in the world’s flow. In my previous life, it was the same. Though He steered humanity, history shows His true body left no footprints among us.

So I plotted the Demon King Army along my last life’s timeline. I knew those who know the future rarely intervene, at best dropping oblique oracles like faint constellations to nudge mortals.

So I could sit the Hero Academy finals with Stini and Gloria, bold and at ease. I knew the next event was the Peace Conference Defense, nothing else between. The Truth Seekers Assembly purge would come long after.

Then comes what I faced before:

I stepped out, set on protecting Raven, and the Truth Seekers Assembly clashed with the Heretic Inquisition, sparks in dry grass.

The aberrant blade “Unholy Divine” was stronger than I remembered, clearly touched by Raven’s hand.

Stini spoke with Nagash, watched him die on a cold street, and began to doubt the Divine Being’s existence.

An epic sprang out of nowhere, and the plot careened like a cart losing its wheel.

Every character mattered; remove even one domino, and you don’t get this operatic wreck.

What convinced me most was that Nagash knew the World Saving Demon King was present. I questioned his soul. Death wore it down, and becoming a Shadow Realm retainer carved more away, so I couldn’t pry specifics.

But the coincidences stacked like stones. Only Head’s deliberate arrangement could make them stand.

With an omniscient creature like Him, I don’t need to hide my malice; the blade’s already out of its sheath.

He knows everything anyway.

You walk the mortal world, even in a new body. That proves you’ve lowered your rank, able to meddle now, right?

Yes, Head answered, steady, like a bell that won’t be moved.

No defense? About Raven—whom you want dead and I want to protect.

No need. You’ve fixed your view and won’t change.

You don’t stress you’re right; you stress I won’t bend... Then why come? Why see me? Just to stop my slaughter?

Because if I don’t show, you won’t be satisfied. You’ll keep slaughtering until I do. I don’t want to wreck our harmony. If your excesses pile up like ash, I’ll have to help erase the traces.

He stepped closer. By his footfalls, he kept to a spot safe yet as close as he dared, a cat at the edge of fire.

Though for beings who fight with Authority, distance means nothing.

I know you can’t see, so I offer my hand, palm open like a white flag. I don’t wish to be your enemy.

If we’re about to fight, this distance means nothing. And your other hand still grips a scepter.

But for you—studying humans, wearing them, mimicking their hearts—it still feels pleasant, doesn’t it?

I know; I always know—that’s what Head seemed to say. And he wasn’t wrong.

I hate that needle under my skin, most of all when he might be an enemy.

...So after doing things that make you my foe, you still want to get along?

If I could, I wouldn’t raise my scepter either.

He tapped the cobbled street with his other-hand scepter. Tink—crisp as glass struck.

You’re threatening me? You dare?

Head doesn’t compromise. He knows everything, which means he knows the end of a negotiation before it starts. He moves only for the best outcome, words or deeds turning the board toward him like a tide.

With Head, there’s no winning, no profit. All I can do is bite down like a wolf and never let go, till my goal stands.

I can’t see the future and I’m no Divine Being, but I have my edge—

I sink my soul entirely into the Ocean of Darkness. Now the ocean is me, and I am the ocean.

Countless ugly masks rise from Shadow to the surface, like undead waking, like a hundred ghosts on parade beneath a blood moon.

Miasma from the dark side swells across the world, fouling everything. The air stinks of smoky blood. The earth oozes filthy slime. Even space warps—like the Demon Realm I’m used to.

Shadow is my body, my soul, my all.

I try to clench a fist, and the human world starts to crack. Space and time split by degrees, like ice floes.

The highest tier of true-form manifestation: “All Evils Upon Me.”

Drowning the soul in the Ocean of Darkness makes the mind hazy and rabid. Yet this time I’m sharply lucid, like the last flare before death. I know my body’s fine, but the feeling gnaws like cold.

A thousand arms with strength to rip the earth. Ten thousand bone-wings that blot sun, moon, and stars.

This form is too strong, the visage too horrific. Wherever it goes, corpses pave the ground, miles burn bare. I rarely use it.

Is this... the form of the Endless Demon King Andreas?

No, still Andor. If it were the true, complete Andreas, even you couldn’t look straight at it.

I open a monstrous maw. My words spit venomous breath; wherever it falls, lairs of monsters bloom like rot.

And this body is just a shell of shape, hollow within.

If it were the true Endless Demon King, seeing its shape kills you, hearing its voice kills you, thinking its name kills you. Even the soul goes to ash—absolute death.

Do you want war, Andor?

That depends on your stance. I want to know what stance you’ll take toward me.

If possible, friendly. I also want to know what stance you want.

A joke. I hurled my Authority at Head. He swept his scepter to parry. The Long Halberd bit stone behind him, sparks like fireflies. I threw out a hand to stop Dulan rushing to guard me. You want war? Can you really wage it? I’m right here. Do you dare kill me?

...

To beat me, you must use Authority. But in the domain of Wisdom, once Authority is used, it’s win-or-lose, nothing between.

Either Head’s Authority pierces the rank of my former self as the Final Calamity, or I ignore Head’s power entirely.

Head can’t use Authority on Andreas, that’s certain. But Head and I, in the Andor era, never fought head-on, so I don’t know how much of the complete form I hold now.

Even if you beat me—break me as Andor—then Andreas will appear. The Final Calamity would descend mid–Silver Era. Is that in your plan? This time you didn’t stock grain for mortals to survive the disaster; Berenz already destroyed it.

If you could truly erase me outright, Head wouldn’t have bothered with so many arrangements in my last life.

No Authority, however towering, no power, however vast, can bar the Final Calamity. The Creator of the Golden Era and the gods of the Silver could only shelve the end for a time, delay it.

Head, you lose the whole board. Whatever you choose, whatever you beat, you still lose. Your only move is to compromise with me and hunt for a win-win.

Head laughed at that. Those who see through everything wear thin emotions; for them, things are decided before they happen—no need for anger, no room for surprise.

Head only copies mortal habits to get close. When his show of force did nothing, He started to speak of cooperation:

I admit it—I can’t beat you. So you plan to blackmail me this way, make me help you achieve your aim?

I know leverage works only once. Use it twice and you break the underworld’s rules. I’ll cash it in just this time.

Like you can’t extort with the same nude twice; push it, and the net rips, the fish die, both sides drown.

So I’ll take the chance to ask for compensation:

You can’t start a war, and I won’t. War hurts me too. I want a win-win.

So what compensation do you want? Didn’t you want a high-ranking retainer? I’ll help you—let Stini become your retainer.

Stini?

Stini’s talent matches Augustus. When Anna and I—the highest class of the Son of the Demon King—led the invasion, she still kept the human world afloat. Her deeds speak to her strength.

Now Stini’s in multi-route pursuit, her favor toward me isn’t low. But when cards hit the table, the odds of her joining the dark side would make a mathematician weep.

Head means to trade Stini for Raven as compensation. Setting aside how much He tramples human rights, it’s a tempting deal on paper.

A seductive offer. Raven’s odds of joining the Demon King Army aren’t high. Trade a “maybe” for a guaranteed high-ranking retainer—hard to beat.

Then we’re agreed—

However, I refuse. One of my favorite things is to look an opponent who thinks they hold an absolute advantage in the eye—and cut them off with a single No.

That line comes from a novel character I adore.