I’m streaking—downtown, under noon sun like a white blade—and the thought alone feels like a lock snapping open.

Kidding. I’m not that twisted. If anyone’s twisted, it’s Nivifar—her skin is wrapped in black runes like layered tar, covering every inch, yet up close there’s that puzzling rise on her chest, like a secret hill under night fog.

No, I absolutely won’t admit that when Nivifar still looked human, I was staring until she beat me like a drum in a storm.

I won’t admit it.

“You don’t get anything, Andor! Someone who always succeeds won’t understand a failure’s cheap shame!” Nivifar roared at me, her voice like gravel in a landslide.

I tried to answer, but my lungs were shredded reeds and my voice left with the wind.

“I can’t beat Stini. I can’t beat the Hero. More people accept her, praise her, love her—more than me!”

“I’ve done everything I possibly could. Beyond my limits, beyond what I should. I did it all!”

“Why? Why is everyone’s gaze chained to the Hero?”

Honestly, I think fewer people like Stini than Nivifar. Why? Nivifar’s not exactly hot, but she’s curved like dunes—way better than board-flat.

She slammed a shield into my face; my eyeball popped inward like a stone thrown in a pond and vanished. It’ll take a moment to regrow.

In that window she hit me hard again, with a Greatsword and a dagger—iron rain and needle-thorns. Nivifar never seemed to breathe; she struck like a storm and spoke like stacked scrolls.

She asked:

“Andor, tell me—why does everything fall to the Hero?”

“Because she’s the leader? Since when does being the leader mean she gets to take it all like it’s owed?”

Sight still hadn’t returned; I had to take the blows like a scarecrow in hail.

Yelling “It hurts, it kills, somebody help” inside my skull was too dull and not heroic at all, just a wet blanket under lightning.

So, bored, I started picking apart Nivifar’s logic—anyway, if nothing moves, I kill her and tell Stini a grim fairy tale: I tried, but my thoughts couldn’t reach her.

Thinking back… doesn’t “everything to one” sound like someone?

As Nivifar said, love or hate, rise or fall—when the crowd is many, worship and wrath pool into one face, like rivers forced into a single lake.

Divine Beings on the cloud-crest are worshiped that way. Heroes who lead the flock are sung that way. Demon Kings who try to end the world are cursed that way.

As if we can’t live without a single name to carry our hopes and knives.

The Demonfolk call it human laziness—too lazy to sort love and hate like grains, so they push it onto one person, drifting like trash on tidewater.

I mean, asking ordinary folk to love or hate the whole world is a mountain too high at dusk.

And it’s unfair to those who fight for ordinary folk—the supporting players who work like oxen and burn like lamps, with talent and grit, yet don’t become the lead because fate turned its face. Their halos brush only the edge like a moth at a window.

Like Nivifar said, glory perches on the one higher than them, splendor crowns the Divine Being more sacred than them.

Right—her theory mirrors that man’s right down to the bone. I clapped my mind’s palm: Nagash.

…Thinking of Nagash now, it feels like Head or a devil’s tail is tugging my thoughts; maybe Head and the devil set this scene together like gamblers sharing a deck.

Whatever. If I don’t fall in a pit, I don’t care.

I should say something from the lungs—words like rain on dry earth—to move Nivifar to tears and turn her around… hold on. Lungs, voice, tongue need to grow back before I talk, and Nivifar isn’t giving me a beat to breathe.

Dust on my clothes makes a rough charm, but my rag-doll look won’t win hearts; for a man chasing favor, not looking cool is losing the duel.

Hmm… first hit advantage, then talk big—that’s how you sell a road lit by lanterns.

This arc should be peaking at the “Slaughter” Demon King subjugation—a high summit that, without Head’s meddling, takes two books of climbing. Shadow Artisan Andor Mephy’s upgrade plan is pacing Stini, next step is the tier-two of the legendary Defiant Death.

“Haichuan Lianxu.”

Original version: swallow every negative emotion, carry tragedy and cruelty like a black hero of frost, devour all dark concepts by resolve—pure setting ink, don’t expect my resolve to do the heavy lifting.

Even temporary, it has limits; but the Son of the Demon King’s body is made of concepts, so eating a concept is chomping their form like biting glass statues.

It’s not stylish enough; Andor Mephy’s got black-hero flavor, and soloing Anna breaks the score. I meant to use it to lock Anna’s moves and hand Stini the killing note.

Looks like the tier-two form needs a rewrite on wet clay.

Choose: showmanship first or mouthfire first?

I pick the former.

“Nivifar, ever heard of the ‘False God Proposition’?”

I planted my feet like stakes and raised my blade to shade my face.

I tethered the Greatsword Valor to the root of the world’s Shadow—though it’s a legendary tool soaked in Demon King blood, it still can’t handle a strike at the rank of the World itself.

Only matching my own grade of blessing keeps my weapon from snapping like ice in spring.

“Never heard of it.”

Nivifar wasn’t interested; she was restless like caged wind, yet she cooled enough to listen.

She’d seen it: a single blow used to flip me, then chase me like a hawk. Now I was blocking most of her weight like a wall of river stone.

“How do you think legendary magic is born?”

Nivifar didn’t answer. The foul light in her six hands flared together, and she lunged, a cannonball under night flags.

I raised the Greatsword overhead, spun, and vented that falling-sky force to the side; ground-heaving power missed me like an avalanche turned aside. I sprung left, carried Valor’s arc before me, and caught her returning slash like catching rain with a shield.

“When our longing burns hard enough, or our obsession calcifies enough, the concepts in our thoughts condense into reality. Making from thought, mimicking the Creator—this is the heart of legendary magic.”

Nivifar crashed at me like iron tide; I slipped aside, brought my blade to my flank, ran into her charge, and brushed past like two shadows split by moonlight.

I was unmarked, a leaf untorn.

A thin line wrote itself on Nivifar’s cheek, a tear of blood under ash.

“Most legendary spells are anchored in old people and old stories, or in the climb toward something great. But there’s a type born from sages and philosophers—they question the world’s bone: good and evil, right and wrong, and receive answers that disagree with Divine Beings and the world’s rules. That’s the ‘False God Proposition.’”

“So what? You gonna turn into a real god?”

Nivifar felt the rhythm wrong and the harvest thin; she paused her storm, thought on my shift, and spoke like someone testing ice.

“Hah, no. If I could, why call it ‘False’? Mine weighs good and evil, right and wrong—no absolutes, only chaos like a cloud stirred by hands.”

I gestured at myself, and even that felt like an unnamed shape under water.

If someone watched me now, they’d see luscious colors blooming at the edge of sight; when they tried to focus, there’d be nothing. The part you can’t look at holds the strange beauty, like a sunset behind your head.

“Raising a private scepter outside what Divine Beings and the World permit, defining new rules—still a mortal’s trick. A false god, not the real sun.”

That reminded me—was that Nameless One in the tavern on Head’s side? I didn’t feel any mark left by a Divine Being on him, just a chill like cellar stone.

Head’s plots lately have me half paranoid; maybe I should see a doctor—kidding. I don’t trust Divine Healers.

I went on:

“A musician who loved tricking people but never lied once said: good and evil are decided by the heart. Absolute justice is dead, so arguing absolutes is void. Only stand firm for the ones you love, and be right for them.”

“Idealist nonsense,” Nivifar snorted, like a cat in rain.

“Besides our trusted rightness, what else can we trust?” I snapped my fingers, slotting in black-hero chords. “When your justice clashes with the world, choose yourself or the world. Guess what I pick?”

Nivifar’s eyes lit like lamps.

“You rebel against this world too? Andor, you’re a betrayer—then join me…”

I shook my head, quiet as dusk.

“I accept your logic, not your cause. You drift in your darkness and won’t step out. I don’t deny my own evil—but it’s an evil done to forge greater good, like fire that cleans copper.”

“…”

“I have never felt regret or shame.”

“…You’re not my companion.” The light in Nivifar’s eyes flickered out like a candle in wind.

“…Right. Unlike you, I still call myself pure.” I sighed, wearing regret like a cloak over steel.

“Must one of us die?”

Her broken smile hurt like glass in the foot; it was a last request, more like a plea with dust on it.

If I say yes, the story warps.

As Shadow Artisan Andor Mephy, or Shadow Demon Andor, I have reasons I can’t accept.

So I refuse—even if a part of me wants to help her, a river against a dam.

“If you won’t come back, the one who dies is Nivifar.”

Seven parts act, three parts truth, I sighed again, raised the Greatsword, and set my stance like a gate.

Her face twisted; she screamed a keening that would pop a normal person’s skull, and rushed me like night surf.

I set Valor crosswise, braced into her charge, then swept from above to behind, prying off the weight like lifting a fallen beam.

I turned my back to Nivifar, drew the blade in, folded the stance like wings.

A sword-mark opened across her heart; the black runes split like torn veils, revealing wet flesh and pale bone, the heart pulsing like a trapped bird.

I held back on purpose; I didn’t cut her heart.

“Nivifar, you can still turn back. Under the False God Proposition, I use ‘Divinity Patch’ to repair my body—every piece you break, I mend. I’m a complete false god now.”

I turned and offered her my hand like a branch over a river.

“This is the last chance. Come back. For the concept of a god, the World’s weight isn’t enough. A god’s rank stands above the world of mortals. The devil’s gift has failed. You can’t beat me.”

Truth is, a false god’s body isn’t impressive in physics; it’s the same strength under skin. After elevation, my rank’s higher, but I’ve got no resistance to other Authorities.

All told, the False God Proposition sounds stylish, but it’s mostly perfume.

I’m using it now to counter one concept: “Class.”

Nivifar’s world-breaking attacks ride the Authority of Class—high-rank strikes made tangible, one-siding anything lower like shearing wheat, and snatching my heart at the start proved it.

But that’s it—she’s nowhere near Biyag’s level; she can’t erase me outright. If my rank rises, if I stand equal to the World or above it, she can’t use the World to crush me. Half her power becomes smoke.

“Class” rules are simple: absolute dominance downward, absolute defeat upward, a ladder with teeth.

As for the physical fight… six weapons look scary, but without mastery it’s just noise. For Hero-tier folk, lack of focus is a dull blade.

“Andor…”

“What do you want to ask?” I waited, patient as dusk on a hill, gathering power in my hands to take her head cleanly.

“…I forgot.”

She smiled, but it looked like a cry with no tears, like a cloud that refuses to rain.

That did catch me off guard, like a stone in a calm stream.

"I'm tired of this," she said, voice like ash drifting from a spent fire.

"Hate, envy, devils, Demon Kings—enough," she said, like sweeping dust from a threshold.

"I won't chase your philosophy—enough. I'm tired," she breathed, like a lantern going out.

"I want to rest," she said, like a bird folding its wings at dusk.

Nivifar didn't look broken—just near tears, like a child clenching her fists in a summer storm.

She shed the inhuman shape, like mist thinning at sunrise.

She took a human frame and ran to me on her own feet, like a pilgrim back on the road.

Is that your final choice? It felt like a gate slamming in winter wind.

Like a villain who can't stomach defeat, she charged blind, like a boar through reeds.

I figured Nivifar would pick between tearful awakening and reckless collapse, like a fork in a mountain path.

Looks like she chose the latter, like stepping into shadow instead of sun.

Fair enough. Ordinary, even—the ending writes itself, like a river finding the sea.

I shook my head and sighed for her ordinary effort, ordinary growth, ordinary fall, ordinary death—like seasons turning without surprise.

Then I raised my sword without a fleck of feeling, like frost on steel.

I lifted it high and cut down from above Nivifar's crown, like thunder splitting a pine.

A cleaving stroke—upright, balanced, serene, like a plumb line over still water.

She caught my Greatsword with six weapons, like a spider bracing a web in wind.

Oh. She saw I was all-in, like storm clouds stacked to the horizon.

She had to guard with everything, or a one-handed block would see her skull split like a ripe gourd.

Nivifar never had my healing; after her fall, neither Demon King nor devils blessed her, like sowers withholding seed from barren soil.

Maybe they want her early death, to harvest the soul, like reapers eying a bent stalk.

So trading wounds is my win, like ice against fire.

Even if she blocks my first cut, what about the chain to come, like waves beating a cliff?

Even all-out defense, by the eighth form I'd take her head, like a headsman on schedule.

Mm. I take that back—seems I cheered too soon, like drums struck before the parade.

After bracing my blade with six hands, she didn't halt, like a hawk stooping through arrows.

One stamp drove force into the earth; a ringed ridge heaved up around the town, like a stone tide.

Then a black sigil on her flank tore open; two pale little hands reached out, like doves from a dark cage.

Jade-carved arms followed—delicate maiden's hands, looking harmless as moonlight on a pond.

At last, Nivifar punched, straight into my gut, like a hammer through silk.

Martial form: "Tread Through a Thousand Peaks," like boots crossing ridge after ridge.

"Andor, shut up!" she cried, like thunder under clear sky.

Ah. I think I see how the devils plotted this arc, like chess pieces already set.

As I went flying, the thought struck me like a bell inside my ribs.