Master said, end fights in seconds if you can.

Or was it ke? The ke where ten ke make one second?

Ah. Forgot.

Dulan leans toward “sad savoring,” a drifting fog by nature, slow, slack, congealed, like still water under moonless sky. That’s her core; it won’t change.

If possible, she refuses to think, just quietly drinks in sorrow and beauty, like night dew on stone. Closest to the Ocean of Darkness, most aberrant, she’s the dullest of the three maids. Even manic Berenz’s mind spins quick—she’s just mad.

Yet she’s also the strongest of the three, because her vow and trait draw back power like a black tide. The Ocean of Darkness returns her an unrivaled surge.

She pulls free of Shadow, grants herself weight and touch, slips through the plane, walks from the Shadow Realm into the world like a silhouette gaining flesh.

No… Dulan can’t think that complex. She simply wants to “come out,” and her nature makes it so, like a seed sprouting after rain.

One step forward, facing Biag and his thrall tangled together, slick on the bed, a knot of pale limbs like spilled silk.

She thinks nothing, feels nothing. By order, in the Godspeed Realm, she draws, she strikes, like a swallow’s flick through dusk.

A nodachi as tall as herself blooms from Shadow, rippling ink, carving a sorrowed arc like a crescent over dark water.

The first sneak-cut in the Godspeed Realm, the blade sweeps Biag and thrall like a winter gust across reeds.

So beautiful.

Watching blood-blossoms unfurl along the edge, Dulan thinks that and only that, like red petals on black snow.

Master warned: cut more than once. A Demon King’s life roots deep like ironwood; they don’t die easy. Behead and split, dig out the heart, peel the spine, strip hands and feet—maybe then.

So Dulan lifts in a full circle and falls the second stroke, like a wheel of moonlight.

Smooth as a river’s slide under frost.

The third stroke meets a hindrance, but still halves in one sweep, like ice cracking lengthwise. Biag’s pretty thrall takes three cuts, collapses inward to nothing, while he wakes, tries to guard, like a reed against a storm. Useless.

The edge passes through his body like a cold wind through fog.

You’re Andor’s maid!

Fourth stroke.

Both in the Godspeed Realm, mouths can’t speak, but a Demon King can push thoughts like a toxin, a fine-tuned contagion in the mind. Maybe that’s it. Dulan’s head is an empty hall; remembering that much is already good.

Don’t kill me! I did ambush your master, yes, but Anna forced me!

Fifth stroke.

Without his demonic artifact, a Demon King can’t reach the Ocean of Darkness. In the mortal world, he’s only a legendary hero—chicken to Dulan’s knife.

I’ll compensate! I…

Sixth stroke.

Why aren’t you dead yet? Dulan yawns wide, like a drowsy cat in rain.

Damn damn damn damn aaahhhhh!

Biag roars, drags his demonic artifact from the void, a lady’s crown swelling to a bone crown, gleaming a grim icy sheen like moon on frost.

Seventh stroke.

His authority isn’t in the same league as Nivifar’s. Opposite Dulan’s nodachi rises a whole sky and earth, a compact “world” like a mountain carried in a bowl.

It won’t bite—no, it still bites. Dulan’s so strong even Andor won’t promise a clean win.

Under the weight and density of a “world,” the nodachi chews slow into Biag’s left shoulder, then slower down—spine, ribs, organs, and pelvis—slow but steady, like a saw through stone.

Biag starts to strike back. Overwhelming weight seeps from nowhere into Dulan’s body, a cold flood through clay; organs, bone, sinew burst inch by inch like pomegranates splitting.

A physical shape is such a hassle, like wearing wet cloth in winter.

Dulan lifts her left arm bristling bone spurs, sees her left hand dangling by a strip of skin, and frowns, a ripple on still water.

Eighth stroke… not needed. Master said killing Biag is fine, but if he tears his pact with Nivifar and recalls his artifact, let him go.

A living Biag is more useful, like a trapped wolf than a carcass.

Dulan sheaths the blade, yields to the weight pressing her into meat slurry, melts into the Shadow below, dissolves her form like snow into river. She leaves Biag standing, stunned and snarling.

All this unfolds in the Godspeed Realm. In the world of touch and breath, less than one second passes, like a blink.

Now… can I sleep?

Dulan spreads into broad awareness, drifts through the Shadow Realm like ink in water, sends Andor a prearranged ripple, and sinks into sleep.

The ripple means—

Job done.

—

Nivifar’s crown flickers once, then vanishes like a moth’s shadow, and a hollow opens in her like a scooped chest. She coughs blood; her body convulses like a fish on dry sand.

Good. Dulan forced Biag to recall his artifact and temporarily yank back the strength he gave Nivifar. On paper, that’s his breach first; the first pact is cleared.

“Nivifar! What’s wrong? You okay?”

You still say the stage lines, even in storm weather.

I pull Nivifar tight, settle her shaking like a hand on wild grass. From where Stini and Nivifar can’t see, my eyes go cold as night glass.

The more she hurts now, the better. Biag will pay back double later; that’s not the question. The question is—does she choose me.

My right hand touches her nape; the danger at my fingertips grows long like frost forming, turning into a small knife.

A plain little knife, no pattern, no guard, handle and blade poured as one, nothing to call it but “knife.”

But it isn’t a knife. It’s Death’s essence, like winter embodied.

Back in the retreat against the Demon King of Slaughter, Anna led me into the realm of “Death,” where I struck a bargain with the death god Dis (Death).

I hunt the way to drag gods down to mortal. So I asked: what can you give me?

Dis is poor. Offerings to him stagnate in the temple in the Starry Sky Divine Kingdom—a display only. Death never visits; he stays in death, letting the gone sleep. His realm has nothing but death, like an empty winter plain.

So he gave me “death.”

In my eyes, he broke three fingers of his own, three deaths beyond fate, like black icicles. They became small knives. They cannot kill gods, but anything they pierce meets its ultimate end—death.

One’s already earmarked for Anna. I have two I can use.

I bet the devils want to nudge me to spend one now. Those sly merchants—after I paid for turf they’ve managed for centuries, they still want me to cover costs.

I can curse, but solving this knot likely needs the “Death” knife.

In the second pact, Nivifar’s will starts to drift from Biag’s expectation, like wind splitting smoke. Maybe he thought that wouldn’t happen, a lapse. But I don’t buy a Demon King missing that. You add backup clauses. I’d write them in as a matter of course.

So classic speechifying is useless.

Now the problem: the ink-black sigil is already torn, and without artifact power its effect shrinks like ebb tide. Her neck shows skin; cracks web her chest. Looks like it’s going well—then the sigil counterattacks.

Six hands woven from sigil lines seize Nivifar, trying to stuff her back inside the pattern. The sigil explodes in growth, racing to shroud her again, like black vines.

So the suppression clause triggers. The sigil is Biag’s blessing and the pact’s face. When he breaches, the pact tears and the sigil breaks.

I’d hoped “Nivifar’s will opposing Biag’s blessing” would force his breach. Looks like the fine print had backups. Without the fine print, devils are hard to beat.

I wait, silent, to see which way the reed bends.

“And…or… help me…”

“Resist him! Push back! Your will is yours alone!”

“I can’t… I… can’t…”

“Don’t say can’t. Come on!”

“Truly… I can’t… save me…”

Mm? There it is.

All that talk is fluff, candles in wind. Pacts aren’t honored by guts or grit. One is one; two is two. You can’t power through with will.

I just felt the thrall-conversion rite stir. If Biag breaches, Nivifar can convert smoothly. I was waiting for this. Good. I’ve stalled long enough; time to put steel on the table.

Nivifar, you accept me as the right choice. As promised, leave the next steps to me.

I speak the key lines:

“I can do my best to help, but your will matters most! If you abandon yourself, no one can save you!”

Know yourself.

“I won’t abandon you. I’ll stay by your side. Don’t be afraid.”

Be seen by another.

“Think. Look hard. What is your true desire?”

Don’t abandon thought.

This opposes her frenzy state, the persona formed by Biag’s blessing. It’s also the thought Nivifar now accepts.

The instant I finish, Nivifar tears free of the sigil’s grip. Her upper body slides out like dawn through fog—then six black hands clutch her and cram her back into the sigil…

No “soon.” I only need the breath where she separates from the pact.

I stab the small knife into the sigil at her neck. The handle flows like liquid into the sigil and vanishes, like ink drawn into paper.

All things die. Even quieting to nothing is death’s nature, like embers cooling to ash. Anything named has a time to fall and end. “Pacts” don’t escape this iron law of the world.

Nivifar’s embrace, tears surging like spring flood, the sigil’s six monstrous hands—time seems to still, a held breath under thunder.

But I killed the pact, not time. Time doesn’t stop for me.

The sigil fades like dream-bubbles, returning to death. Smoke billows off Nivifar, rolling dark like burnt paper. I think she’s self-igniting. Did my thrall just fly away?

I check her carefully, eyes like measuring cups. Curves curve, peaks peak. Good. No problem—she just fainted.

I finally exhale, fall back with the freshly converted thrall in my arms, a calm after squall. Perfect finish.

No. One last problem.

I’m still stuck to Nivifar. Our fluids mixed and set like cooling resin. How do we peel apart?

Someone behind me is glaring with an NTR victim’s murder-eyes, a hunter in the doorway. Boss fight’s over, but my personal safety still isn’t guaranteed.