Demon Realm, Evernight City, within the Chamber of Rhapsody.

Saster is teaching an aberrant beast, like a dark tide schooling a reef.

“Come on, left hand,” he says, his voice soft as rain on old stone.

Only a steel-rending claw answers, shrieking like torn thunder.

“…All right. Stop,” he says, the word falling like a mountain.

The sound alone pins the creature like frost pins grass.

Saster sighs and rises from the floor like smoke, then pats the aberrant’s head.

He wears the face from his hero days; the gesture is mortal-simple, like a villager calming a spooked ox.

“Aesdolfa, Riomendo, you’re here?” he adds, as casually as greeting wind through pines.

There is no in-between, no footstep; frames skip like a lantern flicker.

Two Demon Kings are suddenly in the Chamber of Rhapsody, as if thought painted them here.

Concept is their presence; where their idea reaches, they appear like stars in a night pond.

The Demon King of Insatiable, Aesdolfa—she governs greed, discontent, longing, and compulsion, like vines choking a ruined gate.

She looks thirteen or fourteen, porcelain-smooth skin and a doll’s dress, a teacup of sweetness hiding deep hunger.

She taps her scepter against the floor, a bell note in still fog, to say I’m here.

The Demon King of Destruction, Riomendo—he governs heat death, annihilation, collapse, and attrition, like winter eating a field.

He is a burly man in his forties or fifties, an ascetic in a tattered robe, like bark over iron.

He speaks, his voice gravel over a riverbed.

“Trying again to bend evil toward good? It’s meaningless. Evil is evil. Time doesn’t bleach bone.”

“I never meant to change its soul,” Saster says, sorrow glinting like dusk on a blade.

He studies the aberrant—jagged, uneven horns like twisted scythes, a sleek narrow skull, a small ugly body coiled with detonation.

It was made to broadcast evil, to be Slaughter in a walking cairn.

It’s a mere monster; stronger Demonfolk flood the Demon Realm like stars in a storm.

“I think this: teach it what rules are, and what breaking rules costs,” Saster says, words steady as a plumb line.

“Use that to shape its conduct. Maybe that’s another road for the world.”

“Tell me—if a villain keeps to the rules, can we call that good?”

“Maybe… we can,” Aesdolfa murmurs, fingers on her smooth chin like moonlight on jade.

“If one holds to good deeds for a lifetime, ‘good’ isn’t a stolen name.”

“No,” Riomendo cuts in, the word like an axe through ice.

“If that counts as ‘good,’ then heroes with both good deeds and good hearts lose their worth.”

“This isn’t a parlor knot of ‘good and evil,’” Saster answers, voice low as embers.

“It’s the minimum to keep society breathing under the banner of good and right.”

“Then my answer stands,” Aesdolfa says, eyes far as rain over a plain.

“But without heartfelt good, when rules shake, the pressed-down evil flips the board like a table in a storm.”

“We’ve seen fools and sages of that kind—too many to count, like waves on shale.”

“Then here’s the next,” Saster says, pointing at the aberrant like a judge tapping wood.

“In an environment named ‘good,’ can pure evil give birth to a genuine good?”

The creature growls at them, a forge-fire rumble through its teeth.

Language binds it like chains of cold air, yet its bloodline fury and ruin still surge like black surf.

“You could call it assimilation by the environment, or the fallen’s opposite falling back,” Aesdolfa says, gaze deep as a well.

“To our sight, fall and repentance wear one cloak. If humans can fall, monsters can repent.”

“This… I don’t know,” she adds, voice small as a moth. “It isn’t my domain.”

“Right. It’s Head’s domain,” Saster says lightly, pages whispering like leaves as he turns his Endless Codex.

He doesn’t notice their frowns drawing tight like stormcloth.

“On the seventh day after my father passed, He didn’t bring this up,” Saster adds, grief thin as smoke.

“I still hold this,” Riomendo says, steady as a stone lantern in wind.

“A ‘good’ only in name is not a constant law of the world.”

“Maybe not… but if ‘we’ Demon Kings diverge in our thoughts, the idea is worth a try,” Saster replies, a thin smile like dawn through shutters.

“You mean future generations might affirm it?” Riomendo asks, brow a dark ridge.

“Yeah,” Saster says, pen scratching like rain. “Future generations will be an age that forgives.”

“They’ll allow mistakes, allow betrayal, allow failure after failure to seek a better road.”

He jots another line in his great book, then looks up, a spark of mischief like a firefly.

“Ah—Head said that,” he adds. Head.

“I don’t trust that guy,” Riomendo mutters, eyes like slate.

“Me neither,” Aesdolfa says, a quick bright grin like a slit of sun. “Your last sword in Him felt right.”

“Trust Him a bit,” Saster says, tone easy as flowing water. “He just wants us all to die to save the world.”

“Head’s starting point never changed,” he goes on, words light, weight heavy as rain-soaked cloth.

“What? Don’t want to die? Want to glimpse that future age?”

“Someone else can take your place,” he adds, casual as a leaf falling.

I do hope someone lives, to remember our old glory, Saster thinks, the sigh behind his smile like autumn wind.

He glances at Riomendo, then gives Aesdolfa a fond smile, warm as lamplight.

“No… To die for my ideal, I’m content,” Riomendo says after a silence long as winter dusk.

“Me too,” Aesdolfa answers, eyes drifting to the walls like petals on a stream.

She wanders the murals of the Chamber of Rhapsody—records of a Golden Age.

Their shared adventures and marvels glow there, stories worth singing like fire around a caravan.

Heaviness and gloom settle over the chamber like low clouds.

Even the aberrant, a knot of rage and killing intent, shivers before the Demon Kings’ great thoughts like a wolf before thunder.

“Hmm? What is it… Ah, right,” Saster says, lifting his eyes from the Codex like a crane from reeds.

“It’s our shift at the Time Ruins.”

He offers the other two—no, the other two Demon Kings—an apologetic smile, thin as a crescent.

Their gazes meet and braid—helplessness, regret, and a deeper ache, like three strings in one wind.

Three Demon Kings, shapes and sizes far apart, wear the same handsome face, the same blazing gold hair.

Their eyes are the same too—tired and sad across uncounted years, like stars filmed by frost.

Aside from those faces, they are nothing like the youths in the murals, arms slung around each other, laughing like bells.

“Let’s go. This is all we can do for this world,” Saster says, voice a quiet oar in dark water.

The three oldest, strongest Demon Kings move, their presence rippling like night tide, toward the deepest abyss of the Demon Realm.