Zorn Mesko yanked his Greatsword from the Rot-Stag’s flank. He planted it in the soil and took a moment to set himself straight.

Life gone, the monster Rot-Stag slumped like a felled tree, a carcass sinking into rot.

He tried to wipe the blood off his face. His glove smeared more, sticking to his rough beard and hair like wet pitch.

“Told you, don’t wipe like that, Zorn.”

The middle-aged archer, Kero, came up from a short distance. He slung his bow and fished a towel from his pack, scrubbing Zorn’s face, then his armor.

“Kero, don’t fuss. I can do it—”

“You planning to strip your armor right here? Wait till you get home to scrub, and you’ll find the blood’s rusted it through. Monster blood eats metal like acid. This month’s pay won’t even cover repairs.”

“Don’t make it sound that grim.”

“Why do you think I switched from the vanguard to ranged? Bows cost less than armor.”

The young mage Angela pulled arrows from the Rot-Stag’s hide. She chose the ones the blood hadn’t ruined, wiped them clean, and slipped them back into Kero’s quiver.

“Thanks, Angela. Zorn, look at her. A kid with drive, even recovers her arrows. Not like you, tossing coin to the wind.”

“I know, I know. What a hassle.”

Zorn wasn’t a rookie. Near thirty, he felt his face burn under a captain’s lecture.

Kero saw him tuning out. His temper rose like a tide against stone.

“Zorn, you have a daughter.”

“Of course. She’s adorable. Don’t know where she picked up that traveler…”

Kero ignored the grumbling and scrubbed the armor harder. His voice grew heavier.

“Polly needs school. She’s growing and needs meat on her bones. We’re not Heroes like Augustus. We’ve got half-baked skills. If we can save, we save. You never know where the coin will bleed.”

“Even with half-baked skills, I’ve got big dreams!”

Kero hadn’t finished with Zorn when Angela bristled again. His head throbbed like a struck drum.

The girl hated this western frontier town. She yearned for the Seven Kingdoms, for the City of Heroes, and she worked for travel fare and skill day by day.

That hunger was good, but folks here didn’t buy her dream. They wanted her feet on the ground, settled in the town. The topic set her nerves on edge like a plucked string.

Angela had told Polly all about it, too…

Zorn remembered. His daughter’s hunger for the outside world burned like a lantern. Whenever he had time, she hounded that traveler he brought home for stories from beyond.

She was in her rebellious years, hating the life script her dad wrote. And the traveler looked handsome enough… Zorn feared she’d run the moment the door cracked.

The adventuring party held their own worries, each like a pebble in a boot.

When you’re counting coin for tomorrow’s bread, you don’t live like those Heroes in tales who split sky and earth with a stroke.

They had their fears, their dreams, their small wishes. They reached for unreachable greatness, yet clutched the warmth in their hands like a coal in winter.

They were a slice of the human world, the silhouettes of the many. Stripped of drama and legend, they walked plain, ordinary days.

Today, the tale’s “protagonist” stepped into ordinary lives. What would she bring?

Zorn glanced at the spoils—Rot-Stag down. Beside it stood a peerless beauty like moonlight on black water.

She wore a floor-length dress black as ink. Pale arms bared, a face to topple a city, a figure carved like snow and shadow. For some reason, she gripped a Giant Scythe. Its haft rose taller than she did.

Seductive, yet ominous. That was Zorn’s first—and last—impression.

She parted red lips and smiled like a thorned rose.

“Kukuku. I say—Slaughter says—kill all mortal things.”

When a man is killed, he dies.

Slaughter brings death, as night brings darkness.

——

“My Lord, you can still laugh.”

Nan Lu wove the “Slaughter” born from the adventuring party into a body. Concept turned to matter like frost to ice.

“Kukuku. If I’m going to kill Andor, I’ll do it with the highest pride and the most elegant poise.”

Anna stepped. Grass and flowers around her withered, paled to ash-gray. Where she passed, they became dust without meaning, undone by a wind that didn’t blow.

Her deerskin boots took no dirt. Her dress drank no stain.

Where she went, Slaughter arrived. Nothing slipped the net.

“You’ve never managed it. When you meet His Highness Andor, you tense up. Even your laugh sounds forced.”

“Silence, Nan Lu. I know what to do.”

“If it’s an order, I obey.”

The Demon King and her retainer walked the mountain land. The range lay killed to quiet, flesh and stone alike leaving husks to return to death.

At a broken cliff, Nan Lu gripped his crescent blade and pointed outward. There lay houses and stout walls like teeth in earth.

Not tall or grand, but built with care. With a warrior’s sight, you could read the signs by each door. Inn. Hotel. Tailor. Lord’s longhouse. Farther out, farms, pastures, windmills turning like slow wings.

There was no church sign. That meant this place hadn’t the spare strength to build one yet.

All the needed buildings stood ready. This wasn’t a frontline against the monster tide. The line had been pushed far out. Farms and pastures could thrive only under steadier skies.

“Up ahead. A small town of about five thousand. According to Liebich, His Highness Andor hides there.”

“Nan Lu.”

“What is it?”

“Sometimes I think humans—especially humans, weakest of the Primordial Nine Races—are tough as roots in stone.”

“Indeed. In crisis, humans burst with strength even they don’t expect. That’s what I learned, drunk on duels with Heroes.”

“I don’t mean a spark of blood courage. I mean creation. Bro—Andor told me the story of this frontier. The monster tides they weathered rival the Demon Realm’s.”

“To face a tide, you use stratagems. Weak, still.”

“Think, Nan Lu. Humans lack our power, our authority. Even their bodies are frail—kukuku. Yet in that, they fight to live, and live to smile. Isn’t that worthy of respect?”

“To me, who loves battle, it’s meaningless.” Nan Lu curled his lip like a cat at bitter tea.

“Kukuku. You don’t get the joy of a high-difficulty challenge… To call life a game—ah, that sounds like a wicked Divine Being.”

“Then I ask: where do I, and Liebich as your blades, do our work? How do we chase Andor?”

“Don’t rush. Dance with me first.”

Anna, Demon King of Slaughter, hummed a tune. She hefted her Giant Scythe, pinched her skirt in her free hand, and danced at the cliff’s edge like a raven on snow.

With the dance, Slaughter took shape. It ravaged the human world, the Demon King’s waltz playing in the town like a silent bell.

No vast tentacles rose. No black dragon winged the sky. No anti-Hero in dark armor strode forth.

There was nothing.

Even the wind got murdered clean.

Nan Lu could see Death itself, a flood without banks. To others, a town alive one heartbeat was dead the next, like a candle pinched.

From life to death, kill all mortal things, in a blink. Ten years, a thousand people’s sweat, tears, and blood—gone like a sandcastle to a wave.

Power gives only effortless ruin. Beyond that, it gives nothing.

It creates no thing.

Well—maybe the beauty of a broken world.

A peerless beauty danced a world-toppling dance. Her only audience held a mind full of battle-lust, with no room for awe.

“I can’t dance.”

“Kukuku. What a killjoy, my slaughter-loving retainer.”

The Demon King shook her long hair and stilled her steps. She returned to the cliff’s edge and watched the town with Nan Lu, eyes like storm glass.

Homes built with sweat and coin, laid on patient plans and leveled ground, lost their color like leaves in frost. They hadn’t yet crumbled to nothing at a touch, but hardness and toughness had been “killed” away. No one would live in a house that collapses by itself.

“If this were a tale, we’d snatch a hostage, threaten, sneak in, weave schemes to force Andor out.”

Anna rested her Giant Scythe on her shoulder and leapt from the cliff like a shadow falling.

Nan Lu stepped forward and peered down. His Lord was gone from sight. Only a chill voice drifted up, thin as smoke.

“In truth, we don’t need all that. Nan Lu, scout the town with Liebich. There shouldn’t be any living left.”

“…You mean, if anyone lives, it’s His Highness Andor.”

“Correct, kukuku. Maybe a few Legendary Heroes survive… Fine, kill them too. Less trouble.”

Nan Lu bowed, whether she could see it or not. Then he melted into the realm of Slaughter like ink in water.

He walked the town turned to a death-field, hunting any life his gaze could find.