They didn’t need to search. Slaughter’s vassals heard movement the moment they reached the town.
Footsteps, arguments, bodies falling, glass breaking, screams.
Those patterned sounds weren’t the wind’s doing.
Nan Lu came from the west. Liebich came from the south. Anna dragged her Giant Scythe and closed on the noise.
Shadow surged from the town center like a tsunami. It flushed the idea of Slaughter clean out of town.
But the three who held authority among mortals moved like knives. They tore Shadow with Slaughter. Even an ocean had to part and pass them by. Holding crystal-clear killing intent, they walked for the sea’s eye—the vortex.
Soon, they saw their target.
On a second-floor sill, a boy in a black coat and black short hair argued with a girl of eight or nine.
The girl shook off his hand and screamed in a sharp, not-yet-changed voice:
“Let go! Andor, let go!”
The boy said nothing. He just watched her and stepped in.
“Get away!”
She shoved his chest hard. She swung the carving knife. She backed up two steps.
She didn’t expect the floor, baptized by Slaughter, to be brittle. It cracked open. She dropped to the first floor without even a scream.
When she finally remembered to scream, the boy set her down in a princess carry. He crouched beside her and said nothing.
“Get away! Mama, Mama!”
She clenched her carving knife, shoved him aside, and ran into the house, calling for her mother.
The boy glanced once at the three encircling him. Just a glance. Then he followed the girl inside.
Slaughter’s domain and Shadow’s domain braided together. Even so, Anna still got partial feedback. For example, only Andor and the girl inside were living souls.
She shook her head and raised her Giant Scythe at the two-story house.
Slaughter received its mistress’s order and flooded that way.
The house collapsed without a sound. Ash-gray dust drifted and unraveled into nothing.
In that sift of gray-white, the girl stared blankly at her mother’s favorite little stool. Then the stool, too, loosened into ash and blew away.
Old days and old things were slaughtered to nothing.
The boy held his Long Halberd reversed and let out the faintest sigh. He kept his eyes on the girl and ignored the others.
“Right. Yes. Right, Andor. The town can’t just be gone. This is another magic you made, right? Isn’t it? Answer me, Andor!”
He didn’t speak. He just watched.
“Ah, I’m done playing. I’m going to eat. Sister Angela must’ve saved me something good…”
The girl staggered away. Even when she saw Anna standing ahead, she only looked up. Then she dropped her gaze and tried to pass by—
A crisp clang of steel cut in.
The boy caught her shoulder with one hand. He set his Long Halberd against the Giant Scythe. Every muscle drew tight.
“…Hey, Andor.”
“I’m here, Polly.”
“Tell me this isn’t real. My mom’s alive. Everyone in town is fine. Tomorrow the sun will rise the same, unchanged.”
“…”
“…It’s real, isn’t it.”
“Yes.”
“Because of you?”
“Yes.”
“Because of me?”
“Hard to say.”
“If I’d met you in the forest and left you alone—if I’d listened to Dad and gone home—if I hadn’t brought you home—would none of this have happened?”
“Hard to say.”
“If you’d left at once, left my house and my town, gone far away—would everything be fine?”
“…That too is hard to say.”
“I get it…”
She wrenched free and turned back to the ruins. The boy knocked Anna’s Giant Scythe aside. Dragging his Long Halberd, he followed.
She shouted with all she had:
“Andor, get out!”
“This is my home—get out!”
“Don’t come again! Don’t come back! Get out!”
“I’m waiting for Dad to come home.”
The boy spoke then. His voice was its usual cold, clear, cruel edge. Almost no hesitation.
“…Polly, is this your choice?”
The girl lifted the sharp carving knife to her throat. Her eyes brimmed.
She said:
“Yes!”
“Andor, remember this! I brought you home. I saved you. So I don’t hate you!”
The knife plunged. Tears and blood leapt up together. They couldn’t beat gravity. They fell in silence.
The boy sighed again.
He walked to the girl’s body. He planted his Long Halberd and crouched. He closed her hate-widened eyes with a gentle touch.
Andor’s gaze showed no pity and no grief. Anna had known him three centuries. She had never seen such feelings on him.
He was looking past them, at places she couldn’t go and things she couldn’t grasp. Anna knew the swell inside her was jealousy braided with longing and yearning.
She wanted to walk shoulder to shoulder with him. She found she couldn’t match his stride.
She had meant to mock him when he came out, with her trademark “ku-ku-ku” laugh. Or to confess, when the girl screamed at him, that she’d killed his father.
But in that moment she didn’t dare. She swallowed it all. Not a word.
Fear.
Afraid of what?
Anna didn’t know.
She feared Andor’s power. And certain other things… If she’d laughed then, some things could never be forgiven. Some roads would never turn back.
So she only clenched her Giant Scythe. She kept herself primed to swing her authority at its best, to kill the man before her to utter ruin.
He, meanwhile, seemed to forget the siege. His eyes kept ranging toward what Anna couldn’t read. He crouched there at ease.
Anna didn’t dare move or speak. Her wild, raging blood cursed her own cowardice.
She still didn’t dare.
That easy grace wasn’t an act. Andor truly didn’t care.
Just as a Divine Being doesn’t mind a rare doubter of doctrine. Debate always ends in their favor.
Just as a Dragon King doesn’t mind the bugs on his back. No insect can breach those scales.
The scene fell still. By rights Anna was the one besieging. Yet the initiative slid, silent, back into Andor’s hand.
When Andor stood, Anna nearly threw her little sickle, the magic weapon Siku.
No Shadow. Nowhere. He wasn’t attacking.
When she saw he had only stood, with no intent to fight, she felt her palms slick. Her back ran cold.
Her floor-length, backless dress took the wind. The chill cut to the bone.
One step from the Demon King’s throne, Anna felt like a child again before a great beast.
“Give it to me.”
Andor spoke and held out a hand to Anna.
Hearing his voice relaxed her a little. Realizing why—Andor had asked, so she thought she could speak—made her rage at herself.
“Give you what?”
“Her soul. Since she ‘killed herself’ right before you, it should be in your domain.”
“Why should I give—”
“Give it to me.”
Andor cut her off and opened his hand again.
Anna burned. Why did Andor care only about that little girl? Did he not see her at all?
How many times had she struck him with her authority? Did he not hate her? Did he not want revenge?
Why—why did he not care about me?
Why only her!
In a spiteful huff, she reached into her domain and fished out the soul. It was a pure living soul, unstained by the Ocean of Darkness.
Anna caught it and squeezed. She wanted to threaten. Or to crush it and make Andor hurt.
“Give it to me.”
At his insistence, she lost her nerve again. The peerless beauty gnashed her teeth. The boy before her shouldered his Long Halberd and held out his hand, face blank.
Off to the side, Liebich leaned on her glaive and looked sleepy.
Nan Lu smacked his forehead and sighed, exasperated.
“…Our lord goes soft the moment she sees Lord Andor.”
He said it under his breath.
Looking back at the old records, perhaps Anna and Lord Andor were on terrible terms. Yet each time Lord Andor asked a favor, Anna did it well.
This time was the same.
Furious, Anna clenched her Giant Scythe. She looked ready to start a war at any second. In the end, she still tossed the soul to Andor.
At that moment—
Anna blazing.
Liebich adrift.
Nan Lu watching and ready.
Andor reaching for the soul—
In that instant, the fifth person on scene detonated with killing intent.
The aim wasn’t Andor. It was the soul about to touch his hand!
