The “Loyalty” Demon King, Leitsen, stepped from the void like a blade slipping free, his square‑tipped bronze sword lunging for that pure‑white soul like frost at dawn.

But Andor was quicker, like lightning finding the tallest tree before thunder could speak.

Anna had once fought Andor and seen him open his Authority Field, like a door into the idea of himself, even peeling off the concept of “time” like old bark.

Descended to the human world, his grasp of that Field dulled like a knife in sand, yet the moment hadn’t grown dire enough to make Andor strip off “time” like a winter coat.

Andor scooped the soul in one hand like cupping a candle in wind, then swung his Long Halberd one‑handed and nailed Leitsen to the earth like a pin through silk.

He turned, riding that momentum like a tide, flung a wide circle, and the inverted blade hooked Leitsen’s bones like a butcher’s hook lifting meat.

Hanging the body like a grisly pendulum, he smash‑bowled the other charging Sons of the Demon King like pins scattered by a rolling log.

Then he flicked the Long Halberd like a gull’s spear, and pinned Leitsen and another Demon King to the ground like crows spiked on a fence.

Andor laid a Demonfolk‑only spell upon the soul, “Coffin of Slumber,” keeping the girl’s soul as a living soul like a glowing ember in ash.

He tucked it carefully back into his Shadow like a jewel hidden in velvet, the movement quiet as falling snow.

He strolled back to the girl’s corpse like a pilgrim to a shrine, wiped dust from the stone steps with his hand like brushing dew from grass, and sat.

At some point, more men with demon tools seeped into the town like rats from drains, circling Andor with unspoken accord like wolves ring a fire.

But when Andor brushed aside the first rush like swatting gnats, they stepped back a few paces like waves recoiling from rock.

Anna still stood closest to Andor like a lone pine on a ridge, the air between them thin as winter breath.

She quieted down like a storm losing rain, and finally remembered she’d come to kill like a hunter recalling the snare.

“My not‑so‑adorable little brothers and sisters, want a story?” His voice fell like a coin in a well, echoing the way their eldest had once told them tales.

The boy’s eyes swept the ring like a hawk over a field; no one answered, and no one dared twitch like a leaf in wind.

“Good, then big brother Andor’s going to tell a story,” he said, the words floating like smoke that stings the eyes.

Anna waited in silence like a blade asleep in its scabbard.

The demon host went still like a pack sensing a thunderhead.

“First, my pack of bastards who always want to beat big brother bloody actually risked self‑detonation and hit me at the critical instant I controlled the teleport,” he said, voice like gravel.

“I told you heartless curs, was that necessary? Did I ever hit you… okay, I did, but not much… fine, I beat you plenty, but not to death,” he rasped, rain on tin.

“All right, all right. No more whining. The real story,” he said, voice flattening like a calm lake before a storm.

Andor carved sigils into the ground with his hand like a stylus into clay, and ghost‑blue fire climbed the girl’s corpse like foxfire on logs.

“After your ambush, big brother still remembered to head west, but I blacked out halfway, starving and wounded, like a kite with a cut string.”

“And then she, mmm, she’s called Polly, she’s a mask‑maker, a gifted child, nine years old and already carving masks that could sell,” he said, soft as ash.

“Like in the tales, she found me unconscious and hauled me up, took me home, gave me medicine, changed my bandages, all that,” he said, warm as a hearth.

“When I woke, the first thing I saw was her worried face like a cloud over the moon; she dashed downstairs, excited, to tell her dad,” he said, embers dimming.

His tone slipped free of his usual devil‑may‑care like a mask taken off; he gestured, and his Shadow gathered every ash like a tide sweeping the shore.

From his Shadow he drew a little box like a nest for winter seeds, and with both hands he placed the ashes inside, handful by careful handful, like sowing.

Andor always wore a deadman’s face like stone on a grave; Anna couldn’t read him, but in his voice she heard no joy, and not quite grief, like twilight without stars.

Again, something she didn’t understand, a knot of reeds in dark water.

Andor didn’t spare Anna a glance; he used the Long Halberd to dig the ground like a spade, opening a hole just big enough for the small box, like a swallow’s burrow.

“…Really now, why pin your hopes on me?” he muttered, words like cold rain. “It’s unfair, isn’t it? If you’d been indifferent, there’d be less mess.”

“Polly yearned for the world beyond like a bird at the eaves, so I told her the stories I once told you—heroes, Demon Kings, futures—so many bright, blazing tales.”

“Because I knew she would die, die because of me, so I’d pay her back as much as I could,” he said, voice level as a blade laid flat.

“Sure, you’re hunting me, and burning a small town on the side is normal for you,” he said, venom like smoke. “But I decided, once I came here, I’d only commit evils that could be forgiven.”

“So you troublesome fools gave me a mess big as a flood,” he said, knuckles pale as bone.

“The tale people know goes like this; how did I tell it to you?” He pitched that one line in a stagey falsetto, like opera over drums.

“One night’s shelter and a meal bring doom to the benefactor, and the one destined for heroism swears his path here and now,” he intoned, a bell struck at dusk.

“Either don’t do it, or cut down the would‑be hero too and keep it clean; did something chew your brains?” His voice thudded like a door slammed.

He only sang that bit in a needling, theatrical tone like a reed flute; the rest sank lower and lower, like a river going underground.

“So then, what do you think I should do, my not‑so‑adorable siblings?” he asked, gaze cold as a winter star.

Andor buried the little box of her ashes with care like planting a sapling, then sat on the stone steps, head tipped back, looking down on his kin like a falcon on a crag.

“Should I send you all back to the Demon Realm right here, butcher the lot like weeds?” he snarled, heat like a forge. “Twenty‑four Sons of the Demon King invade the human world, fail to take a city, and only a third remain—what is that!”

“How will the Primordial Nine Races feel the threat of a Demon King then? Damn it,” he spat, words like sparks.

“If I don’t kill you, what do I do?” he groaned, a millstone grinding. “I don’t even want revenge, it’s such a hassle, I don’t want to owe you anything.”

“If you hadn’t saved me, the town’s ruin wouldn’t be on me; what the hell is this cursed knot?” he said, the sky above empty as a dry well.

“What would the gods think? Can I be forgiven as evil, wearing that name like soot?” His voice drifted like smoke through bare branches.

“How much money would cover the treatment? I’ll pay double,” he said, coins clattering in the dark. “Don’t pin hopes on me; hope, once given, can’t be repaid.”

“My first day here and it’s already filth like sludge,” he hissed, breath like steam. “I have money, I have power, I can grant any wish.”

“So, aside from killing me and Anna, could you wish for anything else?” he asked the silence like a man bargaining with rain. “Let’s leave each other even, all right?”

Only then did Anna realize Andor was speaking to that soul‑less grave‑mound like a man to an empty chair.

Grumbling and blaming, perhaps only because the listener was a dead one, could he spill his heart like a jar tipped over.

“All right, I’m sorry,” he said, voice like a wet wick. “My fault. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

“But what else can I do?” he asked, toes jittering like a drumbeat, eyes on the sky as blank as bleached bone.

No voices stirred; even the wind felt murdered, a cut throat in a silent room.

If Andor didn’t speak, no sound would live here, like a painting under glass.

Maybe the Demon Kings present felt a bad moon rising; that single strike Andor showed hadn’t felt slowed by wounds, like iron ignoring rain.

How strong was Andor? No one knew, the question hanging like mist.

Even Anna sometimes had chances to win, but she’d seen him fight the “Savage” Demon King Saster, and knew that wasn’t his limit, like seeing only the mountain’s foot.

It wasn’t a battle, not truly; more like a brawl behind a tavern, rough as gravel.

This hunt assumed Andor was badly hurt, but if he were at his peak, the smart move would be to run like deer, not to circle and kill.

As Anna weighed that, Andor sighed, a wind through dead reeds.

“I promised I’d show you this world, and a promise is a knot I don’t cut,” he murmured. “But you died, and that was your choice,” he said, frost on iron.

He pulled a mask from inside his coat like a relic from a drawer, an ugly mask, turning it over and over like a stone from a riverbed.

The lower half was still a solid slab like uncut bone; the upper half roughly dug into a mask’s shape, full of pits and gouges like worm‑eaten wood.

It hadn’t been sanded, lacquered, or adorned, none of the finishing like the shine after rain; the carving was at its first steps.

“You said you’d gift me a mask; mask‑making was your pride like sunlight on a new blade, but you died, and the mask’s only half done,” he said, dust in his throat.

“But I can’t kill these bastards here; however rotten, they shouldn’t die in this place, because I still need them,” he said, the words flat as slate.

“So, your wish—let’s change it,” he said gently, like setting down a cup. “What else did you want? Ah, I remember—you wanted fame, for the whole world to remember your masks.”

“That’s your dream? Then that’s it,” he said finally, a knot tied tight.

Andor stroked the mask’s gouges like tracing old scars, as if feeling the small hands that had gripped a carving knife, nick by nick, like raindrops cutting stone.

He seemed to settle something in his heart like a stone in a cairn.

Andor stood and set the mask to his face like a cloud over the moon, looking like a failure at a masquerade ball, comical as a crooked scarecrow.

What was laughable was the mask, not the Long Halberd in his hand, which hung like a thunderbolt on a string.

“Leave now, while I haven’t decided to kill you,” he said, voice calm as cold water. “All of you, go,” he added, a door standing open.

“Or—” he breathed, the word like a knife’s glint.

“This mask is the work of Polly Anji of the Western Pioneer Ward,” he declared, a town crier’s bell in frost. “It will witness legends, tragedies, heroes, and the great.”

“When people think of the Demon King Andor, they should remember this mask,” he said, planting a flag like steel in earth.

“From now on, this mask’s tale begins; do you want to sign up as the first sacrifices?” he asked, voice flat as winter ice.

He said it.

His face was already a deadman’s slate; with the mask on, his expression was night behind clouds, unreadable as deep water.

Everyone stepped back like grass in a gust, everyone but Anna, who stepped forward like a spark toward tinder.

“Anna, is it…” he said, her name rolling like a pebble.

“I’m here to kill you,” she said, a blade drawn in moonlight.

“As you wish,” he said, like a bell toll, “and it’ll scare the others off,” he added, dry as dust.

“Your wounds still ache, don’t they? Don’t bluff,” Anna shouted, lungs trembling like caged birds, voice thrown with all her strength like a spear.

“You think a few words scare us?” she cried, wind ripping a banner.

Andor rolled his neck and worked each muscle like a smith flexing hands; his body felt normal again, like a bow restrung.

Then he lifted the Long Halberd and walked toward Anna like a tide creeping up black sand.

“If you’ve got the guts, come forward,” he said, a calm shore. “I won’t kill you… and I need to vent some foul mood,” he added, smoke from a kiln.

“But don’t touch that grave,” he said, pointing like a shadow’s finger. “Otherwise, I’ll have to kill you,” he finished, the line a drawn wire.

Andor didn’t need a lion’s roar; when he was serious, he only listed the taboos like stones in a path, and the actions that would follow like thunder after lightning.

And he never joked at such times; if he said he’d kill, then someone would die, like night swallowing the last light.