My right hand shattered, like porcelain dropped on stone.

I’d planted the Greatsword in the ground like a steel pillar to split Maki’s blow, and my right hand still shattered—dammit.

In a fight, it isn’t muscle that eats the quake; the shock runs like thunder through bone. Not just the enemy’s strikes, but your own motion loads the frame. The skeleton takes the debt.

So when bones crack or snap, you can’t keep fighting. Not just pain like fire under the skin—forget grit—physics says no, and physics is a cold priest.

My finger bones and metacarpals are dust. Ten fingers wire straight into the heart—every twitch sets off a storm. It hurts so bad I want to chop the whole hand off and be done.

Did Maki really pull his punches on Stini? I doubt it. He didn’t look like the type to spare.

But if I twist my face, let snot and tears run like rain, scream nonsense, and kneel curling up like a kicked dog—that isn’t a hero, that’s just a wounded civilian on a winter street.

I’m the Demon King. Right now, I’m wearing the hero’s mask.

I have to lock every muscle in my right arm like iron bands. If I let go, I’ll never lift the Greatsword again. So I swallow the heat, and I act like I’ve never bled.

I pin down the twitch in my lips and drag up a smile like cracked porcelain.

“Even the Chairman of the Heretic Inquisition does sneak attacks?”

“Because you lot clearly aren’t the type to listen. I have to floor you first, then reason with you.”

“Forcing reason down our throats, huh. What if we listened? Then this beating was free pain.”

“Better than letting you run.”

“That’s coercion, not justice.”

“It is justice. The sort called ‘necessary evil.’”

“Maki, no ‘evil’ gets to call itself justice. Not one. Evil is evil. You just crown yourself with that word.”

I tried to talk him down, at least to steal some time. He cut me off clean, like a blade through rope.

“I’m worried about your tricks. We’ll discuss this later. For now, go down.”

Respect the opponent. Understand the opponent. No time to hear them. No room to argue. His will was a straight road through fog.

That headlong, single-track attitude—feels familiar.

Keep variables fenced within your grip. That’s the Heretic Inquisition’s style, iron rails on a cliff.

They sin to guard the world, I won’t deny that. But ramming “justice” through to the end like a ram in spring—doesn’t it look like someone else? Say you swap “justice” for “evil”…

Who carries his “evil” through to the end?

Ah. Me.

Not Shadow Artisan Andor Mephy, but Shadow Demon Andor.

Now I see why Maki offered me an olive branch. We’re cut from the same ore.

In his shoes, I’d make the same call. As he said—drop us first, talk later.

He sprinted at us, then punched.

That power was a downpour, a black squall, almost a natural disaster wearing human skin. The fist hadn’t even arrived, and the gale it pulled almost blew Stini and me away like leaves.

This is the peak of the human world. The kind that shares the sky with “World’s Strongest” Augustus, the “Twin Towers” Rota and Liv, “Army of One” Feydon, the nameless “Sword Saint.”

It’s sheer pressure. Naked force. A tide that drowns will and sweeps away resolve like driftwood.

When Maki first struck, Gloria got launched by a single punch. Not because she did poorly, but because he ignored our tiny guards. He hit her guard’s heart, shattered her posture, and sent her flying like a kite with a cut string.

Our squad’s tank raised a shield and still got one-shot. This boss is out of our league.

I used Polarized Thousand Shadows to avoid a head-on clash. I can tangle for a while. But Nivifar and Stini don’t have that trick. They’re flesh and blood, not like Gloria, who can crash through reinforced walls and dust herself off for round two.

And Stini’s lead foot is trouble, ugh—once she floors it, we all pay.

Anna, though—she saved our hides.

A blade edge rose from the floor, straight up like a cold reed, reflecting ripples of mana. Maki sprang aside in a heartbeat. For all his monstrous strength, he’s still flesh; steel outruns muscle.

Anna pulled the Giant Scythe from the ground. If you ignored distance and angle, the blade at Maki’s feet and the far scythe in Anna’s hands looked like one continuous fang.

When she yanked the scythe free, the protruding blade in the floor vanished like a mirage.

Mana lit the Giant Scythe. Faint glyphs surfaced like fish under ice, there yet not there.

Anna began to spin the scythe. With each turn, the weapon warped. The straight haft bent like willow, the curved blade kinked like a serpent. When she slowed, the thing in her hands was a long spear.

When Anna asked to join, I shooed her away and never asked her class. I thought my bloodthirsty sister would pretend to be a simple warrior. Didn’t expect this kind of high-tier party trick.

A Trickster—same niche as my own Shadow Sorcerer, a hidden path in the weeds.

She lunged with the spear, and the spear’s path bowed like a river current as she swung.

Whips have whip lines. Bows have bow arcs. Greatswords have great arcs. To wring out power, every weapon has routes—cleave, thrust, the distilled lines of force.

Step off the line and you get power with nowhere to land. Skilled fighters read those lines and meet you with a clean block.

But this spear’s route was uncanny. The material looked to flex like cork. Maki tried to guard. His iron gauntlet slid into the spear’s path, and he felt—nothing.

A long cut opened on his left shoulder. He leaped at the last instant; otherwise he’d be bleeding out like a split wineskin.

Yes. Trickery.

“Can’t see it?” Maki asked, brow tight as a rivet.

“Not seeing is the point,” Anna said, thrusting again.

The spearhead bent before it touched him, like a reed in wind. He lifted a hand to bat it aside. Anna snapped the shaft back.

“Ah. I see.”

He swept back with the iron gauntlet, calm as winter stone. Metal shrieked on metal. No blood. Just a tear in his black robe, a slit like a thin smile.

The spear rippled back into a scythe. Anna reset her stance and slid back, cautious as a fox.

Maki rolled his neck. His nondescript face gave nothing, but his aura shifted like weather before rain.

“A Trickster. Haven’t met one in a long time. Name?”

“Naiche. Just a merc.”

Like Shadow Sorcerers, Tricksters are hidden.

Leaving me and Anna’s cheating aside, a Shadow Sorcerer needs a special body, born sensing Shadow as an element, refining it into mana. It’s different at its root from the magus-mana humans use among the Primordial Nine Races. We can’t cast magus spells.

That’s why I need Stini to buff me with basic utilities like Iron Fortification and War God Unparalleled.

Few have the body. The path stays narrow.

Trickster magic—Trickery—has a peculiar trait: the Unknowable.

It’s hard for others to see, fog for the eyes. Its deceits are strong. But their magic only works for themselves, only they can see it. If anyone else sees it—ally or foe—the magic snaps and dies.

So few walk that road. Teachers can only point to the gate. From there, students grope alone in the dark. You can’t mass-produce that.

I tried it once out of curiosity. Dropped it fast. That one restriction killed it for me.

I told you I’m bad at covert ops, right?

Anna, though—she plays it well.

Even without Trickery, her martial skill holds up.

She hewed down with the Giant Scythe. Maki slid it aside and closed the gap like a door slamming shut.

Anna jumped early, yanked the scythe back, and nicked his lower back. Of course he wouldn’t get tagged clean. He seized the haft and closed again, iron tide rolling in.

She leaped into the gale off his gauntlet, vaulted over him, and looped the scythe’s bent haft around him like a ribbon. As he turned and hammered left, right hand leaving the scythe, the weapon snapped taut like a chainsaw leash, whirled, and straightened into a rigid edge.

His frame is dense. Dodging a blade pressed that close is a nightmare. In that breath, Gloria lunged from the side for his flank, a shadow under the eaves.

Facing a seasoned Trickster, the enemy tastes power with nowhere to land.

But… Maki broke her rhythm several times already. I take back the “her technique’s pretty good” line.

I strolled back to the armored car with Stini, slow as a cat, and slapped a mana coupler onto my skin.

To Nivifar, I said, “Let’s test a weapon. No—Not Number Four. The one on the left. Number Three. Target Maki. Fire.”

“Got it. Hey, Your Highness! Naiche! Move!”

The side gun of the armored car hummed, gathered light, and fired.

Come on, Maki. Show us the barehanded anti-shell trick.

See, guys like Maki and Augustus share a flaw. They love crushing you head-on, meeting threats face to face like iron rams. I get it. Ambushes are a hassle. And when you trust your hands, your mind gets lazy.

That’s how Yakfarro got blasted from second-stage rage into fourth.

That’s how Anna almost got wiped by Stini’s Throne Shatter.

So Maki will eat it too.

If I wanted him dead, I’d use an annihilation magus cannon and erase him body and soul. But killing him gains us nothing. More trouble would sprout like weeds.

So we used Raven’s specialty black-tech shell.

The Number Four shell’s payload is a special arcane compound Raven built to capture targets without harm—Capture Gel.

She doesn’t study a thing and then seek uses. She decides what she wants first, then forges the materials from air and will. I admire that mad-genius loop.

It’s a super-adhesive liquid. After one second in air, it changes nature, loses all stickiness, and sets from liquid to solid, toughness rising like tempered steel.

Get drenched in it, and without the custom solvent, the only way out is peeling off a layer of skin.

Now Maki’s stuck in a lump, thrashing like a boar in tar.

“See you, Maki. We’ll come back with solvent.”

Watching him like this, I can call the score even for the beating he gave me in the eastern mountains. I’ll savor it in silence; gloating out loud makes girls think I’m petty.

Gloria and Anna climbed in, giving me the same helpless look, like sisters at a brother’s bad joke.

“I thought we’d at least have a rousing duel,” Anna said, hands spread like birds.

“I’m half-ruined. How am I supposed to brawl? We’re not hot-blooded protagonists. If we can talk, we talk. If we can shiv, we shiv. That’s the most efficient way.”

“Mm… doesn’t feel honorable,” Stini muttered, yanking the handbrake and firing up the armored car.

“Exactly. I’m a Shadow Sorcerer. Honorable isn’t my lane. But thanks to this mindset, we dropped Maki and still have gas to keep moving.”

“I, agree. Andor, method good,” Gloria said, lifting a finger like a candle and nodding.

“How long will that gel hold? Do we need another shot?” Nivifar pointed at Maki, eyes bright as glass.

“Well…” I’d watched Raven’s tests. Even the Earth Warden, a high-tier elf leap spell famed for raw force, couldn’t break Capture Gel. “He got caught because it’s his first time seeing this kind of attack. How long it holds a monster like Maki, I can’t say. But for now, he’s not getting out anytime soon.”

Pain bit deep in my right hand like hot iron; I chugged a bottle of HolyWater, and the blaze sank.

We’d reach the spot and, with luck, I’d hold a sword again, like frost finally melting off a morning blade.

Bottom line—drive, Stini; daylight’s spilling like sand, and we’ve wasted enough.

On it! Raven, we’re coming like a shot!

He floored it again, a thunderbolt under our wheels.

Lucky this time—we didn’t launch onto the roof, just punched through a wall like brittle ice.

We shattered a few instruments in the arcane workshop next door, then burst onto the main road like a floodgate thrown open.

Later, the chorus of curses against Stini rose like storm surf; none of that mattered.