Definition: Shadow.

After the Seven-Day War, twelve Primordial Deities hammered law into the world like iron cooled in ice, and nothing may bend that spine.

I wield the authority of Shadow like a night tide, but before I ascend as a Demon King, “Infinity” stays sealed like a star behind clouds.

I can only tweak nearby material concepts, like fingers pinching clay, brief and local.

For now, that’s enough, like a sharp knife for a single cut.

The scene before my eyes flips inside out like a coin, and the world’s underside opens, a twilight mirror called the Shadow Realm.

When Biyag tried to turn himself into a concept and slip into SkywardCity like mist, he stepped into my net like a fish.

I sealed every seam between this Shadow Realm and the outside, like stitching a wound shut, so he can’t wriggle out.

He’s the fifth fool to trigger the “Concept Erosion” snare, yanked in like a hooked shark, which makes this authority domain hit like salt on the conceptual wounds of a Demon King.

I taught them these tricks like a teacher drawing characters in sand, so why show off before me like sparrows chirping at a hawk?

You think turning into concept fog means no wall can stop you, like wind that ignores stone?

Daviya fell for it the same way, like a dancer tripping on their own ribbon, and I’d thought he was clever as a fox.

“My not-so-adorable little brother, Biyag, choose,” I said, voice cold as moonlight on steel, “turn back nicely, or get killed and sent home to the Demon Realm in a jar.”

The “Class” Demon King, Biyag, hovered like a kite in a stale wind, eyes knotted with doubt as he glared at me.

He meant to recruit Nivifar like a merchant luring a crane, yet got spiked by me like a hedgehog’s kiss, and he holds grudges like tar.

He heard I was hosting the Peace Conference, so he came to stir mud like a stick in a pond.

“You’re too easy to rile, like dry grass in a spark,” I said, voice flat as stone, “do you really think you can beat me after the Demon Realm spanked you like thunder over and over?”

I tucked my beloved halberd, Nandu, under one arm like a sleeping serpent, crossed my arms like a closed gate, and stood on the backside of Skyward City Atlante, jiggling my leg like a tapping metronome.

No wonder I’m impatient, like a kettle simmering, since little brothers and sisters have buzzed me these days like flies past ten, and I either kill or shoo them like a broom.

To watch these uninvited pests, I sleep fifteen minutes every four hours like a soldier in rain, and I spend the rest scanning the horizon like a lighthouse’s beam.

I watch the war-faction Demon Kings the Council of Sages parked here like wolves in a pen, and I watch for new siblings trying to slip into SkywardCity like cats under a fence.

My mind’s fine like a taut bow, but my bed time’s been cut like cloth on a dull knife.

Vega runs the Demon King Army’s HQ like a spider in a web, watching the Demon Kings and dispatching orders like arrows.

Even with “multi-threaded” thought clones, she’s at the limit like a bow at full draw, and if I asked, I’d get an eye-roll cold as winter rain.

Berenz… with the Peace Conference near, calling the scapegoat close would be like dragging a thorn bush into my tent.

Dulan’s free as drifting fog… but her desire’s faint as dusk, and she dozes in bed like a cat, sometimes throwing that “we done yet?” look like a wet towel.

Even knowing it’s the other party’s issue, it still rubs the skin like sand.

I even thought of asking Nagash for a blow-up doll, like a child asking the moon, but he’s only an outstanding Arcane Engineer and thinker, not a sculptor or artist with river-smooth hands.

He can make a doll move like a wind-up bird, but it looks like a scarecrow after a storm.

These days my temper smolders like charcoal, and I want a fight like rain wants thunder.

Hey, Biyag, your build looks solid, like a boulder in a stream.

He shuddered like a leaf in a draft, sensing something sharp, and inched back while scanning for exits like a rat in a granary.

“Don’t,” I said, voice heavy as a door bar, “even if you slip out, Dulan’s waiting like a guillotine, and you don’t want to be chopped into chunks again like butchered fish.”

“Your only exit is to kill me like a lion through a herd, so step up, and I’ll swear off my authority domain, using only my hands like stone on bone.”

He swallowed with a click like a pebble, and asked, “If I win…”

“Sorry, impossible,” I said, dry as dust, “at least be useful before dying like a spark in straw, and make me smile.”

I waved him on like a matador, and his face darkened like a cloud bank, which amused me like a cat twitching its tail.

I heard his teeth grind, then crack like ice in spring, brittle and loud.

Biyag’s crown-shaped armament dripped filthy light like tar, then twisted into heavy armor like an iron shell, plus a greatsword with a crimson evil eye set in the hilt like a blood moon.

What did he name that armament, like a dog with a plain collar?

I forgot, because unimportant things slip like rain through reeds.

“Andor, die!” he yelled, a cannon-fodder line like a drumbeat before a slaughter, and he charged like a bull.

Definition: Physics.

I define SkywardCity underfoot as “stable” and “indestructible,” like bedrock under a mountain.

I set gravity’s direction from me as “top to bottom,” like rain falling from eaves.

I define my physique at the “material limit,” like a bowstring tuned to the last note.

Definition: air resistance, like wind fingers tugging a cloak.

Definition: the action of force, like a river pushing a wheel.

Definition: magnitude and strength, like weight hung on a scale.

The battlefield is set like a board cleared for go, and the game can start.

Because I haven’t ascended, a Son of the Demon King holds an authority domain like a lantern without the Ocean of Darkness’s blessing, so it drinks mana like sand drinks rain.

He needs his armament to act like a crutch, and each authority costs him like coins into a well.

These definitions eat mana like moths, and a Demon King’s mana crawls in the mortal world like a snail.

If Vega were here, she’d nag me like winter wind for wasting fuel.

But a fight, meaning my one-sided fun, should be joy-first like wine before bread, and cost later like smoke after fire.

Advance.

I moved faster than Biyag like lightning over a ridge, with more strength than he could shoulder like a wave against a skiff, and my control flowed like a dancer’s breath.

I swung the Long Halberd in a wide arc like a scythe, smashed his flank like hail on a roof, and hooked his heavy armor like a talon.

I heaved and slammed him down like a meteor, stone on stone.

I dragged him along the ground like a plow through dirt, then flung him skyward like a sling stone.

When I wound up for a second circle, my hands went light like a kite cut loose, because Biyag slipped free and rolled twice like a log to gain distance.

I leaped at once like a hawk stooping, and sent him a vertical chop like an axe splitting firewood, which he raised to block like a man holding a door.

Then I’d chop the man and sword together like kindling, and so I did.

“Advance,” I shouted, voice like a war drum, “don’t run, try to take my head like a hunter with a boar!”

I kept running forward like a tide, and each leap plus halberd slash launched him hundreds of meters like a leaf in gale.

“Advance, meet me head-on, be brave as a cliff, or why challenge me without the courage to die?”

I brought the Long Halberd down hard like thunder, and even with him unloading force like a willow, the blow shattered his left pauldron like brittle shell.

I hopped back a hair like a cat, gave room, then sprang again for a second jump, and swept left to right like a windmill blade.

His entire left arm-guard burst like pottery, shards skittering like beetles.

The halberd’s blade hooked and reeled him in like a hooked carp, and my free left fist hammered down on his sword hand like a mallet.

Bones cracked in a chorus like ice floes, scalp-prickling and clean, yet he held on like a bulldog on a bone.

I like that, kid, so I offered a knee to the face like a bell clapper as praise.

From the sound, his facial bones shattered under the visor like glass under a boot, and blood sprayed from his mouth like a burst wineskin across my front.

I rode the recoil back like a spring, then circled him like a storm skirting a lighthouse while he clutched his head, staggering like a drunk.

At sea, a storm is fear, a black lid on the sky like a coffin, and you pray for the moment sun-knife splits cloud.

I believe offense is the same, a wave-on-wave rush like a tide, carrying pressure like a mountain on your chest.

I kept swinging the Long Halberd like a threshing flail and ripped his armor off piece by piece like bark peeled from a tree.

By the end he looked like rag cloth in thorns, torn and sad as dusk.

“Why… why not kill me?” he growled, teeth bared like a wolf on its last legs.

He was wrecked to rags, yet he held killing intent like a hot coal, and the will to win like a dogged star.

“If this were a kill,” I said, calm as snow, “I’d just take your head like a headsman, and step into the Godspeed Realm like a shadow over ice.”

“One stroke would do it like a falling guillotine, and maybe Anna could block, but you surely can’t.”

“But I only want a beating, anyone will do like any drum, and whether you die is a leaf on the wind to me.”

I’d vented enough, so I lowered Nandu like a curtain and stood still like a post.

He was stubborn like a mule, beaten breathless and empty as a gourd, yet like me he didn’t touch his authority domain, trading only physical blows like wrestlers in dust.

He couldn’t win anyway, and still he copied my choice like a mirror, which is what?

Is it the pride to lose clean like a painted fan, or pride refusing my handicap like a tiger spurning handouts?

I walked up like a shadow, and he didn’t even have the strength to lift a sword like a tired child.

I kicked his waist like a boot to a door, and his wrecked frame met the final straw like a camel under its last bundle, collapsing flat as mud.

He still glared at me like an ember under ash, which I can’t help but respect like a bent pine in wind.

“…Kill me,” he rasped, dry as gravel.

You’re a man, I thought, no need to steal the fallen-knight princess’s line like a borrowed veil.

“I’m too lazy to take it,” I said, with a sneer sharp as a knife, “keep your life like a coin, you don’t want to lose your shot at ascending.”

“Scuttle home to the Demon Realm like a crab, and don’t cry.”

I restored the physics I’d tweaked like a scribe smoothing a page, and returned the world to proper order like a river back to its bed.

Since we were on Skyward City Atlante’s backside, gravity would take Biyag down like rain, and he could go kill or summon a domain like a butcher or priest.

Just don’t come back to SkywardCity to bug me like a mosquito.

“You’re letting Lord Biyag walk like a fox into dusk?” a voice asked, soft as fog, “Master, aren’t you afraid of revenge?”

“…Rare,” I said, amused as a cat, “you used ‘revenge’ right like a bead on a string.”

After Biyag hit dirt with a thud like a dropped sack, Dulan floated from the Shadow beside me like a wisp, and yawned huge like a lioness.

“Haah, I’m lazy, not dumb,” she said, voice like warm sand, “out of laziness, I’d have executed him on the spot like a swift blade, then no more trouble.”

“How does that saying go… mm… such a hassle like weeds, forget it.”

“I have my reasons,” I said, light as a breeze, “don’t worry, if Biyag circles back, we net him again like a carp, and if he makes trouble, we hit back like thunder.”

“It’s simple, like a hammer on a nail.”

“Not simple at all, Master,” Dulan sighed, sheathing her long tachi like a swan folding wings, “it’s a pain like burrs in cloth.”

“Of the twenty-four Sons of the Demon King, one dead means one less like a candle snuffed, and I don’t mind, but a threat must stack high enough like piled stones to warn people.”

I’d thought of sending every uncooperative sibling back to the Demon Realm like tossing stones downstream, but then we’d lose the ‘bad guys’ we need to face the Primordial Nine Races like shields before spears.

Without them, folks won’t feel the need to ally with me like birds sensing a coming storm, and that would muddy the water like silt.

Ask yourself, if you can do everything alone like a lone wolf, would you invite extra allies to split your spoils like a sliced pie?

If not, the Peace Conference wouldn’t form like dew on grass.

“Biyag and the others who hate me are better alive like thorns guarding roses,” I said, watching the sky like a lid.

They think I hold grudges about their ambushes like a stone in a shoe, but ambush is normal as rain, and betrayal belongs to the betrayed who gave reasons like a crack in pottery.

Killing them all won’t make me happier, like salt in tea.

In short, I’m efficiency-first like a straight road.

I shrugged toward where Biyag fell like a careless gust, then punched Dulan awake like a knock on a drum as she leaned on her tachi to nap, and I called her back to work like a bell at dawn.