The Palace of All Saints was their pride, the sum of their finest craft and richest materials, raised to be flawless like a mountain carved to mirror the sky. Saster and his Golden Warsong Knights severed an entire mountain range to birth it.

Jade walls glowed like rivers of ice. The dome held jewels that sparred with the sun. Every fresco told saints and sages and hero-tales, each stroke a master’s breath.

Every brick bore a blessing of time, bound in perpetual chronomancy. It lacked the human Ten-Thousand Mechanisms Hall’s marvels, and the dwarves’ Geolattice Fortresses’ vastness. Yet all other grandeur rots. Only this would outlast the tide of years.

It was the palace they were proud of. They thought it would shine through ten thousand generations, never dim, never fall.

The Creator descended onto the hall, stepping out of breeze, soil, and rain, taking human shape like dawn clothed in dew.

Light lived upon His face, a gentle halo that blurred His features, soft as mist on a spring lake.

He walked forward. No one told Him what rites to follow. He was the rule.

Saster wore saint-etched plate upon his shoulders. One hand held a book, the Endless Codex of Wisdom. The other gripped a standard, the Golden War Banner.

He rose slowly from the high seat and bowed to the Creator.

“My father…” His voice snagged, like a string pulled too tight.

“My child, congratulations. Today is your coronation. Your heart should be light.”

The Creator’s voice was tender. His hand brushed Saster’s crown, setting a thorned iron circlet upon his head, cool as moonlit iron.

Applause crashed like rain on bronze. In that roar, Saster spoke low:

“My father…”

“This is duty, expectation, trust. You will carry the fate of the xx race. You must choose—lead them to live as one, or die as one.”

“…” Saster bowed his head. His face hid beneath the shadow of his own resolve.

“You are already Emperor, my child—the Sorcerer Emperor of the xx race. Lift your head. Look at it all without flinching.”

“My father…” Saster raised his eyes. Steel filled them—like the day he had faced countless trials and cut the knot, again and again.

The Creator offered him a naked blade. Saster took it with both hands, solemn as winter.

Then the Creator embraced him. Gentle. Warm as a hearth before storm.

“My child, you are Emperor. So I must demand of you—no tears. My time has come. The world must pass into your hands.”

“Yes. I know. But, my father…”

“What is it?”

“I beg you… curse my flesh. Cast me down forever into the pit.” Saster’s whisper trembled against the Creator’s shoulder, a storm about to break.

The blade passed through the Creator’s heart, out His back, trailing a chain of beautiful blood like scattered rubies.

No. Saster, stunned, pulled the sword free. He staggered back. The last thing he heard was the Creator’s answer, gentle as always.

Darkness climbed him from the Shadow like ivy, coiling his limbs, wrapping the blade until its planes turned more savage, its breath more dire. Yet that dark never reached his soul.

The gathered envoys of the races exploded in fury. Regardless of whether they could beat him, they charged like a broken levee.

They never pierced the Golden Warsong Knights. Already the finest knights in the world, now dark-blessed, they grew uglier and stronger, like statues marred to reveal the beast within.

Saster slumped onto his throne and watched with hollow eyes, like a man drowning under glass.

Below, where the Creator fell, a radiance churned and flickered, a living aurora. Without the Dark’s blessing, a single glance would blind you in an instant, maybe vaporize you whole.

He watched as a human shape rose from that light, condensing into a form mortals could grasp.

“I am Haydon, Wisdom God Haydon.”

To Saster’s eyes, Haydon’s smile wasn’t the Creator’s warm, friendly glow. It brimmed with measures and designs—things a hero like Saster despised.

He was born speaking, born to war—that much The Genesis Chronicle recorded true.

Yet here, Haydon never lifted a hand.

After he sheltered the envoys’ retreat, Haydon and Saster began to talk.

They spoke for seven days and seven nights, rooted in the Palace of All Saints, never taking a single step.

The visible world sped up like a river in flood; day and night flipped like pages. Within that palace, one Primordial Deity after another was born. I couldn’t hear a word. Even reading their lips failed.

Mm. Feels like someone jammed the signal…

“Nothing worth your time. Philosophy, mostly. Justice, heroes, futures. You’d be bored. A bit of the past too, but I think you’ve already guessed.”

A gray-eyed boy in a sleeveless patient’s gown stepped out of nowhere. His gaze stayed misted, unfocused, turned only roughly toward Saster and me.

“I stood right there at the time. Saster sat on his golden throne. Neither of us moved. We spoke for seven days.”

“That’s the truth? You hid this from me for so long, and now you just… hand it over?”

The thought of a con tailored for me burned away the good mood from just sleeping with Anna.

Gods. Demon Kings. Same breed, all liars.

“No, no. You misunderstood us. We did what you do. We just didn’t say it. Didn’t argue. You decided your own story.”

Haydon smiled at me. It was the same smile he wore ten thousand years ago when he told Saster, ‘Please, go die.’

In the end, gods don’t change. They keep only the logic and rules they wrote for themselves. Human likes and hates? Too shallow to matter.

“Showing me this adds nothing. I’d guessed most of it. The Godslayer Sword carries a spell that assigns opposing duality to a single concept. It can give the ‘perfect’ Creator a flaw. That’s how my old man killed Him. I just didn’t expect the blade to also hold the Creator’s blessing. No wonder Abigail could stake that Ocean-of-Darkness-soaked thing through her heart and not fall to corruption.”

I dropped into the nearest chair.

Back in SkywardCity, when Abigail lent me the Godslayer Sword, I’d seen some ragged scraps of history. I’d sketched the core.

First, my old man, Saster, and the Creator were in on it together. They planned the assassination early, forging a Godslayer Sword for that one purpose—Awakening.

To let the Ocean of Darkness’s backlash pass cleanly, the Creator chose death. From His remains, twelve Primordial Deities were to be born. And my old man slew the last unborn one—the Deity of Justice—whose shards the twelve devoured.

The Ocean of Light waned. The Ocean of Darkness’s surge came weak and wheezing. Survive that wave, and the mortal age could limp on for a long while.

The Dark blessed every Demonfolk. In that war, they severed all ties with the Primordial Nine Races and won the Ocean of Darkness’s acknowledgment. But that ocean has no mind, no will. It never knew the Demonfolk made themselves the valve that would throttle its backlash.

The Demonfolk were the Creator’s last, most perfect work. Their souls could resist the Dark’s psychic rot.

So, bound by the oldest Demon King and the gods across the stars, the Son of the Demon King’s invasion of the mortal world became a rite of passage. It wouldn’t spiral into endless, mindless incursions by newborn Demon Kings that would erase mankind.

“In my last life, I never saw this angle. I figured my old man was on my side. Then you teamed up and buried me.”

My father’s shadow-line was buried deep.

“They were heroes of the old day. Even now, they are.”

“That’s all you wanted to say? Break into my dream just to sigh over my dad’s exploits?”

“Dreams are part of ‘wisdom.’ Naturally, they’re part of me too, not just you.”

“Don’t come again. My wisdom is mine. My dreams are mine. Unless you want Andreas to come out.”

“All right, all right.” The Wisdom God shook his head, helpless. “I’ll respect your rights. Just this once, at least finish it.”

I clicked my tongue. We’d only just formed an alliance; no need to bat his request back in his face. I settled in and let the seven days fast-forward to the end.

One Demonfolk after another took the Dark onto their bodies. Mutation sprouted warped muscle and fresh, wrong organs. They grew stronger. Their souls stayed clear. They knew they had to fight their old kin. They knew the father they adored was dead.

They wept. But villains weren’t supposed to cry.

A villain should wear the villain’s mask—ugly, foul, deed-stained. That was the role assigned.

So those who couldn’t stop their tears gouged out their own eyes and called it mutation, letting blood stand in for tears.

The Sorcerer Emperors mustered their legions, marched into rifts in time and space, and let the gods seal them away, waiting for the day Andreas returned.

On the last night of the Seven-Day War, the Demonfolk leaders gathered with the gods in the Palace of All Saints.

…All one faction anyway. What was there to discuss? As long as we could explain it to the newborn Demon King—we fought hard for this, we’d say—no one could refute it.

From that moment, mortal, Creator, and gods began the greatest deception ever wrought on the world’s dark face.

As it ended, Haydon found Saster and murmured:

“Do you remember what we spoke of before…”

“I remember.”

My old man nodded, and drove the sword into Haydon’s abdomen. A Godslayer it was, but not to a defined vital. It became a mortal wound, no more.

“Remember this pain. From now on, we’re enemies.”

“Just so. Just so. Saster, hero of the old day—farewell.”

Haydon dragged the blade free, wincing, and planted the Godslayer Sword in the floor.

“If we meet again, it means the worst has happened to the mortal world. Haydon—never again.”

My old man cast one last, lingering glance at the Palace of All Saints. He drew in one last breath of the mortal air. Then he turned, decisive as winter wind, and led the host of demons to the world’s ‘lowest’ place—the Demon Realm.

“Aren’t we taking the Palace of All Saints? It’s our miracle.” On the eve of departure, Aisdorfa asked him.

“That’s a relic of the old day. Let it go. We’re villains now. Then forget the old splendor.”

Saster patted her hair and sighed, helpless and fond.

Time froze on Saster’s unwavering back, fitting the image I carried of him.

“From then on, Saster erased the old race-name with his own hand. He renamed them Demonfolk. No one could recall that name of glory. Not even gods.”

“What’s that got to do with me.”

“I hope you don’t resent your father.”

“I don’t, really. You all just boxed me once. Sour taste. But now I know, so the next layers of lies won’t land.”

“He is still your father. Even knowing you are the Ocean of Darkness’s likeness, he treated you as his son.”

Honestly? That doesn’t move me.

“You’ve found part of the truth—fine, most of it. I’ll show you the whole of it, to keep our alliance from cracking.”

“It cracked the moment you and Saster set me up. And this isn’t whole—you skipped a long stretch of scheming with my old man… but fine, I won’t push.”

“Thank you for understanding. Even allies keep their own secrets.”

The gray-eyed, sleeveless boy gave me an apologetic smile.

“If you’re not here to snatch something from me, you’re here to set another pitfall.”

I shot Haydon a look of pure contempt. This guy never quits his sly habits.

——————

I came back from the dream, flipped the blanket, and tried to sit up—only to find Anna latched onto me like ivy on a pillar.

We’d tangled a long while before sleep. Even exhausted, she refused to let go.

Greedy girl, Anna.

It took work to pry her off. She’d woken—the way she senses, it’s sharp as a fox—but she kept her pose, pretending to sleep.

She didn’t want a farewell.

I couldn’t help a smile. I tucked the covers around her, careful against the chill. Winter was almost here—and I don’t care whether a Demon King catches a cold.

I pushed the door and slipped out; the hinge exhaled, and maybe Anna’s gaze still clung to my back.

When it’s time to leave, you don’t look back—that’s my rule. I stepped out of the little inn. Dawn was about to split the sky, a pale blade rising at the rim. Cold air washed my face while I weighed what to do next.

With Anna and Haydon handled, it’s time for the Sword Saint affair.