Vega, strike up the music.

The maid with black, ear-length hair lifted her skirt and bowed with elegant poise. Her human shell unraveled in the haze of shadow, revealing her essence—

—the Opera House’s Phantom!

Organ pipes twisted like dead branches, clawing for the sky. Gentlemen with faces made of shadow manned the instruments. Violins creaked like jammed gears. Accordions scraped like nails on glass. Trumpets bellowed like dying throats.

Welcome to the Opera of Demons, where daylight’s peak of cheers and praise gives way to the night’s hoarse screams and curses.

Berenz, heat up the mood for me.

A maid with red hair, red eyes, twin ponytails grinned like a cut throat, and dragged her hand hard across her neck. Her human shell unraveled in the haze of shadow, revealing her essence—

—the Amusement Park’s Phantom!

Children’s shrieks and manic laughter poured from tents drowned in shadow, only pairs of scarlet eyes visible below. A Ferris wheel so tall it erased the sky rolled back and forth like a loose cartwheel. The pirate ship’s prow split into a colossal mouth, hunting the spinning teacups and chewing them to shards. Carousels charged in endless loops, hooves trampling flesh-mash until the ground puffed soft as a carpet.

Welcome to the Carnival of Demons. Please enjoy rides evolved from instruments of torture—or perhaps tortures evolved from rides.

Dulan, let the audience out.

The maid with long teal-blue hair had just awoken; her neck tilted backward like a snapped branch. Her human shell unraveled in the haze of shadow, revealing her essence—

—the Nameless Barrow’s Phantom!

Black tombstones ripped the earth open, rising from ground to horizon, a soot-dark forest of stone.

Perhaps in some future, perhaps in ages past, a Demon King challenged the gods, burned worlds to ash, and forged a throne from cinders. In the end, he was defeated by the gods. As the price of his loss, he was ordered to raise a stone for every Hero who fell. The Demon King refused to accept defeat: he carved the stones, yet left every name blank.

On the field of the last war—barren, rotting, forgotten even by time—countless nameless barrows were laid down, all black as night.

And now, someone calls to them. Calls the nameless back from the void, to be an audience and witness a duel that no longer belongs to them.

A man with vast stag antlers rested against the nameless stele behind him. A man whose right arm was thicker than his left planted his spear in the soil. A figure in heavy plate, bulk twice his own outline, stood at the barrow’s front.

Watch. Admire. Witness.

A duel that exhausts glory and blood.

If we fight all-out, the mortal realm will crumble.

The gods will restore it. Besides, the Hero is here. Her skill, God-and-Demon As One, will throttle our output.

That’s why I invited the Hero over. But let’s not make trouble for the gods.

So, Brother, you mean—

No Authority. No magic. No changing our weapons’ forms. No breaching domain permissions. No becoming concepts. No pulling rank. No mutual erosion. No undying.

In this playground of Demonfolk, I raised my Long Halberd—heavy as guilt in mortal hands; this kind of great armament taxes a human frame.

One life each. True blades, true victory. We fight with mortal means, mortal strength, mortal skill.

How about it?

If you agree—

Then—

The halberd tip pointed at Anna’s brow, standing in for kneeling and kissing the back of her hand.

Anna, my lovely sister, shall we dance (slaughter)?

Of course, my dear brother. One dance, one poem, one partner dashing and romantic—what finer funeral?

She slid her left foot back, stretched her right forward, bowed to me, and set her right hand to her chest. A lady’s greeting, flawless.

Then, it begins—

By the world in a pot—

By the paradise in a painting—

By the sun and moon in a mirror—

Motion.

Aye. Second.

Aye.

A realm born from nothing unfolded. Anna and I built an imaginary world together. We defined the physics of this place with joint will.

It can’t match the splendor of the Unsinking Moonscape the God of Strength Bell summoned earlier. But as a battlefield—as a dueling ground—the hardware is more than enough.

Begin. Buck gravity. Heft the weapon. Charge the other with pounding feet.

Then laugh—loud, shameless, clean. Vent every gloom and knot, every parting and grudge, through the swinging of steel.

Steel screamed. Shock climbed the haft and bit into flesh. The mortal body paid for impact in negatives and aches. It didn’t stop us from hauling up Giant Scythe and Long Halberd again, sighting flesh, and sending full force across the gap.

Steel to steel. King to king.

We endured pain, drove damaged bodies forward step by step, cut and swept, and somehow laughed like children in a storm.

The clash of blades rolled like a tide of applause, pealing without end.

Our footwork flickered like a blazing dance, and never broke stride.

Brother, what do you actually want?

Her Giant Scythe tore the front of my black tuxedo. I hopped back in time. No blood.

What horizon are you staring at? You can tell me now.

Beyond grudges… of course— I turned, and let the Long Halberd ride my waist into a return cut, slitting Anna’s long skirt up to the thigh— impossible. Honestly, most days I don’t even know what I’m doing.

I have enough power to get whatever outcome I want. I mean everything.

And my wish?

I have no wish.

Yes, I enjoy food. I enjoy destruction and Slaughter. Those are easy. Base hungers. If I let go, I could always walk the old road of the Shadow Demon King I was before.

Hunger isn’t a wish. A wish is what costs you years and pays clean at the end.

The halberd’s momentum finally piled high. Cut upon cut pressed Anna back, forced her to guard.

At the end of that exchange, I dropped my heaviest strike at her head, and her Giant Scythe arced impossibly toward my throat.

We each left the first drop of blood. That was both of us choosing to relent. Perhaps the music is too tempting; none of us wanted the piece to end too soon.

We stepped back two paces in quiet accord. Let lungs near collapse catch a breath. I’m really not used to breathing. Set the guard again. Lunge almost together.

If I have a wish, it’s a good ending—or, more precisely, possibility. I need time. I need a place. I need recognition. I need backing. I need hands. Then I’ll try—to do something. Whether it succeeds doesn’t matter. What matters is trying, that I have a chance, spare strength to explore something new.

I don’t understand.

If life is a novel, my legend should’ve ended the moment I forged the perfect magic armament. From then to now, it’s just a completed protagonist looking for what else there is to do. I value the process, not the result.

Like clearing the main game, then strolling the side quests.

Like a world-saving Hero, happy and married, in her lazy daily life.

Like a high schooler who slew an otherworld dragon king, then graduated into salaryman grind.

No one rushes me with emergencies anymore. No one plans to end the world—or if someone does, it shouldn’t be mine to stop. The world won’t change because of me now. Game over. GAME OVER. I became one of the strongest alive—maybe the strongest. I can keep searching, keep exploring. Only, I don’t have much time—and this is what I’m working for, right now.

Ferrel, Stini, Raven, Vega, and many more. The things I want to meddle in. The people I want to be with. The rank and treatment I aim to win. My cold and warm efforts—

All fold into words like possibility and future.

To take back the future that should be mine. That’s how I’d say it.

I licked the blood trailing my cheek, narrowed my eyes in earnest, and said so.