"What do you want to accomplish?"

To grant people’s wishes, like lighting lanterns in fog. I want a world with no Demonfolk, no enemy baked into birth, like fields without thorns.

"For whom do you want to do all this?"

For the children, like saplings under spring rain. For every brave soul fighting Demonfolk, like stars pricking a stormy sky.

"Do you think you can do it?"

Of course. And also, I don’t know, like stepping into mist at dawn.

I never hold firm confidence in my strength, like a reed bowing to wind.

I never place wild hopes on the road ahead, like a traveler counting cold moons.

Each morning, I prepare to die by dusk, like a candle accepting nightfall.

He is no muddled degenerate, no dead leaf drifting. The Savior Saint sees himself and the world clearly, like a mirror under rain.

He knows how small and humble he is before the vast outside, like a grain of sand beneath black tides.

So he seals himself off from despair and chooses to walk on, like a pilgrim past winter cliffs.

This is great awakening, great courage, great breath, like thunder rolling across ridgelines.

That iron will deserves the name of saint, like ironwood standing in frost—

—Lock the target. Walk straight. Wherever you fall, you won’t regret it, like footprints cut into dry earth.

To drown cradling your ideal—second only to seeing it fulfilled, like sinking beneath moon-silvered waves.

Thinking that, I pause and step back, like a wolf sliding through snow. I gauge his fist’s reach, then carve a wide arc with the Long Halberd, drawing a red fog.

An ordinary person would die at once from such wounds, like glass struck by hail. He grits his teeth, swallows pain, steadies his breath, and punches again, like a drumbeat in storm.

I sigh and say, like mist leaving stone:

"And how do you plan to kill me?"

There’s no way, like a blade biting granite.

No one but Ferrel can kill me. Andreas is a calamity bound to return, like winter circling the calendar. Even if the world is destroyed, I won’t die; I cannot die, like a shadow stitched to light.

As long as the notion of “good” exists, “evil” won’t vanish, like night hounding daylight. Light births dark; indulging evil feeds evil, like water fattening reeds. To slay evil requires naming evil, like carving sigils on bone. Andreas is undying, unruined—the Final Calamity, unless all things fall to nothing, time and space blown to ash.

"Savior Saint, you cannot kill me unless the world burns to cinders and human law is buried, like cities swallowed by dunes. History must sink into void, like scrolls drowned in black rivers. Only then can you stand before me and maybe take this head. But to kill me means becoming me, becoming the Final Calamity, doing first what was mine to do, like wearing my shadow."

"To save the world by destroying the world—is that what you want?"

"No! Of course not! It’s the opposite!"

You know this: however many I kill or eat, the survivors live by my grace, like crops rescued from blight. As I told you at the start, I want one-tenth of human lives, like a tithe to a hungry god, to buy a future where the Final Calamity never returns and magic civilization blooms, like orchards after rain. A double win—what could be more correct than that, like clear math on cold stone? Look a thousand years back and forward. Tell me—on your road, or on mine—who dies more, like scales weighed under starlight?

"...You understand, don’t you? You see through it all and grasp everything, like a falcon reading wind. A saint isn’t a fool; he knows too much and keeps silent, like snow muffling the earth."

"Even so, you’ll kill me and block my way?"

"For what?"

"For humanity. For the prayers of everyone, like a sea murmuring to the moon."

"Well, that’s your essence,"

"Not ‘the most correct path,’ but ‘the path people most hope for,’ like choosing spring over calculus."

"How—"

"Foolish."

"Foolish!"

"Utterly foolish!!!"

Anger rises for no reason, like smoke under a lid.

A little anger born of disappointment, like embers in wet ash.

He’s so offhanded, so reckless, so dull—

And just like that, the stage I arranged, the script I penned, mostly loses force, like sails torn by squalls. The rebuttals and tricks I expected do nothing, like arrows sinking into clay.

"Are you seriously challenging me?"

"Saint, do you belittle the great? I can refuse your challenge at any moment, like a gate slamming shut. I can deem you a usurper at any time, go all out, and your very tier of existence will be crushed in an instant, like porcelain under a hammer."

Blood mist bursts and the Long Halberd’s gale whips it away, like leaves pulled through a canyon.

Vega stitched my cloak with care, woven from the ghost-faced spider queen’s silk of the Demon Realm, like moon-thread from a nightmare loom. It’s the best fabric she could find; she said it was for the ceremony I’d hold in the Endless City, like banners under pale sun.

Even in close combat I kept the cloak clean, like snow untouched by boots. I slipped past the Savior Saint’s every strike and scattered blood fog, like wind emptying a shrine.

Just now, the first drop hit the cloak, like ink on parchment. The second fell on the mask, like rain tapping bronze. Then the third, the fourth, and more, like a sudden squall.

I’m sorry to weigh on Vega’s mood, like frost on petal. I wore this to honor the Savior Saint, like formal robes before a temple. Now there’s no need; if it stains, let it stain, and let the small fire in my chest burn, like coals finding breath.

"Die! Die!" My roar means nothing, not only because of the mask but because he knows no fear, like a cliff that ignores waves. But—

"It works on me!" like sparks jumping to tinder.

Savage swings. I whirl the Long Halberd, like a comet scything low.

Again and again I cut muscle and bone, like knives through bamboo. Again and again I shatter vessels and organs, like glass under stones. A normal human would have died countless times by now, like candles in a storm. Even the Savior Saint has taken too much. If he drops the martial stance “Feigning Strength,” he’ll become pulp in the blink, like fruit in a press.

I cast aside poise and grace. See it: a pure monster fueled by frenzy and riot, like wildfire eating a slope.

The Long Halberd raises a storm and drags earth and stone, like a typhoon grinding chalk. A beast intends to chew the lone traveler under heaven, like jaws closing on a road.

Strike, pound, tear, pierce, sever—he spews blood and falls, like a banner ripped from its pole. Yet he stands again, unwavering, like a pine in gale.

Why do you still stand, like a shadow returning at noon?

"How do you want to die?"

"Treating death like a friend sounds lovely, like wine warmed by fire. But I disagree. It’s inefficient, meaningless, valueless. What are you thinking, Savior Saint? Did you cross a thousand miles into the Silver Age just to die, like a moth aiming for its own flame? Do you truly expect to defeat me? Do you think you can fight me without end, down to Bronze and Black Iron, like Ferrel did?"

"What a joke!"

"..."

"........"

"...Wait—‘to die’?"

I leap back and halt my assault, like a cat pausing on a beam. I turn that word over, like a pebble in palm.

It seems—maybe that explains it, like fog parting over a river.

"Hey, Savior Saint, I’ll ask again: why did you come?"

He doesn’t answer. He runs straight in and keeps fighting, like an arrow refusing the bowstring’s rest.

"Do you think I’m correct? That’s the premise," like a plumb line in hand.

"If your answer is ‘yes’—any thought shows that even if I’m not justice, I’m the optimal solution—then what comes next, like paths diverging in woods?"

"Remember, you still stand with humanity. The Savior Saint is the saint of all humankind, not of one nation or one race, like the sky over every roof."

"Back to my first question,"

"Humans grow like weeds cut and they sprout," like green knives pushing clay.

"Monsters grow like weeds cut and they sprout," like briars retaking fences.

"Demonfolk grow like weeds cut and they sprout," like thorns reclaiming fields.

"Which line is correct? Your answer should be—"

"None of them. Or only mindless monsters are excluded," like husks tossed from grain.

"How foolish," like bats chasing sunlight.

"Do you think you’re as great as a Divine Being? Do you think you can love everyone equally, like rain that never chooses? Who even calls you ‘saint’?"

"Savior Saint, you might say you’ve seen your own ugliness, like mud on boots. But you should stand for humanity’s greater good. We are Demonfolk, villains, every ugliness of the world, and we refuse to call ourselves human, like wolves refusing sheep’s wool."

"Ah—so this is what you expect. You won’t betray anyone’s wishes or fail anyone’s hope, and at last you get a beautiful ending, like petals raining on a grave?"

"Idiot—someone is waiting for you to return," like a lamp kept burning at the door.

"Still charging, unmoved?" like a river ignoring stones.

"As you wish. I now have a reason to kill you," like a judge lifting a blade.

I throw my beloved Long Halberd like a javelin, like lightning hurled from hand. He moves on instinct and knocks it aside, like a bell struck at dawn. The tip pierces his shoulder, not his heart, like a thorn short of the core.

The heavy Long Halberd drags on his movement, like chain on ankle. He grits through pain and reaches to pull it free, like a smith grasping hot iron. Before he can, I’m already there. I seize the haft and sweep, flinging him away, like a wave tossing driftwood.

The motion repeats the thousand strikes from before, like a wheel carving ruts, yet something is different, like smoke tasting of salt.

The Savior Saint presses his left shoulder. There, the halberd hole gapes and bleeds into air, like a red mouth on snow.

The stance “Feigning Strength” still works, like paint smoothing cracks. But something deeper won’t heal, like rot under lacquer.