Vega clawed her remaining right hand into earth soaked with black blood. Teeth grinding, she dragged herself forward, inch by inch, like a wounded eel through tar.

Human meat smelled sweet. The flesh beside her, the Divine Child’s, made saliva bead like dew at the edge of a blade.

But eating meant nothing. Devouring people was how low Demonfolk courted the Ocean of Darkness. As a grim wraith, a child of that sea, she no longer needed it.

How much mana sits in human flesh? Almost none. A Hero’s corpse holds “good” and “light,” a toxin to Demonfolk, bright as salt in a wound.

Even so, many Demon Kings call Heroes prime cuts. Like chili to humans—pure burn, not food—yet they crave the sting.

Maybe. She wasn’t sure.

Truth was, Vega didn’t like humans. Unlike her Master, they were food, nothing more. Her Master had long forbidden it. Besides, now wasn’t the time.

Got it.

Closest to her lay a finger cut by the Night Watcher. Left ring finger. Half the third knuckle remained, the slanted stump charred pitch-black by white fire.

She ignored the grit. She shoved it in, chewed twice, swallowed whole. Her own finger tasted awful, but filling her “inside” felt like rain on cracked clay.

No time to relax. A finger turned seconds-from-death into minutes-from-death. The clock still ticked, a drumbeat in her ribs.

Below her fourth rib, she was butchered and strewn across five hundred meters. Her left arm was gone at the shoulder. Her last mana only kept the candle lit.

What she swallowed never reached the stomach. It dissolved to mana at her throat. The jolt propped her up. She scanned the field for the nearest chunk of corpse.

She spotted Victor draped over a rock. The cruciform sword, its white fire dead, was buried deep in his shoulder. Dead or not, unclear.

Victor had refused more of the Ocean of Darkness. He wouldn’t drift farther from humans. His link to the ocean was shallow. But Berenz’s feedback had gone silent. He was dead.

Oh. If your head’s cut to fragments—and the Night Watcher severs you at the level of concept—even a wraith dies. That’s the end of the story.

Her dying blur smeared the world. Mana sense kept her from mistaking stone for meat. Yet when she reached her target, it was a shard of Berenz’s skull.

Three-quarters of an eyeball clung to the bone, wet as a moon in a puddle.

Vega ate it without ceremony.

With a “head”—the densest knot of mana—down, she could rebuild flesh. She stepped out of near-death, and her mana no longer fed only life support.

She rose and resonated with the Ocean of Darkness, like a string humming to a deep tide.

Shadows grew teeth and tendrils on blood-black earth. They swallowed mana-rich flesh, then poured it back into Vega’s hollow vessel, like rivers into a dry lake.

Mana climbed, slow and steady. Good. Good.

She licked Berenz from her lips, then cast her true body, born from Shadow, to a distant field—the first place Dulan and the Night Watcher fought.

Dulan’s flesh was scattered worse, a storm’s chaff. That harvest would take longer.

Mm. Drop two, save one—safer odds.

No big problem for now. She even stitched her black-and-white maid dress back into being. She skirted a Divine Child’s corpse and walked toward Victor, etiquette flawless.

Victor, dead yet?

…Ah…

If you’re dead, I’m reclaiming the mana inside you.

…Maybe try saving me before asking if I’m dead!

If you’re alive, you won’t die before you say the key line, unlike that stage-play cliché. If you’re dead, that’s my favorite outcome. Master will revive you. The Demon King Army gets a fine colleague. But since you aren’t dead, we do something else.

Mana from the Ocean of Darkness swelled like a dark tide. From the Shadow, Vega drew a bottle of HolyWater.

Pick one.

…Neither looks friendly.

At this damage, you choose or you die. Your mana isn’t all dark, not all light. But your blood and soul are still Demonfolk. The Ocean’s mana can save you. The cost is unknown. You may take a Demonfolk form and never change back.

…Sis, give me the HolyWater…

I know you don’t want to sink deeper into Demonfolk. That’s the snag. HolyWater heals humans and poisons Demonfolk. Do you think you’re human? Do you think you still count? Do you think you can still call yourself human?

…

Doesn’t matter. Worst case, you die. Then Master revives you.

Even so, I still want to try…

Mm. Either way, I won’t apologize. We already paid for your power and your life.

Of course. Villains never apologize. It’s a villain’s pride… Sis, I’m the same…

Vega ignored his delirious rambling and poured HolyWater down his throat.

Type-III HolyWater healed common near-death wounds. Not top-grade. Even if it poisoned Victor, it wouldn’t make him die too painfully.

Flames jetted from his breath like a furnace. Vega yanked the cruciform sword from his shoulder; it dragged out lava and fire.

You look in agony. Need me to kill you?

No. I don’t want to become a monster. Please—let me try. Let me hold on…

For Hattie?

…

Ah. Thought so.

He’d been the best Assassin alive, built on experience and technique, and a little common magic. Not on the blackened blood and soul.

That’s why, as an Ashfiend, he still wore a human skin. He refused to ruin his chosen life using darkness.

Now he loved Hattie. He believed she loved his human shape. That made him brace harder against the Ocean of Darkness.

Vega wouldn’t pry into her top underling’s knots. She echoed her Master’s respect for choice. Then do your best was rare encouragement.

She stepped away, sawed off the Night Watcher’s head, set it with two others, and came back to wait on Victor’s outcome.

Sis, you told the Night Watcher, “Humans won’t expect you. They won’t pin hope on a heaven-dropped Hero. If anything, you negate human effort.” Was that true?

Why? Got time for thoughts only a Divine Being or a sage entertains? And why remember just that line?

Just curious. He looked very sad.

I can tell you. It was one shell among many to break his mind. Not even the key one. The point wasn’t debate. If it isn’t irrefutable, it’s noise.

The key strike landed at the start, and not by my design—

The Night Watcher wasn’t summoned by his father.

With that premise, the rest of the blows had teeth.

He tried hard. Yet he did nothing. His very existence was denied. It felt… a bit pathetic.

If your mind’s foggy, don’t chat. When you mutter, you don’t hear others. It annoys people. Especially your boss. Vega shook her head, sighed, and looked far. Her gaze pierced the material world and the made world. She watched her Master and the saint clash like storm and mountain. Forget it. You resonated with the Night Watcher’s path, didn’t you? Trying to do, trying to become. Your old dream was to be a knight.

That was ages ago, when my homeland still stood.

Alright, Victor. Just the result. You and the Night Watcher are nothing alike, so no need to feel a chord. Your will, your thoughts, your sorrow—they’re yours. Chosen. The Night Watcher’s not. He’s a god’s child. His will, thoughts, and sorrow came as duties and a reason to live, handed down by a Divine Being. Beyond duty and big ideals, he has nothing. Worse, none of it was chosen. That’s why he’s weak.

Is that so…

Yeah. You’re the free one.

Of course not. Who is free in this world?

He simply walked too little among men. Born for battle, he had even less time to think beyond it.

Worse, he descended because of a mistaken elder brother, to mend a mistake. However well he did, to humans it only fixed a wrong. In their hearts, his score stayed negative.

Even if he was wholly good. Even if he did only good.

While he lived, that world denied all he could uphold. Vega’s task now was to keep that denial flowing like a cold river.

It was cruel. Killing the heart is crueler than killing the body.

She spoke words that denied the Night Watcher, yet she admired that iron will that stands without proof. She acknowledged the man. Maybe her Master’s thinking had rubbed off.

Victor, to her, was melodramatic.

He had power yet dodged it. When he felt short, he sighed as if the world owed him. Even a little of that irked Vega. It was looking away.

Simple terms: melodrama.

But it wasn’t her problem. They were employer and employed. She needed his strength, not his therapy.

Call it respect for free will if you’re kind. Call it can’t-be-bothered if you aren’t.

…Alright. Hattie, I—

Vega didn’t catch the rest of his whisper to the one he loved. No great loss.

She watched his body steady. Scalding magma cooled back into human flesh. One more line struck off the list.

Tally the jobs: Victor killed the Assassin. Berenz killed the Holy Knight. Dulan was killed by the Night Watcher.

Everything fit the plan. Only Dulan was dumb enough to say, Humans don’t need you anymore. Vega told me to say that. Fine—draw your sword, let’s fight. Then he fought about an hour and got cut into eight pieces. That reset Vega’s expectations for maids.

He drowned in battle. Lines meant to hit the Night Watcher’s heart never sank. Dulan fought a Night Watcher whose mind barely trembled. He didn’t take the head at first sight, as Vega had hoped.

Set aside the part where the Night Watcher carved her like a butcher; that can wait.

Vega leaned on skill barely worthy of a high retainer, and on words thick as tar, to stall until Victor and Berenz made it back.

The Night Watcher was the only Hero in this advent to take his own life, which meant his psyche held a seam to pry open.

So she pressed bit by bit, using human-to-human dialogue like dripping water, eroding his mental walls.

She spun made-up theories like cobwebs, denying his righteous deeds until the silk clung.

As in theology, you don't negate without falsification; when blame can't fully prove, it settles like silt in a heart and turns the river murky.

No matter how well a Hero acts, curses fly like crows.

Vega leaned on that, choosing words like knives to cut the Night Watcher's spirit.

It worked, cold as frost on dawn steel.

Her throat locked in his grip, fear flickered and went out; then she said, "Besides strength, what else have you given humanity?"

He stalled, caught like a stag in torchlight.

She followed, "You think humanity truly needs you? You think killing me makes you a Hero?"

Verbal venom and mortal poison flowed together, as the blade slid in and pinned his heart like a butterfly.

The counterkill played like theater, banners snapping in a sudden wind.

Vega had been ready to burn all her magic, to unleash the Ocean of Darkness into the world, just to hold him back.

Walking away alive felt like a dramatic coup, a mask smiling from the stage.

Sure enough, taking down the Holy Knight with the iron spirit first was the right call.

"All right, pack up; maybe Master can still make tonight's dinner. A good maid plans for rain and drought, and keeps every corner swept."

She hefted her underling like a sack and took the severed head.

She would teleport to the City of Heroes and cook for Mistress and Master.

Will the corpse on the ground suddenly jump up, she wondered, the thought rising like a bubble.

Of course not; reality isn't that theatrical yet, and the curtain stays down.