The Grand Seal has three layers, like iron locks stacked in ice. The inner layer sacrifices a Light Orb, jailer and inmate in one cold lantern. It binds the Aversion Overlord Sylvia completely, the oldest and hardest lock of stone.

The middle layer is an emergency brace, a plank thrown across a flood. When the Aversion Overlord cracks the inner layer, it stalls her just a little. It buys a few hours of twilight, and it holds better than a paper screen.

The outer layer is the last palisade, a shell of amber around this world. Its purpose is to stop Sylvia from raising a black tide of “Aversion” and drowning the sky.

Sylvia, now a full Demon King, isn’t like Anna, who kept making gentle oaths with me. No pocket worlds, no Authority, no magic, no warping weapon shapes, no touching authority domains, no becoming a concept, no invoking divine rank, no mutual corrosion, no undying cheats. Those were lilies in a vase; Sylvia brings a wildfire.

As the embodiment of “Aversion,” Sylvia’s reason burned to ash in her own furnace. The Eerie Tree that lost its human shape stands like a gallows, her vengeance carved into bark, a storm-calamity set to reap the world.

The outer seal is rigid, like an old epic sung in bronze. There are forty‑three movable nodes, beads on a prayer cord. Break them all, and the seal breaks.

Also, only by breaking all of them can the seal break. The logic is a closed ring of iron.

I hid behind a tumbled wall, dropped a glass sphere—the node’s material shell—then stomped it into the soil like pressing a seed. The dirt swallowed its sheen.

“Throw it, then stomp it” looks cool, a flourish like a sword dance. But the glass isn’t sturdy, like frost on a leaf. Don’t ask how I know; it’s like a SWAT team fumbling and shooting a hostage. Not a story worth framing.

I fished out another glass sphere, cold as a moon in my palm. I was about to bury it when a branch of the Eerie Tree—jointed like centipede bones, a monstrous hand sprouting eyes—speared the ruins like a harpoon. The thin arm felt foreign, a thing from another world, ignoring action and reaction like wind through smoke, simply shredding everything in its path. If I hadn’t thrown myself sideways like a startled cat, I would’ve been gutted with the rubble.

Great beings who wear concepts as cloaks look down on matter like dust on a sleeve. They stand where words freeze and rocks mean nothing.

Good thing will and resolve are also smoke and starlight. Pour them into a weapon, and they bite a Demon King like frost bites skin.

I gathered my mind like rainclouds and pressed my Greatsword to the ground. I dragged it backward, iron singing on stone, then flipped and heaved it overhead. The cut fell like a falling moon on the monstrous hand.

A clean sever. Black blood sprayed like ink from a snapped quill, and where it spattered me, black fire bloomed. It licked flesh and gnawed marrow, a hungry night.

Nice trick. Learned. If I ever join the raid‑boss roster, I’ll try this counter‑damage. Thorns fit a crown.

After the cut, the arm went limp, a whip or a deflating balloon. It thrashed in mad spirals. Even with my Greatsword as a shield, I got swatted like a fly, slammed through walls in a hail of dust before the world finally stopped. My bones rang like bells.

This force isn’t physics. It’s a tantrum from a godstorm.

No time to complain. A field of evil eyes snapped to focus on my pit like camera lenses in the dark. Before I could stand, dozens of monster hands rushed in like a bramble fire.

Uh‑oh.

An armored figure rushed in, tower shield first, like a steel door in a gale. No skin showed, only the outer plates, dull as moonlight. She smashed aside several hands with the shield, then her gunblade shifted with a click, a side blade unfolding like a guillotine.

She worked the blade with lumberjack rhythm, chopping hands like firewood, chips of shadow flying.

Black blood fell like rain on hot stone.

“If you’ve got time for dumb sighs, use it to not die!” Her voice was a spark under iron.

Black blood coursed over her armor, bubbling and sizzling like tar on coals. It couldn’t seep inside; the plates drank nothing.

“Dragon Exorcist?”

“You know me?” Her helm turned, a lighthouse in smoke.

“A third of this armor’s schematics, I drafted with Raven. I know who she drew it for, like I know my own knife.”

“…Save the talk. We break out first.” Her stance set like a fortress.

The City of Heroes is huge, a chessboard of stone. Even smashing it to rubble takes time like erosion. After Dragon Exorcist blocked a wave, we zigzagged through alleys and half‑fallen houses, weaving like fish through reeds.

Soon the monster hands lost our scent like dogs in rain.

I finally let out a breath, a little steam in winter. I checked which parts of me weren’t reporting, fingers prodding for wrong notes.

“Right. This is for you. Friendly tip—eat it. Keep it in your gut like a swallowed key.” I tossed her a glass sphere, its light dim as a trapped firefly.

“What is it?” Her helm tilted, curious as a crow.

“A Grand Seal node. Forty‑three in total. As long as they’re not all shattered, the Demon King can’t punch through like a battering ram.”

“You’re planning a delaying action?” Her question was a dart.

Nice reaction time. Gold star stamped in air.

Leaning on the basement wall, I pressed my chest, grit my teeth, and set a broken rib with a crack, like snapping a twig back in place. Then I asked, voice steady as a lantern.

“Not me. The professors at the Hero Academy decided. They want to stall until the Hero arrives. Dragon Exorcist, hero conscripted by the Divine Being, got a better way to handle a Demon King? If you can take her down outright, I’ll back you with everything I’ve got.”

I watched my wording like stepping stones. I skipped “failure.” I called her a hero, offered a bridge.

With her face behind a visor, I couldn’t read expressions. I never read eyes well anyway; I read faces like weather. This was fog.

From Dragon Exorcist’s reply, she didn’t catch the silk I laid down.

“Pinning hope on ‘Heroes’—I get it. Only the chosen can face that kind of monster.” Her voice rose like steel on steel. “But I refuse to accept it!”

“Alright, alright.” Heat shimmered off her armor like summer air. I waved a hand to calm her, a palm against wind. “Aren’t you one of the chosen? You can drop that thing, right?”

“Uh… no.” Her tone deflated like a punctured bellows.

What the hell, girl.

From your voice I thought Colonna bolted a star‑killer onto you, a cannon to crack moons.

“I got a blessing equal to a Hero’s Immunity Privilege, but the trimmed version. Pity my teammates didn’t get it.” She flexed a gauntlet, metal purring. “And this armor far exceeded my expectations. It boosted me a lot, and, and…”

Yeah. I know. The rest is smoke on water.

But no matter how strong your flat swings, you lack a decisive blade. A vanguard is built like a wall—great base stats, no executioner’s edge.

Then it’s pointless, right! My thought kicked stones.

Raven designed your armor to fortify the front line. It won’t make your gunblade shoot a light cannon. No miracle beam, just steel.

“Looks like we still wait for Stini. We stall together and chew the hours.” Andor makes the final call, like a gavel on wood.

Dragon Exorcist wanted to argue; the wind rose in her helm. She held back. She hesitated, then swallowed the glass ball like a pearl, and only then remembered a shadow.

“I saw a guy with iron claws. He’s strong…” Her voice was a low drum.

“Maki. Former head of the Heretic Inquisition. Strong enough to bend nails with a look. A ‘strongest mortal’ candidate.” I shook my head like dust off a book. “He won’t be the main striker to kill a Demon King.”

“Why?” The question was a knife tip.

“He took too many gifts from the Divine Being. Play it straight. We drag this out.” I breathed once, a quiet bell. “We already ran the numbers. Seventeen professors from the Hero Academy, plus me and Maki, hashed out the kill plan. The gap between us and her is a canyon. The world’s best vanguard won’t bridge it.”

I peeked out. No grasping hands, just the wind through ash. I slipped back into the basement, tugged a few cans from my pack, and tossed them to Dragon Exorcist like tossing apples.

With the outer Grand Seal up, the pocket world is cut off like an island in fog. I can’t reach the Shadow Realm. So I looted—borrowed—some food from a convenience store, a midnight harvest.

“I can fight a month without eating.” Her tone was flint.

“Eating feeds the spirit, like warm soup in winter. It fights the Demon King’s mental pollution. It’s part of the battle. I don’t want my teammate snapping and carving me mid‑fight.” My smile was paper‑thin.

“So that’s why you picked these sweet, spicy, salty cans,” she said, words clicking like gears. “Sensory shock to keep your mind clear?”

She squatted with smooth joints, a knight at a campfire. Her gauntlets turned the cans over—strawberry oden, mochi red‑bean soup, pork‑cutlet sandwiches—odd stars in a tin constellations.

“They might not taste great. They’re for the act of eating, for the ritual that says you’re human. Like when you chopped those hands and a blood‑rain fell and gave me secondary burns.” I shrugged, smoke in a breeze. “You did the right thing. I don’t complain. So you don’t either. It’s just fuel to fill the belly.”

Dragon Exorcist chewed on my words like tough jerky. Then she finally reacted, a late spark.

Looks like few people joke with her. She’s all blade, little banter.

“You’re… complaining? Are you mad?” Her helm angled, a wary bird.

“Nope. Not mad. And I’m grateful you saved my life.” My voice stayed level, a calm pond.

“That’s obviously mad!” Her retort rang like a struck shield.

“Nah. Just a joke.” I lifted my burned arm, smoke still whispering. “Please help me treat these burns. The black blood’s probably toxic. Scrape a few bones clean for me.”

“So you are mad.” Her sigh rattled like chain.

“Am I mad? Nope.” I grinned, a candle in smoke.

As long as we’re alive, we should be a little happy, like sun through leaves after rain.