The Seventeenth.

Alright, quick, quick… like coaxing sparks to wake in a bed of ash.

I hugged my knees by the fire. Warm weather made the flames feel pointless, yet man-lit heat kept whispering that I was human.

In truth, at my core, I’m the Demon King, the Final Calamity—storm-wreathed ruin behind a borrowed face.

“Okay, that’s about it. This makeshift shelter’s yours. If you like anything here, grab it.”

“You talk like this ruin is your house.”

“Yeah. It was my house—before it fell like a tired mountain.”

“…”

“Vega loved the pattern on this table. Some master’s handiwork, they said. I don’t get that stuff. Want it? Only the carved leg remains.”

“...No, thanks.”

“Then how about this ‘Shining skewed thirty-eight-faced polyhedron’? Vega polished it this morning till it winked like a fish-scale.”

“Don’t need it.”

“Canned food? A few are left.”

“I don’t think you’ll last long enough for me to get hungry again.”

“Fair point. I’m not that strong anyway. A Shadow Sorcerer’s meant to be support—set rhythm for the Hero. My sword work’s solid, though.”

I spread my hands to the Dragon Exorcist, rose, and drifted toward the edge of the ruins, like soot lifting on a breeze.

“I’ve got nothing else to arrange. Let’s call it here, Miss Dragon Exorcist.”

“Mm…”

Silence walked with us like a thin dog on a short leash.

To be a Hero.

It’s never been fun—glory brings grief like moonlight drags a long shadow.

You wish none of it had happened, wish to be nameless again, to guard what you already lost, like cupping water that keeps slipping.

She knew the loneliness behind legend and saw reality cold as iron, so she lowered her bar and said, “If I can just do something, I’ll be content.”

Facing her own death and failure, Dragon Exorcist felt little regret. Challenging the great red dragon was her choice; dying was on the table, a small ache left over.

Face the Demon King, become the blade that hunts her, fight till your lungs burn, then return to death with a clean nod at your deeds.

A beautiful life blueprint—like lacquer so perfect it begs a spit of disdain.

Fine, fine. People have their own way. Even if it’s hazy, unreal, I won’t wrestle a ghost for pride.

Another hum rolled out, a bell under the world. The last arena had been set, a throat clearing before doom.

I tightened my tie. Vega had tailored me a suit; I’d ripped off every fussy limb-shackling bit. The tie didn’t hinder, so I let it hang like a quiet river.

I grabbed the Greatsword Valor, hauled it onto my shoulder, and walked out of the ruins, as if stepping from smoke into a rising sun.

Goodbyes said once don’t need saying twice.

The Eerie Tree, the Demon King’s avatar—its branches woven of human hands—roofed the sky like a knotted net of pale roots.

Eyes gathered in a heartbeat, then came a rush that stepped on physics like they were thin reeds over black water.

Air rammed in, brute and heavy. Its density pressed my gut empty, like wringing breath from a damp cloth.

That’s world-killing heaven’s wrath, enough to thresh cities flat and silence prayers like snuffed candles.

The Grand Seal’s third layer still severed the Demon King’s link to the conceptual field; if not, humans wouldn’t even see this wrath.

Sylvia would stir the concept of Hatred like a ladle in pitch; the brittle human world would sag and collapse like a rotted beam.

Likewise, the conceptual field was walled off from me. I couldn’t reach the Shadow Realm, could only pour my own thin magic into spells.

I rarely need spells against the Demon King, so that cost is light, a grain in a sandstorm.

But next, I needed something different—rare things that bite even a Demon King, the weak one’s resolve forged into a grand spell.

Legendary magic, Defiant Death—build the grand spell’s skeleton, black ribs beneath a starless cloak.

Pseudo-Deity Thesis, Divine Patching—lay its safeguards like gold filigree over a war drum.

High-tier magic, Thousandfold Polarized Shadows—fill its inner medium, a heart of ink hammered into glass.

A composite grand spell. I call it Night Watcher at War.

My body turned to pitch-dark Shadow. I spread my arms, calm as midnight water, and waited for the Demon King’s ghost-hand to pass through and tear me apart.

The smoke-like Shadow blew into shreds by a hurricane, then knit itself back when the wind fell like a tired god.

Good. No pain. Looks like the spell took, a bridge of black ice that didn’t crack.

I’d given it a sixty percent chance at best. Perfect logic and clean code don’t promise a program will run; a stray gremlin can crater it.

For now, it holds. I didn’t explode the moment I cast it; that’s enough. If it hiccups later, I’ll tweak it and pick a handsome way to die.

This is a once-in-a-life spell—like a match that burns only once, held for the right night.

I slipped through the ruins. Spectral hands tore across me like knives through mist, always trying to peel a piece to keep.

But even a strongman can’t grab fog; even a child loses sand through their fingers. I kept pulling my scattered self back in and stitching the tatters.

I reached the center of the battlefield, where fire converged like rain—besides me, one other spot drowned in attacks.

“Yo, Guildmaster. You look better than a cracked statue.”

Jump, slip, weave—Maki moved with an animal grace, always leaping past the spectral hands’ reach like a cat through a thorn hedge.

He used gaps in walls to block those eyes on their palms, then shed pursuit like a coat in a doorway.

A dozen hours had crawled by. The City of Heroes—kilometers across—was hammered into rubble, like bread crushed under a stone.

With no strategic depth left, we had only head-on steel, bone against tide.

Even Maki, a candidate for “Strongest of the Human World,” can’t last long against a Demon King of “Infinity,” a sea that never ends.

“Looks like just the two of us now.”

“Then who’s that in heavy armor behind you?”

“A friend.” I shrugged. Hard to say if a cloud of Shadow can shrug, but I tried anyway, like ripples on tar.

“I figured she’d burst out at our ‘I’m about to die’ moment and save us with a last strike. Turns out she prefers jumping in early. Bless her.”

“Name?”

“Dragon Exorcist. A Hero honored by the gods—she’ll fight beside us or die with us. Professor Obion’s off-chart variable.”

“Yes, the ‘failed Hero.’ Don’t expect too much,” she said, swinging her dragon-slaying lance-sword, hacking hand after ghost-hand like chopping dead vines.

“She’s just on the gloomy side. The fact she can shove back the Demon King’s hands says enough. Doesn’t it?”

“Hey, Andor, I’m not lining up in ruins to die neat. Got anything constructive? While all three of us still have breath and limbs, spit it out.”

A Demon King slaying plan? Doesn’t exist. Mischief plans? Always at hand, like knives tucked in boots.

I stood under a carpet-bombing of ghost-hands, thumb on my chin, pretending to ponder like a fox admiring grapes.

“In fact, you’re outside the plan—”

“Huh? And?”

“—So as extra firepower, come be crazy with us. Professor Obion won’t be mad we cheated fate a little.”

I lifted Valor off my shoulder, pointed its gleam at the Eerie Tree’s body. I showed hostility, stepped down from lofty observer into mud-splattered challenger.

Once I entered the ring, concept began to bite me; that’s the clearest counter to a spell made of concept—like salt to ice.

When Nivifar rampaged, even with Pseudo-Deity and Legendary magic, I nearly died; no one wins a frontal crush from the conceptual field.

Now the hands passing through me pricked like nettles, the pain climbing, a slow-rolling boil.

“Three makes a squad, barely. Maybe we can hurt the Demon King. I don’t dream we’ll kill her, but making her wince beats getting squashed like bugs. Guildmaster?”

“…I can’t be the main strike, but I’ll carve you a path.” Maki’s voice was sparse; his promise was thick. He ripped more hands, then leapt before the corrosive black blood could fall like acid rain.

“That’s enough! The Guildmaster’s taken too much from the Divine Being; this is his ceiling. Dragon Exorcist, cover me. You don’t have a decisive hit anyway.”

“…I hate your mocking tone.” She edged close; the spike at her big shield’s base bit into the ground, guarding my front like a tower rooted in earth.

“But I trust you won’t babble. Where to?”

“Inside that tree. The heartwood. The rough location is fine.”

“Is that a weak point?”

“Whether a Demon King has a weak point is a coin toss—but an internal blast hurts worst, like a bell rung from its ribs.”

Let it carve memory into people—and into Sylvia—like a scar that glitters.

I took a long breath, then swung. With the composite grand spell humming, I cut a ghost-hand in two as it lunged, an ink eel split clean.

Black blood spattered like oily rain. The three of us charged the Eerie Tree, heads down, teeth bared, a thin spear against a dark sea.