“What are you saying? Why aren’t we moving?”

“Miss Dragon Exorcist, you can’t see… oh, that’s perfect. The gift from the Divine Being is working. ‘Invisible’ to you means ‘doesn’t exist.’ Please open a path to the tree’s heart.”

“Then you two…”

“We have another way—”

Chosen heroes and unchosen stand worlds apart. Humans and Divine Beings are a canyon wide. Those who can defeat the Demon King do it under the gods’ shadow, aid granted by an ancient pact, indirect yet immense.

Dragon Exorcist never lived in the age when gods walked. To her, gods are a stronger kind of human, hands on time and space, holding past and future like twin lanterns.

No. Far beyond that. Their mere existence paints the word “greatness” with blazing strokes.

Fearlessness born of ignorance pairs with “Immunity Privilege” too well—diamond-hard, gold-ductile, titanium-strong. A cheat-like defense against concepts. She still uses Age of Black Iron common sense, leaving minor risks in the Demon King hunt, but the gain outweighs the harm, so no one warns her.

She had a different thought, lips parted, then shut. She sprinted for the Eerie Tree without a question.

“Let Miss Dragon Exorcist clear the ground. Chair, how do we cross?”

“The core problem isn’t ‘we.’ It’s ‘you.’ You alone, Andor.”

“Leaving so early—don’t you want to watch the curtain’s fireworks? I bet they’ll be gorgeous.”

“I’m tired. Forget it.”

Maki shook his head like a branch shedding rain. He walked to the safe-zone edge and stretched out his hand.

The world was being torn by the concept of Loathing. Sylvia had only just begun to unmake it; the border between safe ground and chaos was a heat-haze, unclear. As his hand reached forward, the edges blurred; black motes lifted from the steel like ash, disintegrating. Long-sunless pallid skin flashed, then blood burst in the air, froze like crimson glass.

Maki pulled back and looked at the arm that had almost lost the shape of a limb.

“The world over there has already collapsed,” he said.

For that single sentence, he paid an arm. Against the Demon King, that price is light.

“Any way to cross?”

“Andor, you used the ‘Pseudo-Divine Thesis.’ Which aspect?”

He didn’t answer me. He asked instead. I answered, honest, for the sake of that arm.

“Death.”

“No. I need the concept of ‘Justice.’ But fine.”

He stood in front of me, arms opened like doors, glanced at me, then away. His voice nailed itself down.

“No matter. Andor, cut off my hands.”

“Why?”

“I’ll use the legendary magic, Slaughter of Infamy, to take you through. Without a Divine Being to anchor me, I might… no, I will go mad. If I still have hands then, twisting off your head will be as simple as uncapping a bottle.”

“One last time. You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

I raised the blade. Lift, drop.

Maki’s arms thudded to the ground, a dull, unpleasant drumbeat.

Pain and weakness didn’t crease his brow. He had no taste for lingering over it.

“You pass, Andor. You wanted to confirm once more, yet you acted clean.”

“Ask only once. Give room for retreat. For the resolved, that’s enough. For those who keep stalling, I have one thing to say—”

I planted the Greatsword in the earth. My wraith-shadow cinched tight, a coil, so I could meet the Demon King as whole as possible.

“—Screw that.”

“Good. Good. We depart, Andor.”

Blood surged like tar up my throat, glued my voice—yet my hoarse laugh still had the thunder to scatter clouds.

Maki stepped into the ruined world. I followed close, heel to shadow.

“We are no righteous men.”

A few hundred meters, yet in a world of void and churned chaos, every step is a cliff.

Maki spoke like a psalm, or a pilgrim at dawn. I couldn’t tell to whom he confessed, declared, and sang.

“We call ourselves villains.”

“—for peace of mind.”

“We hold the name of Justice, and preach fear before evil.”

“Cruel. We are not gentle.”

“Foolish. We are not wise.”

“Cold. We are not kind.”

“Yet—”

Maki is a pragmatist; he doesn’t waste breath. But walking behind him, I saw his outline shift, then twist, like a reflection on broken water.

“—Yet the world needs this evil, the world needs this justice!”

“Only iron doesn’t lie. Only severance doesn’t cling. Only negation doesn’t err.”

“We are the last stance, the guards of the line, justice cast in dusk.”

“Flames have eaten many homelands—”

“Execution yards have splashed innocent blood—”

“Harsh. Severe. Cruel to the end. When men are no longer men, Justice remains justice—”

“We admit this crime. We accept this infamous name.”

Horned bends budded at his eyes, then shrank. Features scrambled and re-laid like tiles. Bones bulged his frame, then fell back.

His legendary magic isn’t meant to rebuild the world. Yet he can force chaos into a kind of order.

His will pressed down, for a heartbeat, over the Demon King’s Loathing.

But it was born from a stubbornness that borders on iron mania—

“We accept this sin. We’ll atone for life. But we will never repent.”

“Heretic Inquisition—our confessionals are unworn.”

“Because we did evil, committed crimes, yet did not do wrong.”

“If not wrong, we never apologize. To do so would profane our resolve.”

“We are beyond correctness—”

“—Justice.”

Obsessing over justice, refusing to let go—monster enough.

So, when Maki used Slaughter of Infamy, a spell that declares he’ll never bend, his shape warped. A Divine Being must lend half the weight: a fixed eye to judge the self, correct the self, keep from drowning in the thesis of “Justice.”

That’s why he asked me if my Pseudo-Divine Thesis was “Justice.”

And now—

“We did no wrong.”

“We are the necessary evil.”

“We are right. We are just.”

“We guard—at the beginning, all was for guarding. If some hold the shield to protect, then we take the sword to kill—both right, different choices.”

“Walking in darkness, we too yearned for the beautiful light, yet that light must be saved for the ones we love…”

“Do not covet. Do not rule by whim. Do not forget…”

“We, Heretic Inquisitors—”

“I, Maki, the fifty-first Chair of the Heretic Inquisition, have never felt guilt for what I’ve done! Nor have I ever felt regret!”

Even if you keep resetting your justice, a single, fixed viewpoint will drag you blind into frenzy.

Hold to justice—but what is justice?

Just assassinations. Just slaughter. Just torment. Just descent.

Where’s the border? Filth-stained blood and bright blood splash the eyes, and the line once clear goes soft.

Staring at the Demon King rots the mind. Maki’s distortion deepened. Without the great Divine gaze to brace him, his body slid from the human frame. Beneath his robe, things churned—spikes, blisters—flesh ballooned like a caged beast ripping at its sack.

His shoulders no longer bled. Viscous green pus oozed, then hard, bead-like bubbles. Something grotesque seemed to pulse and grow below.

“Andor! Sever my head! Now!”

While his tongue could still shape human sounds; while his figure still sketched a person—

I swung. Blood streamed like banners.

I slipped round his vast frame, cut in passing, then strode into the gaping wound Dragon Exorcist had blasted in the Eerie Tree.

“Walk forward. Don’t look back.”

“Understood, Chair. And… farewell.”

Forward, no looking back—just as you said.

I cut air with the Greatsword. Scarlet spattered the ground. The weapon that had met the Demon King thrummed, like it was crying.

It killed a man for the first time.