What lives must die; anything time grinds to dust wins no favor from the great, like frost that melts from a blade at dawn.

To Divine Beings and Demon Kings, there’s no “human life comes first”; they watch, eyes cold as winter stars, eager to see how mankind chooses its end.

Life holds weight, like a stone set in a riverbed; its dusk—death—deserves equal meaning, like the sun sinking red behind temple eaves.

Belief rooted deep as mountain pines, resolve broad as a storm-tossed sea, courage to step into death and rise like spring—those belong on a slab that won’t erode.

Or you age on a sickbed, scars and honors like dry leaves stitched to a worn cloak.

Or a long sword pierces your belly; with your last strength you twist the enemy’s blade so your comrades strike like lightning.

Or you run in silent frenzy, a wind-torn shadow, and then collapse like a snapped bowstring.

Or—

—carrying the Demon King’s plan close to your heart, you spend yourself trying to pass it on, yet fall into a shadowed pool of blood.

To accept death, you need a reason that can be spoken, or a piece of clarity, like a lantern lit in rain.

Something that sounds beautiful, like plum blossoms opening in frost, even if it hurts.

Honestly, I don’t care whether I kill this man. That chill sits steady in me, like ice under ash.

Not just him—anyone. Killing is a tool, swift like a blade, cheap like a match.

But it might not get me what I want; if I think a moment, choose another road, I may reach the same summit.

—And I won’t have to stain myself with that tar-black hatred.

Killing anyone will trash my reputation, like mud flung at a white banner.

Vega, we must show force; yet killing, or violence, must carry meaning, like thunder that rolls with pattern.

Only then will our audience see this power is traceable, reasoned, a heaven-sent calamity that can be read and avoided.

What is truth, what is meaning—both are parts of understanding, like reflections rippling in a pond.

They’re human impressions, not the world’s bedrock, easy to skew when eyes look from different hills.

Our work is to steer that picture, like hands guiding a kite in gusts.

We’ll become exactly who we choose to become, like a blade tempered to its maker’s design.

Bloodlust? Go solve it in the underground jail where no war convention binds you, a cave deep as a tomb.

Only there I won’t interfere.

Why? I’ll ask you why torture. Because you want to? That can’t be a reason, not one others can share.

Seal that urge in your skull like a demon in a charm.

Why do I write scripts?

Because I need a stage where what I say flows like a river, unforced and clear.

Hamlet kills his uncle; Romeo dies at Juliet’s bier—choices that stand in logic, like doors that open with the right key.

Call it tendency, momentum, or any name you like; it’s still a blade set to slice the same way.

I need a proper road to tell humans: I’m not your enemy, like a traveler raising empty hands at a gate.

Everything I do, every word I speak, carves that line like a stylus on clay.

“Fair and just” sounds sweet like honey on rice, yet at its core it’s not necessarily good or kind.

We should strip away the pretty and the kind, and leave the iron rule, like bars set in granite.

That’s a state in its cradle: codes cutting tangled affairs clean, like a taut thread through a maze.

We don’t intend to found a state; Ferrel says one city is enough.

But I need you to see how “necessary evil” and “state machinery” echo one another, like twin bells tolling.

Oh right—back to the opening question: killing.

Kill Eil, or don’t—either way, it’s smoke to me, a mist I can wave aside.

His life or death doesn’t clutch my sleeve; even with a itch to kill, why touch someone so sensitive in rank?

I only want a result that’s reasonable and lawful, like a seal stamped straight.

A state, a central fist—every decision, every act, exists to express something, like banners arranged on a battlement.

I want others to believe I’m a villain, but a villain with a code, like a wolf that keeps to its trail.

I want them to think the Endless City is a den of villains, but bound by iron law, like a river constrained by levees.

Prepare a graveyard for heroes, and they’ll walk to death willingly, like moths to a ritual flame.

Vega, I built you in my mold, so you likely can’t admire grand heroes—and you may find them odd.

It’s simple—

Remember this, Vega:

“Mourning honors are the most useless thing in the world.”

“Death is the most grievous thing in the world.”

“Jade shattering is the most beautiful thing in the world.”

Three sentences, one truth, one event, seen from different angles, like mountain faces catching different suns.

That’s the crux.

How do we want a thing to look in other eyes—useless, sorrowful, or beautiful?

Framing is an art, like brushstrokes hidden beneath lacquer.

Yes, language frames.

Action frames too. Killing, included, is a statement, like ink splashed across a scroll.

The more I talk, the more impatient Vega grows; that feeling pricks me like sleet.

She still stands with perfect attendant grace, a statue under lantern light, but her eyes roll up, pale moons pushing out the night.

I may be her master, yet rank doesn’t chain impatience, like a hawk refusing the glove.

“So what do you really mean?” she asks, voice cool as silver.

“My master, annoying like a gnat, what do you need me to do?”

If Daviya were here, he’d argue from every angle, sharp like a chess player’s hands.

He’d twist debate and logic both—because that’s his nature.

Surely he’s not the only entertaining soul under this sky?

“I’d rather take Victor and hunt the defiant than stand here and hear you drone,” she says, a smile thin as a knife.

“You probably just want blood on your clothes to relax…”

Fine, fine. Hear me out.

I need to “give a reason for Eil to die,” like laying incense before a shrine.

In essence, it’s no different from what we always do, like the same tune played on another lute.

Vega lifts a brow, then nods like a reed bending in wind.

“Understood, my chatty master. Still, I’m curious. What did Eil do to anger you, that you’ll kill him here?”

So I talked all that, and it scattered like smoke?

Forget it. I shouldn’t expect much from Demonfolk minds, even yours, Vega.

By nature you dislike thinking; you prefer to let violence dance, like drums in a barbaric rite.

Only Qing, studying in SkywardCity, is an exception, a spring plum in a winter grove.

“How do humans announce something big?” I ask, tasting the tension like iron on the tongue.

“They spread word first—‘an important announcement is coming’—like bells calling a crowd,” she answers.

“When all eyes fix on the spot, they announce. That’s the basic form.

Then they add posters, flyers, or broadcasts, like paper birds sent into alleys.”

We must understand humans, whether enemy or friend, like learners reading a foreign script.

So while the Demon King Army infiltrates their lands, they’re ordered to send intel back, steady as tide.

Vega’s work is strong—summary, organization, statistics—clean as stacked tiles.

She can pull spycraft from memory at a glance, like pulling blades from a rack.

But that doesn’t mean her thinking is strong; my task is to teach her to think, like kindling teaching flame.

It matters in the world ahead, where winds change fast.

“Imagine we—our Demon King Army—want to announce something big,” I say, weighing each word like stones.

“So far, we’ve never formally built ties with human lords.

Victor’s Hattie doesn’t count.

We’ve had no voice in their world, right?”

“Oh… so you want a press conference?” she says, eyes bright like polished steel.

“Then we need a lot, too much. First, we’ll have to kidnap some journalists, like netting sparrows.”

I’m glad she sees the Savior Demon King Army won’t be inviting reporters.

But kidnapping doesn’t fit our usual style; it’s not the thing we mean to show, like a clashing color in a painting.

No. I’ve let the thought drift off course like a boat caught in weeds.

I don’t intend to hold a press conference.

“Not at all. Vega, much of what you said is right—‘summon–announce’ as a frame.

But villains don’t have to cling to frames, like a fox slipping around fences.

When did you start believing only posters, flyers, and broadcasts count as ‘summoning’?”

Killing—killing a hero beyond all dispute—doesn’t that pull every eye like a comet tearing the sky?

Killing is a tool, not the goal, like a hammer beside a sculpture.

I don’t care who must die, like a butcher choosing from beasts.

Give heroes a reason, prepare the graveyard, lay the path.

Fair and just, reasonable and lawful, then the trio: mourning honor, death’s grief, jade’s beauty.

I keep painting that same story, those same lines, like waves repeating their edge-work on shore.

“Obviously, words like ‘arbitrary’ and ‘cruel’ suit villains, black as stormclouds,” I say.

“Language that opens with slaughter shakes more hearts, like drums beating before dawn.”

Farther out, along the corridor circling the Skyward Launcher’s build zone, one of Vega’s avatars guides Eil and Julian, a phantom walking like a candle flame.

Julian is the Sword Saint’s student; I can’t touch him because of the Sword Saint’s promise, a chain like silk yet strong.

But Eil, who barely cast a shadow before, is different.

He holds enough status to make his death valuable, like a stag fit for a royal hunt, and no oath binds my hand.

Unlike the usual hero tale, the Skyward Launcher’s body is already complete, shining like a spear to the clouds.

There’s no volatile core that explodes at a slap.

It launches at noon in two days, like a phoenix timed to rise.

This story happens in the two days before that fire climbs the sky.

“Watch Eil and his team before launch,” I say, mood smooth as oil.

“But ease the monitoring, like loosening reins.

If they want to set wards, let them.

As long as they don’t spread the news, allow anything.”

“But the instant they try to pass word or sabotage the Skyward Launcher, seize them,” I add, voice cold as a stream under ice.

“You understand,” I say when Vega nods, eyes keen as knives.

“We won’t trade spies.

Humans will carry only his head back, heavy as a stone in a sack.

Even so, our actions are impeccable.

No one can accuse us of injustice, like judges staring at a spotless ledger.”

When I return from the Starry Sky Divine Kingdom, this will carve into history like chisel marks on bronze.

It will mark the opening of a new age—the Era of Cold Verdure, a green frost laid over old soil.

Then, I’ll use that moment to teach humans a new way to live, like shifting from woodfire to electric light.

What is evil, what is good—every fixed order and rule will be redefined, like constellations renamed under a fresh sky.

All of you—wait and see, like watchers on a wall at dawn.