Any human who steps into the Demon Realm feels a sharp wrongness, like cold ash settling in the lungs.

To date, mages have only taken readings in the Anti‑Magic Metropolis, one of the few places that still tolerates humans.

Preliminarily, they blame the Realm’s malign mana seeping in, a slow poison like ink feathering through water.

Aside from dragons and the Aerian, humans aren’t self‑contained beings, like vessels with seams.

Once human flesh meets the Realm’s mana, the self stains and plummets toward the evil aspect, like a star falling into pitch.

Mana isn’t mere energy; it’s a pared‑down existence, a presence tied to soul, body, and everything we can sense.

Not a basic particle of the world, yet a thread that knots through all living perception, like wind that touches every leaf.

As for its essence, leave that aside, like a book shut for now.

Mages of the Silver Era still argue in SkywardCity about mana’s reach into higher tiers of being, voices like thunder under a distant sky.

Here, we’re speaking of the marrow of things, the grain under the bark.

Darkness leaks into blood and soul, a black tide running in the body, even staining the children yet unborn.

In this pit of malice, every “longing” hardens into “greed,” like a flower turning to a jaw of thorns.

In this black sea, every “awakening” slides into “downfall,” like a lantern smothered beneath waves.

To live here at all, to be born here at all, is to be entirely evil, like iron left to rust in endless rain.

“Here, no one’s innocent; anyone who survives a year is dragged by great evil into a bottomless abyss.”

“The cleanest ruler rots into a brutal despot.”

“The tightest team fractures under suspicion and betrayal that never ends, like ice cracking under relentless wind.”

The Demon King of “Tyranny,” Saster—as always, the throne, fused from gold gifted by the demon hosts, shone, yet its master did not appear.

Every new Demon King offers him a block of gold, smelted into that throne, a token to the oldest great one, like a coin dropped into an ancient well.

Even so, without the succubus maids who sweep the City of Eternal Night, it would be buried in dust like a hill in drought.

When no visitors come, Saster prefers the castle ramparts, watching the Ocean of Darkness heave and sink, like a breathing beast.

Truth is, he may not like any of it; in the Demon Realm, even those born blind who yearn for light get rotted through.

“This place gives virtue no foothold; as radiant the Starry Sky Divine Kingdom is, this place is that hideous—you know it better than anyone.”

“—Head, you shouldn’t have come.”

His hair blazed like gold fire lifting in a gust; Saster was in no mood, iron stormed shut.

He turned, deep night moving in the depths of his golden eyes, like storm clouds rolling behind sunlit glass.

“I won’t kill you, nor hurt you, but my children might. You know it—if you die…”

A boy in a sleeveless hospital gown leaned on his cane and panted.

He looked weaker than usual, face dead‑pale and glass‑thin, like a bubble that could pop at a touch.

His left hand was shriveled like a specimen, enough to make you doubt it was a hand.

Yet a light happiness rippled through him, like sun on frost.

“Yes, yes—‘I’ as Wisdom am everywhere, so no one can kill ‘Me’ as Wisdom.”

“Why do all Demon Kings show a human form?”

“Because fear nests in the human self; to deny me is to deny oneself, like smashing a mirror to erase a face.”

“But perhaps—this is the Ocean of Darkness, the bottom of the evil abyss.”

“Head, if Andor truly intends it, you might, you could, be killed here.”

“Saster, don’t tighten up so hard.”

“You’ve been tense for so many years; let yourself loosen a little, like a bow unstrung.”

“Our ten‑million‑year effort may finally near its end.”

The oldest Demon King froze at the words, like a stag stilling in snow.

His anger snuffed out in a heartbeat, like a candle pinched between fingers.

His face twisted, as if trying to smile, yet he couldn’t smile, and couldn’t cry, a mask under rain.

He unfolded his Endless Tome of Wisdom and flipped through its pages of knowledge beyond mind, chaos boiling in his pupils like stormed ink.

He wanted to record a line, but when he lifted his pen, his mind was a clean blank, like untouched snow.

“Really, Head?”

He nodded, grave and bright, like a star steady in cloud.

“It’s true, Saster.”

“Andor has agreed our ‘duty’ can coexist with his ‘principle.’”

“In the near future, he’ll strike the Starry Sky Divine Kingdom and take his bride.”

“Then he’ll coexist with humankind upon the earth and open a new age—the Era of Cold Verdure.”

“Is this history already written?”

“Else I would never have come here to see you.”

Saster trembled and drew a long breath, then knelt, like an oak bending to wind.

He looked nothing like a Demon King then, more a devout knight beneath a red sky.

“My fath—”

Head quietly circled behind him, so as not to disrupt a hero’s first prayer in a thousand years, steps soft as dusk.

“We did it.”

“After 106,752 failures, on the 106,753rd, we finally found a path for the mortal world.”

Is this a touching scene?

Not at all; only Saster was moved, like a lone drumbeat in fog.

Chosen Lord, King of Hosts—Saster, the Creator’s firstborn, could have been the protagonist.

But for his kin, for his brothers, he chose to shoulder infamy and sit beneath that crimson sky for tens of thousands of years.

Cold history etched his face and wrote his name, as if they were painless symbols that merely exist, letters carved on stone no one reads.

No mourners came; no blessings followed, like a grave under snow.

No one saw his courage, a blade hidden under snow.

No one saw his struggle, like a swimmer fighting a black current.

No one saw his persistence, a lantern kept lit in wind.

No one saw his sorrow, a bell ringing in an empty hall.

No one understood his story.

Even if you told it, it would bore the audience away, like drifting dust in a sunbeam.

After all, he was too strong.

Unlike a hero, he didn’t thrash in mud and blood, no battlefield mire clinging to him.

After all, he was too ordinary.

Unlike gods and demons, he showed no grand miracle of himself, no sky split by light.

After all, he was too silent.

Unlike humankind, he never shared the long endurance he bore, words kept like seeds in a sealed jar.

“…So then, may I die?”

“Ha, just a joke—after all, to keep ‘Tyranny’ chained here, it has to be me.”

A golden spirit and a whole soul let him, by “self,” outweigh the fever the dominion of “Tyranny” brings, like a rock cooling a wildfire.

He could hold on for another millennium, or forever, like a mountain shouldering the sky.

But that doesn’t mean fatigue never comes, weariness pooling like dusk.

The Creator’s first son, the most perfect making—he was the first to enter the Ocean of Darkness and give the formless “evil aspect” a defined shape.

As return, he became a presence equal to a Divine Being, and seized the most dangerous territories, like a net thrown over storm.

This was the plan Saster and Head settled on during the seven days after the Creator died—to deceive the Ocean of Darkness.

Saster took the most dangerous domain first: “Tyranny.”

He rules concepts like “Madness,” “Riot,” and “Chaos,” like a keeper holding rabid hounds by the chain.

He pulled his soul from the Ocean of Darkness, not letting any part erode, clean as steel just forged.

Thus, the ancient heroes let curses and wails ring in their ears without end, then quietly locked themselves inside their castles, like monks sealed in stone.

This was too pure and grand a deed, yet it couldn’t win human resonance, a harp unheard in a market.

Why?

Because humans aren’t grand.

Staring up at mountains already makes the neck ache; the higher sky lies out of reach, and they won’t look.

The first Demonfolk were too perfect, so unlike humans that they weren’t treated as human at all, statues mistaken for stone.

Head once told humans the tales of these ancient heroes, and got nothing.

No fierce reaction, no heated feeling, no tears, no thrill, only faces like blank mirrors.

Only confusion—silence like fog.

“Saster, do you have a wish?”

“For the years after the catastrophe ends, I mean, if you truly don’t want to wear the crown of ‘Tyranny’ again—”

Great heroes don’t care whether people praise their sacrifice; so long as they know they did it, they’re content, like farmers seeing green shoots after frost.

If you ask if they regret, they only answer—

“I was prepared long ago.”

“I’ll grip this black authority and keep silent with it, until the world’s end.”

“As for a wish—”

“I want to see my homeland.”

“It’s been so long, but I still want to look upon it, like a pilgrim finding a familiar river.”

“That’s all? Only that?”

“Mm.”

“I’m already satisfied.”

“You showed me 106,752 human failures, that despair.”

“And this single success is enough to make it whole, like dawn washing out the night.”