Old wounds.

New wounds.

How long was the gap between them?

A Demon General who had fought his way up through the demon race’s vile environment—through bloody slaughter—why had he become like this now, so steady... so cautious it was almost unbelievable?

"Slaughter?"

Zagu’s cheek twitched. He laughed in anger.

"Ridiculous. Look at what you look like right now, Muen Campbell. It was my steadiness that drove you into a dead end! Do you think you still have the right to slaughter with me? Do you think you still have any chance to flip the board? With you as you are now—what can you do, alone?"

"A dead end? No, no, no. Isn’t it only just beginning?"

Blade light, smeared with blood, reflected a cold gleam.

Muen’s smile was no longer the feral thing from a moment ago. It was almost... gentle.

"Steadiness really is a good habit. If everyone learned steadiness the way you have, I think a lot of trashy stories would be at least half as long. But, Mr. Zagu—what you’re facing with your steadiness now... is the hardest-to-deal-with, hardest-to-die bunch of bastards in this world."

Muen deliberately stressed that last word.

Because he knew that at a level where even he hadn’t fallen yet... the other one absolutely wouldn’t have fallen.

"So much yapping... I’m sick of it."

Zagu froze again.

...Are you kidding me?

One was already bad enough.

And now both of them...

Zagu’s neck turned stiffly.

Behind him, in another heap of ruins, a girl just as soaked in blood shoved aside the debris and stood back up.

Scars everywhere. Staggering. Blood-filth already covered that pleasing, pretty face, making her look wretched beyond measure.

But the girl still gripped the red-gold greatsword in her hands—or rather... she had never once let go.

"If you ask me—either cut, or go die. It’s just a fight. Where the hell do you get so much crap to say?"

Ariel spat again, full of contempt.

Of course she knew all that trash talk was really probing through words, gathering information, even buying time.

She used to do the same when she faced annoying enemies.

But this time was different.

She was in a very bad mood.

So bad she wanted something simple—she wanted to just chop someone to death.

If she couldn’t chop Muen Campbell for the moment, then chopping someone else was the same.

And Zagu’s irritating pursuit earlier had already made her sick. New grudge, old score together—her greatsword had been hungry for a long time.

So—

No hesitation.

No pause.

The instant Zagu turned his head, this wounded beast—twice as vicious now—had already launched her attack!

On the red-gold greatsword, flames ignited again—and those flames looked as if they had smelted in blinding blood-red and savage ferocity.

"Dammit—she’s gone insane!"

Zagu’s expression hardened.

He couldn’t understand the madness of these two humans.

Like beasts.

Like monsters.

Like those lowest, mindless demonmen who could only tear and bite on instinct.

Sure, when you’re on the edge of death, fighting desperately was normal—but weren’t humans the timid, cowardly kind who only flaunted their so-called rationality? Desperate struggling and fleeing was one thing; forgetting life and death to launch a suicidal counterattack was another entirely. How could these two still erupt with such insane resolve?

He couldn’t understand it.

And more importantly—

Why the hell weren’t they dead?

Why could they still stand up?

Why could they still fight?

Were you not mice, but cockroaches?

Clang!!

The pitch-black, savage spear blocked the red blade that came chopping down in wide, sweeping arcs—but this time, Zagu was clearly not as composed as before.

The force was heavier.

Her injuries were so obvious that even her swings weren’t perfect anymore, and yet... the power behind them was stronger than before.

"Why..."

"Why else? Obviously because of love and bonds!"

Muen moved almost in sync with Ariel. Against an enemy like Zagu, he couldn’t possibly give him the chance to suppress them one-on-one—so while Ariel went head-on, the twin blades had already stabbed into Zagu’s flesh from behind.

That tough body covered in strange patterns, that terrifying battle aura built into his defenses—once again, it was easily split open by absolute sharpness. Muen could even see, past the bone linked by fascia, the beating heart.

"Get the hell out of here!"

Ariel roared, continuing to drive Zagu back step after step.

"Who the fuck has love and bonds with you?!"

Their pincer assault actually forced Zagu into a wretched position.

And in Zagu’s eyes, a flash of realization finally flickered. He stared at the human girl in front of him in disbelief, feeling the aura on her body—weak, but clearly a tier higher than not long ago—and murmured,

"Don’t tell me you... no, it’s you two... you broke through?"

In that kind of crisis earlier, they couldn’t have been holding back. So the only reason their power was stronger now was—

A breakthrough in battle?

"Yeah. I just broke through to Fifth Tier. That guy’s still one step short of me, but it looks like he leveled up too, huh."

Ariel admitted it without a shred of concealment, like it was no big deal at all.

She even smiled.

"I ought to thank you. If your pressure hadn’t been so perfectly on-point, I wouldn’t have broken through that easily. You basically saved me a whole hundred million. You’re such a good person, Zagu."

The fight on the tower.

The escape through the cave.

The slaughter in the slums.

The lethal strike against that Noise Person.

Looking back, thanks to Zagu’s bleeding strategy, whether it was Muen or Ariel, they’d been skirting the edge of death and collapse almost the whole way.

But isn’t getting stronger exactly like that?

With great will, great pain, great resolve—you destroy everything old, and on that foundation, you rebuild something newer, stronger, higher.

The more the pressure, the more you break shackles—and the stronger the feedback after you break through.

If you can’t bear that pressure and pain, you die, just like the prey Zagu had toyed with.

But if you can bear it, you take one more step forward in a desperate corner.

And just so happened—

just like Muen had said—

when it came to taking hits, being annoying, withstanding pressure... there probably really was no one in this world who could beat these two bastards.

One was a heaven-chosen, Feng Aotian-style protagonist.

One was a yellow-haired villain that even dogshit fate couldn’t do anything about—targeted by multiple Evil Gods, yet still stubbornly hanging on to this day.

Playing steadiness?

As long as you didn’t slap them dead in one strike, they could show you with their actions—

what it meant to go from river-west to river-east in thirty seconds. Don’t bully a poor cockroach!

Dumbass, I can level up!

"That’s—enough!!!"

A terrifying pressure burst out of that equally scarred, powerful body. Zagu was furious beyond measure, and once again forcibly drove Muen and Ariel back.

"So what if you advanced? One of you just reached Fifth Tier, the other is only late Fourth Tier—do you think that closes the gap between us? You advanced, but your injuries didn’t recover. With just this you still want to turn it around? Who do you think I am? I’m the demon race’s First Demon General—Zagu!!"

"..."

No one listened.

No one responded.

And no one cared.

Because that so-called title of First Demon General—compared to the enemies he and she had faced up to now—didn’t even count as a title.

I’m someone who can buddy up with a Crowned One, and I’m someone who can chase some Evil God around with my head tucked—what the hell are you, Zagu? Some stinking little bro!

So the moment Zagu exploded, Muen and Ariel were already closing in again.

Muen had just carved a huge wound into Zagu, but now that wound had already recovered.

After being covered by those eerie black patterns, Zagu’s flesh seemed even tougher.

Ancient craftsmanship gave him brutal recovery and violence. That was less a “technique” than it was a state.

In that state, even though Elizabeth could still break defense with its rank-ignoring sharpness, it couldn’t deal enough damage.

Or rather—one short, brief attack couldn’t inflict life-threatening damage. But Zagu wasn’t stupid enough to just eat it head-on, or he wouldn’t have retreated earlier.

As for the other side...

Every time Zagu treated Ariel with caution, it seemed even more than he did Muen. Was it because Ariel’s current strength was still just a bit higher than Muen’s?

Muen met Ariel’s eyes again.

In this chaotic situation, a glance so brief it didn’t even count as an instant shouldn’t have been enough to see anything clearly.

But maybe it was tacit understanding.

Or maybe it was an unspoken battle instinct.

Their attack patterns suddenly changed—at the same time.

No longer a pincer meant to keep Zagu stretched thin.

Using the explosive speed from time-slow, plus Shadow Step’s sudden redirection, Muen—moving in a different direction—still took position a step ahead of Ariel.

One hundred stacks.

He’d swung this slash so many times he didn’t even know how many. The unbearable load had already blown his sleeves apart; a faint blood mist surged out of his pores, so that when he moved fast, his body actually dragged a vague “red silhouette” behind it.

But he had long since stopped knowing fatigue.

Stopped knowing pain.

Soundless blade light—annihilating darkness.

A thin line stretched from one end of space to the other.

Everything it passed through was split in two—metal, grass and trees, air... even space itself.

Yet when that terrifying blade-line landed on Zagu’s flesh, it became nothing more than a trivial blood mark.

Zagu’s eyes flickered.

Muen Campbell’s speed was fast, but Zagu’s reactions and strikes were even better.

The moment that slash came, he could also drive his spear into Muen Campbell’s heart in the same flow.

But Zagu still chose to defend for the moment.

"No need..."

No need to risk his life with these lunatics.

They were already at the end of the road. They were already making a suicidal last stand—recklessly trading life for injury. At a time like this, all he needed was to be steadier, drag [N O V E L I G H T] it out until they wrung out their last bit of strength, and then win easily.

That’s right. That was the safer way.

"See? You got scared again."

Muen’s eyes reflected Zagu’s face. With a mocking smile, he said,

"Lord Zagu, you don’t seem as... unafraid of death as you claim."

Being afraid of death wasn’t shameful. For example, Muen himself was more afraid of death than anyone—so that former him had once done everything possible to obtain power.

But in a fight, the more you fear, the easier it is for death to arrive.

Such a simple truth...

Zagu, who had sat as First Demon General for over a hundred years.

Zagu, who had once fought his way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

At what point had he forgotten it?

"Shut up!!"

Zagu roared in rage for what felt like the thousandth time. His spear, carrying the weight of a thousand pounds, smashed down.

In an instant, a clear crack of bone broke from Muen’s shoulder. His whole body curled down reflexively, and Zagu’s spear hammered him like a nail, pinning him straight into the ground.

Scapula shattered? And more than that—his organs seemed badly hurt too...

But the smile on Muen’s face still didn’t vanish.

Zagu had just smashed down with one strike and hadn’t even recovered the move when he felt the spear in his hands suddenly grow heavy again.

A nimble figure stepped on his spear, closing in at lightning speed.

Seizing that split-second gap, Ariel used the move she knew best once more—

Heavenly Fire—Draw!

The berserk flame and sword intent she released without restraint tore open Zagu’s battle aura defense at last, and finally—

she drove the tip of the Heavenly Fire greatsword into his chest.

After Muen’s blade light had just passed, under Zagu’s deliberate defense, it hadn’t even left anything like a proper wound.

Only a tiny trace on his chest.

And the tip of the Heavenly Fire greatsword stabbed precisely into that tiny trace.

Sizzle... sizzle...

Flames burned. A nauseating stench of scorching spread through the air in an instant.

And Zagu’s expression turned savage in a flash.

"Die—!"

The spear shifted from a vertical chop into a sweeping horizontal arc.

I had to admit it—Zagu’s technique didn’t lose to the two of them, who had been tempered by countless life-and-death moments. In some respects he was even a hair better.

Every move, every attack of his, could be half a step faster than either Muen or Ariel.

Because he’d staked everything on offense, Zagu’s spear still smashed cleanly into Ariel’s chest.

Ariel’s battle aura defense didn’t put up any meaningful resistance at all. It couldn’t block it. Her chest visibly caved in again.

For the first time, Zagu felt a bit of glee. So what if you were cockroaches—before absolute power, even cockroaches could be crushed!

But the next instant, that pleased expression froze.

Because he’d forgotten.

Even if he could be half a step faster, because of his steadiness—or rather, his cowardice—right at the start of his move, he’d retreated a full step.

Ariel was blasted backward, but the Heavenly Fire greatsword was still stuck in Zagu’s chest.

Because she had actually let go of the hilt on purpose.

In a fight, she let go of her weapon.

Before Zagu could yank that damned sword out, another pair of hands seized it hard.

Like a relay—there was almost no delay, no gap at all.

Ariel’s hand released.

Muen’s hand had already smoothly taken the hilt.

Then—

he shoved forward hard!

His wounds could heal fast, but he couldn’t rely on flesh alone to stop a massive blade that kept driving deeper. The veins on Zagu’s neck and face jumped like a nest of snakes. Rage and pain churned in his eyes like surging magma, wanting to completely destroy the overreaching human in front of him.

But the hand that held his spear, just as it tried to come back and defend, felt a powerful resistance.

His gaze shifted—and he was shocked again.

Because Ariel hadn’t fully flown away.

At the instant she was struck by the spear, she lowered her head and bit down on the spear shaft.

Darkness flowed over the pitch-black shaft, yet in the short term it still couldn’t shake the bite force Ariel had trained from childhood on those hard-as-iron black breads.

She was using this to drag down Zagu’s offense!

Too late...

Forced, Zagu could only give up the weapon for the moment and use both hands to resist the Heavenly Fire greatsword as it kept driving into his flesh.

Compared to those two white short blades that could easily rip open his defense, he feared this huge sword even more. Wounds cut open could heal easily and quickly—but burns from the ancient fire sealed in this red-gold blade made even him feel unimaginable pain.

Fortunately, this greatsword didn’t have the same defense-breaking property as the short blades, so to him it wasn’t an especially big threat.

But now, the greatsword—constantly releasing high heat and flames—had already pierced his defenses and kept boring deeper into his flesh!

Muen didn’t know where the strength came from. He actually pressed Zagu back step by step, until Zagu’s back hit the metal wall and he had nowhere left to retreat.

"But you still can’t beat me!"

Zagu stared at Muen’s blood-filth-caked face. He no longer had a hunter’s composure. Instead he roared like a cornered beast, insane.

"With just this, you still can’t beat me!"

The Heavenly Fire greatsword trembled. Little by little, Zagu forced it out of his body with both hands.

So what if it pierced his defense?

So what if it wounded him?

So what if you, Muen Campbell, went berserk and “broke your limits”?

The real gap between them wasn’t something you could erase just by breaking your limits!

There was no fairytale in this world where breaking your limits let you defeat every enemy. There was no Demon King defeated by “love and bonds”!

Even if you can stick a sword into Zagu’s body, with your strength alone, Muen Campbell—how are you supposed to deal a truly fatal wound?

"Muen Campbell, in the end you still—"

"God, you’re loud. Why do you always love yapping?"

All of a sudden, Zagu’s frenzied roar cut off.

Shadow covered his face, that face full of old scars. He lifted his head blankly, looking at the figure stepping on Muen’s shoulder.

Ariel looked no better than Muen right now. The horrific injuries meant that even though she was a real beautiful girl, there wasn’t a shred of beauty left to be seen.

But she was still standing there.

In her hands were the pure-white twin blades.

"Zagu, your brain doesn’t seem as useful as you imagine. Have you been comfortable for so long that your brain’s completely rusted shut?"

Looking down at him, Ariel let out a light, casual sneer.

"In a fight, you always forget something that important."

The main offense—

wasn’t over there.

He’d fallen for it not long ago, and this time he’d stepped into the pit again.

No.

Even if he’d reacted, it wouldn’t have mattered. From the moment Zagu chose to play it safe and retreat that step, the outcome of this fight had already been decided.

Ariel reversed her grip on the twin blades, lunged down hard, and—

aimed at both sides of Zagu’s neck, stabbing diagonally down.

Pshk—

Like a blade slicing through paper.

Elizabeth, with its absolute sharpness attribute, once again broke through Zagu’s defenses—effortlessly, without the slightest resistance.

Piercing skin. Piercing flesh. Piercing arteries. Piercing organs.

Ariel stabbed with so much force that the diagonally inserted blades met inside Zagu’s flesh, producing a clear clink.

Steel ringing.

Yes. A single wound really couldn’t do Zagu that much harm. But even the smallest box-cutter, if you find the right place, is enough to bring a fatal injury.

It didn’t even need to be fatal.

"Cough... cough..."

A huge amount of blood began to gush from Zagu’s torn-open throat, proving that as strong as his body was, it still hadn’t left the category of “human.”

The force resisting Muen finally began to weaken.

Muen was able to push forward again, driving the Heavenly Fire greatsword—its red-gold runes flashing—deeper.

Those demon-ghost patterns wriggled and tried to resist the ancient fire sealed in the greatsword, but instead, they made the flame burn even fiercer, further accelerating Zagu’s death.

"A moment ago, you asked us—after losing black flame and our big moves, what trump card we still had to rewrite the ending."

Muen leaned in close to Zagu, staring into those scarlet eyes where confusion, unwillingness, rage, even fear—countless complex emotions—kept flashing and tangling.

"Now, as for that answer... are you satisfied, Lord Zagu?"

They really didn’t have a trump card.

Or rather, they couldn’t use their trump cards right now.

But whether it was him, Muen Campbell, or Ariel Bugaard—getting to this point today—when had they ever relied on trump cards in the first place?