The glow from the huge demonstone overhead flickered on and off.

The precious botanical garden could no longer show even a trace of plants. This place looked as if a magnitude-ten earthquake and a great storm had ravaged it—there wasn’t even a single intact spot to step on.

And in the corner of a metal wall warped and cracked all over, Zagu sat slumped there.

Blood had pooled across the floor. At this moment, he no longer had any of the height, glory, dignity, or strength of the First Demon General. Like any other pitiful worm about to die, his lifeless eyes stared into nothingness, filled with confusion, pain, rage... and disbelief.

Even now—even with the red-gold greatsword already completely buried inside his body, burning away his last bit of life, even with those two pure-white blades continuing to push deeper until the hilts, severing all his ability to resist... he still couldn’t quite believe it.

He had lost.

At full strength. At the peak of Fifth Tier. With a century of experience and technique—hunting down two humans who were badly wounded, far below him in realm, and had already been bitten several times by the hunting hounds he’d released through a chain of battles and crises...

And he had lost.

And he’d lost in such a wretched, humiliating, laughable way—

he’d lost head-on.

Unacceptable.

If he thought about it carefully—if he hadn’t used such a “safe” method, if he’d personally fought those two humans from the start, not given them the chance to level up under pressure, not given them the chance to break their limits right before death...

would the outcome have been different?

No. Even that outcome was still impossible to predict.

Because even though those two humans were below him in strength and realm, the kind of terrifying they carried in certain aspects had already gone far beyond what he could imagine.

Lord Shenyi... what kind of monsters did you send me to kill?

"How does it feel?"

Right now, the “monster” Zagu was thinking of—Muen—was baring his teeth as he reset the bones in his own shoulder.

That spear strike from Zagu just now had almost smashed half his body to pieces. Luckily, this body—trained and tempered by that old loli—was tough enough that he hadn’t turned into Half-a-Muen.

After confirming he was still at least a little distance away from real death, Muen even turned his head and warmly asked Ariel beside him,

"This time you’re not so close to dying that you need me to save you again, right?"

"Get lost!"

In a truly foul mood, and with her back turned while she wrapped bandages around her chest—which had apparently shrunk another two centimeters in diameter—Ariel snapped,

"Keep looking and I’ll dig out your dog eyes!"

"Tsk. It’s not like I haven’t seen it before."

He really wanted to mutter that.

But for Ariel’s sake—so she wouldn’t rush over and beat him and end up pulling her injuries—Muen kindly swallowed the sentence in his heart.

I’m such a good person.

After roughly setting his bones back in place, Muen didn’t keep focusing on recovering.

Injuries could be handled slowly, but some things—he had to seize the moment.

"You can still talk, right?"

Muen walked up to Zagu, crouched down halfway, and stared at him.

His pupils were gradually scattering, but they could still reflect Muen’s figure. After all, he was the First Demon General. Even with injuries this severe, his powerful body could still keep him hanging at the edge of death for a bit.

That was also why Muen hadn’t let Ariel just burn him to ash.

"Can you answer my question?"

"..."

"Don’t look at me like you’re wondering why you have to answer. This isn’t a question—this is a threat."

Muen lightly set his hand on Zagu’s shoulder and flashed a bright, wholesome smile like some golden-haired big brother.

"You know, right? My black flame can swallow souls too."

"..."

"I’ll take that as yes." 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Really, devouring Zagu’s soul with darkness would have been simpler. But Muen was worried that after swallowing him, the information he got from Zagu’s soul would end up fragmented like other demonmen—then it wouldn’t be worth it.

So it was better to ask directly. Even if the intel he got wouldn’t be much.

Muen paused in thought, then said, "Actually my question isn’t complicated. I just want to know—what you said earlier, that the demon race’s understanding of death isn’t the same as ours... what exactly did that mean?"

"You’re asking that?"

Ariel, who’d been listening with her ears pricked, turned back and clicked her tongue in disgust.

"Why aren’t you asking his Lord Shenyi’s weakness, or how we can find this tower’s secret faster?"

"It’s not that I only want to ask this. It’s that I should only be able to ask this."

Muen shrugged helplessly.

"Honestly, I’ve got countless questions too. But unfortunately, based on what I know, most demonmen—and even people connected to the demon race—have a terrifying blood curse planted in them. The moment they answer something that crosses the line, they get devoured by the blood curse. So my question can’t get too close to the core.

"Right, Lord Zagu?"

If it weren’t for those annoying restrictions, with the black flame’s ability, Muen would’ve dug out far more useful intel long ago.

Which meant black flame wasn’t omnipotent. Or rather—already a thousand years ago, there had been very mature countermeasures against soul-searching.

The demon race were leftover people from a thousand years ago. It wasn’t strange that they knew those methods.

"Cough... cough."

Zagu slowly rolled his eyes, his voice weak. "If you already know... then why... why ask?"

"Because you were able to bring it up earlier, which means this doesn’t count as core. Or even if it is core, it can still be said for some reason. Of course, what I’d most like is for someone like you—the First Demon General—to have the qualifications to not be affected by the blood curse... but that’s basically impossible, right?"

Muen stared into Zagu’s eyes.

"Answer me. Why do those low-ranking demonmen not fear death?"

Muen recalled the mountains of corpses and seas of blood he’d once seen on the Empire’s defensive line.

Those low-ranking demonmen—like swarms from stories in a past life—rushed forward without fear of death, wave after wave, slamming into the towering walls, using their own bodies to fill a bloody road up the ramparts.

But low-ranking demonmen weren’t the kind of insect swarm that numbered in the tens of billions per generation.

Their numbers were limited—only a few million. Even the demon race’s total population might only equal a few large imperial cities. In terms of manpower, they should have been even less able to afford losses than the Empire.

They were low in intelligence, acting more on instinct. But precisely because it was instinct, they shouldn’t have been like that—because fearing death was the greatest instinct of all living beings.

And most importantly, they seemed to fear everything except death. They still feared other things—like the higher-ranking demonmen overseeing the battle, like the pressure from Shenyi and the Grand Dukes, and like...

that Black Sun that had scared off a million-strong army.

Carrying fear, yet not fearing the greatest fear in the world—death. It was strange.

"Heh heh... it’s simple..."

Zagu gave a strange smile and spoke as if it were nothing.

"Because... immortality."

"Immortality?"

A sharp light flashed in Muen’s eyes.

He’d heard the same word before.

Back on that wall, some old soldier who’d been bewitched by the demon race and turned into their inside man had given the reason for his betrayal...

because of so-called “immortality.”

The demon race promised him “immortality,” so he betrayed his comrades, his superiors, his people.

That wasn’t hard to understand.

But only if...

“immortality” actually existed.

And if that was the case, it also explained why Zagu hadn’t been devoured by the blood curse yet. The demon race needed to use something like this to tempt certain humans into defecting, so that word—one that should be very close to some demon truth—was allowed to slip past the tight blood curse?

"All mysterious and dramatic—what are you pretending to be, some big flapping moth."

Ariel kicked Zagu hard, sneering.

"Immortality? A race whose entire history adds up to less than a thousand years—what right do you have to talk about immortality?"

"Ariel’s right."

Muen nodded. Up to now, he didn’t believe the demon race had real immortality.

If they truly had it, wouldn’t every demon be some thousand-year-old monster? Then what was even the point of the Empire resisting? They should just lie down and enjoy themselves—might even end up happy.

But if what the demon race called immortality...

wasn’t literal immortality?

"Or maybe it isn’t pure, literal immortality, but something close to it. Right, Lord Zagu?"

"Heh... who knows..."

Zagu stopped there. If he said more, it seemed he’d still be affected by something not so good.

But his pupils still shifted downward, unconsciously.

Muen lowered his head and found Zagu’s gaze fixed on his own wrist.

The ancient relic 【Myriad-Age Cycle】.

The “immortality” Zagu spoke of seemed connected to it.

Immortality.

A demon race that didn’t fear death.

An ancient relic named 【Myriad-Age Cycle】.

There seemed to be some hidden thread tying them together, weaving a secret that ran through the entire demon race.

Just a little more. Just a little more, and he could find the end of that thread.

"If even low-ranking demonmen don’t fear death, then why do you look like you fear death so much?"

Muen suddenly asked.

"If the demon race really has immortality, wouldn’t someone like you—the First Demon General—be even more qualified to enjoy that eternal span? Don’t tell me low-ranking demonmen all got promised immortality, but you didn’t?"

"No..."

Zagu’s voice turned meaningful.

"You’re wrong. What I fear isn’t... death. It’s... loss."

"Loss?"

Muen frowned.

Didn’t death mean losing everything? Was there a difference?

Or was there a difference for Zagu?

There were still so many questions. That tiny thread was hidden behind this messy pile of information—maybe if he just pressed one more time, he could connect it all cleanly.

But Muen couldn’t ask anymore.

"Goodbye... Muen Campbell."

Zagu said his farewell, and his breath rapidly weakened.

Even the blurry shadow in his eyes gradually vanished. Finally, his head tilted slightly to the side.

And just like that...

the demon race’s First Demon General, the strongest beneath the Grand Dukes, the man who had once fought his way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) who had sat steady in that position for a hundred years—

died.

Plainly.

Ordinarily.

"Goodbye, Zagu."

Muen returned the farewell, as respect for this enemy.