“Zagu... actually failed?”

The soft chime of chains brushing together rang out. Candlelight flickered against mottled, ancient stone walls. Shenyi turned his gaze. When he watched a certain soul gradually rise into the core of 【Myriad-Age Cycle】, rare surprise surfaced on his weathered face.

How could that be?

With Zagu’s strength and steadiness—and with the entire flayer unit at his disposal—dealing with a human Muen Campbell who was already seriously wounded should have been effortless. A simple matter of reaching out and taking it.

So why...

He couldn’t understand what kind of bizarre power Muen Campbell carried—how he could still turn the tables and win in that kind of dead end.

“Even you can botch it. Useless.”

Demonfolk these days really were worse with every generation. The Grand Dukes up top were like that, and the idiots down below were like that too.

Of course, it wasn’t all their fault. Even someone as strong as Zagu had, in truth, undergone several “cycles.” His “integrity” was long gone compared to the beginning.

But since he had failed, then he could throw himself into the furnace as well—adding one more insignificant spark to this grand ritual.

Shenyi closed his eyes and sighed, letting that soul be swallowed by the Myriad-Age Cycle.

“It seems the one called Zagu did not complete the task you gave him.”

On the obsidian throne, An slowly drew a mocking smile, yet a proud glimmer still flashed in her eyes. “I told you. Young Master wouldn’t be defeated so easily.”

“I admit it. I underestimated him.”

Shenyi didn’t grow angry at An’s mockery.

He was only... regretful.

Regretful that this solemn ritual could not proceed in the most perfect way, according to the most beautiful script in his heart.

The pawn meant to be used for blood sacrifice should have already been delivered before him by now—along with that wailing soul, that sky-splitting roar—welcoming his king’s furious return.

And then, upon the obsidian throne, his awakened king would bring down thunderous fire, displaying her boundless splendor to this unjust world.

...A pity. Truly a pity.

Because of Zagu’s blunder, he could not witness that scene—one that made a person tremble with excitement just imagining it.

But.

A stage built over a thousand years, a script revised over a thousand years, would not be halted by the ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ absence of a single pawn.

It would simply be less than perfect.

The ending, however, remained inevitable.

“What are you going to do now?”

Watching Shenyi move again, An’s unease surged once more. Yet though she was, in name, the “Demon King’s half,” she could not exert any power at all right now.

Calling out to the Myriad-Age Cycle was meaningless. It seemed that handing one of its branches to Muen earlier had exhausted all her authority. The shattered memories in her mind were even more chaotic, and she couldn’t dig out anything useful.

Still, An forced herself to remain calm—because Young Master...

“Because you think Muen Campbell will come back to save you?”

As if her thoughts had been seen through, An’s eyes sharpened.

But Shenyi only chuckled lightly, unconcerned.

“Impossible. I don’t know what Muen Campbell is searching for, but where he is now, there is only the residue of a battlefield—and an ancient object that has long since shattered. There is nothing there that can save you, so...”

“Please give up.”

Shenyi spoke each word like a sentence.

And yet his manner, his movements—were so devout, so humble.

Like the most faithful minister, sincerely waiting for his sovereign’s return.

“I won’t give up.”

An looked down at Shenyi from on high. Her composed face didn’t change in the slightest.

She answered one word at a time, seriously.

“Young Master will come. He will. For sure.”

“Then that’s truly a pity.”

Shenyi said pity again.

Then—

“I am guilty. My sins cannot be washed clean.”

His face was reverent, as if praying.

But the object of his prayer was not a god.

It was An upon the throne.

“So please, for now, forgive my offense, my king. To welcome your return by such crude means... I truly should not.”

“....”

Of course An gave no response to Shenyi’s prayer.

Shenyi didn’t care. He only slowly opened his eyes.

Those eyes that had watched this race over a thousand years now still reflected vivid crimson.

A red like a river, like a sea, like blood.

“Attendants.”

A doll-like maid appeared behind Shenyi. Her eyes were empty, as if her soul had been lost.

“Here.”

“Notify the front. Let everything end.”

“Yes.”

...

...

A steep silver cliff wall rose from the ground, vanishing into a heavy smog so thick it felt solid—so dense even sunlight could not pierce it. It was a desolate view like the end of the world. Even the Abyss’s largest stone dragons would feel small and hopeless before it.

Above the smog was something even more dreadful: violent spatial turbulence. For a thousand years it had sealed this stretch of the Abyss. In those thousand years, neither demonfolk nor humans had been able to establish any connection across the turbulence.

The silver cliff wall and the spatial turbulence were like a nearly perfect container, imprisoning the entire Abyss inside.

But even a container like that had a crack.

That crack was the current imperial border line: the Dolonsrei Fortress.

It lay crosswise between two sheer cliff walls. Compared to those cloud-piercing cliffs, it was so small it looked like a brick at the base of a wall.

Yet that brick had blocked the demonfolk’s advance for hundreds of years.

Even now—after the demonfolk had gathered the whole race’s forces and launched a savage assault for more than a month—it still stood there, unshaken.

Or rather, it would never fall...

“But I feel like I’m about to fall the hell over!”

Donick stuck half his head out from behind the crenelations. He watched the dense demonfolk army below—like swarming ants—continue battering the towering wall under the urging of bleak horns, as if they never tired. A crushing exhaustion welled up in him, soaking his bones until they felt soft.

“Lord Donick, do you want to rest—”

“Rest your mother!”

Donick kicked the butt of the bodyguard who’d tried to persuade him and roared with bulging eyes.

“If I rest, can you cowards hold the wall? Hurry up and go haul more stones!”

“Yes!”

The guard hobbled off to help the other defenders carry stone for patching the wall.

Donick kept gripping the edge of the battlements. He watched the demonfolk assault while casually chopping down a low-ranking demonman that had tried to sneak onto the wall.

His strikes were crude now. He almost didn’t have the strength left for flashy techniques. Scalding blood splattered his face and he didn’t even notice. He didn’t blink once.

The assault had continued for a full half month.

Not half a month since the demonfolk began their invasion—half a month of nonstop siege warfare without sleep.

Ever since Young Master Muen left, the demonfolk had clearly changed tactics. With a near-feral viciousness, they attacked the walls without restraint.

Tireless.

Indifferent to losses.

Unafraid of death.

Vast waves of low-ranking demonmen slammed into the fortress again and again. The defenders were rotated in several shifts and could snatch a little breathing room, but facing an enemy several times their number—and the demonfolk’s suicidal assault—the pressure, both mental and physical, was terrifying.

Demonmen fell like harvested wheat, row after row, their bodies piling beneath the wall to become footholds for those behind. Imperial soldiers’ corpses were mixed in as well, but the defenders no longer had the strength to retrieve them.

Donick looked down again.

The walls of Dolonsrei Fortress were impossibly high. Even within the empire, there had never been another wall like it.

But now, this wall no longer looked as towering as it had when Young Master Muen arrived.

It looked... half as tall.

Because over the last half month, the demonfolk had made no effort to clear the battlefield—or perhaps this was their intent. More and more corpses stacked beneath the wall, filling traps, filling ditches, filling the moat... rising higher and higher until they swallowed half the wall.

Compared to the still-crowded demonfolk army, the corpse pile at their feet—like mountains, like seas—might have been the more horrifying sight.

But Donick had gone numb. The imperial soldiers had gone numb too.

At first, maybe someone would have panicked.

Now, nearly everyone simply kept killing demonmen trying to climb the wall, blank-faced, letting them fall onto the mound of bodies.

Maybe this was the demonfolk’s tactic: once those bodies piled as high as the wall, they could surge into the fortress without effort.

A brilliant tactic. Under it, perhaps no wall in the world could be held forever.

Its only flaw was...

it was expensive in lives.

“Bastards. They really don’t treat low-ranking demonmen like people, huh?”

Donick spat and thrust his sword into a low-ranking demonman’s forehead.

The demonman’s expression was still savage. In its crimson pupils there wasn’t a trace of reason, as if charging this wall was the entire meaning of its miserable life.

“The duke said hold a few more days—then the first real reinforcements Her Majesty is sending will arrive. I just don’t know if we’ll last that long.”

Donick flung the corpse aside and looked down. A clear chip had broken out of his beloved blade.

His heart clenched. This was an alchemical weapon he’d bought at a huge price. Its quality was nowhere near the legendary ancient relics, but its armor-piercing and magic-breaking properties had saved him more than once over the years.

But no matter how sharp a sword was, it couldn’t endure cutting down thousands of enemies without pause.

“Don’t worry, old friend. After this war, I’ll spend even more money and get you fixed up properly.”

Donick stroked the scarred blade. He’d never once thought about whether he would live to see that day—because for a soldier, thinking about death while still alive was nothing but cowardice.

He put the sword away and continued patrolling the section of wall under his command.

“Wooo—”

A demonfolk horn sounded in the distance.

Donick instinctively stopped to listen.

A demonfolk horn was roughly equivalent to the empire’s war drums: it bolstered morale and delivered orders.

And after this brief time fighting the demonfolk army, Donick had roughly learned what different horn calls meant.

“Hm? This horn means...”

Donick froze.

He looked down at the countless corpses piled at the base of the wall.

Then lifted his head to the demonfolk army stretching beyond sight.

“A general offensive?”

He was stunned.

A general offensive?

Aren’t they... already launching a general offensive right now?