His encounter with that woman had taken place within the World Tree. Appearing suddenly, she had carried him into the skies so they could wage their battle.

She had caught his interest—enough to make him use his magic—but nothing more than that.

And yet, even after all that, Drelkos still could not understand why such an order had been issued to all demons.

It was not an order to capture.

Nor to contain.

Not even to gather information.

It was simply: do not kill. For the first time, such a command had been given.

“In the end, it doesn’t matter…”

In the night skies above the city of Lampides, at the heart of the great elven forest, the demon let out a long sigh.

The hand, the vision. Bit by bit, he was stripping away the fundamental parts of the girl’s soul, severing its connection to her limbs. Soon, her soul would have no link to her body. Gardenia would fall into a vegetative state where her organs and mind continued to function, yet her body would no longer respond to any command.

Just like that hero and that woman, this girl could use teleportation magic. Such magic was troublesome by nature, allowing for impossible escapes and equally impossible attacks. There were few effective ways to counter it.

One of them—sensory barriers—was generally the most reliable choice. By disrupting the coordinates of an area, it made calculations far more difficult. Yet there were few in the world capable of creating such barriers, and even fewer who could establish one while fighting. Drelkos, of course, was not among them.

The second option, however, was one he could execute flawlessly.

The moment his soul shattered her barrier, channeling mana into his knees, the demon stomped down with his bandaged foot upon the floor of black smoke. The shockwave sent compressed air surging faster than his fists, knocking the girl away from her portal.

Like a leaf carried by the breeze, Nia’s body was hurled through the skies, her black wings struggling to regain stability.

It did not matter if the girl could cross to the other side of the world in the blink of an eye. She still needed to step through the portal for it to work. If he kept her from doing so, her mastery of teleportation was meaningless.

As always, there was an immediate counterattack.

His black glove clenched once more, the carapace of blackened flesh that was his skin radiating with an azure glow as his soul enveloped him, shielding him from every shard of ice.

With a single step, he was already before his target again.

Rotating his shoulder, his arm extended, fist driving forward and slicing the air. A muffled impact followed, mixed with the sound of flesh tearing and bones snapping.

To keep her chest from being struck, the girl raised her right arm—its hand already useless—and let it take the blow.

The moment his soul touched that flesh, it was already in contact with hers. In an instant, the crimson eye opened wide, seizing the woman’s soul.

And then, he pulled.

“!?” A brief exclamation of disbelief slipped past his lips.

For a heartbeat, doubt crossed his mind.

The task he usually performed so effortlessly seemed, for an instant, to demand a little more force. It felt denser. But in the next moment, he dismissed the thought, shaking his head as he drew his fist back. The girl finished crossing her portal, and a large fragment of purple smoke now flickered in his hand.

With it, he had finished tearing away the girl’s other arm.

“How long do you plan to keep running?”

If she truly intended to flee for good, Drelkos felt no need to continue pursuing her. Yet once again, the girl who could no longer even see reappeared before him, stepping through a violet portal, her torn arm regenerating—though she could no longer move it.

Though dissatisfied with the woman’s persistence, Drelkos could not help but acknowledge how her will to fight had not faltered after all this. Whether it was madness or courage, few could stand before him without wavering after losing so many parts of their body, without eventually begging for their life.

“You’re right. I apologize.” Bowing her head slightly, Nia spoke softly, her eyes still closed. “It’s been so long since I had an opportunity like this that I ended up dragging it out far too long.”

“What?” The words sounded so strange that he did not even realize his lips had parted in disbelief.

“As you said, we should show respect to what we devour. I should have finished at simulation one million, four hundred and twenty-two thousand, five hundred and ninety-four… but I tested two hundred thousand more possibilities instead. In doing so, I disrespected my meal—and for that, I must apologize.”

Drelkos felt his face go blank. He was stunned. Not because of an attack, not because of damage—simply because he could not comprehend what she was saying. For a moment, he wondered if he had missed something crucial.

The shattered black sphere surrounding the girl no longer regenerated. Instead, like a liquid evaporating, it began to dissolve completely. “Your magic can project your own soul to wound your opponent’s and tear it from their body…”

The black thunder ceased. Slowly, the girl’s wings carried her closer to Drelkos—close enough that she set foot upon the smoke that served as the demon’s ground. Silence once again claimed the skies. With nothing to illuminate the night, her body was swallowed by darkness.

“Then why don’t you finish tearing mine out now?”

Her eyes remained closed—sightless—yet she walked across the black smoke with flawless precision until she reached the demon.

Her slender, graceful figure was beautiful even in absolute darkness. Stretching out the only arm she could still move to her side, as if abandoning even the faintest defense, Nia smiled.

“Please, Mr. Demon… try to rip out my soul.”

She stopped right in front of him, tilting her head upward, that thin smile lingering on her lips—so close he could have reached her with a simple movement of his arm.

Was she insane? Drelkos genuinely thought so.

After all her effort to dodge his strikes, all her resistance, all her bold declarations that she would win—she now stood before him asking for the finishing blow.

“…”

Disappointment.

Drelkos could not conceal his frustration. His interest in her vanished completely, leaving only a heavy emptiness.

There was no dark mana surrounding her. No spell being prepared. She made no move to avoid his fist, not even the slightest ward to shield her from direct contact.

His hand—barely needing to rise above his waist—stopped right before the girl’s face. Like an eruption of black smoke, it swallowed the woman’s silhouette from head to toe.

Drelkos was touching the very core of her soul.

The purple smoke that flickered within that existence was completely engulfed. Her soul had been fully grasped.

With that, the one known as Gardenia would become nothing more than an empty shell.

This was the end.

“What…?”

Or at least, it should have been.

Something was wrong.

Something didn’t make sense.

He was seizing that girl’s soul with his own—a move he had performed countless times on countless enemies. As he always had.

But now… he could no longer move it.

“The Soul Engraver.”

A voice whispered in the darkness.

“That’s what Orlaith calls herself, isn’t it?”

Drelkos’ eyes widened.

“I knew her stigmas created a pathway between the target and the caster, allowing her to control their minds. If I destroyed that pathway, the stigmas would be eradicated. That’s what the countermeasure spell I developed does.”

The girl’s remaining hand lifted, pressing softly against his gloved palm, pushing it aside just enough so that nothing stood between their presences—though her eyes remained shut, unable to see.

“Once, I followed one of those pathways all the way to Orlaith herself and found her location. That was all I needed, after all.”

Nia spoke like an eager student explaining her line of reasoning to a teacher.

“But now, fighting against you, another idea came to me. What exactly lay at the opposite end of that pathway?”

The violet-haired girl touched her lips with the finger she could still move, tilting her head slightly in doubt.

“The stigmas could appear as tattoos, but all they really do is establish that pathway to the caster. In that case, what exactly was Orlaith influencing to dominate their minds?”

She pointed her finger toward the demon.

“A soul is what defines a person. Just as you disable parts of my body by tearing pieces of my soul, if a soul were made to forget part of itself, wouldn’t that erase memories? If the link between body and soul is broken, wouldn’t it be possible to seize control of someone’s body?”

Her lips curved into a smile.

“Orlaith never placed a stigma on me. And since they were all destroyed, I couldn’t prove my theory. So I had to take another route.”

Whenever they were apart for too long, an agonizing pain surged through both girls. At first, Nia thought it was just a matter of physical or mental endurance—that pushing the artifact separating their bodies beyond its limits drained their life force, exhausted their cells. But if she considered another factor, the cause of such fatigue became clearer.

“Lily hasn’t noticed, but she can’t taste anything right now.”

As Drelkos tore fragments of her soul away here, Lily’s body began to show irregularities as well.

That shouldn’t have been possible. It was Nia’s body being damaged, so why was Lily’s heart—and the rest of her body—beginning to falter as well?

And then, realization struck Nia.

Her body wasn’t simply “split” into two places. It literally existed in two places at once.

Her soul was present in both. This was no metaphor—it was absolute fact. That burden was the true reason she collapsed whenever they stayed apart for too long.

“You don’t destroy the functionality of organs as mere body parts. But since my body sustains Lily’s as well, I really had to innovate.”

She puffed out her modest chest.

“Making the liver filter toxins in place of the kidneys. Altering the stomach’s breakdown of nutrients so it could purify the blood instead of the spleen. Using the lungs to create internal pressure waves to move the arms and fingers… Good thing I had already prepared these countermeasures. I managed to keep Lily’s body functioning perfectly without her even realizing something was wrong.”

Drelkos struggled to process the girl’s words.

“No… impossible…”

His voice caught in his throat. Each attempt to force his mind to comprehend what she had just revealed only made the abyss in his eyes deepen further.

“You reached your own soul?”

If the artifact his wife had absorbed allowed her soul to exist in two places, then all it took was studying it.

Nia didn’t need to stop Drelkos’ soul from grasping hers. She only had to make sure hers couldn’t be taken.

Just as eyelids close to shield the eye from dust, just as arms rise to shield the face from a strike, just as white blood cells fight against invading bacteria— it was natural for the body to defend itself.

To discover one’s own soul… was simply to become aware of something that had always been there.

And once it was done, it could no longer be usurped.

“Come now, Mr. Demon, is something wrong?” Her heavy voice grew more animated. “Please, try and rip my soul out.”

The girl repeated her request.

Drelkos had no words left.

He could no longer form them.

Becoming conscious of your soul was like gazing at your own existence from an outside perspective.

It wasn’t the same as looking at what existed on the surface—a personality molded to function in the world, filled with shallow details striving for acceptance.

To see the deepest core was to witness the raw origin itself, naked, unfiltered, without lies.

Most people would never withstand such a sight.

And now—

“Hhk…” He struggled to suppress the sob.

This wasn’t like devouring a soul.

It was far, far deeper.

The girl’s soul now stood completely exposed before him.

Even the soul’s natural defenses had been stripped away, allowing him to gaze at its purest, most primordial form.

Drelkos felt as though he were drowning in an endless ocean.

All around him was only darkness.

The atmosphere froze, the weight crushing down on him.

Its quality was different. The very structure composing her soul was different.

It was no longer a question of whether the girl’s soul was within his reach.

That existence… was an abyss greater than anything he had ever encountered.

“...Ah.”

His limbs grew cold, his thoughts turning to ice.

His energy drained, his will to resist evaporating.

He choked on his own breath.

Finally, he understood something fundamental.

Drelkos stared into that soul—

And it stared back.

“You won’t? That’s fine…”

The girl’s disappointed voice rang sweetly. Her left hand extended, touching his trembling crimson eye until her fingers gripped something.

With a single motion, her slender hand clenched tight—so tight that Drelkos felt as if a hand had seized his chest and crushed every organ within.

“My mind improved after the third book, but if I let you take any more of my soul, it could end up harming my wife. So, I’ll be taking this back now.”

The fingers, buried deep inside the crimson eye, pulled something out, tearing it away from everything that surrounded it. In the girl’s hand, a purple smoke flickered like the flame of a candle.

“It seems you can’t devour a soul as quickly as you can rip it out. You really should have trained that more, Mr. Demon.”

Nia brought the purple smoke to her lips and bit down. Her salivating mouth embraced it, teeth grinding through it.

An indescribable sound came from the act.

It was as if the world itself had fallen silent just to watch this girl.

An involuntary, serene smile curved on her lips—Nia was truly happy.

It was like releasing all stress in a single instant. Absolute peace, born from the sensation of everything returning to normal. There was no haste, no hesitation. Nia simply savored it from beginning to end.

Drelkos had no words to describe what he was witnessing. He was certain the girl didn’t even realize the expression she wore on her face.

Something deep within Drelkos’ mind screamed that something was wrong. If he kept watching, he would lose his sanity.

His vision faltered. His fingers began to grow cold.

Even throughout the battle, his heart had never raced.

Now, it felt as if thousands of needles pierced his skin, his chest burning with fire from the aura the girl before him exuded.

And that was why, when he finally felt his heart pounding against his ribs, a feeling he had not known in ages surged within his trembling body.

Undeniably, it was fear.

He could no longer comprehend anything. Everything that reached his sight or hearing was terrifying. Breathing was terrifying. Even blinking was terrifying.

Drelkos was paralyzed.

Fear was something ingrained in all forms of life. Horror, like pain, existed to ensure survival. Those who abandoned it and no longer feared danger would inevitably die.

But the fear now blooming inside him was enough to betray him.

Resisting was more terrifying than death itself.

To avoid remaining in that presence any longer...

His body genuinely considered dying.

“The soul is such a beautiful concept, with such wonderful laws,” two crimson eyes, gleaming like precious gems, lit up once more in the darkness.

The fingers of her restored right hand traced the trembling black smoke eye, which shivered so violently it seemed ready to collapse.

“What a pity…” Nia spoke softly as she touched the black smoke. “As I expected, I can establish contact up to a certain point and wound you through the laws… but without your own spell, I can’t rip your soul out of you, Mr. Demon.”

Releasing the trembling smoke, Nia clasped her hands behind her back and leaned forward, arching her head up to face the two-meter-tall man with a radiant smile.

“What will you do this time!?”

Her lips stretched wider as she stepped closer across the platform of black smoke, her bright crimson eyes locking onto his with an insatiable hunger.

“I promise not to toy with you this time. Go on—use anything you like. I would be happy to learn more.”

Drelkos never even noticed the moment his body leapt backward.

With an effort greater than any he had ever made, he shot across the skies as fast as he could.

He couldn’t allow his mind to feed that feeling any longer.

He couldn’t allow his soul to meet hers again.

“Ah… So there’s nothing more, then?” The voice, stripped of all previous joy, rang hollow and apathetic.

Drelkos needed distance from that existence. Whatever the reason, she wasn’t pursuing him. This was his chance to escape. Teleportation was dangerous, but if she didn’t know where he was, it would mean nothing. He had to create distance at any cost.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

His vision faltered, and a grunt of pain escaped his mouth.

The demon realized at once that something had fallen on him—or rather, someone.

The wind struck him with brutal force as the figure descended in free fall. A booted foot slammed into his chest, silver strands of hair swaying in the breeze.

“From this high up, there’s nothing to hit by accident.”

It took only a moment for his eyes to focus on the girl.

Mismatched eyes glowed against the silver hair that seemed to shine even in the darkness.

“You’re the one who did that to the child. Then it’s only fair you suffer the same pain.”

Drelkos knew this was bad—his soul had yet to recover. He wouldn’t be able to focus enough to defend himself.

A wooden staff shimmered with a bluish light in her grasp.

And then, carrying a weight heavy enough to destabilize the world itself, her lips parted.

“[Skyfall’s Discharge]”

A white flash consumed everything.

A colossal torrent of pure energy descended from the heavens like celestial wrath.

Zigzagging like titanic serpents tearing through the very sky, hundreds of bolts burned the air, spreading the sharp scent of ozone as they rushed toward their target.

The impact went beyond sound. Like a natural cataclysm, the lightning swallowed Drelkos’s silhouette, shockwaves unleashing devastating arcs that hissed in rhythm with the dancing strands of energy.

It didn’t matter if her opponent was immobilized. A spell that powerful—so reckless it could kill its own caster—was only possible because of that girl.

“That name sounds beautiful, Lily!”

Emerging from a portal, a girl with purple hair broke through the barrier shielding her beloved from the lightning arcs. A radiant glow returned to Nia’s eyes as she embraced her wife.

“Thank you. You did an excellent job, my love.”

Welcoming the beautiful girl who buried her flushed face against her chest, Lily caressed her silky hair again and again before showering her with kisses.

“Mm, is Lily proud?” Crimson eyes peeked timidly from the warm mounds, her cheeks flushed as she pressed herself tightly into Lily’s embrace.

“More proud than ever. You did wonderfully—I love you so much!”

Placing her hands on the girl’s waist and pulling her closer, Lily locked tongues with her without a moment’s hesitation. Nia’s arms wrapped around her beloved’s head, tightening around her neck as she eagerly deepened the kiss. The wet sound of mingled saliva lingered until the last white flash faded away.

Covered in a sheen of sweat, the towering man panted heavily. A black blade trembled in his gloved hands. Like a lightning rod, the sword absorbed much of the wrath meant to kill him.

“Truly resilient—to have endured that without a single scratch.”

Watching the weapon that had intercepted her spell at the last possible moment bore not even the slightest mark, Lily licked the thread of saliva connecting her lips to Nia’s before whispering in a sweet voice:

“Now, would you catch me up on the situation, Nia?”