I spat a bit of blood onto the floor. The metallic taste stuck to my tongue, and a dark trace stretched across the smooth stone before fading into the dust. My lip throbbed in rhythm with my heartbeat. I'd lost track of time since they'd started "asking questions."

Minutes? Hours? Hard to tell. All I knew was that I still had just enough awareness left to laugh to myself. No real reason. Just that old habit of laughing when everything was falling apart.

I lifted my head a little. The rope cracked behind my back. The door opened. And the silence changed its scent.

She entered without a word.

A woman with dark red skin, broad shoulders, the build of a soldier who'd long forgotten what rest felt like. Beneath her tight uniform, you could still see the contours of her muscles—not decorative ones, no: the kind forged by wars. The guards stiffened. Some even lowered their heads. She didn't need to speak; her presence alone carried more authority than an order.

I gave a small smile, half ironic, half nervous.

A high-ranking officer, then.

She stopped in front of me, looked me up and down, and said calmly:

— "I see they started without me."

Her voice wasn't loud. It was worse. Calm. Cold. Sharp. I saw one of the guards swallow hard in the corner of my eye.

She went on, still without raising her tone:

— "But fine. After all, a human doesn't really have rights in these lands. I'll overlook it."

Charming welcome.

I let out a short laugh before my ribs protested. Overlook it, right. Like wiping away a stain from a spotless floor. She took one step closer, and her shadow swallowed me.

— "I'll be brief," she said. "You either answer, or you die. It's that simple."

Her eyes glowed a deeper red, almost liquid. It was as if the color itself flowed through her veins. She pulled a black notebook from her pocket, snapped it open between her fingers, and flipped it open. A notebook. Nothing else. No weapon. No visible threat. Just that gaze.

A lie-detection skill, maybe? I shrugged inwardly. At this point, lying wouldn't change much.

She lifted her pen.

— "What is a human doing in this remote part of the Demon Kingdom?"

I raised my head slowly.

— "I was sent by Oratius."

A line of ink. Silence.

— "Why?"

— "To meet the Demon King."

— "Again, why?"

I met her eyes.

— "Because he needs me, as far as I understood."

Another stroke of the pen. She barely seemed to breathe.

— "Interesting… Very interesting."

She didn't smile, but something flickered in her eyes—a brief spark of genuine curiosity.

— "What's your blessing?"

— "Equilibrium."

— "Your skill?"

— "Equilibrium as well."

She stopped writing. Her gaze rose back to me, slowly, as if she were weighing each word I'd just spoken.

Then her voice changed. Deeper. Steadier.

— "In your current state—on the brink of death, almost out of mana, bound—could you still kill us all if you wanted to?"

I didn't move. Not a muscle. My back burned, my throat was on fire, but my eyes didn't leave hers.

— "Yes."

The silence that followed hit hard. One of the guards gasped. Another stepped back. She didn't. She stayed still, unmoving. Her face revealed nothing. Then she shut her notebook with a sharp clap.

— "Good. That's all I needed. Release him."

— "M-Madam?!"

— "I said release him."

The ropes fell one by one. My wrists burned, but I managed not to drop to my knees—a matter of pride, however misplaced.

I looked up at her. She was still watching me—not like an enemy, not like an ally either. Something else.Something I didn't like.

She knew. Not just that I was telling the truth. She understood what I was thinking.

A doubt crossed my mind. What if her skill wasn't about detecting lies, but about reading imagination—the images, the thoughts behind words? It sounded absurd, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

She left without a word. The door closed behind her, heavy, leaving behind a silence thick with stares.

Then they dragged me through the building to the exit and threw me out.

I hit the ground hard, knees first, hands pressed against the warm stone. The door slammed shut behind me with a dull echo, and the silence that followed felt almost ironic after all that noise.

I lifted my head slowly, lungs still burning from the last blow they'd given me. In front of me, the city stretched wide—immense, twisted, luminous—a network of towers and glass domes, floating roads and suspended bridges, where every beam of light reflected off the metal like a sea of steel.

I spat the blood still pooling in my throat, a dark streak across white stone, and let out a tired laugh.

— "Well… what now?"

My voice was lost in the hot wind. I pushed myself up slowly, every muscle screaming, then searched the inside of my kimono. The fabric, miraculously, had kept its dimensional enchantment. My fingers brushed the glass of a small vial, and I pulled it out carefully.

The liquid inside was a deep red, almost alive. I unscrewed the cap and swallowed it all in one go. The taste was awful—metallic, with that sulfuric aftertaste you never really got used to—but the burn was worth it.

I felt the potion take effect almost instantly. The pain dulled, my wounds began to close, and my ribs stopped grinding with every breath.

Ever since the dungeon, I never traveled without these vials. I'd learned that lesson the hard way. Not as good as a healing skill, but good enough to keep me standing.

I took a moment to breathe, to pull my thoughts back together.

The air of this city had a strange texture, heavy with mana. Every breath felt like swallowing dust. In the distance, the streets were teeming with life, but here, in the shadow of the building I'd been thrown out of, no one paid me any attention. Just a half-dead human.

I staggered into the next street. Narrow, dark, wedged between two buildings whose walls pulsed with violet light—perfect.

I smiled faintly.

— "Perfect."

I slipped inside silently, sitting cross-legged in the center of the alley, just visible enough to be noticed. I closed my eyes, pretending to meditate. In truth, I didn't have a minute to waste on that. It was just bait.

The silence lasted only a few seconds. Then I felt them. Heavy footsteps echoed against the stone. Four figures appeared at the mouth of the alley. The four guards from the cell. Their presence, their breathing, their stance—everything about them radiated the same smug certainty that they still held the upper hand.

I stood slowly. The space was perfect—barely two meters wide. Not enough room for them to move freely. But for me, it was just right.

I cracked my fingers, a grin tugging at my lips despite myself.

— "Alright then… let's get to it."

They exchanged a glance, then two of them charged, weapons already raised. Their black staves shimmered with runic light, tracing golden arabesques through the air.

— "Lyseria."

The name left my lips like a prayer. The staff appeared in my hand—vibrant, alive—and its breath brushed my palm before I even moved. I stepped aside, pivoted, and struck. The first guard didn't even have time to react: his weapon shattered, and his helmet split in the same motion.

The second tried to use his skill. I felt the mana shift around him—his body turning translucent, almost intangible—but not fast enough. I had already anticipated the moment he'd become solid again.

I slid Lyseria through my hands, extended it with a breath, and when his form regained substance, the staff pierced straight through him. The crack echoed in the alley like a single sharp note.

The last two came next, more cautious—one forming a barrier of light, the other coating his arms in shadow blades. They had mana, training… but not rage. Not the kind that separates a soldier from a survivor.

I moved without thinking, guided purely by instinct. Lyseria spun, lengthening by a meter, then two, striking both the ground and the wall to throw them off balance. The impact lifted dust into the air, half-blinding me, but I already knew their positions.I swung the staff backward and struck blindly. The sound wasn't that of wood on steel—but wood on flesh. The guard with the barrier fell, skull split open.

The last one stepped back, terrified, breathing hard. His runes faded one by one from his weapon. He hesitated, tried to retreat, but the alley was too narrow for escape.

I took a step toward him, meeting his eyes.

— "Too late."

One clean strike. Lyseria cut through the air in a fast, precise arc, and his body crumpled against the wall.

I stood there for a moment, breathing hard, the staff still humming in my grip. The silence returned—heavy, almost soothing.My fingers trembled slightly—not from exhaustion, but from adrenaline.

Four bodies. Four deaths. No screams. No witnesses.

— "Well… might as well take what I can."

My voice echoed faintly in the empty alley, a rough whisper barely audible between ragged breaths. The silence that followed felt almost respectful, as if even the bloodstained stones hesitated to disturb that fragile moment of clarity. I hurt everywhere—my back on fire, muscles tight, breathing uneven—but beneath all that, one stupid instinct remained: survival.

I crouched slowly beside the first body. The guard's eyes were still open, frozen in disbelief. He must have thought victory was his until the very last second. I ran my hand through his pockets methodically, without remorse. A few black metallic coins rolled into my palm, faintly warm—alive, almost. Likely mana-charged currency. Perfect.

The second had a small leather pouch tied to his belt. Inside were shards of gemstones—probably catalysts. Nothing powerful, but enough to last a day or two. I took them without hesitation. The smell of blood clung to my throat, but I kept going, stripping pouches, prying off buckles, even taking a short dagger I slid into my sleeve.

— "Sorry," I muttered under my breath, almost by reflex.

Not for them. For myself. Because every time I had to do this, another small piece of who I was crumbled away.

When I was done, my pockets were full. I stayed crouched there for a moment, hands still covered in blood, staring at those coins as if I were looking into a warped mirror of my own misery.

My mana, slowly, began to return. That familiar sensation—warm and sharp at once—like a tide rising through my veins after a long winter. I inhaled deeply, guiding the flow through my arms, my legs, my chest. The world regained a bit of color, my vision steadied. I straightened up, shoulders cracking softly.

I raised my hand, and the mana answered immediately.

A golden thread of light wove through the air, shaping itself into fabric. A long, dark cloak materialized, thick and heavy, settling over my shoulders. The hood folded itself over my head, hiding half my face.

I brushed the fabric lightly with my fingers, feeling its weight.

— "Not bad. That'll do," I murmured.

I took one last look at the bodies, then turned away. The air in the alley had that familiar weight of death—dense, saturated, as if the world itself was holding its breath. I decided not to linger.

I stepped out of the shadows, still unsteady, every step a reminder that I wasn't fully healed yet. The light of the boulevard hit my face—too bright, too white after that darkness. Around me, the demon city sprawled, teeming, grotesque and magnificent all at once. Figures with iridescent skin passed by without a glance, too absorbed in their own lives. Perfect. Anonymity sometimes felt like luxury.

I pulled the hood lower over my head, hiding my human eye, and kept walking, pockets full of stolen coin and thoughts already drifting to what came next.

Each step still hurt, but deep down, that spark was returning—the stubborn ember that refused to die out, even here, in a world that treated me like a mistake of creation.

I breathed in slowly, savoring that strange blend of pain and reprieve. The alley behind me smelled of death. But for the first time in hours, I felt something close to life again.

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