Gold. Gold everywhere.
Garish, blazing, inescapable.
Every person had been frozen in the posture of a single instant, made eternal.
The city that should have roared with noise glittered in perfect, golden silence. The Golden Road stretched on and on, all the way to the Lord's Manor of Weise.
Footsteps echoed through a corridor. A tall demon strolled without expression, pushed open the door, and crossed the room with a tray in hand — not so much as a tremor in his grip. He settled with practiced ease onto the stiffened sofa and cast a sidelong glance at the golden sculpture frozen beside him.
Glück sat upright at his desk, looking elderly now, his expression calm, a quill just touching the surface of the paper.
Everything in the office had been arrested in that single moment.
Leaning back against the sofa, Macht raised one arm, his gaze as flat and unreadable as still water.
The Domination Ring — black, ancient, unassuming — gleamed with a quality entirely unlike all the surrounding gold. It was difficult to believe this was a relic that had survived from the Mythical Era.
"As I thought — I still cannot understand it."
Why had he not died? Why had he failed to grasp what humans called malice?
For an entire year, Macht had turned these questions over and over inside himself. Like a ghost, he drifted through every corner of Weise, maintaining the orders Glück had issued before.
The Domination Ring's effect was real — Macht could feel it himself. The moment he harbored malice toward any person in Weise, the mechanism would trigger and kill him.
And yet, deliberately turning Weise into a Golden Land was apparently insufficient to prove malice.
He had done things the human way. So why did true understanding still elude him?
"Playing house with humans, is it?"
Macht recalled the words Solitär had always murmured to him — words he had invariably dismissed. After the experiment's failure, doubt had crept in at last.
Were humans and demons truly beings who merely resembled one another on the surface, while being wholly different within?
Demons were simply not made to feel the richness of emotion that humans did.
"If only she hadn't disappeared back then..."
At the start, he had not cared in the least about using his life as the price of the experiment. He felt no fear of death whatsoever.
Not until he encountered that one being — a demon, like him, and yet an aberration, like him.
Macht could admit it: in that final instant, he had felt a faint, unmistakable flicker of "fear" — fear of death.
Since the Demon King, this was the first time he had recalled that sensation — something he had all but forgotten.
The moment he turned his mind to it, a flood of feelings unlike anything before surged up.
Macht understood — this was likely what they called "emotion," learned through years of imitating humanity.
Among them, the feeling called "awe" weighed heaviest.
And two other feelings, beyond his comprehension, coiled and tangled alongside it.
Insignificant as those feelings were, they had exerted an enormous influence.
After that battle, so as not to be swayed by irrelevant emotion, Macht had moved his plan forward by nearly a decade.
The wager staked on life itself had ultimately failed — and the demon called "Nanoda" had not appeared again to stop him.
"Until we meet again, Lord Glück."
To Macht, Glück was a human who occupied a slightly special place — but only that, and nothing more.
He cast one last glance at the golden sculpture at the desk. Then Macht drained the black tea from his cup, tidied up, and left.
He had brewed it out of habit — for Glück. Though the man could hardly drink it now.
It was just as he stepped out through the front door that something registered within the range of his Mana Perception — a faint, small spark of mana.
Another fool, ignoring the curse, trespassing into his domain.
"It seems I have another visitor."
He shook his head. Macht was not one who sought battle — but that did not mean he could tolerate outsiders trampling through his territory unchecked. If someone had seen the "exhibits" impaled on golden spikes around the outskirts of Weise and still walked in without a care, they had clearly made their peace with death.
A general of the Northern Empire? A mercenary from the Central Lands? Adventurers who fancied themselves the next generation's Hero? A seasoned Mage? Or simply some ordinary wanderer?
In the year since word of the Golden Land had spread, challengers had come without number — and not one had succeeded.
All had been defeated, turned to gold, and mounted as decoration at Weise's gates.
The mana signature was faint — something more fitting of a warrior, or perhaps one of those recklessly bold human Mages.
But none of that mattered. All he had to do was crush whoever had come, same as always.
In flight, the wind cut across Macht's face. His expression remained perfectly still.
He flew over streets, crowds, and houses — all gilded into gold.
A white speck moving slowly across the golden earth came into view. And with it came a gaze — sharp, cutting.
In midair, Macht shuddered — a full-body tremor. His pupils contracted ever so slightly. It was the first time he had lost composure within his absolute domain over the Golden Land.
"How is this possible?"
Something stirred abruptly inside him. His long-dormant mana surged and swelled. Like a hawk that had caught the scent of prey, he plunged down toward the figure below!
Boom.
The tall demon dropped from the sky. A ring of golden dust billowed up from the ground.
Nanoda stopped walking, and watched him land with quiet, steady eyes.
The moment Macht hit the ground, he turned his scrutinizing gaze upon her. A long pause passed before he spoke. "You've come back. Unfortunately, my plan — flawed as it was — is complete."
"How about we continue last time's wager? You still owe me one final strike."
No further exchange.
Nanoda's expression was calm. Beneath her black cloak, one hand closed around the broken-horned blade. The mana in the air around her began to converge, her presence climbing higher with each passing second.
"I can tell — there's still a curse on you, unbroken. To step into a domain I've spent this long preparing, in a state like that — you could simply leave. These past ten-odd years have not been idle ones for me."
Macht lifted the mantle from his shoulders and undid the buttons at his collar, allowing himself not even a fragment of carelessness.
Judging from the mana radiating off him, the decade Nanoda had been absent was one in which Macht had grown stronger still.
It was just as both sides squared off the instant they laid eyes on each other that a discordant voice rang out, accompanied by the rush of wind from a landing.
"I get to join in on the fun this time, right?"
Solitär's blue-green hair streamed behind her as she descended. Fingers laced together, feet nearly touching, she landed beside Macht.
But the moment she laid eyes on Nanoda, she instinctively retreated into the shadow behind Macht.
"I'll honor the agreement and lend you a hand — all I have to do is help you stall for time, yes? I have no desire to go face-to-face with a monster like that."
Macht paid Solitär no attention. His gaze remained locked on Nanoda, his voice cold.
"I'm afraid a fair fight was never my intention."
"Two against one?"
Nanoda appeared to consider this — and even as she did, another presence, carrying a vast and oppressive weight of mana, breached the boundary of the Golden Land.
"Just as you made your preparations here — I came prepared as well."
Enormous blood wings descended, carrying with them a small Jane. A thick reek of blood followed — and behind it, something pure and undisguised: killing intent.
"The same words back to you — I'm not without preparation either."
A pause. When Nanoda spoke again, there was resolution in her voice.
"This time, I've come to end it."
____
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