Elion pressed himself against the wall and lowered his presence.

Two demons walked past the tunnel intersection ahead, speaking in harsh, guttural tones. He couldn’t understand most of it since their use of the common language was crude at best.

But he somehow found parts of the language reach his ears as translated fragments of meaning through intent rather than language; Perhaps the trial or the system’s handiwork.

They spoke of how lord and many of their brothers departed to go and slaughter the humans, which he was already aware of. What he found interesting was the mention of a sealed chamber, which they had been told to guard heavily.

His eyes narrowed with interest. That sounded relevant enough for him to feel the need to check it out, just in case it turned out to be what he was looking for.

He waited until the demons disappeared around the corner before slipping after them at a distance, just enough to follow the direction they came from.

The tunnels gradually became cleaner, less like drainage passages and more like old service corridors. Eventually, he reached a narrow stairway spiralling upward.

At the top, he found a door. It wasn’t locked, so he eased it open slowly.

Beyond it was a vast hall of black stone, dimly lit by crimson flames burning in wall sconces. Massive pillars lined the chamber, each wrapped with chains and skull-like ornaments. The hall was mostly empty, though far at the other end stood a pair of armoured demon guards beside a sealed archway covered in runes.

Elion’s eyes moved to the floor. The pulsing red veins on the floor ran directly toward that archway.

’The sealed chamber?’

Maybe, but the guards were a problem.

They were not ordinary lesser demons that he had been meeting along the way. Their presence felt vast and powerful. He didn’t want to use discerning eye, obviously, but his bare sight and instincts alone told him that they were strong enough that killing them quietly might be difficult.

He crouched behind one of the pillars and considered his options. A distraction? An illusion? Or just kill them quickly and hope no one notices? The last one was tempting.

He was still thinking when something moved in the shadows above the archway.

Elion froze when he noticed that a figure was there.

A woman.

She emerged from the stone itself like a ghost, invisible one moment and becoming corporeal the next. He would never forget that long hair, blue skin, and cold pair of eyes.

Zenith!

Elion’s brows rose in surprise beneath his hood. He had been thinking about her not too long ago, and now he had just randomly run into her.

She had not seen him. Or if she had, she gave no sign. Her incorporeal body shimmered as she floated above the floor and moved toward the sealed archway.

The two guards did not react to her appearance. Elion assumed either she was completely hidden from them or maybe her being here was no surprise to them.

Elion watched silently as Zenith raised one hand toward the runes on the door. Her expression was tense and focused. Perhaps for the first time since he had met her, she looked genuinely desperate.

One of the runes flashed, and Zenith recoiled slightly. Her form flickered away from it, and the guards stiffened.

"What was that?" one growled.

Zenith froze midair a short distance away. She was still floating in her incorporeal state, confirming to Elion that she was completely invisible to the pair of demons.

However, just then, from somewhere deeper in the castle, a low bell began to toll, and the pair of demons immediately began to panic. One of them sniffed at the air.

Zenith’s eyes narrowed as Elion looked around in alarm, wondering what the bell was for, and if it was somehow connected to them. At the same time, Zenith’s form flickered. Elion’s eyes snapped toward her just as her body began to disappear completely.

Elion thought he heard her mutter in frustration, "Damn it..." Then she vanished. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

His brows furrowed.

’What was she doing?’ Perhaps she was looking for the same thing that he was.

The two demon guards immediately reacted to the disturbance, turning toward the sealed archway with their weapons drawn.

"Something touched the door!"

"Impossible! No one is here."

Elion’s hand moved to Kurogoroshi.

He had no time to think about where Zenith had gone.

The first guard turned, sniffing the air, its crimson eyes narrowing as it scanned the long hall between the pillars. The second gripped its axe tighter, mana beginning to gather around its body.

The tolling bell had already put them on edge, and if he let them shout or call for reinforcements, this entire infiltration would collapse before he even reached the real objective.

So he moved quickly without having to think too much about it.

The first guard barely had time to react before Elion appeared behind it, Kurogoroshi sliding free in a flash of black-silver steel. The blade cut across the demon’s throat with frightening ease, severing voice and breath in one clean motion. Before the body could fall, Elion had already shifted his weight and stepped toward the second guard.

The demon swung its axe.

Elion ducked beneath the brutal arc, stepped inside its reach, and drove Kurogoroshi upward beneath its jaw.

Shk.

The blade pierced through the demon’s skull and emerged from the back of its head.

The creature convulsed once and went limp less than a second later.

Elion pulled the blade free and caught the body before it could crash loudly to the floor, lowering it down with controlled care. The first guard collapsed a heartbeat later, twitching faintly against the black stone before going still.

Elion slowly turned toward the sealed archway. The runes across its surface were glowing bright red with the veins crawling through them like blood spreading beneath metal.

Kurogoroshi suddenly hummed violently as if in warning.

"What is it?" Elion’s eyes narrowed as a soft footstep echoed from the shadows between the pillars.

He turned sharply, the blade already raised, as a small and petite figure stepped into the dim crimson light.

A very unlikely, delicate beauty.

’Maya!?’

She wore the same gentle smile he remembered, and the same quiet expression that made her seem like she was always one breath away from apologising for taking up too much space.

But here, in the Demon Lord’s castle, with the corpses of two guards at his feet and three more presences emerging from the shadows behind her, that smile suddenly felt incredibly unsettling.

"Hello, Elion," she said lightly.

Elion’s grip loosened around Kurogoroshi as he gazed at her in shock, "Maya?" Behind her, three more figures stepped into view.

Uta, Yaana, and their guardian.

The three demon heroes.

He had entertained thoughts of their whereabouts at some point. But it was just that at the time... A passing thought.

It took him a moment to piece everything together. Elion looked at Maya again as the realisation and gravity of the situation slowly dawned on him.

Her being here with them meant only one thing. The possibility of a traitor, the marked routes with no clear culprit, and the information leaks.

All this time... It was her. He could have never guessed.

Maya’s smile softened slightly, as if she could read the thought forming in his mind.

"No, Elion," she said gently. "I was never a traitor."

Elion’s brow furrowed.

Maya tilted her head faintly, still smiling.

"Remember when you spoke about a hypothetical situation? About how funny it would be if someone was pretending to be on the humanity heroes’ side, while the whole time, they were actually a hero on the demons’ side?"

Elion’s expression slowly turned grim.

The memory returned. That casual conversation when he first met the three of them on the front lines.

That ridiculous theory that he had mentioned lightly, the same hypothetical situation that none of them had bothered taking seriously.

Maya’s smile widened, though there was no cruelty in it. Only a strange, almost wistful fondness.

"I have always been on the other side, Elion."