Before the once-every-four-years Cold Festival could arrive, disaster struck Vancia first.
The barrier that had stood for millennia at the Gate of Hell suddenly cracked without warning. Black mist, accompanied by raging flames, surged out, covering the golden sun in the sky and casting the entire continent into shadow.
The demons in Hell opened their scarlet eyes and descended upon the human world once more.
People rushed in panic into nearby churches, kneeling before the pure white statue of the Holy God, praying for His protection, hoping He would send down a powerful Holy Son like a thousand years ago to drive the demons away again.
But the praying people seemed to forget that there was already a Holy Son residing in the temple of the Holy City.
Not that they could be blamed, after all, this Holy Son was probably just a pretty porcelain vase randomly picked by the church from the common folk, a sickly person who could fall ill for three or four days just from a bit of wind. How could he possibly repel the powerful and terrifying Lord of Hell? Were they expecting him to choke the demon to death when he was devoured?
So soon enough, this Holy Son, who already had little presence, was once again forgotten by the people.
Outside the temple, it was as cold and deserted as it had been for over a decade, with not even a few guards around.
But inside the temple, it was different from what people imagined.
Within the luxurious exterior, soldiers clad in silver armor held long spears, not as if they were guarding, but rather as if they were watching over a prisoner.
And in the center of the temple, surrounded by them, was a cage made of cold iron bars and layers of gray cotton gauze, enclosing a space the size of an ordinary pavilion. The bright yellow light inside was filtered into gray by the gauze, barely illuminating a small circle around it, making it seem even more oppressive compared to the boundless darkness of the entire temple.
Salavira had been in this place for a full two years.
After the black mist spread for a day and a night, the temple doors suddenly swung open, and a person in a red robe, holding a staff inlaid with obsidian, hurriedly walked in. The soldiers were startled, lowered their spears, and knelt in salute.
This person was not a high-ranking clergy member of the church, at most a servant.
But the staff in his hand represented the Archdeacon of the church, a position second only to one person and above thousands.
No one dared not to bow.
If it were any other time, the servant would have enjoyed this feeling of being revered, but with urgent orders, he dared not delay and went straight to the cage in the center.
He abruptly lifted the outer layer of gray gauze, and the bright light made the servant squint instinctively. After blinking a few times, he finally saw the scene inside—
It didn’t look like a place for a person to live.
A half-person-high platform rose an arm’s length from the iron cage, covered with dozens of layers of thick velvet blankets, with soft black fur interspersed with shiny silver fox fur, the likes of which the servant had never seen in his life.
Five golden chains extended from the cage’s surroundings to the center of the platform. The servant’s first thought upon seeing them was: Could these chains be pure gold?
The crisp sound of chains dragging brought the servant back to his senses, and he turned his gaze to the center of the platform.
The first thing he saw was a pair of slender, fair ankles stepping on the black blanket, with golden chains gleaming with a cold metallic luster clasped around them.
The stark contrast of black, white, and chains made the servant’s heart tremble involuntarily. His gaze moved up a few inches, seeing the smooth calves hidden under a robe embroidered with gold and silver, a slender waist outlined by black ribbons, a half-covered shoulder, and… those azure eyes looking at him with a smile.
The servant shivered, instinctively lowering his eyes, and walked up the steps to the platform, bowing to the Holy Son.
A light laugh suddenly came from above: “It’s been a long time since someone saluted me like this.”
The servant blushed at the words, standing up without waiting for the Holy Son to allow it, awkwardly looking elsewhere to cover his embarrassment of “lowering his status.”
From this angle, the servant’s initial thought resurfaced—
It didn’t look like a place for a person to live.
It looked like a display platform for the private collection of noble lords.
“Did the Archdeacon send you?” Salavira looked at the staff in the servant’s hand.
The servant was taken aback, then cleared his throat in a pretentious manner, imitating the tone of those big figures: “Yes, the Archdeacon sent me to deliver a message to you. He said—”
“You’re free.”
“Free?” The Holy Son widened his eyes in slight surprise, then couldn’t help but burst into laughter, his shoulders shaking.
After a long while, he stopped laughing under the servant’s puzzled gaze, raised his hand to brush aside the bothersome silver hair slipping from his shoulder, leaned back against the cushion behind him, and looked vacantly at the bright lamp hanging on the iron cage:
“So sending me out as a bargaining chip is setting me free…”
Salavira had anticipated this.
The ordinary people didn’t know his identity, but the church’s high-ranking officials did. The Holy Son recorded in the epic, who sealed the demon, was him.
Or rather, his past life.
And now that the seal was broken, even though he was trapped, Salavira could still sense the whispers filled with hatred and malice outside the temple, flowing with the black mist—
[Salavira…]
[Salavira… where are you…]
The demon sealed for a thousand years had come to seek its enemy.
The church didn’t want to bear the demon’s wrath, so they wanted to “set him free.”
Ridiculous.
“When?” Salavira asked.
The servant hesitated: “Tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow…” Salavira lowered his eyes in thought for a moment, then shook his head and said, “Too late, I suggest you let me go now.”
“Now?” The servant couldn’t believe that a mere prisoner in front of him was bargaining, and in anger, he snorted through his nose, “Don’t be ungrateful. If I let you go now, how will I explain to the Archdeacon?”
Salavira knew it would be like this, shrugged, and looked past the gray gauze into the endless darkness outside:
“But… He’s already here.”
“Here? Who?” The poor servant, sent only to deliver a message, hadn’t figured out the situation yet, but suddenly felt an extremely terrifying gaze from behind!
Cold sweat instantly broke out on the servant’s back, and survival instinct made him take a few steps back, then—
“Buzz!!!”
The lights in front of him suddenly went out, and in the darkness, there was a dull sound of a sharp weapon piercing through the air, and the whole world fell silent!
Then, the entire palace, along with the iron cage imprisoning the Holy Son, was cut in half! Accompanied by a rumbling sound, huge stone bricks fell from the sky, and the wind outside, mixed with the smell of earth and blood, rushed in.
At the same time, a delighted whisper came from the darkness:
“Found you.”
With the sudden change, the servant no longer cared about the Archdeacon’s orders, screaming and crawling towards the outside of the hall. But after a few steps, he ran into a sticky, terrifying darkness, and after a shrill scream, there was no more sound.
The temple, or rather, the ruins of the temple, fell into a deathly silence.
Until a light laugh, followed by the sound of footsteps—”tap, tap”—broke the silence.
The Lord of Hell, dressed in a luxurious evening suit, slowly emerged from the darkness, holding a pitch-black sword with a ghostly blue flame burning on it.
Through a layer of dust, he looked towards the center of the ruins:
“Are you happy, Salavira? I came to find you as soon as I woke up.”
The person behind the dust didn’t respond immediately, but after a moment, a weak voice came through:
“Is that so… What an honor.”
The voice was like a tattered cloth, ready to scatter to the ground with a bit of wind and rain.
Asmodeus’s brow twitched, and the intense, surging, almost chest-bursting killing intent and hatred in his heart were momentarily diluted by this voice. After standing in place for a moment, he took a few steps forward with his sword, but suddenly stepped on something hard, making a crisp “clink” sound.
He paused, looked down—
It was a severed piece of golden chain.
…Chain?
“Clink, clink—” The chain was tugged by someone, but this end was firmly stepped on by Asmodeus, unable to move.
A sigh floated over: “Could you please lift your foot?”
Asmodeus didn’t move, he looked up towards the source of the voice, his lips slightly parted, as if wanting to say something, but ultimately pressed his lips together, swallowing back the words.
“Whoosh—!!”
A gust of wind, driven by his will, swept away the obstructing dust cleanly.
And then Asmodeus saw, the person who had brought him a thousand years of nightmares was now kneeling in the half-cut iron cage, with several bloody wounds from the falling stones, blood flowing down the pale skin like a cracked white porcelain.
He had golden chains on his limbs and neck, with the one on his right hand being stepped on by Asmodeus.
In an instant, any intense, crazy hatred and resentment in his mind were overwhelmed by a blankness, gradually replaced by surprise, disbelief, and even a bit of confusion as if he were still dreaming.
Asmodeus stepped forward, lifted the chain he had stepped on with his sword, and suddenly pulled it towards himself, causing Salavira to fall forward and bump into the person’s thigh.
“Ugh!” The wound tore open, and a groan of pain escaped his throat.
The person in front of him leaned down, pinched his chin, and forcibly turned his head, staring at the chain with runes on his neck:
“…Did the church do this?”
Salavira, too uncomfortable to speak, only let out a low “hmm.”
The grip on his chin immediately tightened painfully, and the scorching gaze pinned on the chain around his neck made him instinctively shrink back.
But this action seemed to completely anger the unreasonable demon in front of him:
“Does it hurt?”
Asmodeus turned his head back, forcing him to meet his gaze: “When did you become so delicate, so weak? Even the church’s trash can handle you?!”
Salavira panted heavily, staring at the blood-red eyes so close for a while, then curled his lips and laughed:
“You seem disappointed?” he said, coughing up a mouthful of blood, “But with me like this, isn’t it more convenient for you to take revenge? Why aren’t you happy?”
“……”
The response to Salavira was a deathly silence.
The eyes staring at him unblinkingly, the intense emotions of wanting to skin him alive and tear him apart gradually extinguished, leaving only a gray of disappointment and confusion.
“Salavira, you really are… too disappointing to me.”