After Steve's brief and delicate negotiation with the Demon Pillars, deathly silence fell across the entire Land of Steel.
But that peace did not last.
Suddenly, a supreme command—a non-negotiable attack order—pierced through the barriers, transmitting directly to each Demon Pillar's core consciousness from outside the Temple of Time.
It was a merciless order from their true master—the man-machine mode King Solomon.
"Tch... here it comes," Aamon, the Pillar of Debate, spat out with frustration through the network. "Honestly, he knows nothing of flexibility... As he is now, the King really is just a program executing its code!"
"Enough, Aamon! An order is an order! Move out! It's only procedure anyway!" roared Gremory, the Pillar of Courage, his voice tinged by powerlessness.
In the next instant, torrents of magical energy erupted from the seventy-one colossal Demon Pillars. Their countless eyes focused on Steve, floating above.
The onslaught began—devastating beams of fire, torrents of jet-black curses, gravity fields that bent space, psychic shocks forged of pure malice... From every direction, thousands upon thousands of attacks formed a web to obliterate the world's lone outsider.
Confronted with this saturation attack—enough to make even a Grand Servant quake—Steve's expression remained utterly calm.
He made no move to defend. Instead, he began to dodge through the storm of light and darkness with an elegance almost arrogant, walking like a traveler upon the wind. His body seemed weightless, each step or sidestep barely avoiding dozens of deadly paths. World-burning heat rays only singed his coat's hem; soul-devouring curses brushed past his hair.
Like the eye of a storm, he floated on untouched.
"Has the game begun?"
He whispered, and a darkness deep enough to swallow all light gathered at his fingertips. It belonged to the Dark Matter Spellshot—one of the most basic yet vicious spells in cosmic magegraft.
With a flick of his hand, dozens of inky-black magic bullets traced eerie arcs, striking the Demon Pillars with unerring precision.
There were no earth-shaking explosions nor blinding flashes. The instant each bullet struck a Demon Pillar, all vanished—both the blow's impact and the space it occupied were simply shaved away, leaving behind absolute blackness.
A silent scream, a collapse, countless points of light—one Pillar after another was destroyed.
And yet Steve looked bored; because each time a Pillar perished, it immediately respawned not far away, bound by his reality marble to remain here. So long as the Temple of Time continued feeding them magical power, they were truly immortal.
After several rounds of this futile whack-a-mole, Steve had had enough.
Hovering above, he gazed down at the countless respawning Pillars under the scarlet sky.
"Gentlemen," he said calmly, but every Demon Pillar heard his voice with perfect clarity. "I sincerely apologize for forcing you into this meaningless performance."
"I understand your predicament, and know you have no real choice. But I cannot allow you to leave this place or interfere in humanity's final battle."
"So please—allow me to get serious for the remainder of this fight. Out of respect for you, and to bring this farce to a swift end."
Within the collective network, silence reigned. Finally, relieved acceptance reached him:
"...Do as you will."
"Very well." Steve nodded approvingly. "Then, as the New Era of Magecraft King of this future world, I must fulfill my duty."
"If you are the mightiest familiars of the old Demon King... then I shall summon the strongest familiar I can find in this age to oppose you."
With that, Steve slowly raised his right hand.
A crisp snap.
At that very moment, a golden fissure tore open in the eternal crimson sky—a rift not physical, but a high-dimensional aperture. From that crack, not void nor chaos, but pure golden light poured—a light full of fierce vitality and mysterious warmth.
This radiance instantly swept away the poisonous dust, granting the world its first warmth.
Then—a single girl emerged from the golden portal.
She had long, lustrous hair like molten gold, and pure, flawless golden eyes. Behind her, a pair of glorious wings stretched—not of feathers, but of infinite particles of light. Each slight movement scattered golden dust.
She wore a simple white dress, barefoot, landing lightly by Steve's side. Her looks fit exactly the image of an angel from myth—but her expression was entirely the opposite of a divine being: her lips were curved in a confident smile, and her eyes sparkled with curiosity and vigor. She looked for all the world like a neighborhood girl just out of school, intrigued by everything around her.
"Oh, Master." She tilted her head, greeting Steve with a bright smile. "This movie set is really heavy, huh? I get that it suits me, but it does feel a little lonely compared to the outside world. So... these are this stage's villains? All these guys with the big eyes?"
From the instant this angelic girl appeared, all seventy-one Demon Pillars below were locked in total, primordial terror. For the first time, their massive, eye-ridden bodies froze, as if someone had pressed pause.
Their noisy, chaotic network was instantly overridden by a higher-order information. All their resentments, anger, and helplessness melted into a single, soul-deep cry:
[Just... what in the world IS this monster!? ×71]
They did not see a mere powerful enemy before them: what they perceived was Law—a being of a completely different, incomprehensible plane. To be gazed upon by those pure golden eyes was to feel no longer like a demon of legend, but rather a mere dust mote awaiting observation and definition through a microscope.
…