Haru watched her go with quiet satisfaction. On paper, both sides profited. In truth, only one of them had.
Haru's haul was one hundred million Divine Crystals, one trillion Magic Crystals, and a high-level Supreme God Tier Artifact with the Time and Abyss attributes. The other things were generous, but the artifact was the real prize, worth billions of Divine Crystals on its own.
Aurelyss couldn't use it. The abyss corruption made it untouchable for her, so she'd thrown it in to settle the debt, likely thinking she was offloading a liability. What she didn't know was that Haru could bypass the corruption entirely and wield it at full power. If she had, she would have tripled her asking price, or never offered the artifact at all.
Haru would have even taken the deal without the hundred million Divine Crystals as well.
Still, she'd figure it out eventually when she sees him use it someday and her expression would be… educational.
…
Back in the Imperial Palace, the throne room was empty and quiet. Haru drew the bow 'Sorrow of Time' from his storage ring. It was dark red, wicked in design, nearly identical in style to the Eye of the Abyss and the Wings of Scarlet Ruin already bound to him. It was unmistakably an Abyssal Artifact.
A seal wrapped the weapon. He studied it briefly, then flooded it with the full weight of his Divine Power, causing it to shatter. Instantly, a torrent of abyssal aura erupted from the bow and crashed over him—toxic, suffocating, laced with a whispering madness that clawed at the edges of his mind.
Haru absorbed it. All of it. The bow released more. He devoured more. The hall's air cleared as fast as the corruption spread. It was like trying to drown something that drank oceans.
The bow's spirit gave up the offensive. It pulled every remaining thread of abyssal power inward, wrapping it around Temerith's Divine Imprint buried at its core to create a defensive wall. Its last stand.
The bow's spirit was baffled. For centuries, this trick had worked. The Titan Lord Varkath, the Elf Empress Aurelyss, both Supreme God Tier powerhouses, had sealed the bow rather than risk its corruption. Neither dared to even approach it.
And this human had *eaten* the corruption. The spirit could have sworn on its owner, the Fifth Demon Monarch Temerith, that nothing like this had ever happened. Was Haru hiding a demon's soul under that skin?
'Whatever you are.' The spirit snarled internally, 'You will not conquer me.'
It bore Temerith's divine imprint. It would never submit to some 'alien'. When Haru's consciousness invaded the bow, at home ground, wrapped in its own Divine Laws' sources, it would hold its ground.
Haru did exactly that and carried with him a vast Divine Power infused with an impossibly pure Abyss Law.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" The spirit's worldview cracked. No alien race had ever managed to control the Abyss Law. Not even Supreme Gods could. Those who tried were assimilated, consumed, twisted into demons. That was how it had always been.
Yet here was Haru, wielding it like he'd been born to it.
'Is he… actually a Demon Lord in disguise?'
A flicker of hope appeared. If this emperor was secretly a demon, then they were on the same side. There was nothing to fear.
…
Haru's divine sense arrived at the spirit's core, which had taken a female form — stunning face, perfect figure, blood-red dress, dark red demon wings. A mirror of its creator.
"I don't know which Demon Lord graces me." The spirit said carefully, "Or perhaps you're a Demon Lord who ascended on a foreign planet since I fail to recognize your aura?"
Haru ignored the question and studied her instead. When he'd conquered the Eye, the presence inside had been a sentient imprint of the Demon Emperor himself alongside the Eye's spirit.
The Myriad Starfall Tower was the only other 'artifact' he knew with a spirit that took human form, but that was classified as a building so it could be considered an exception.
"It's the first time I've seen an artifact's spirit take a humanoid form." He said, "Interesting."
The spirit bowed her head, "I shaped my appearance exactly like my mistress."
"I don't like it." Haru's voice was flat.
"You're the spirit of an object. Return to your original form."
His Divine Power surged and the female form shattered.
"Damn you!" A ball of light remained where the woman had been, screaming, "Do you know who my mistress is? She's the Fifth Demon Monarch, Lady Temerith. She slaughtered countless Gods in the Ancient Era! You dare—"
"I've conquered the Eye of the Abyss." Haru said, "The Demon Emperor's own top-level artifact. What's a mere Fifth Demon Monarch?"
The Spirit: …
It was left speechless.
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