TBR CH58

There were many things Edwin didn’t forget to ask — he just felt Tal had reasons for not wanting to tell him.

For example, the reason behind his escape, the true face of the enemy he was avoiding, the broken parts in the coherent narrative, and that contract that inexplicably appeared in the depths of the church’s library.

The archbishop could no longer find it, but the demon frankly announced responsibility for it.

“I don’t plan to let anyone summon me again.”

Tal said concisely.

But that meant losing a way out. Edwin couldn’t understand the decision Tal made, yet he couldn’t suppress the satisfaction he felt at the possibility of possessing a certain treasure all to himself.

He believed he could protect a low-ranking demon, even in his absence, relying on spells and magic circles. Even if he died a long time in the future.

Until the fear of loss so blatantly swept over the archbishop’s heart, nearly suffocating him.

He had to see himself clearly.

Edwin, in the scent of roses, held the blade toward himself in a frenzy. Tal formed a contract with you because you had the ability to protect him. Tal agreed to stay with you because you offered something in exchange. His life was filled with interest-based exchanges. If he showed a lack of capability, he would surely lose him — even be replaced.

This was the natural law.

However, however.

Edwin had to sadly admit, Tal always broke the rules. The young demon seemed to treat equivalent exchange as meaningless.

Sometimes, he cared very much about gains and losses — like that first rose-colored night. If Edwin hadn’t offered his soul with trembling fingertips, the demon wouldn’t have stayed by his side.

But more often, he wasn’t a commodity with a price.

His hugs and kisses weren’t, and they always arrived at unexpected moments.

At times when he should have been punished, Edwin received rewards instead.

And the reverse was also true.

The archbishop gave the demon many things — like jewelry, containers filled with magic, foods he liked, and all kinds of odd trinkets.

Tal didn’t show much emotion toward these things; most of the time, he could be described as indifferent. The demon just smiled brightly and accepted the gifts. Sometimes he would hug him quickly — not insincerely.

But the feeling of transaction was too obvious, impossible to suppress. Edwin was used to gaining a sense of security through transactions, but…

But something felt off. The archbishop felt lost.

Was it that his expectations had increased? But he couldn’t find a standard to measure by.

There was something he couldn’t get from mere physical contact, something he couldn’t gain satisfaction from by merely possessing the demon. He gradually hoped that Tal’s bright eyes would truly reflect him — and sometimes, those eyes seemed to vanish. As if exchanged for something cold and purely objective, scrutinizing him.

He knew that was also Tal.

And so, he realized just how unwilling he was.

He tried with all his might to prove himself, but everything he offered as part of an interest exchange seemed unable to truly touch the demon’s core.

Tal was hiding things from him — but why did that feel important?

If all he wanted was companionship, and he clung tightly to the low-ranking demon, then the result shouldn’t disappoint him. Edwin didn’t know what he was longing for, but he was sinking deeper and deeper into the fear of loss, to an uncontrollable degree.

If it wasn’t about the transaction—

The thought burned him. He felt ashamed of such an absurd notion. In all his decades of life, he had never longed for something he didn’t pay for.

But the archbishop twisted his fingers. He realized this thought came from the damp, burning center of his body.

From the most beautiful dream,

In the dream, the demon simply wouldn’t leave. Even if he had nothing, he had never felt so at ease. All of Edwin’s dreams began under the rose-colored shadow cast by the demon’s hand. In the dream, he curled up, ashamed of his own imagination, yet so longing that even his fingertips trembled.

Tal stood in front of him, eyes filled with unfeigned color:

“I love you.”

He said brightly, “Just because of that, I won’t leave you.”

Dreams were fantastical, but humans couldn’t recognize fleeting illusions.

Edwin, countless times in his dreams, murmured, unable to believe, cautiously:

“I love you.”

And then the dream would end.

What was emotion? Edwin stared blankly at his fingertips.

He knew that there were people in this world willing to do anything for another without asking for anything in return. But wasn’t that a greedy, foolish sacrifice? He thought only the love of believers for gods would be like that.

He despised this longing version of himself.

He never showed this side of himself.

Even the demon didn’t know that he had dreams like this in the dead of night — beautiful dreams gained without effort. During the day, he would double the rewards he brought the demon: gold coins in exchange for candy, hugs, and the sweet taste of him.

But sometimes Tal was very close, and sometimes he seemed very far away. Often, Edwin felt like he couldn’t be possessed by anyone — as if he could be lost at any moment.

Strangely, he felt this way even without any proof to support it.

Edwin began to secretly arrange people to investigate a demon who had once been lost at the ends of the world. He urgently wanted to understand him, yet didn’t have the courage to ask directly. As if once something was uncovered, there would be no going back.

The god hesitated for longer and longer.

He sometimes flipped through that black book, but ignored the many suggestions written within it.

Tarksius knew that the so-called system had already allowed the Child of Fate to begin a strategy route on the God of Light. The situation was overwhelmingly favorable, as if victory could be achieved tomorrow.

The black book frequently urged the God of Darkness to take action.

But the god lowered his head and pondered. His long black hair, unlike the weak demon’s, was intensely invasive, draping over the surrounding space and forming an untouchable domain.

He didn’t care about the black book’s daily chanting to stop Noah.

“…He can’t do it yet.”

Can’t do what — the world’s consciousness was practically going mad. Anyone with eyes could see how favored this current Saint was by the God of Light. Miracles had repeatedly manifested on him, as if showing that the God’s gaze had never left the boy.

The black book always felt like the world teetered on the edge of destruction every day, ready to lose hope entirely at any moment.

However, Tarksius was right.

Somewhere in the Church—

A boy with indescribably beautiful looks was bathing alone in a hot spring. Noah angrily shook the water from his arm. His skin was as white as milk. He was restless inside, and the system chose this poor moment to speak up:

“Host, please note, your strategy plan needs to speed up. It’s already—”

“Is your system really not broken?”

The Saint found it unbelievable. For about a month now, the once smooth-sailing strategy mission had suddenly stalled.

Every action of the God of Light had declared His favoritism and affection, not hesitating to kiss his body. It had already reached this point, yet the system told him the god wasn’t even moved yet.

Impossible.

Everything had been going so well, yet the result was just like the meaningless, time-wasting standstill with the God of Darkness before.

The God of Light responded to his devotion so swiftly, a hundred times more enthusiastically than the God of Darkness back then, but…

Yes, indeed, very fast.

The system tirelessly repeated Noah’s words, barely playing a little comforting role. The displayed progress on the screen was always just a little bit away from the goal. The strategy for the God of Darkness back then had also almost reached this stage, only that the time spent in the early phase was much longer than this time, but even so, it still could not satisfy the child of fate.

Shh.

Tarksius gently placed his index finger against his lips. His smile was not sincere, and in his eyes there was only a dried-up blood-red color:

“I told you, it’s very difficult to move a god’s heart.”

From the moment Noah shifted his target, the God of Darkness had already guessed what he was planning.

It was nothing more than that the god representing light began to brazenly show affection to humans again, making the child of fate think he had found an easy target to move.

But Tarksius knew that for gods with numerous believers, favor and wrath were both things that could be tossed aside at will. That he so easily fell for Noah at the beginning wasn’t truly falling—it was simply that he thought he had found a pleasing toy.

The overpowering effect of the “Heartthrob” halo was the real key to Noah capturing hearts.

That inherently contradicted the instincts of gods, and was bound to be a prolonged war.

Noah hoped for a quick victory, but that was simply an impossible plan. Even if the God of Light had a more easily touched personality than Tarksius, it was still due to strength, and would still require the holy son to wear down a great deal of time.

The system felt satisfied and considered it reasonable. This level of progress was normal. If they continued, there would eventually be a day when the god was taken down.

But the holy son could not wait.

Recently, he once again turned his gaze to Tarksius, making him his prey again, trying to find a way to strike.

The black book was a bit confused by Tarksius’s words, but inexplicably, what the God of Darkness said seemed to make sense too—even though he had stayed by the bishop’s side all along, seemingly doing nothing, things had not gotten worse.

But…

“So to you, is the Bishop of God of Light also such an existence?”

It was strange for the world consciousness to ask this question, but it wasn’t gossiping—it really felt that this matter was related to the system strategy’s success or failure.

See, this was the best control group. Gods and humans again.

If what Tarksius said was true, then Edwin was also just a slightly special toy to the God.

“…”

The Dark God sat on the soft chair of the church, and the owner of the chair was Edwin.

Around his wrist was a black silk thread, inlaid with crimson agate. It was the headband the bishop had given the demon, which he had casually taken off and played with, then wrapped around his wrist. The hard stone pressed against Tarksius’s skin, leaving a little red mark on the God.

He no longer showed a smile, nor did he answer the question immediately.

The room was very quiet, until the god spoke again.

“Edwin is a very special human.”

Tarksius spoke slowly, as if each sentence would not have a continuation,

“I just can’t find a suitable time to leave. I didn’t want to break him.”

“He loves you.” These words appeared on the black book’s pages.

“Mm, I know.”

“I see. So for a toy you like, you’d also be unwilling to break it. But it’s still just a toy?”

The god lifted his gaze, dark red eyes full of mockery, and when he opened his mouth, no kind words came:

“Who allowed you to just do reading comprehension?”

The word “toy” didn’t make the God understand any more clearly. Tarksius was silent for a while. Even if he could come up with many high-sounding reasons, the God still couldn’t resolve this confusion—just as he realized he could no longer easily leave Edwin’s side.

The world consciousness felt aggrieved.

Clearly it was Tarksius who first brought up “toy,” but when it said it, he looked unhappy instead. As expected, not only humans, even gods were impossibly hard to understand.

To gods, time was nothing important.

So the words the black book heard in the long silence seemed like a hallucination.

“…He needs me.”

The God said this, even though he wasn’t very sure about the answer himself.

Tarksius was a god. Gods did not lack people who needed them. The black book had already begun to scroll with ink blots, as if preparing to refute this sentence. Yes, the God of Light had countless believers, and those believers all needed him—some were even willing to trade their lives for a single glance from the god. If it were only for this reason, the god’s earlier reasoning would be overturned.

Even the God of Darkness was not lacking in believers. If he wanted them.

There were many evil beings who, after long journeys, came to the dark temple and lowered their heads in devotion, expressing their willingness to be loyal in their faith, and to spread his power, establishing churches on the continent. Gods could profit from faith—it wasn’t a bad deal.

But Tarksius chose to throw all of them out of the temple.

“No,”

The God of Darkness pressed his hand on the book page. He didn’t want to answer the pile of meaningless questions the black book was about to raise—like the world consciousness had finally remembered to send out surveys to the creatures living in the world.

It was as if his thoughts had finally become clear, though that didn’t make things any easier to resolve.

They all heard steady footsteps gradually approaching the bishop’s room.

At that moment, the god suddenly transformed into a completely different appearance—black hair soft, pomegranate-colored eyes round and clear, completely gentle and harmless. He closed the black book in his hands, changed to a new name, and softly said before Edwin opened the door:

“What Edwin needs is me.”

The word “me” was stressed—not as the high and mighty god.

It was need, not faith.

The God did not care whether a human needed him to survive.

But Tal cared.

The little demon’s will, lost and now regained, had been dug out from the long years by Edwin, and finally lingered in the vibrant “present.” No one had ever needed him to this extent. He had once been abandoned by everyone. It was a strange feeling. He knew full well what would happen to Edwin if he left—he would be shattered. And so, he couldn’t bring himself to make that decision.

But that was not enough—far from enough.

Just as Tal was merely relying on illusions to pretend he existed, gods were high above and would not remain this way forever.

He was only still hesitating.

At the same time, he looked toward the opening door with pomegranate-red eyes.

Today’s demon was not a very obedient demon.

In the morning, Edwin had carefully tied his hair, his fingers gently brushing the back of Tal’s neck. He would smile and dodge a little. But now, the hair tie wasn’t on his hair—it had been turned into a bracelet by the demon.

But surprisingly fitting.

As long as he liked it. Edwin thought. He was a bit tired—too many things to handle lately—but every time he returned to his room, he would feel an unprecedented peace of mind. Opening the door and seeing Tal. His grey eyes couldn’t help but show a smile.

The three defensive arrays before the door were always operating, ensuring the demon’s safety.

“I came back late,”

The bishop said this. He really liked the feeling of reporting such a sentence.

“Today the taxes collected by the kingdom have reached the tallying stage. Angelo and the king are considering the total amount to offer to the church. Under the previous bishop, His Highness the Prince probably planned to make a lot of moves, but now, it’s me.”

This sentence was spoken with a bit of arrogance and pride, but Edwin had the strength for it.

Under his control, the church grew more solid. This ancient behemoth that had lasted for thousands of years was even beginning to show new vitality. In just these days, the things in his grasp had increased steadily.

“The messenger privately handed me the account book before going to report to the prince.”

His grey eyes lifted slightly, looking at Tal with a hint of expectation.

He looked just like a student who had received excellent grades and was holding the report card, waiting to be praised.

Tal found it a bit funny, and also inexplicably softening. Maybe it was because the God had just carefully considered the nature of the relationship between humans and parting. He stared closely into Edwin’s eyes, until the other began to grow uneasy under the gaze of a demon.

The Archbishop of the Church of Light was basically confirmed to be the future ruler of the Church.

Edwin’s gray eyes were very beautiful. The demon had thought so from the moment they met, because gray was the color best at hiding things.

Within that kind of restrained and ascetic erasure of all things, humans carefully hid their greed, ambition, and irreverence. It was these eyes that had made the god feel amused at first.

But they were no longer like that now.

The gray was like damp mist. Edwin looked at him, full of anticipation. The moist fog lingered around the demon, proper and cautious, as if Tal were something to be treasured, and the human couldn’t contain his overflowing emotions of fondness.

Tal couldn’t stand those eyes…

But the god didn’t know why, under such a gaze, he always couldn’t help but indulge the human to whom he had already shown favoritism. Edwin froze for a moment because Tal leaned close to him and gently touched his hair, soft and slightly cool.

“Congratulations,” the demon said. “Sounds impressive.”

That was enough. It was the reward he wanted. Edwin closed his eyes and let out a silent sigh, then opened them again, feeling his fingertips tingling with a numbing itch.

He changed the subject:

“You know I’ll have to act against the devil in the prince soon.”

It had been a while—since the demon came to his side. Back then, he had still been mired in rumors, nearly having nothing, everything in his hands hanging by a thread, climbing up with nothing but his own strength;

And now, he had walked past deadly traps. The bloodline in his body was still a problem, but it no longer made him feel disgusted. And there was no immediate way to question it again, so…

It was time to stop being passive and begin striking back.

Letting himself be slaughtered was not Edwin’s style. He was also not foolish enough to believe that the current situation was rosy enough to ignore the threat Anqi Luo posed in the future.

Moreover, he could not tolerate the feeling of someone coveting what was his.

Attacks and spying directed at himself were fine, but if it involved Tar, then there was no room for compromise.

Edwin had weapons.

On the night of the transformation, the torn corner of the demon’s robe from the palace bore traces of demonic blood.

The Archbishop resumed his tireless efforts. He studied magic, and from the most complex tomes, he knew how dangerous it was to face a devil alone. But the good news was that he now had the full strength of the Church behind him.

During those days, even the most marginal notes in the tomes became material for Edwin’s notes.

One night, Tal smelled the scent of blood.

Half of the Archbishop’s robe was soaked in gushing blood. The wound was still open. Edwin had one hand resting on the Light Staff, and turned his head to give Tal a reassuring look. He looked bruised and battered, yet showed a satisfied and reserved smile.

“See,”

He said, while raising his other blood-soaked hand. The fingers were long and slender, the blood dripped along the pale bones of his fingers, but was frozen in the air by invisible magical traces.

At the end of the blood, like a spider trapped in a sticky scarlet web, something was suspended in mid-air, unable to escape.

The malicious seed the devil had once planted in his blood.

The human had forcibly pulled it out just like that. In practice, it wasn’t as simple as it looked or sounded.

First, it required extremely precise control of magical power, involving multiple control spells, probing the bloodline throughout the body without harming himself too much;

Then, sufficient strength—because the seed was cunning. It would travel through the blood vessels, hide deep in complex corners, take root deeply, and it took great effort to yank it out swiftly.

And—it hurt. A lot.

Any one of these steps was not something a human should be able to achieve alone. But Edwin did it, even though his face was pale, his hair was drenched with sweat, and his lips were bitten white.

In that instant, even the god could not look away from such an unbelievable feat.

He was definitely a genius…

Some unspeakable feeling made the god feel pleased—perhaps it could be called pride—but not for himself. Rather, it was for the one he had chosen who now displayed such astonishing ability.

Or perhaps it was because the bishop looked at him first in that moment.

Edwin was absolutely not feeling good. The sharp pain was tearing into every nerve. The devil’s seed seemed to have life—once exposed to the air, it began to struggle desperately until it was finally trapped in the container the bishop had prepared in advance.

Only then did he start to treat his wounds. Edwin’s eyes calmed, as if he had merely been pricked by a rose. He stopped the bleeding, bandaged himself, and used Light magic to heal. But after the surface wounds healed, the devil-inflicted damage deep in the blood vessels couldn’t be cured, and continued to aggressively deliver pain to the bishop.

The demon silently walked over, pretending not to see how Edwin’s eyes brightened for a moment upon sensing him.

“Does it hurt?”

Tal reached from behind and wrapped an arm around his shoulder, resting his head in the hollow of Edwin’s neck.

“No…”

Edwin hesitated. “A little.”

The pain was still within his tolerance, but he couldn’t bear to let go of the warm atmosphere that had settled around them in that moment. Tal had come over because he cared about him; he asked because he was worried Edwin was suffering. In that case, it was okay to show a little weakness.

This time, he didn’t guess wrong about the rule of equal exchange.

The demon’s lips brushed vaguely and ambiguously across his neck. Edwin felt the touched area start to burn from the inside out. Then Tar’s sharp teeth bit lightly, bit by bit He was like a small beast curious about its prey, thinking about where to start biting.

Edwin gave a soft hiss. Even when enduring pain earlier, the bishop hadn’t reacted like this.

All his senses were focused on his neck. Even the pain couldn’t occupy too much of his mind under the teasing and ambiguous bites. The bishop didn’t move much, and at this point, he should leave the task of healing to his body. Then sell his soul to the demon.

“I’ll help you take your mind off it.”

Tal said that, and his hands began to move—gently, yet irresistibly—as if plucking the strings of an instrument.

Edwin, in a daze, remembered that Tal had once told him he was also an excellent musician.

It wasn’t surprising—after all, demons could do anything.

And everything that followed only proved—he was very good at it.

—

The blood-stained cloth of the lord demon, and his demonic seed—behind all these weapons was sharp malice directed at Edwin. Some had pierced his bones and blood, but he had struggled to pull them out.

Edwin lowered his eyes and looked at these things.

It still wasn’t enough.

At the very least, he still needed the fresh blood of a royal descendant, and an occasion sufficient to prove everything. Sometimes, everyone would gather together and chat as if nothing was wrong, but behind the laughter, there would always be bloody secrets taking place—and he was very familiar with such things.

And then, he would need power great enough to defeat a lord-level demon. For a human, even reaching the limit might still not be enough to face a demon head-on. But sometimes, human cunning could put demons to shame.

This had to be a flawless plan, though it was still immature for now.

At times, he grew a little tired—of this version of himself, and of the environment he was in. The environment was like a cage; from the moment he was born, he was fated to walk this path—or to head toward death.

Some time ago, that man with the gray eyes often loitered around the gates of the Church, like a ghost. He would confess in agony, beg in despair, curse with sharp words.

“He is your brother.”

Sometimes the man would simply sit limply on the ground and tell Edwin:

“You should save him. You shouldn’t stand by and watch him die.”

The Bishop’s silencing curse had always remained in effect.

What the prince said about lifting the curse had only served to delay it—they all knew this, even if they didn’t say it aloud.

It was just that, when Prince Angelo came knocking, a boy’s life weighed against the lives of his entire family—that was a scale that could tip. Once again, it was the word “abandonment.” Though understandable and forgivable, when it landed on the boy’s shoulders, it was still too heavy.

In this moment, the man could only place all his hopes on the Bishop retracting the spell.

“Even I couldn’t lift a curse once it’s been established.”

There was no meaning in saying any more.

Edwin was a little tired. He ordered the Holy Temple Knights to no longer allow the man near the Church. Unfeeling, cold, selfish, child of monsters—those were the descriptions he was left with in the end.

But the Bishop had never regretted his ambition.

Now, his path had finally become bright again. He had cleared most of the thorns. He would keep moving forward, keep climbing higher, to realize all the ambition he once held.

—Including the taming of a demon.

It was just that the things the demon had described were too wondrous to put into words. Sometimes, Edwin felt his greed quietly growing again—toward directions he’d never considered, toward things he felt he might never attain. He had been born with a restricted path for growth, so all of this was like looking out of a window—miracles falling upon him like rain.

He didn’t know how to coexist peacefully with these new desires.

But Edwin was certain—he wanted to fulfill them.