Little Pink Starfish

Today’s sky was dark and overcast—the kind of weather that usually signaled a mass mobilization of demons.

Yuan Yuanyuan felt like a total coward. Not just a little cowardly, either—really, deeply, spinelessly so.
She tried hard to remember when the last Hyakki Yagyō had been. It seemed like the last time was back in the northwest, when she’d just gotten off a ship.

Back then, she hadn’t even been the leader—more like the second-in-command.

Now she was expected to lead from the front. The pressure was overwhelming.

“Who came up with this stupid rule?” Yuan Yuanyuan muttered as she got dressed. “Seriously… what if the big demon has social anxiety? No one thought about that?”

…Nope. Definitely not.

“What if the big demon just doesn’t want to meet people?” she growled, pulling on her other shoe.

“Are you ready?” The door suddenly opened, and someone peeked their head in to check.

“Almost.” Yuan Yuanyuan immediately changed her expression, putting on a serious, composed face.

Once the door closed again, she looked down and continued grumbling as she shoved her foot into her shoe.

This whole situation felt oddly familiar… What was the name of that anime she’d watched recently when she wasn’t so busy? Something about three guys being forcibly sent to Thailand? She vaguely remembered them also smiling outside while cursing under their breath inside…

Right, what was that line again? “After all, I’m not a devil…”

No—you are devils, hmph.

Internally crying, Yuan Yuanyuan pushed open the door and walked out.

As the sound of the door echoed, the demons outside slowly stopped what they were doing and turned to look at her.

One pair of eyes, two pairs of eyes…

In the darkness, countless glowing eyes lit up—stretching from her feet out into the endless shadows beyond.

Tens of thousands of eyes gathered together, forming a river of starlight.

Oddly enough, pushing open the door calmed her down.

So be it. Let’s just get it over with and go home to sleep.

Face cold and unreadable, she began walking forward. As she moved, the red eyes ahead of her began to follow, clustering around her like iron filings to a magnet.

Step by step, she seemed to absorb all those tiny red dots into her orbit.

Yuan Yuanyuan’s composure wasn’t just for show—part of it was because she couldn’t actually see what was happening behind her. She couldn’t just whip around for a peek, that’d completely ruin the image.

The crowd behind her was full of demons and monsters—a lot of them, too.

So… what exactly were they doing tonight?

“I told you the latest issue of Demon Chronicles felt off,” a girl in a warm, cozy room chatted on the phone while snacking on fruit.

“Yeah, I thought so too. I just don’t know what they’re setting up for… Hope it doesn’t go off the rails,” her friend on the other end replied.

Lying lazily on her bed, the girl turned and happened to glance out the window.

“Hey, Xiaopang, do you see what’s outside?”

“Outside? Hang on, let me pull the curtains,” said the voice on the other end.

There were sounds of someone getting off the bed and tugging open the curtains. A moment later, a confused voice came through, “What the…? Is there a festival tonight or something?”

Outside, the sky was filled with dense red dots, like glowing fireflies. Around them drifted strands of purple mist, making it hard to see anything clearly below.

That night, many people across the city looked up and saw the same strange scene. All of them pushed open their windows, staring out with curiosity.

What was that?

A treaty between humans and demons had long been in place. One of its most sacred rules: demons must never appear in front of humans. It was an accord formed after the war.

Yuan Yuanyuan now felt like she was tiptoeing on the edge of death.
But, well… she was doing it very skillfully.

Come on, come on~ I’m right here waiting for you~

She wandered around the city first, then circled the outskirts. After hours of this, she’d gotten used to it and no longer felt awkward.

The demons trailing her were surprisingly obedient. Wherever she went, they followed. None of them even asked where or why. Yuan Yuanyuan thought some of them even looked… excited?

Why so excited? Probably because they’d never done anything on this scale before. A Hyakki Yagyō of this size? In front of humans? Totally unheard of.

She calculated: these demons had grown stronger than the humans—at least, stronger than the current ones. This really might be their first time.

Though Yuan Yuanyuan wasn’t about to let them actually descend. That would be asking for trouble. But this level of spectacle was already enough. And sure enough, people were starting to come find them.

The city below still glittered with lights. But the gloomy skies had begun to drizzle. Yuan Yuanyuan felt the fine mist fall on her, and slowly noticed smoke rising around her feet.

The smoke…

Started to whisper.

Above in the sky came a rising cacophony of strange noises. Yuan Yuanyuan frowned, watching carefully.

It looked like… an illusion spell. Something that blocked visibility between the ground and the sky—keeping people from seeing what was above.

But it was just an illusion. If anyone tried to force their way through, this smoke wouldn’t be able to stop them.

Oh? Looks like they’ve finally come. Yuan Yuanyuan’s heart stirred. In the distance, she saw a squad of people rushing toward them.

How many were there…

Yuan Yuanyuan stood there in an absolutely dramatic fur coat—
Don’t ask why she was dressed like that. Demon fashion was just like that.
Even she felt like a bumbling bandit from some outlaw den.

She couldn’t even remember which demon this fur had come from. Rumor had it that it once belonged to a powerful demon on the side of the late Demon King.

So in a sense, it hadn’t been that long since that demon had fallen.

Now, with this fur draped over her, she felt chilled to the bone. But the others around her said she looked fierce, that it totally fit her aura.

What nonsense.

Standing still in her fur coat, Yuan Yuanyuan stared at the approaching humans.
To the demons’ eyes, the number of humans was pathetically small. Compared to the vast sea of demons, they were mere drops in the ocean.

The humans rode up, unable to soar like demons and instead relying on various mounts.

Some sat on paper dolls. Others rode tamed demons that had never learned to take human form.

The demons around Yuan Yuanyuan began whispering excitedly. Yuan Yuanyuan watched as the humans approached, even helping to hold back the demonic aura around her to make it easier for them to approach.

She couldn’t help but think these people were… kinda dumb. The atmosphere was already this intense, and they still came up all casual and carefree? Were they trying to provoke a fight?

She felt a little speechless. Were these people poisoned or something? Was this a deliberate trap? It didn’t feel like one…

And besides, weren’t they scared at all? Anyone with eyes could see they were badly outnumbered. They should be trying to calm things down, not stir them up.

Yuan Yuanyuan felt like a nagging old nanny, having to worry about every little dumb move these people made.

Well, whatever. The actors were all in place now—time to hear what they had to say.

“What is the meaning of this?” one of the humans asked, all prim and proper.

Yuan Yuanyuan filtered their speech in her head and translated it mentally as: “What the hell are you guys doing showing up in the sky in the middle of the damn night?”

“Hyakki Yagyō,” Yuan Yuanyuan called back. “Haven’t you heard of it?”

“But it’s not even the Ghost Festival! What are you doing holding a Hyakki Yagyō now?” someone shouted. “And don’t you know the rules? Demons aren’t allowed to appear before humans! Are you trying to start something?”

Yuan Yuanyuan: “……”

Bro! Don’t spell it out like that! We all know what’s going on—you don’t have to say it out loud! Now I’ve got nothing to say back!

Wait, are you really that clueless, or just pretending?

She turned and glanced at the demons. Yep—they were fuming.

It was in this moment that she realized something she hadn’t thought about before. The hardest part of this whole thing wasn’t Fa Ning.
It wasn’t the Boss Lady.

It might just be… these idiot teammates in front of her.

They’d barely gotten three hours into this plan and were already marching toward their own deaths.

How was she going to protect these humans from the wrath of angry demons?

Yuan Yuanyuan stood in silence for a few seconds. Then, suddenly, she raised her arm and waved it forward.

The entire crowd of demons followed her, marching past the humans without a word.

The people stood there dumbfounded as the tide of demons moved around them, gradually surrounding them from all sides.

Men and women alike…

“Power outage?” The girl who’d been on the phone earlier suddenly blinked in confusion.

What was going on tonight? First the red lights in the sky, then the sudden fog, and now—blackout?

Was the apocalypse just… running late?

She thought for a moment, then chuckled to herself.

Come on, 2012 was years ago. Nobody even remembered that anymore.

“Sweetie, where are the candles?”

“Hang on, I’ll help you find them…”

Above the city, demons continued to circle. The interference caused by their demonic presence shorted out the power grid, creating pockets of darkness throughout the city.

The demonic procession moved eastward, and along the way, more and more red lights joined their ranks.