Kai is brought inside to meet Abridor, who’s surprised that the new Arbitration God looks so… well, tiny. Still, he’s not one to judge. Kai stays cautious, but Abridor quickly clarifies he isn’t the actual ape king. Curious, Kai asks what really happened to this land—depending on the answer, he’ll decide whether to help or not.
Abridor explains: the evil god Diabo was born from the “darkness of the apes.” Confused, Kai asks what that even means. Turns out, their king went full party-animal—drinking, ignoring his duties, and letting the people suffer. The resentment grew so strong it reached their very core. Hearing this reminds Kai of what Nada once told him: when a ruler is corrupt, both apes and humans alike are doomed to collapse.
Abridor continues. The corrupt king was eventually overthrown, and one of his sons, Shendor, headed north seeking a new Land God. But instead of asking nicely, he went berserk, stole one, and left a trail of bodies. Naturally, the locals cursed him a thousand times over. The curses shattered his god stone, twisted his body, and turned him into the monster known as Diabo. When he returned, the first thing Shendor did was… eat his own family alive. (Yep, family dinners don’t end well in this world.) He was unstoppable, and even now he roams free, draining the land of life.
Abridor, weakened and desperate, pleads with Kai for help, fearing their gods might abandon them and leave them as mindless beasts. Kai feels bad—these apes are really in trouble. Back at the Valley, even the Valley God yells at him to go defeat Diabo already. So Kai vows to take down the monster.
The apes lead him to the last place Shendor was seen—the ape king’s castle. But before they can go in, a group of cloaked apes blocks the way. They argue with Torud in ape language. Kai, clueless, asks for a translation: apparently, these apes want the glory for themselves and don’t want Kai interfering. They claim Lady Zeiena can handle Diabo alone. Torud is shocked, since he didn’t even know she was back.
Before Kai can learn who Zeiena really is, the ground rumbles, and the overwhelming power of Diabo shakes the castle. No time to waste—Kai charges the entrance. When one cloaked ape tries to stop him, Kai slams him into a wall like yesterday’s laundry and storms inside. The others follow, until they all reach a massive open chamber within the castle.
Inside the chamber, Kai and the others find several apes collapsed on the floor, their bodies wrapped in writhing tendrils. At the top of a pedestal, Diabo is calmly siphoning away their life force like some nightmare spaghetti machine. When Diabo notices them, it even mimics their movements before turning to face them—definitely nightmare fuel.
Kai knows right away that a monster like this shouldn’t exist and reaches for his sword. But before he can attack, a female voice rings out, yelling at Diabo. It’s Zeiena, the champion mentioned earlier by the cloaked apes. She looks confident—maybe too confident—that she can take this thing down.
Torud explains that Zeiena is the youngest surviving member of the royal family, but still too green to be ruler. Kai is confused about what she’s planning—until she suddenly summons a Dwolf, the guardian god of the northern lands. Torud is floored; there’s no reason the north’s protector should be fighting for her.
The sword in Zeiena’s hand begins glowing, and Poric realizes she must be using a magic item to control the Dwolf. Kai is surprised—he didn’t even know items like that existed. She orders the wolf to attack, and it unleashes a massive fire blast. But Diabo doesn’t even flinch. Turns out, fire’s about as effective on him as a mosquito bite.
With her big move wasted, Zeiena starts to panic. She tries to force the wolf to attack again, but the beast resists her control. In desperation, she yells for her subordinates. A few apes rush over and shove herbs into the wolf’s mouth. The wolf torches the herbs with its breath and instantly gets way too high to fight back. Kai, baffled, asks Poric what just happened. Poric explains that the apes used calming herbs—effective but poisonous in high doses. Not exactly the safest strategy.
Regaining shaky control, Zeiena orders the wolf to bite. The Dwolf sinks its fangs into Diabo’s neck and tears out a chunk of flesh. But Diabo’s blood sprays everywhere, splattering the wolf. The moment it touches him, the wolf collapses, completely knocked out. Kai doesn’t understand why—it looked unharmed—but Torud explains: Diabo’s entire body is like living poison. Anything that touches him eventually dies.
The danger doesn’t stop there—the torn piece of flesh starts wriggling on its own, draining the life force of nearby apes. Torud grimly admits that many of his kin have died this way. Still, he thinks this is a golden chance for Kai to strike and raise Abridor’s status while Zeiena’s group is distracted. But Kai snaps back that he doesn’t care about stupid ape politics—he just wants to deal with Diabo.
Kai rushes to the Dwolf and places his hand on its body. Thankfully, the wolf is still alive, but its spiritual energy is faint, and its god stone feels badly damaged. Kai suspects the poison from Diabo nearly knocked the god right out of its stone. If that’s true, he needs to act fast.
He begins channeling his energy into the wolf’s god stone. A spark of reaction tells him it’s working, but then he hesitates—remembering what happened with Elsa. Should he really risk using his powers again? Before he can spiral too far, he notices Poric and the others fighting desperately to protect him. If he stalls, they’ll all die.
Shaking off his doubts, Kai dives deeper, entering the wolf’s soul. There, he glimpses memories: the moment Zeiena betrayed the wolf people and seized control of the Dwolf. She hadn’t hated them—she simply needed the wolf’s power to restore her homeland and was willing to do anything to get it.
Finally, Kai finds the god stone. Pouring his energy into it, he revitalizes the wolf’s soul. Returning to his body, he sees the Dwolf already healing, though it’ll need time before it can fight again. For now, Kai and the others must face Diabo alone.
Just then, the Valley God speaks inside his mind: the only way to defeat Diabo is to strike its god stone. Easier said than done—Kai has no idea where in that grotesque body the stone is hidden.
Meanwhile, Zeiena watches the battle with conflicted eyes. Diabo was once her brother Shendor. They had been forced to fight each other for their siblings’ amusement, always mocked for being weak. But one day, Shendor had enough humiliation and set out north to seek power. Zeiena, tired of her own abuse, followed a darker path—killing and stealing until she seized an unclaimed god for herself. That power made her strong, and now she believes all she needs is to kill Diabo to take the ape throne and “fix” this rotten world.
Determined, she leaps down and orders the wounded Dwolf to fight. When it doesn’t respond, she raises her hand to strike it. Kai grabs her wrist, stopping her. He tells her the wolf hasn’t healed yet and she has no right to abuse it.
Zeiena glares and snaps back that she can do whatever she wants with her subordinates. Kai fires back that comrades aren’t disposable tools. She scoffs, calling him a lowly peasant by the way he wields his powers, even accusing him of stealing or killing to gain them. Kai denies it, but Zeiena smirks—insisting they’re the same kind of monster.
Zena sneers that both she and Kai are just weaklings fighting against this messed-up world, and someone like him isn’t fit to be the Arbitration God. While they’re busy arguing like an old married couple, Diabo swings in with its tendrils. Before they can even blink, the wolf chomps down and snaps them in half.
Everyone stares in shock. Poric quickly concludes that the wolf must have gained poison resistance from its new god—which, awkwardly enough, seems to be Kai. With that, Zena loses all control, her magic tool crumbles, and the wolf lunges at Diabo, tearing out a chunk of its neck like it’s lunchtime.
But of course, Diabo refuses to die. Instead, it powers up, cloaking itself in a towering storm of dark energy so huge it’s visible from Lag. Poric warns Kai that if they don’t stop it now, the entire continent will be swallowed by darkness.
Diabo attacks again, overwhelming the apes, but the wolf keeps shredding tendrils like noodles—until it finally gets caught midair. Zena, predictably reckless, charges at Diabo and nearly gets herself killed, but Kai saves her just in time. Then he goes for his sword… only to realize it’s missing. Bad timing, because the next moment Diabo eats him whole.
Poric is ready to dash in, but Ketch stops him, warning he’ll just get slurped up too. Torud completely loses hope, since no one’s ever survived being swallowed by Diabo. Meanwhile, Zena calls Kai an idiot for risking his life to save her. Diabo hears her yelling and decides she’s the next snack, but the wolf bravely yanks its tendrils to stall it.
Inside Diabo, Kai wakes up surrounded by pulsating walls of flesh. The whole place reeks of god stone, but he can’t even muster the strength to break free. Worse, the walls are draining his life force. As he weakens, he starts doubting himself, wondering if he was ever worthy of the Valley God’s power in the first place.
Kai passes out, and when he finally opens his eyes again, he finds himself lying in the middle of a mysterious forest. The Valley God appears before him, blunt as ever, telling him to “hurry up and kill Diabo already.”
Kai, who can barely lift a finger, thinks: “Yeah, sure, let me just go slay a world-ending monster while I can’t even stand up.” He’s convinced there’s no way out of here. But then, he spots a glowing figure in the distance. Surprise, surprise—it’s the Valley God, dramatically repeating the same line: “Kill Diabo.”
Kai, frustrated, asks why the Valley God chose him of all people as the successor, when he doesn’t even think he has what it takes to save the world. The Valley God simply tells him to stand up, overcome death itself, and “show the world his light.” (No pressure, right?)
To really hammer it in, the Valley God shows Kai a terrifying vision: the land consumed by Diabo’s corruption, spreading until even Elsa and the rest of Kai’s friends are swallowed up. Kai can’t bear it, so he desperately struggles to rise, fueled by the thought of saving them.
Meanwhile, back in Lag, dark clouds roll across the sky. Zeija (not “Vzin”) sees this and immediately knows it’s bad news. He tells everyone to grab their weapons—classic “don’t ask questions, just arm up” leadership.
Inside Diabo’s grotesque body, Kai realizes the monster is draining his life force through disgusting flesh walls. To counter it, he decides he needs some kind of shell. With grit (and a touch of anime protagonist stubbornness), he conjures up a magical armor around himself. With this new form, Kai rips through the flesh walls and bursts out of Diabo’s body—everyone watching is left completely dumbfounded.
Diabo tries to smack him down again with its tendrils, but Kai casually grabs them—without even looking—and tears them apart like overcooked noodles. He then whips out his sword and stabs Diabo in the tail. It hurts, but Diabo’s not going down that easy. Kai boldly declares: “Today’s your last day, Diabo!” Naturally, Diabo throws a tantrum and lunges at him.
Just then, the Dwolf (finally back in action) leaps in and knocks Diabo aside. Zena is stunned that the Dwolf would actually help Kai—it means even the god beast recognizes him as a worthy fighter. All the apes cheer for Kai’s strength, but Zena? Nope. She’s still salty, glaring at him like a jealous rival rooting for his downfall.
While she’s busy hating from the sidelines, Kai and the Dwolf team up for the finishing blow. Kai knows he must destroy Diabo’s god stone, but since the monster is basically a walking skyscraper of flesh, he has no clue where it is. His solution? Destroy everything.
The Dwolf clamps down on Diabo’s neck, holding it still. Kai leaps high into the air, his blade glowing with energy, and comes crashing down—slicing Diabo’s entire head clean off. Victory? Not so fast.
Unfortunately, the god stone isn’t in the head, so Diabo just starts regenerating like a bad horror movie villain. Kai realizes the god stone must be hidden in the main body. Diabo, realizing it can’t win, suddenly sprouts new legs and makes a run for it. (Yes, the giant nightmare beast is literally trying to flee.)
Kai, of course, refuses to let it escape and chases it down. But the bad news? The other half of Diabo is also alive and crawling back to reunite with the main body. The others step up to hold it off, while Kai pushes forward to end things once and for all.
The main body of Diabo charges toward the cave’s exit, but Kai yells at Zeiena to block its path—if it escapes, the whole land is doomed. Zeiena might be jealous of Kai, but she’s not stupid. She orders her men to raise their shields and hold the monster back at all costs.
Her soldiers manage to contain Diabo long enough for Kai to catch up. He leaps onto the beast and tries punching straight into its body to grab the god stone—but the thing is way too meaty, like punching a steak the size of a mountain. So, he just tears Diabo apart instead, finally exposing the god stone.
Of course, the stone isn’t going down easy—it shapeshifts one last time. The broken chunks of Diabo’s flesh start crawling back toward it like horror-movie leftovers trying to reassemble. Everyone scrambles to stop the meat parade. Meanwhile, Zeiena pins Diabo to the floor. She knows she’s not strong enough to pierce its body, and though she wanted the glory for herself, she swallows her pride and shouts at Kai to hurry up and finish it.
Kai wastes no time, jumping onto Diabo again to dig out the stone—only to realize it’s not there anymore. Just then, another mass of flesh forms behind Zeiena, and she has to retreat. Kai guesses this chunk is hiding the real god stone, and he’s right. Zeiena manages to stab it while it’s distracted, giving Kai the perfect opening. He slices it with his energy blade and pulls out the god stone. To make extra sure the monster won’t pull a comeback, Kechak steps in and cuts the stone in half. Game over—Diabo is finally done for.
…Or so they think. An eerie eye appears in the god stone fluid, and suddenly the body of Shendor emerges. The flesh vanishes as Shendor opens his eyes, totally confused. Spotting Zeiena, he asks what happened. She explains Diabo is gone, and Shendor is relieved, though he knows he’ll face consequences for being the cause of all this chaos.
Kai, finally finishing his mission, collapses from exhaustion—he spent way too much energy turning a demon into ground beef. Polek and Kechak rush over to check on him. Luckily, he’s fine… just really hungry. The man risked his life, and now all he wants is a snack. Fair enough.
Meanwhile, Zeiena helps Shendor up. He asks who the boy is, and she explains that Kai is the one who saved them all. Guilty but wiser, Shendor warns her not to let power go to her head—it’ll only drag her down a dark path. She understands; moments ago she was obsessed with glory, but now she realizes saving her people should always come first.
Later, Kai wakes up in Abridor’s house, surrounded by grateful faces. Thanks to him, the village is restored, and the apes are already partying outside. When he steps out, they cheer for him as their savior. And to top it off, they’ve even prepared a massive feast in his honor. After everything, at least the man gets a good meal.
When Kai sees the mountain of food laid out for him, he’s honestly impressed—it’s the largest meal anyone has ever prepared for him. Abridor proudly announces that it’s all for him, and he can dig in whenever he pleases. Naturally, after that epic fight, Kai attacks the feast like a man possessed—seriously, someone should’ve warned the food that it was about to be eaten.
The next morning, Kai prepares to return home. Abridor and the other apes bid him farewell, waving and cheering. Thanks to his heroics, Kai now has a friendship with over 10,000 apes in the village—basically, he’s got his own tiny ape army now.
As Kai and his group leave, he spots Zeiena standing nearby. Walking up to her, he asks what she wants. She admits that although this isn’t how she imagined things, the village is safe thanks to Kai. And, as the queen, she wants to thank him properly. Kai is slightly taken aback to hear Zeiena call herself the queen—but hey, if she’s inherited the ape people’s royal god, she’s officially royalty now.
However, Abridor and the other apes are not fully on board yet, so Zeiena mutters that she’ll have to make them acknowledge her “one way or another.” She then tells Kai that he can make one request. Naturally, he asks her to release Dwolf immediately. Zeiena informs him that Dwolf is already free—her inheritance of the royal god required undoing the contract, so Dwolf had returned to his mountain home a while ago.
Eventually, Kai returns to Lag, where Jose is in the middle of training. She’s relieved to see him back safely and asks how the mission went. Kai explains that there are no more apes in the area; they won’t be threatening the village anytime soon. He also thanks Jose for lending him her sword—it proved invaluable in the fight. Jose is happy she could help but notices something different about Kai. He seems to carry a lot more responsibility now, though he himself doesn’t feel much different.
Meanwhile, Jose has been holding Kai’s hand a little too long, which makes Kai slightly confused. Just then, Manso and the rest of Kai’s friends arrive, and Jose, flustered, scuttles away.
Vegin has been keeping a close eye on Kai and notes that he has matured considerably, though Bosco doesn’t seem to notice the change. Alue then steps out onto the terrace, and Vegin asks if he’s feeling better. Alue seems mostly recovered, though he still has a few lingering concerns.
First of all, they haven’t heard any news about Gandal or the girl he kidnapped. The scouts they sent out reported that he wasn’t seen in any of the nearby villages, which likely means he vanished while fleeing. Vegin doesn’t really seem to care much about what happened to Gandal, but the central plane is probably going to blame them for his disappearance. So, someone might need to politely ask the local count to intervene on their behalf—maybe with a cake or a strongly worded letter.
For now, the most important thing is that everyone in Lag is safe. A little while later, Kai returns to the valley. Elsa is still unconscious, so Alue has been taking care of her. Kai is obviously worried, pacing like a caffeinated squirrel, but Alue reassures him that Elsa has been getting stronger lately. She should make a full recovery soon—no need for dramatic fainting spells anymore.
