The uncertainty didn't last.
Jin watched it leave Mazoku's face. Watched it drain away like water into sand, and something else rise up to take its place. Something cold, and still, and very, very old.
The demon king straightened.
He looked down at the severed arm lying on the bones beside him. Then he lifted one foot and set it down on top of the arm, almost gently, and the arm dissolved. It melted into darkness, the way the torches had melted, and the darkness flowed across the bones and up Mazoku's leg and into the glowing wound at his shoulder.
The light in the wound flickered.
Then it went out.
