I was once a king. I remember the blood on my hands. My kingdom wasn't given to me; it was built brick-by-brick step by step and built it on the backs of my enemies, with the thunder of a thousand wars as my anthem. I remember the smoke, the screams, the silence.
Then came the darkness, a blank state... there was nothing.
Only this slow, painful breath, this unfamiliar skin, and the ghost of a crown that still burned on my brow. Soon, even that turned to dust.
_____________
-Waaaaaaaaaah!
"Aghhh." Screams erupted around him, some monstrous, others somewhat human. He clutched his head as a gray ash, like dust, fell from his brow.
'Where did it come from?' There was no answer, only a crushing, unforgettable headache that throbbed in time with his trembling body. Fissure-like cracks formed on his face, spreading slowly down to his neck.
'It is not time to stop,' a faint, urgent voice echoed in his mind, fading as quickly as it came.
'Where am I?' he wondered, almost asking the voice in his head. But there was no reply, only that persistent, nagging sense of urgency.
"Äggghhh," he gasped as a fire ignited in his veins, immediately clashing with an encroaching, deathly cold. The two sensations—one foreign, one strangely familiar—warred within him, both agonizing. A muffled sound escaped his lips: "Something's burning."
'What's happening?' He couldn't grasp the situation, yet the urgency he'd felt before returned with a vengeance.
Forcing his eyes open, he took in his surroundings. He was in what looked like a ransacked storeroom or a wizard's workshop. Wooden cabinets were overturned, their contents strewn across the floor.
"Is this storage?" He wondered. "And, Is this magic formation?" He doesn't know, but it looks like it. Clutched in his hand was a leather-bound catalogue filled with intricate diagrams and symbols he somehow recognized as magical formations.
"It hurts," A sharp sting on his cheek made him touch his face.
The moment he did, he felt a sticky sensation, not just on his face but all over his body. His fingers came away slick and crimson.
A quick glance down revealed his body was drenched in it. Blood. Yes, it was blood. His own blood.
'I should hurry,' he thought, ignoring the pain. A feeling, a premonition, told him something was about to happen. He looked down at his hands, at the catalog. 'Can I store it?' The question formed in his mind.
"Ahhh?" In the next second, the catalog vanished from his hands.
"Where did it go?" he asked, his voice sounding strangely young.
But now was not the time to dwell on that. The sense of urgency was back.
The moment he willed the catalog to return, it reappeared. This ability felt familiar, yet unfamiliar. His gaze swept through the floors and other items that were stored. Mainly looking like magic items: magic staves, weapons, hundreds of potion bottles, scattered scrolls, and ancient-looking books.
Before he could even think about storing the items one by one, a thought—a will—took hold. His shadow flickered, then expanded in all directions, swallowing everything in the room within seconds.
A blue screen appeared beside him.
___________________
{Item Box}
[Demonic Magic Scroll: Inferno]
[Demonic Magic Scroll: Glacial Strike]
[Demonic Magic Scroll: Blizzard]
[Demonic Magic Scroll: Blazing Storm]
[Demonic Magic Scroll: Charm]
[Demonic Magic Scroll: Delusion]
[Demonic Magic Scroll: Illusion]
[Magic Potion]...
___________________
So on., This ability was foreign, yet so convenient.
"Status Screen?" He muttered these words for some reason, and another line of text materialized.
________________
[Status]
Name: Valier Junior
Age: 20
Stats:
Strength 3.4 (F) → 8.4(D+)
Agility 4.3 (F+) → 9.3(C-)
Dexterity 5.2 (D-) → 10.2(C)
Magic 9.9 (C-) → 19.9(B+)
Stamina 5.7(D-) → 10.7(C+)
Error: Error
Race: Archdemon(?)
Talents:
[Hand-To-Hand Combatant Rank F]
[Swordsmanship Rank F]
[Error]
Unique Traits:
{Adaptation}
{Error}
Traits:
[Cold hearted]
[Intuition]
[Error]
Acquired Abilities:
[Demon Control Rank A]
[Item Box Rank Ex]
[Insight Rank A]
Combat Level Assessment: D+
________________
'Intuition… is it?' He walked in a direction he didn't know but felt was right. Beside the storeroom, there was an [Armory], and along the way, he saw signs with foreign writing he could somehow understand, one of which read [The Alchemy Lab.]
Perhaps it was war. Or this war was nearing its end. That would explain why there wasn't much equipment left.
He took whatever he could, storing the useful items with his shadow ability. As he ran, he saw many corpses—both human and demon. He didn't have time to linger, so he simply absorbed their items with that same shadow-like power.
"This is the Demon King's castle?" he knew for sure. And he felt a strange sense of danger due to his race, yet at the same time, he felt safe, as if nothing could touch him. All he could do was continue in that unknown direction, heading underground.
'The Demon King and the Hero—both parties will fall,' a certainty filled his mind, along with the victory of humanity. And with him being an Archdemon, his execution was certain.
'It feels like before losing my memories, I was trying to escape.' He tried to recall scenes, names—anything related to him—but all he felt was a greater headache and more fragmentation of whatever memories he had had.
Whatever was happening, he felt like he was losing himself. The fragments of memories were similar to the current situation: an escape and a war.
_________
He descended into the darkness, a place that reeked of damp earth and decay. There, at the bottom of the long, winding staircase, he found it: a sprawling, enormous [Prison].
"An [Prison]?"
The huge confinement facility was a prison. Someone had died just outside an open cell door, a corpse frozen in a final, desperate attempt at freedom.
And this scent?... What he'd seen up until now were the corpses of demons that got attacked by the humans that infiltrated the castle, then what was found here were….
All corpses of human prisoners. There were no guards, only the grotesque remains of a slaughter. It was as if they had been executed before the demons abandoned the castle for the battlefield.
'From the corpses, and the blood, barely 24 hours have passed,' he noted, his indifference a chilling contrast to the horrific scene. 'Some of the wounds look even fresher, just two or three hours old.' Some corpses or what remains they had as most of them were horribly torn to shreds. 'A disastrous sight. He could guess what they were subjected to. Some corpses looked old, the wounds were… From humans. Rather Cannibals.
He wandered through the cells, a war-torn spectacle that was uncommon but not unheard of. The death was probably from both starving Humans and slaughter from Demons alike. The prison, once overflowing with people, now housed nothing but a sea of the dead. Some had starved, their bodies emaciated husks, while others had fought and feasted on their own kin.
And then... a sound.
'A Survivor.'
-Sob. Sob, sob….
He could hear someone crying somewhere.
There were survivors.
Someone was still alive here. 'Spared Alive?' He moved towards that place. He drew a sword into his bloodied hand, the new clothes he had found already stained with crimson. He followed the faint, fragmented cry, a sound like a small, terrified animal.
– Urg…. Sob. sob....
It was a very quiet, powerless, fragmented cry, like the cry of a small animal.
He passed more gruesome sights, the macabre displays in the cells doing little to stir his emotions.
"Sob…. uuh…. hnng…."
Soon, he saw her. A little girl, her voice cracked from crying, hugging a human-shaped mass of flesh and bone.
'A mother and her child?' The sword in his hands disappeared, to avoid startling/scare the child. He could already guess what kind of situation this was.
There was also a mass of bodies and flesh scattered about.
Judging by the remains, there seemed to have been five of them there. The crying girl was not included. She was crying while hugging a corpse with an uncertain form, but that corpse has few similarities with that young child, she had blonde hair and golden eyes. She was very skinny, fully covered in rags and blood. She didn't react even with the sounds of his footsteps as if she didn't even realize he was in front of her.
he couldn't fully discern how that corpse died or how this child survived.
However, the only thing he could tell was that this corpse the girl was holding was probably someone precious to her.
Only when he knocked against the bars of the cage did the girl lift her head. Her body flinched at the sight of him—a man drenched in blood, beads of it dripping onto the already stained floor.
".…Urg, sob! Don't!"
The girl looked at him, got startled and pulled back. Hearing her words, he stopped getting closer. There was an expression of fear and relief seeing him stop on her face.
"H, huh! Wh, wh... Who. Who, how..."
The girl was mumbling gibberish as if she lost all her reason.
"Don't worry," he said, his voice a low rumble. "I'm just a survivor, like you."
Her eyes, full of fear and sadness, stared at him, at his horrifying condition. She seemed to think of something as she looked at him, a person in worse condition than her. He seemed to have endured brutal torture; his skin was falling off, revealing the raw flesh beneath..
The girl looked into his cold eyes, seeming to get used to whatever the hell he went through, his bloodied arms and legs.
"Ahh…" She was terrified, yet also confused and grief-stricken by his appearance. Relief that someone was alive battled with the fear that he might die soon. She nodded slowly, then frantically looked around, her gaze falling on her tattered rags. She tried to tear a piece.
"It's okay, these will heal." Seeing what that little girl wanted to do, he stopped her.
She was shaking, filled with worry, but it felt like she had chosen to believe him. As if she had no other choice but to trust him, when she suddenly encountered me in this incomprehensible environment.
'I don't know what to do now.' he looked at the locked cell in which that little girl was in. For now, he decided to ask her around or wait with her. He looked out for the Prison key that soon was present at the corner to the other end of the prison. There were a lot of things he didn't know or rather anything about him.
He didn't know which one the right key was, so he took all the key rings he could find in the warden's office at the end of the prison cells. While he was trying every key, the girl kept on crying, looking at the keys in blood.
She was just crying with a little faint hope. There was someone with her now.
"The battle is still going on."
The shouts of the humans could be heard and they seemed to be winning. He couldn't tell in detail, but somehow he knows everything's going to be fine.
"We'll be fine."
Inevitably, this war had already been won by the humans. At his calm words, the girl continued to weep and nodded her head. Finding the right key took a lot of time, but the end he found the right key.
"It might be dangerous outside, but... let's open it for now. Don't leave the cell yet." He looked around for a corner that was somewhat cleaner than the rest and sat down.
"Ye-yes..." The girl's voice was shaking violently. It seemed that meeting another living human had made her lose control of her emotions.
'The pain is getting worse, I don't know how long I will be conscious.' Even sitting in the corner hurts, he already has lost a lot of blood on the way. He looked again at the girl, her body trembling.
"Calm down…. We'll live. You'll be able to live." His voice sounded hoarse and in pain, finding difficulty to speak that's why he didn't speak more words.
That girl looked malnutritioned. Just looking at her one could tell that she was seriously skinny. She must be extremely hungry. He fumbled in his rags and soon pulled out from there.
"Come here… I found this." he found it difficult to speak but he waved towards the girl with his bloodied hands in which that thing he took out.
It was a biscuit. That was present in his old pant's pocket.
"You must… be hungry, so eat this." His body felt weak, and the pounding headache made it difficult to think.
The girl suddenly saw a palm-sized biscuit in her hand, which made her open her eyes wide. Sadness and depression were still there, but they were now mixed with a ravenous hunger. She stared at him, at the whole biscuit, as he rested his back against the wall.
"Y, y... You?"
"I'm tired and going to sleep. You should eat." His voice was weak, but he urged her to satiate her hunger.
The girl was silently staring, as if she was trying to decide if it was fine for her to eat it or not. By then his eyes were already closed, resting peacefully he condition made him look like he may die sooner than later.
-Crunch!
Along with that sound, he felt a skinny yet warm hand in his. When he opened his eyes, something was pushed against his mouth.
"Y-you, too... You eat, too." Her eyes showed fear and worry, afraid that if he slept, he would die.
The girl wept, didn't have any words to say, so she offered him half of the biscuit. How much determination did it take her to cut it and give him half of it?
He ate a small piece and gave the rest back to her.
"I won't die, don't worry." He tried to give her a reassuring look. However now it was impossible as he lost his consciousness. He felt small tugs on his clothes but the sensation was fading.