Every True Slayer is defined by one distinct emotion: rage.
The motherless barely know love. They are not raised with tenderness or patience. They are raised with anger—fed on it, sharpened by it, molded by it until rage becomes their compass, their shield, and their blade.
Oma screamed his declaration as if it were my death sentence.
"Zefar! Your end has arrived.
Today, you die!"
The words echoed through the hall, bouncing off stone and steel, carried by every breath of every witness present. He meant every syllable. There was no doubt in his voice, no hesitation in his stance. Only fire.
I had tested the waters with this child.
I had given him loving friends.
A warm welcome.
A place to stay.
I had even allowed my beloved daughter to catch his attention.
This approach had worked on every True Slayer I had ever adopted. Rage softened when surrounded by warmth. Hatred dulled when faced with laughter. Even the most violent souls eventually sought belonging.
Oma, however, did not want to be adopted.
He had not come to Babel seeking family.
He had come with one mission only: to kill the King of Slayers.
I could see it in his eyes—the same rage he had carried in the jungle of monsters, burning just as fiercely now as it had then. Babel had not tamed him. Time had not cooled him. My absence had only sharpened his intent.
He stood before me like an executioner pretending to be a child.
I broke the silence first.
"Will you kill me with your bare hands," I asked calmly, "or did you bring a weapon?"
Oma reached into his cloak and pulled out his dagger.
It was the same blade he had wielded when we first met—back in his tree house, beneath the canopy of predators and shadows. The sight of it stirred something uncomfortable in me. Déjà vu. Nostalgia. Danger.
As poetic as it all felt, I was unarmed.
That was when Hunter entered the hall, accompanied by another Summoned. Their footsteps were cautious. Their tension was palpable.
I spoke without turning.
"Hunter," I commanded, "hand me your sword."
Then I added, without pause, "And give the boy another dagger. He will need it."
Hunter hesitated for a fraction of a second—long enough to understand the weight of what I was asking—then obeyed.
The sword was thrown to me.
The moment Oma caught the second dagger, he lunged.
No warning. No breath. No restraint.
He came at me with terrifying speed.
I blocked his first strike flawlessly. The second followed instantly, both daggers flashing like fangs. Steel met steel, sparks bursting between us as I twisted my blade and forced him back.
This was not a fight he could win.
But who was I to tell him that?
I could smell the venom on his original dagger. It clung to the metal like rot—sharp, bitter, designed to cripple rather than kill.
What a cheat.
I almost laughed.
As if poison had ever stopped me.
I had proven beyond all doubt that I could walk off venom, curses, and plagues alike. Still, I found it amusing that he had bothered. Perhaps it comforted him. Perhaps he needed every advantage he could grasp.
The duel continued.
Steel clashed against steel, the sound ringing like bells of war. Neither of us had drawn first blood, though it was obvious I was holding back. I had no intention of killing Oma.
But I did intend to teach him something.
Every lunge he made reminded me of a death I had already lived.
He swung low, aiming for my legs.
I blocked easily—but the motion dragged a memory from the depths of my mind. A battlefield long forgotten. My legs severed at the knee. Crawling through mud and blood. Bleeding out slowly as the sky dimmed.
Never again.
He attacked high, blades flashing dangerously close to my throat.
This time, the memory hit harder.
Four hundred and fifty times.
That was how many times my throat had been slit across centuries of war. The choking. The burning. The helpless gasping for air as life drained away. Deaths so cruel they should have broken me.
Perhaps they did.
Perhaps that was why I stood here now.
Oma leapt at me next, dropping to all fours like a feral beast. His daggers became claws as he launched himself toward my chest, aiming straight for my heart.
Another memory.
Another life.
Being stabbed through the heart again and again, pinned to the ground, watching the sky blur as blood filled my lungs.
Enough games.
I struck.
With a single powerful motion, I knocked both daggers from his hands. The force nearly shattered his wrists. He cried out—but only for a heartbeat.
My blade reached his neck.
I stopped it there.
I dropped my sword deliberately and turned my back on him.
A mistake.
Oma leapt onto me, wrapping his arms around my throat, locking them tight.
Strangulation.
The most hated death of them all.
It had happened when I was still a young warrior king. Weak. Unprepared. Overconfident. It had been slow. Painful. Intimate. I had felt every second of it as the world faded and panic consumed me.
The memory slammed into me like a train.
My thoughts spiraled.
Instinct took over.
I grabbed Oma, ripped him off my back, and slammed him into a table with enough force to shatter it completely.
The wood exploded.
Oma went limp.
Silence fell over the hall.
He blacked out instantly.
I stood there, breathing heavily, staring down at the child I had sworn not to harm.
I never meant to hurt him.
But a thousand years of dying had made me careful.
Too careful.
Too brutal.
Too deadly.
I was no longer capable of responding gently to the same attacks that had ended my life countless times before.
And that terrified me more than the duel ever could.
I wasn't nicknamed the Devil because I was evil.
No!
I was called that because I went through hell to turn Babel into a paradise on Earth. Oma would need no more than anger to surpass that and I knew exactly who could teach him.
I turned to Hunter.
"Listen up Hunter, when Oma wakes up you will be responsible for him. From today onwards, you will be his mentor."
Hunter looked terrified like a dead man being told to work with an undertaker and I loved the chaotic spiral it put him in.