Reborn as the Demon King's Weakest Son
Chapter 2: The Abyss Within
The power was real. But it wasn't mine. Not entirely.
The black flames still clung to my body like a second skin, hissing and whispering as if they had a will of their own. My breath came in ragged gulps, and I could feel it—raw energy flooding into the cracks of my broken mana core, reforging something that had never existed before.
But this wasn't natural.
It wasn't demon magic.
It was something older. Wilder.
And it terrified me.
Valac groaned, half-buried in the shattered wall. His armor, once unblemished obsidian, had melted across one side. For the first time since my rebirth, I saw something new in his eyes—
Fear.
The crowd of nobles who had once sneered at me now watched in silence, their expressions unreadable. Whispers swept the fortress like wildfire.
"A cursed flame…"
"Forbidden magic…"
"That boy—what has he become?"
Before anyone could speak, the Demon King appeared. One moment the air was empty, the next he was there, descending like the embodiment of wrath and judgment.
Everyone knelt—except me.
His gaze locked onto mine. Burning. Testing.
"You've awakened something dangerous," he said. "Speak. What did you touch?"
My lips were dry. My heart hammered.
"I… heard a voice."
His eyes narrowed. "And what did the voice offer?"
I hesitated. Then:
"Power."
The throne room went cold. Not from magic, but silence. The kind of silence that came before a storm that could drown the world.
The Demon King didn't blink.
"Then you have opened the first gate."
---
The First Gate
That night, I was dragged in chains to the Chamber of Brands, an ancient hall beneath the fortress where traitors, heretics, and monsters were judged.
The floor was carved with glowing runes. The walls were etched with old warnings, in languages no longer spoken.
The Demon King stood alone in the center, waiting.
I was forced to my knees.
"You summoned something," he said. "Something not born of demon, human, or beast. It answered your broken core."
"Because I was weak," I whispered.
"No." His voice rumbled like thunder. "Because your soul was hollow."
He raised a clawed hand—and a flame unlike any other ignited in his palm.
"Do you know what this is?"
I shook my head.
"This is Abyssfire. It is the essence of the void that lies beyond death. It consumes what it touches. You have a shard of it inside you now."
He knelt beside me. His voice dropped to a whisper.
"And if you cannot control it, it will devour you."
---
The Chains of Self
For days, I was locked in the Pit of Whispers, where no light shone, and voices clawed at the walls of my sanity.
I saw things that weren't real—my old life flashing before me, then shattering.
I heard the creature again.
"You let me in. But to master me, you must break your chains."
"What chains?"
"Your fear. Your doubt. Your past. Tear them away—or I will."
I screamed as the black fire surged from within, warping my flesh, burning me from the inside.
And then I saw it—floating before me in the dark.
A door. Or perhaps a gate.
Tall. Twisted. Sealed with symbols older than magic.
It pulsed with the same energy now sleeping in my core.
The Abyss Within.
I reached out.
---
The Awakening
When I emerged from the pit, I was no longer the same.
My eyes burned with traces of black fire. My mana, once fractured and fragile, now spiraled in an unnatural pattern—chaotic yet alive.
The fortress fell into uneasy silence when I passed.
My siblings avoided me.
Valac refused to meet my gaze.
And the Demon King?
He summoned me to the war room.
"You are no longer weak," he said. "But you are not strong yet either. The power you carry is forbidden—banned from this realm since the Age of Flame."
I waited.
"You must master it," he said, "or die by it. So I will send you to the only place where your kind of power might be forged…"
He pointed toward the cursed mountains beyond the kingdom's edge.
"...the Ruins of Vel'Tharun. The resting place of the Forgotten Lords."
I swallowed.
I had heard the legends. None returned from Vel'Tharun.
But I bowed my head.
"I'll survive."
He studied me for a long moment.
"Don't survive, Kael. Conquer.