"For one to die… he must first live."
The words pass my lips in a whisper, barely audible over the silence of the chamber. I gaze beyond the arched window, its obsidian frame carved with ancient sigils now faded from time and war. The stars… how they shimmer tonight—like fractured souls straining to remember their light.
"Hendricks," I murmur, my voice hoarse and breathless, "open the window."
A pause, then quiet footsteps.
"My lord… I must ask you not to," Hendricks says gently, his voice like velvet draped over iron.
"Hendricks," I repeat, smiling faintly. "I am dying. It's fine."
He hesitates, then yields. The old servant unlatches the window, and a soft, mournful breeze drifts into the room, carrying with it the scent of dying flowers and distant storms. It wraps around me like a lover's final embrace, brushing past my withered skin.
"I shall bring some tea, Lord Ventale," Hendricks murmurs, already bowing.
How quaint. Tea. As if warmth could still fix what has already been drained from me.
"To think," I say, eyes fixed on the starlit horizon, "it has been five centuries since the Great War."
Silence answers me.
"The Demon King… wounded the Hero dead. And yet…"
My hand trembles as I press it to my chest. Each beat feels borrowed. My life force flickers—thinning, unraveling, scattering like ash.
"I shouldn't be standing," I whisper.
And yet, with strained effort, I rise from the silken bed that once bore my weight as a monarch, not as a dying relic. My legs falter but hold. The cool floor sends a jolt of clarity through my bones. I take one step… then another… until I stand before the open window.
"Sir—how are you stand—?"
"Hendricks."
He freezes. I turn to face him.
The candlelight catches on my features. One of my horns still juts proudly from my forehead, black and curling like obsidian flame. The other is jagged and broken, a remnant of the war. My crimson eyes flicker dimly, and the sharp ache in my serrated teeth reminds me I am still—if only for a moment—alive.
"Tell me… Have I truly been a villain?" I ask, quietly.
He looks at me, startled. "Lord Ventale, you… you had to fight. For the demons. As your father did. And his father before him. You were never—"
My knees buckle.
I collapse.
"Sir—! Ventale!"
I taste blood in my mouth.
"Farewell, Hendricks."
And then—darkness.
When a Demon King dies, he does not leave behind a body. No tomb to honor. No ashes to scatter. His life force unravels from the realm itself, as though he were never truly a part of it.
We vanish. Our essence ceases.
But this time…
"But… where am I?"
The darkness recedes. I'm floating—no… falling. There's no wind. No light. Just pressure. Silence. Then, a voice:
"Demon King Ventale."
A new voice joins it.
"We, as the Demon Council, have decided: the most powerful demon is to be reborn to once again destroy the Hero."
I feel my lips move.
"No… I have served my time as Demon King. I ruled my age. I died. That should have been—"
"This isn't a choice."
Their words cut through me like blades of law. I feel my essence being pulled—tugged like thread through a needle not of my choosing.
"You can't make—"
"Be gone, Ventale."
The void splits.
I gasp.
My eyes fly open.
I sit up—panting, confused. My chest heaves. I feel breath… real breath. I feel skin—not scaled, not clawed—but soft. Human.
I blink rapidly, trying to adjust.
Wait… this isn't my chamber. It's too… dull. The walls are white. The ceiling is stained with time, not magic. A cracked mirror leans against the wall. The scent is of dust and old iron.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed—wood, rough and plain. My hands tremble. They're too small. Too weak. Where are my talons?
What… what is this?
Then—
Pain.
An avalanche of memory floods into my mind, not mine—but his.
An orphan. Starving in the alleys. Beaten for bread. Learning to smile when hated. Crying alone in gutters. Faint memories of a school… magic academies… posters of heroes and monsters… a world filled with magic and monsters, but also… metal and glass? Buildings that scrape the skies. Vehicles that fly without wings. Machines that talk. The world is modern—but warped with arcane power.
It's wrong.
This isn't the Demon Realm.
There must have been… an error.
I rise, slowly. My body is aching, fragile. But the soul within… that is still mine.
"…I took over a human."
I glance into the cracked mirror. A pale boy with silver eyes stares back. No horns. No fangs. No scars.
"But this human… he has no mana," I whisper.
Nothing. Not even a drop.
No potential.
No reservoir.
A flaw. A joke.
But I straighten my back.
"No matter," I murmur.
There is always a way. Magic can be made, stolen, shaped. And if I, Ventale, once reigned over hell's throne with a shattered horn and burning blood, then this… this human shell will be enough.
For now.