A boy stood before the throne room doors, a picture of brutal elegance. His curly black hair sat above a sharp skin fade. He wore wealth like a second skin: a black tunic alive with gold stitching, perfectly tailored pants, and leather shoes that gleamed. But the true focus was his hands, currently locked around the throat of a Kingsguard. The man gurgled, eyes bulging before rolling back, his body collapsing in a heap.
Flanking the boy were two silent guardians, their identities lost beneath the heavy, light-absorbing fabric of their cloaks.
"Prince Rega, this is a coup," one stated, their voice low and rough. "But you can't kill everyone. You'll need people to run things."
Rega's grip was already tightened on a second Kingsguard. He let out a short, sharp breath. "They're loyal to the death. They won't serve me."
"I'll serve! Please!" the Kingsguard choked out.
*Snap.*
The bodyguards sighed in unison, a soft rustle of dark cloth.
"Can't have traitors," Rega said, wiping his hands on his exquisite pants without a trace of remorse. "Njiru's corpses will take care of the rest of this trash. Let's go." He pushed the doors wide, stepping into the light of the throne room where the king was waiting.
King Rega was once a man of legend.
Born Rega Liptus the 3rd, the son of a scholar and a warrior-queen, he rose to the throne in a time of great upheaval. Famine, rebellion, and foreign invasion pressed in from all sides. But King Rega was brilliant, charismatic, and ruthlessly efficient. He pacified the southern tribes through diplomacy, shattered the eastern rebellion with unmatched brutality, and made an alliance with the mystics of the High North—those who whispered of forbidden magic buried beneath the ice.
But it was his obsession with immortality and control that broke the spine of his soul.
In secret, King Rega made a pact with the Night Below, a nameless abyss of demonic power that promised him eternal life, arcane might, and dominion over all. The cost? His humanity.
Over the years, Rega stopped aging. His eyes began to glow faintly crimson. His once-compassionate speeches became ruthless manifestos of strength, conquest, and "necessary blood." His enemies called him Rega the Crimson. His own people whispered other names: The Winged Tyrant. The Starving King. The Demon in Gold.
His wars multiplied. Whole provinces were drained to fund conquests in distant lands. The western provinces—once fertile—lay dying under the weight of taxes, conscription, and hoarded grain.
His wife, Queen Yelena, vanished. Some say she was exiled. Others say she tried to stop him—and was consumed in a fire of his making.
His only son, Prince Rega, was raised in shadow.
He was educated by the finest minds and tortured by his father's monsters. Taught statecraft by day and survival in the dungeons by night. Whispered to by the palace ghosts. Loved by none—except two: his guards, former assassins who defected to protect the boy for reasons unknown. They became his blades, his eyes, his family.
And now… his vengeance.
The throne room crackled with a palpable tension. Prince Rega stood before his father, King Rega, the ornate tapestries depicting royal victories seeming to mock the grim reality of the kingdom. Sunlight streamed through the towering stained-glass windows, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air, oblivious to the weight of the words about to be exchanged.
"Father," Rega began, his voice resonating with a steel that had been forged in the fires of his growing discontent, "your reign… it is bleeding this land dry. Unnecessary wars on every border, each one swallowing more lives and resources. The famine in the western provinces… your decrees have only exacerbated the suffering."
King Rega, a man whose once-regal bearing was now marred by a cruel arrogance, leaned back on his gilded throne, a dismissive smirk playing on his lips. "Sentimentality ill befits a prince, Rega. Wars forge strength. Famine… it culls the weak. These are the necessary burdens of a ruler."
Prince Rega's bodyguards watched the king with unwavering intensity, their hands never straying far from the hilts of the blades under their cloaks.
Rega's hands moved with a swiftness that belied his noble upbringing. From beneath his clothes, he produced two intricately crafted **handguns**, their barrels gleaming with an inner light. They were custom-made, a forbidden technology melded with ancient magic, loaded with bullets painstakingly infused with pure **Light essence**. The very air around them hummed with contained power.
The king's smirk widened into a booming laugh that echoed through the vast chamber. "Those toys? You think those trinkets can threaten me?" A visible ripple distorted the air around him, his features shifting, elongating, becoming sharp and monstrous. Leathery wings unfurled from his back, casting grotesque shadows on the marble floor. His eyes glowed with malevolent crimson light. King Rega was no mere man.
---
The moment King Rega's features twisted into a demonic visage, a roar tearing from his throat, the ornate throne room became a battleground. Guards, their faces masks of sheer terror, scattered like startled pigeons, tripping over their own feet in a desperate scramble for the relative safety of the shadowed corners.
The demon king, now a hulking brute with leathery wings that beat the air with a violent gust, lunged towards Rega, his clawed hand a blur of motion capable of tearing through steel. But Rega, his movements honed by years of clandestine training in the palace underbelly, reacted with surprising speed. He sidestepped the attack, the monstrous hand whistling past his ear, close enough for him to feel the heat radiating from its scaled surface. In the same fluid motion, he raised both custom handguns, the intricate carvings on their barrels glowing with contained light magic, and fired.
Twin bolts of pure, incandescent light erupted from the muzzles, streaking across the throne room like miniature suns. They slammed into the demon king's broad, scaled chest with a resounding impact that echoed through the chamber. The air crackled with the sharp scent of ozone and the sickly sweet stench of demonic ichor as the light seared through the thick hide, leaving glowing, smoking wounds that pulsed with raw energy. The king roared, a sound of pure agony and fury, the force of the blasts staggering his advance. He stumbled back a step, his crimson eyes blazing with hatred.
However, the damage, though significant, was fleeting. Even as the light continued to burn into his flesh, a visible shimmer rippled across the king's demonic form. The edges of the wounds began to twitch and writhe, the blackened flesh knitting back together with unnatural speed, the glowing edges fading as the regenerative power of his demonic essence took hold.
Enraged by the sting of the light, the king roared again, a sound that seemed to vibrate the very stones of the throne room. He swiped a massive, clawed hand, each talon the length of a dagger, in a wide arc aimed at Rega. Seeing the attack coming, Rega dove behind a thick marble pillar, the king's claws scraping against the stone with a shower of sparks, the impact leaving deep gouges in the once pristine surface.
Even as Rega sought cover, his two bodyguards, Zuri and Kenya, moved with the seamless precision of a well-oiled machine. Their blades, humming with their own inner power, flashed in the flickering torchlight. Zuri, swift and agile, darted in low, her curved blade aimed at the king's leg, forcing him to shift his weight. Kenya, her movements more grounded and powerful, met the king's next swipe head-on, her broadsword intercepting the monstrous claws with a resounding clang that jarred her entire arm. Sparks flew as enchanted steel met demonic bone. They danced around the enraged king, a whirlwind of flashing steel against his hulking form, their practiced coordination allowing them to anticipate his brutal attacks, deflecting blows that could shatter stone with surprising strength and precision. Their blades sang a deadly song, each parry and strike a testament to their unwavering loyalty and deadly skill.
During a brief lull in the chaotic dance of demon and warriors, Rega, his breath coming in ragged gasps, lowered his empty handguns. The king, his wounds already mostly healed, let out a chuckle. "Useless, little prince. Your flashy toys are but pinpricks. You cannot hope to harm me."
Rega's lips curved into a grim smile. "You're right, Father. These alone… they aren't enough." He nodded towards his bodyguards. "But I am not alone, and these aren't the only weapons armed with light."
As if on cue, Zuri and Kenya, with synchronized movements, shed the cloaks they had been wearing. In their hands, they each wielded a Gatling gun, crafted from a similar blend of forbidden technology and ancient light magic. The multiple barrels gleamed with the same potent energy as Rega's handguns.
The throne room filled with the deafening roar of the Gatling guns. A relentless barrage of light-infused bullets tore into the demon king. Scales shattered, demonic flesh shredded, and the air filled with the stench of burning corruption. The king roared in agony, his massive form staggered by the sheer volume of the assault. Healing magic, potent as it was, couldn't keep pace with the devastation.
Finally, with a shuddering groan, the demonic form flickered, collapsing inwards, reverting back to the human shape of King Rega, his face contorted in a mask of shock and pain. Before his eyes could fully focus, before he could utter a final curse or plea, Prince Rega raised one of his handguns, now reloaded, and fired a single, precise shot. The light bullet pierced the king's forehead, extinguishing the last vestiges of his life and the demonic power that had corrupted the throne. Silence descended upon the blood-soaked throne room, broken only by the lingering hum of spent light magic and the ragged breaths of the prince and his loyal guards.
Only one thought came to the prince as he looked over his father's corpse. "Hey you girls hungry? I am famished."