(This chapter takes place around the same time as Chapter 11)
The first king received the news at dawn.
The second received it before noon.
By sunset, every major kingdom on the continent had heard some variation of the same terrible report.
And not one of them liked it.
It began with the priests.
Not one priest.
Not one temple.
Not one faith.
All of them.
Across human kingdoms, elven domains, dwarven holds, and even smaller nations that most maps barely bothered to label, priests reported the same phenomenon.
Divine visions.
Not dreams.
Not revelations brought on by fasting.
Not misinterpreted signs in the stars.
Actual divine visions.
Their gods had shown them something.
And what they had shown was horrifying.
Cities burning.
Forests blackened.
Mountains shattered.
Armies broken.
Kingdoms reduced to ruins.
The details varied.
One god showed a shadow moving across the world like a plague.
Another showed a beast with a thousand forms.
Another showed a monster whose flesh shifted constantly, impossible to identify.
Some showed a dragon.
Some showed a demon.
One particularly dramatic god showed what appeared to be a giant eye staring down at the world from the heavens.
The exact imagery changed.
The message did not.
An unknown being would one day bring destruction.
An unknown being would one day bring ruin.
An unknown being would one day bring agony.
In short—
It was the most generic Demon Lord prophecy imaginable.
The problem was that nobody dared laugh at it.
Not when every god was saying essentially the same thing.
Not when a mountain had exploded a few days earlier.
Not when a second sun had appeared in the sky.
Not when magical researchers were already reporting evidence that the phenomenon had been caused by a single individual.
Kings took it very seriously.
Perhaps too seriously.
Emergency councils convened.
Treasuries opened.
Old treaties were reviewed.
Military stockpiles were counted.
Knights received new orders.
Squires doubled their training schedules.
Mages were granted unrestricted funding.
Adventurer Guilds found themselves suddenly overwhelmed with requests.
Information.
Reconnaissance.
Research.
Anything.
Everything.
No cost was considered too high.
The kings all reached the same conclusion.
Perhaps not together.
Perhaps not willingly.
But eventually.
If this being truly existed—
Then it had to be found.
Before it became strong enough to fulfill the prophecy.
Of course, there was another option.
The option many stories would immediately jump to.
The option of summoning heroes.
None of the kings wanted to do that.
Not a single one.
Contrary to what many stories would have people believe, hero summoning was not viewed as a miracle.
It was not viewed as a blessing.
It was not viewed as an easy solution.
It was viewed as a catastrophe.
A necessary catastrophe.
The absolute final option.
The thing you did only after every other plan had failed.
For the reader's understanding:
Hero summoning in this world was roughly comparable to launching nuclear weapons.
Except the nuclear weapons were alive.
They had personalities.
Opinions.
Goals.
Moral values.
And occasionally very strong objections to being used as political tools.
You could guide them.
You could advise them.
You could point them toward a target.
But control them?
Not really.
And as we all know—
Kings in fantasy settings do not like what they cannot control.
Heroes historically solved problems.
That much was true.
But they also created them.
Sometimes intentionally.
Sometimes accidentally.
Sometimes because they decided the king was the bigger problem.
History contained examples of heroes slaying demon kings.
It also contained examples of heroes overthrowing monarchies.
Destroying armies.
Starting religions.
Ending religions.
Rewriting entire political systems.
And occasionally disappearing into the wilderness because they simply didn't feel like participating anymore.
No ruler wanted to unleash that unless absolutely necessary.
So for now, the kingdoms chose caution.
Spies.
Researchers.
Scouts.
Adventurers.
Mages.
Priests.
Everyone was sent searching.
Searching for clues.
Searching for evidence.
Searching for the being the gods had warned them about.
What none of them realized was that the creature from their prophecies—
The destroyer.
The calamity.
The future Demon King.
Was currently spending most of his time experimenting with biology, creating fake monster corpses, and trying to decide whether bat wings or feathered wings were more aerodynamic.
And if Arthur Darwin had learned anything from his new life so far—
It was that reality had a strange sense of humor.