"Who are you?" the fairy asked with a trembling voice.
The silver light of the moon and stars bathed the castle ruins as everything unfolded.
Alexander's hair, once golden, now gleamed a ghostly white.
Alexander's black eyes settled on Sylvie with an icy coldness.
The fairy felt chills from that gesture alone. It was like seeing someone without a soul, hollow.
"Me? I don't really know. I've never been very clear on that," Alexander said as he looked at Sylvie with a hollow expression.
Those words struck hard in her chest. A sharp pain had invaded her.
Her fears had become reality. This really wasn't Alexander.
But how? Why?
"Alexander... I'm not joking, tell me, is it really you?" the fairy asked with fear in her voice.
Her words trembled as if she feared hearing the answer.
An answer she knew deep down.
"Isn't it obvious?" he responded coldly.
The world began to spin.
Sylvie felt her wings trembling. She could barely hold herself in the air.
Those words could only have been said by someone...
The demon king.
"M-monster, what have you done to Alex..." Sylvie said with a broken voice, fighting not to burst into tears.
There was still a chance to save Alexander. If this was some kind of mind control, she could save him.
"Me? I'd say I did him a favor," he responded with an almost robotic, slightly childish voice.
Sylvie clenched her fists tightly. The emerald light around her twinkled intensely.
Her fear had mixed with rage and indignation.
"Bastard! How dare you say that? You didn't do Alexander any favor! Because of you he was summoned here! Because of you he lost his companions! Because of you he suffered so much and now... you even steal his body," Sylvie exclaimed with fury and sadness as tears fell from her eyes.
Hearing those words, the demon king's expression changed. It was the first time those eyes showed emotion.
A frustration and rage that Sylvie couldn't understand.
"My fault? Are you sure you meant MY fault?" the demon in Alexander's body pronounced with a coldness charged with bitter contempt. "It's HIS fault I was locked in a castle my whole life. It's HIS fault I was condemned to lose my life from birth. I didn't lose any companions, because I never had friends. No one took my home from me, because I grew up in a cage shaped like a castle. I didn't have anything they gave him and yet he looked more depressed than me."
Those words hit Sylvie hard.
What was he talking about?
Why was he acting like this?
She had always been taught that demon kings are agents of chaos who only seek the world's destruction.
Repugnant beings that have no feelings or emotions.
"He lived adventures! He visited incredible places! He met wonderful friends! And yet he was miserable! He just wanted to return to his world!" the demon king exclaimed with frustration in his voice. "But me... I was born without form, without destiny, without even will."
He said with a sad, almost melancholic tone.
The boy sighed lazily. It was strange to feel those emotions.
Was Alexander's body influencing him?
Or was he just letting emotions escape that were struggling to come out?
After all, even before entering that body, he had been able to feel.
"It's not that they took everything from me, it's that I was born with nothing," the demon king continued. "And when I finally get something, a small speck of light, a purpose! They take it from me..."
Sylvie looked at the one who was once Alexander with sadness in her gaze.
"I-I..."
"What's wrong with me defending myself? What's wrong with me fighting for what I want? Isn't that what he did? Or did I not have the right? According to you, I should have let myself be killed without fighting, right?" he interrupted, as if genuinely seeking an answer.
The moonlight bathed the ruins of what was once an imposing castle, while black clouds began to approach.
No one could deny it. They were the ones who came to the castle to kill him, not him.
They were the ones who sought a fight. He did nothing but wait for their arrival.
He had simply been stronger, had survived and taken their lives, but it was within his full right to do so.
Everything fell silent until Sylvie decided to respond.
"Is he still there?" she asked with a cold voice, as if she didn't care about anything the demon king had just told her.
The latter couldn't help but feel some frustration at this, though he didn't expect to be heard by her either.
"No," he said with the same coldness she had given him.
He knew it very well.
In the last moment, when the Hammer of Dawn was about to impact him, he managed to stretch his hand toward Alexander.
In that moment of desperation, a brilliant idea had occurred to the demon king. He converted part of his body into a wave.
An immaterial wave that traveled at subrelativistic speeds until it reached Alexander's body.
He used the wound he had made with the laser as an entry point, and from there traveled until reaching his brain.
When the light of the Hammer of Dawn spread, he was safe inside the hero's skull.
His body was invulnerable to divine power, which made that the safest bunker in the world.
When the danger passed, the demon king decided to start eating the hero from within.
First he started with one synapse, then another, and began eagerly devouring Alexander's brain and replacing it with his own body.
In a moment, he had replaced his entire nervous system with his own body, as if he were a parasite taking over someone else's body.
After that, he fused his body with Alexander's tissues to make it completely his.
There was no resistance to it. He was able to easily devour that body, most likely because Alexander had lowered his guard.
"I see... you don't seem to be lying," Sylvie said with a cold voice.
The demon king looked at her attentively. What would she do now? Would she demand he return Alexander's body?
Whatever she did, he had no intention of letting her live either.
"I suppose you simply won... it's frustrating but there's nothing I can do," the fairy said with a defeated voice. "You win."
The demon king couldn't help but be surprised.
Was that all?