Location: Soul Mountain – Libeus

(Pov: Allen)

The wind outside howled, brushing against the jagged cliffs of Soul Mountain like a forgotten hymn. Deep beneath its ancient crust, buried in silence and stone, I sat alone in my private chamber with my puppet Master Aaron.

A flickering lantern danced across the cave's moss-covered walls. Books—hundreds of them—lined the jagged shelves, each filled with knowledge stolen or salvaged from worlds long forgotten. Runes glowed faintly under the pressure of enchantments woven during darker times. This chamber had taken me decades to construct. I had begun its creation during the first world war of the humans. While they waged chaos above, I was quietly preparing for my own rebirth below.

Now, everything depended on the boy.

Yuuta.

"It shouldn't take this long to awaken him," I muttered under my breath, my voice echoing off the cold stone.

He had to be one of them—a descendant of the Disaster Army. If he wasn't, if the bloodline wasn't true… then my plan, my sacrifice, all these years of waiting would mean nothing.

I closed my eyes, trying to center myself. I had calculated every detail. Prepared every ritual. Brewed every potion with my own blood and magic. Failure was not an option.

A sudden ripple in the air snapped me out of thought.

A voice, distorted yet familiar, echoed into the chamber like a ripple across still water.

"My Lord."

Xemon.

I lifted my hand, and the shadows responded instantly. Darkness coiled around me, drawing me into its embrace like an old friend. In the blink of an eye, I emerged in the Torture Chamber—a place hidden deeper still, where even screams forgot how to echo.

Xemon stood at the center of the room, his head bowed, his long robes trailing behind him like spilled ink, Armor worn.

"What happened?" I asked, my voice colder than the stone walls around us.

He hesitated. "The boy… he's slipping away. His body is cold. He won't last much longer."

A long silence fell between us. I clenched my fists, feeling the sharp sting of my nails digging into my palms.

I had worked so hard. Poured years into this. And still… he remained dormant. I gave him my own potion, brewed from forbidden knowledge—one meant to awaken the power sleeping inside him. Yet it had done nothing.

"Damn it," I hissed, pacing. "No… it can't end like this."

My mind raced.

There had to be a reason. A flaw I missed? A piece I overlooked?

And then… it struck me.

Her.

Could it be that the gift—the Silent Death Blessing—had passed not to him… but to his daughter?

I stopped moving. A slow smile curled at the corner of my lips.

"Yes…" I whispered. "That must be it. The blood didn't die with him—it moved on, that the reason her eye is red too."

A mad laugh built in my chest, one I didn't bother suppressing.

"AHAHAHA… So, hope still lingers after all. The will of Geta endures."

I turned to Xemon, eyes burning with new purpose.

"Kill the boy. We no longer need him. Take his eye—I want to examine something. In the meantime, I'll go fetch his daughter."

Xemon bowed low. "As you command, my Lord."

I turned away, already picturing the girl in my mind—the last piece of the puzzle. But as I approached the chamber's exit, a strange stillness filled the room.

A single word—barely more than a whisper—slid through the air like a blade of ice:

"STOP!…"

I froze.

That voice.

It wasn't Xemon. It wasn't an echo. It wasn't *human*.

No, this voice felt older than time. Empty, yet impossibly full. It wasn't loud. It didn't need to be.

Just hearing it made my knees tremble.

It was like standing before a god.

Slowly, I turned.

The chamber had darkened. Not from the absence of light—but from the presence of something else.

Eyes.

They appeared within the shadows. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Blood-red. Watching. Piercing. Judging.

Some glowed with rage. Others shimmered with pity.

But they were all fixed… on me.

And in that moment, for the first time in centuries—

I felt fear.

I couldn't move.

Not because I didn't want to—but because I couldn't.

My feet were rooted to the cold stone floor, my muscles locked as though shackled by some invisible force. I tried to breathe, but even that felt like a task too heavy. The air around me was dense—thick with a pressure that defied the laws of the realms. It wasn't magic. It wasn't fear. It was something deeper. Something older.

And in all my centuries of war, slaughter, and ascension… I had never felt anything like it.

I was a greater demon. Feared in two dimensions. My name alone had bent armies to their knees. But in this moment, I was just—still. Trapped. Helpless.

I couldn't even turn my head.

And behind me… something waited.

I didn't need to look to know. The presence was impossible to ignore. It pressed against my back like a wall of flame and shadow, dense and endless, and yet utterly silent. Every instinct I had—every twisted drop of demonic blood in my veins—told me the same thing:

Don't turn around.

Whatever it was, whatever force had entered this chamber… I was not its equal. I was not even close.

And then, without warning—

Xemon screamed.

It was a sound I had never heard from him before. Not rage, not agony, not the shrieking madness he wore like a second skin. No. This scream was something else entirely.

Terror.

It tore through the room like a physical thing, echoing off the chamber walls with such intensity that the stone itself seemed to tremble. My spine locked straight. My chest clenched.

A demon like Xemon did not scream like that unless his soul was being ripped apart.

Then the scream faltered—cracked—and ended abruptly. What followed was worse.

Wet, tearing sounds filled the silence. Bone snapping. Flesh being… unraveled.

And then his body hit the floor in front of me.

Or what was left of it.

He had no arms. No armor. His flesh was shredded and blackened, as though something had chewed through not just his body, but his very essence. The sight turned my stomach in ways I didn't think possible. He was one of my strongest Slave. Unkillable, or so I thought. E#n&joy the s%tor%y& by r&e@a$din$g on *+.

Now he was just meat.

I stared, paralyzed—not with fear, but with comprehension. I had no idea what had done this.

And then, just like that, the pressure disappeared.

The weight pressing on my shoulders vanished, as if the room had exhaled. The suffocating presence receded. The air became breathable again.

I staggered a step back, barely catching myself.

"I can move…" I muttered, breathless. The words felt foreign in my mouth—weak and quiet against the vast emptiness of the chamber.

I should have fled.

Every part of me screamed to turn and run. But something else—something bitter and stubborn—made me do the opposite.

I turned.

Slowly.

Carefully.

I expected to see her.

The Dragon Queen Erza. The matriarch of ancient blood. The one being I knew capable of wielding forces old enough to challenge the lesser gods themselves. If any being could summon such power… it had to be her.

But it wasn't.

At the center of the room, surrounded by flickering embers of dying light, stood someone else.

Someone I hadn't expected to ever see again standing Because he was Lifless but he have risen from death itself.

Yuuta.

He was alive. Or… something close to it.

His body had changed. Dark markings spidered across his skin, glowing faintly like cracks in the surface of something divine—and dangerous. His aura pulsed, jagged and unstable, but not weak. Far from it.

He was trembling.

But it wasn't fear.

It was power, trying to contain itself.

Our eyes met.

In that instant, the world felt unbearably still—like time itself had forgotten to move.

He stood there, trembling, with tears slipping down his cheeks. But they weren't ordinary tears. They sparkled—like stardust, like fragments of some forgotten heaven. His eyes, glowing with a fierce, unnatural crimson, burned straight into mine.

Then, he pointed.

A single finger. A small gesture.

But it struck like a thunderbolt.

"Did you do this... to my son?" He was crying.

"Son".???.

His voice didn't boom—it whispered, but somehow it carried further than any shout could. And the moment those words were spoken, everything changed.

Suddenly, every eye in the void turned toward me. Thousands—no, countless—gazes pierced through my flesh, my thoughts, my soul. I stood exposed under the weight of something beyond mortal comprehension.

I couldn't move. I couldn't even breathe.

I remembered something a earth scientist once said—how particles behave differently when observed. It sounded poetic back then. But now, I was the experiment. And under the pressure of those divine eyes, my body stopped listening to me. My blood surged like wildfire. My muscles twitched and clenched without rhythm. My legs trembled as if the ground beneath me had vanished.

The air itself grew heavy.

Then—it spoke again.

But the voice had changed. It no longer sounded like a man. Nor a woman. It was both. It was neither. It was... everything in between. Something broken, something ancient, something divine.

"It hurts me," the voice cracked, wavering like a frayed string, weeping. "It hurts so much."

Every word scraped against my ears, soft yet sharp, like silk laced with thorns.

"How could you do this to him? He was innocent... a foolish soul, yes—but kind. And you—you—you shattered him."

My knees buckled, but I didn't fall.

I couldn't.

Not because of strength—but because it wouldn't let me.

I was being held in place by will alone—not mine, but his.

Or hers.

Or theirs.

He asked once again "Did you do this to my Son." His voice was so Abosulte.

I can't even try to run away or use my Shadow walk.

Because , every single crimson eye that had once vanished… opened.

They blinked into existence around me—hundreds of them—burning with focused, blood-red light.

All of them were staring at me now.

Not just watching.

Judging.

And I understood.

If I lied…

If I said one wrong word…

I would not die as a demon.

Not as a warrior.

Not even as a creature of legend.

I would die as nothing.

Then, He took a step forward.

And then another.

Each one struck like a silent thunderclap—not loud, but felt—deep inside my chest. This wasn't walking. No… this was the march of a god. With every step, the air around him thickened, bending reality ever so slightly, as if the world itself was holding its breath in his presence.

My knees threatened to give out beneath me.

I couldn't tell if it was fear… or something deeper. Something older. As if my very soul was pleading—begging—for me to kneel.

He stopped.

Right in front of me.

His hand rose. Slowly. Deliberately.

I didn't flinch. I couldn't.

It wasn't courage—it was paralysis wrapped in reverence.

When his palm touched my face, it wasn't rough or violent. It was warm. Heavy. Final.

And then he said it.

"You are… Veronica's Son."

In that moment, my world shattered.

Veronica.

That name. Her name.

My mother.

A name I had buried long ago, in a corner of my mind I never allowed myself to visit. She was former Demon Lord wife. Forgotten by history. She died in silent War, swallowed by time. No one—not even my most trusted—knew of her existence.

I had never spoken her name aloud.

Not to anyone.

Not even to myself.

Yet, here he was.

Speaking it like an undeniable truth.

My throat closed up. I wanted to respond. To demand how—why—but my voice was gone, drowned by the weight of his words.

His gaze softened, and his next words carried a strange, suffocating kindness.

"For your Mother's sake, I won't kill you."

"What? For my mother sake."

Then the warmth in his voice disappeared.

"But… you will serve My son. For all eternity.

Just as your mother served me."

The air shifted.

And then, the eyes appeared.

They didn't belong to him.

They didn't belong to me.

They weren't of this world.

Countless, watching, unblinking eyes floated in the space around us—hovering silently in the void between breaths. They had no faces. No forms. But their gaze wrapped around my being like shackles I could not break.

And then—they wept.

Not water.

But blood.

Thick, slow streams of crimson tears slid down invisible cheeks. Yet their faces remained hidden. Only their sorrow reached me.

I couldn't tell if they mourned me.

Or welcomed me.

Their tears—were they for grief? Or for relief?

And then came the command.

It didn't need to be spoken aloud.

It was engraved into the bones of existence itself.

"You, son of Veronica…

Kill all the demons who stand in this place to show me Loyalty."

I couldn't resist.

I didn't want to.

My legs moved before my mind could form a thought.

I fell to my knees, forehead pressing against the cold, blood-soaked stone.

"As you say…

My Eternal Master."

The words left me, trembling yet absolute.

I wasn't sure what I was anymore.

A man?

A servant?

A relic tied to a bloodline I never understood?

But one truth remained:

"My Master's will… is my will."

And just like that—

It ended.

The divine eyes vanished.

The crushing weight dissolved, evaporating like mist under the morning sun.

The torture chamber returned to its cruel normalcy—dark, cold, suffocating.

But nothing was the same.

I was no longer the man who had stood here moments ago.

The whole time I was on my knee.

I could still feel him—the echo of that presence—inside me, like a quiet storm waiting to awaken.

Yet, the one thing I couldn't bring myself to do—

Was look at Yuuta.

Not out of shame.

Not out of guilt.

But out of fear.

I remained on my knees, my forehead pressed to the cold ground, as if bowing could somehow protect me from whatever divine storm had just passed through.

But then—

Footsteps.

Not his.

Not mine.

I recognized them at once.

"My generals..." I whispered.

The four of them. Creations born of my own magic and will, forged during my long war—eight hundred years of struggle against the Lebius Agency. They were my finest weapons, my shadows of destruction.

"What was the sound."

"Lord Allen?" one of them called out. His voice was casual, almost amused. "Why are you kneeling like that?"

Another scoffed. "Is this... some kind of prayer ritual? Seriously?"

"Stop joking," the third laughed. "We're demons. What god listens to the prayers of demons?"

Their voices grated against my ears. The ignorance, the arrogance—it was unbearable. I wanted to scream at them to leave, to run. But I was too slow. Too shaken.

Then the fourth one noticed.

"Wait… What's with this human lying here?"

Yuuta.

Still unconscious. Still motionless.

His body rested exactly where he had collapsed. He looked small. Harmless. Weak.

But I knew the truth now.

One of them stepped closer, eyes narrowing with mild curiosity.

He reached out, bending down toward Yuuta's body.

"No—don't touch him!" I finally said, my voice cracking, trembling as it escaped my throat.

But they didn't listen.

They didn't understand.

They hadn't seen what I saw.

"Come on, Lord Allen," one of them scoffed. "You're not seriously scared of this thing, are you? He's lifeless. Looks like an insect."

And then—

He kicked Yuuta's face.

Casually. Without thought. Like swatting a fly.

"No!" I shouted, louder this time. "Stop! Don't—!"

But my voice was drowned by their laughter.

Like idiots, they circled him. One after another, they began to push him, kick him, mock him. Like he was nothing. Like he hadn't just become a divine vessel moments ago.

I stayed kneeling. Watching. Frozen.

Was it all in my head?

Did I imagine it?

That presence. That voice. The judgment. The eyes. The blood tears.

Was I going mad?

Or were they simply too blind to see what I had seen?

Luo Kun one of my five general stepped forward, her silver hair swaying behind her armored shoulders as she approached me with concern.

"Lord Allen…" Her voice trembled, trying to mask the unease. "Why are you still kneeling?"

She reached out, gently lifting my shoulder as if trying to pull me out of shame.

But before I could even lift my gaze—

Thud.

Her head fell.

Right before me, face still frozen in confusion. Her lifeless eyes met mine. She didn't even have time to realize what happened.

Her body still stood upright, arm outstretched, her posture still trying to help me—

Yet her head was on the ground.

I stared at my own left hand.

It wasn't a hand anymore.

Long, blackened claws extended from my fingers—curved, razor-sharp like obsidian blades. My wrist dripped warm blood, not from my own veins… but hers.

I hadn't moved.

I hadn't thought.

I hadn't even blinked.

But I killed her.

"Why...?" I whispered, my voice breaking.

Luo Kun.

My most loyal general.

Created by me, molded through blood and war over centuries. She followed me into death more than once. Never doubted me.

So why…?

Then it struck me.

Like a whisper buried in my skull.

"You, son of Veronica…

Kill all the demons who stand in this place to show me Loyalty."

Yuuta's words.

No—his command.

My body had moved on its own. As if his will overrode my own. My hand—no, my claw—acted before I could even question it.

I wasn't in control.

What are you Yuuta Konuari.

To be continue...