---
After the gate was closed and the damage to Grey Forge City was hastily repaired, Leo descended into the dungeon hidden beneath the city's foundations. Only a few knew this place existed—as it was never intended to be used when the whole race was facing the crisis of extinction. He moved silently beside Arnold, whose single eye reflected the faint torchlight like a weathered sentinel.
The air grew colder the deeper they walked. The runes on the walls glowing in a faint light , but today, the dungeon housed something different—something far worse than any normal criminal.
Two grey-armored figures knelt in the gloom, heavy chains anchoring them to the obsidian floor. What once were samurai now bore corrupted forms. Jagged steel horns protruded from their foreheads, their right arms had fused into twisted, living katanas—bloody, pulsing blades that still seemed to breathe. Their armor had sunk into their flesh, becoming part of their skin. No longer men, but not quite monsters either.
Demon Samurai.
They had not fallen in battle, nor died with honor. These were the ones captured alive during the abyssal siege—barely, and at great cost. One had escaped. Only two were taken.
Leo stepped forward, his expression unreadable. His aura pulsed faintly, the pressure of it enough to silence even the groans of the dungeon.
"Why?" he asked at last. One word. The only word that mattered.
One of the demon samurai looked up. Despite the monstrous horns and fused blade, his eyes held clarity. Not madness. Not rage. But something far more unsettling—calm acceptance.
"You don't understand," the demon said.
"Then make me," Leo replied, voice low and firm.
Arnold stood beside him like a shadow, watching. The scar across his face twitched slightly, as if something about this moment tugged at old memories.
"The Abyss," the demon said, "is too powerful. It is chaos beyond chaos, evil beyond morality. We cannot contend with it."
"You are afraid," Leo said coldly.
"No, Your Excellency," the other demon replied, "we are charmed. By eternal life. Even the weakest demon does not age. By strength without talent, by freedom from honor or shame."
Leo's gaze sharpened.
"You are bewitched."
"A warrior's heart cannot be bewitched," the first demon said, almost gently. "This was our choice. You don't understand."
"I do," Arnold said.
Leo turned to him sharply. Even the demon samurai looked surprised.
Arnold's face did not flinch under the weight of Leo's stare. "I serve the Pale Watcher," he said simply.
"You what?" Leo said, voice growing cold and sharp. "You follow a god of cunning?"
"I thought you knew I was the leader of a cult", Arnold said with a confised expression.
"I thought you were using the cult's name to gain power", Leo said.
"I have feathers in my arms", Arnold roared.
"It could have been because of mutated bloodline", leo said with a little blush.
"Are you cursing my bloodline?" , Arnold said , his eyes narrowing.
"Moving on, do you really serve a evil god", leo said with a serious expression.
"Yes," Arnold said. "And even knowing His nature, I accept His grace."
"Why?"
Arnold's eye looked far off, past the dungeon stones, past the present.
"Do you know how He ascended to godhood?" Arnold asked.
Leo didn't answer.
"He sat upon the Throne of Cunning. A seat that neither the God of Flame nor the Titan of Law could claim," Leo said at last.
"Wrong," Arnold replied. "That was the Throne of Lies. It needed the greatest lie ever told for someone to claim it, but that was also a lie."
He smiled bitterly.
"The flame elemental claimed that he was the god of flames but failed, the chained giant claimed that he was the titan of laws, yet he also failed"
"Then, how did the pale watcher succeed?"
"My Lord did not lie about himself. He created the lie that the Throne of Lies was truly the Throne of Cunning. The throne, desiring to evolve, accepted the lie, used all its power to make it truth. And so, my Lord became the God of Cunning."
Silence followed, heavy as iron.
"I see," Leo said at last. He turned back toward the demon samurai.
"You chose to become this," he said. "And you will face the consequences."
Neither demon flinched. They bowed their heads, unrepentant.
Arnold said nothing more. But Leo saw it now—in Arnold's eye, the same flicker of conviction he'd seen in the demons. It wasn't madness. It was belief.
And that made it dangerous.
---
Far from the city, where the waves met land, the world had changed.
The beach where the demon invasion began had rotted into a blackened hell. The sea had turned crimson, corrupted by abyssal blood, and the sand was now ash-black, devoid of life. The winds no longer whispered—they screamed.
Here, demon spawns clawed out of the bloodied earth, twisted creatures of sinew and hunger. They fought each other the moment they were born, devouring and killing to rise. Scavenger demons, abyssal hounds, boneflies, and worse—all birthed by chaos.
By the cliffside, a single low-level scavenger demon watched the slaughter unfold.
He had once been a man. A thief. A coward.
Kloc.
The same man who had once tried to rob the Internet Café, who had become a slave to abyssal whispers, who sparked the very siege that nearly drowned the region in flame and blood.
He should have died. But instead, he watched. Planned. Waited.
When the chaos bloomed, he stirred it. When the siege began, he directed it. And now, the time had come.
Before him, a screen of pure black flickered into being—colors dancing like madness.
[Congratulations, Fool Who Stole.
You have pleased the Abyssal Consciousness.
You have gained enough Chaos Points to evolve.
Do you wish to evolve?]
Kloc grinned with fangs.
"Yes."
> [Commencing Evolution…]
Blood rose around him like tendrils. A crimson cocoon wrapped his form, boiling, twisting, reshaping. His old body died screaming—and was reborn in silence.
> [Evolution Complete:
Low-Level Scavenger Demon (1/5) → Low-Level Plunderer Demon (2/5)]
When the egg split open, a new figure stepped forth.
Kloc had grown larger, stronger. His limbs were spiked, his mouth filled with jagged teeth. Two black tendrils extended from his back, each ending in serrated claws.
And behind him, kneeling without a word, stood a demonic samurai—one who had long since fallen, now following Kloc with unshakable devotion.
Kloc looked toward the forest, then toward the horizon. Somewhere out there was Grey Forge. And Leo.
His grin widened.
Fate was not done with either of them.
---