Kilometres away from the grand theatre where laughter and painted legends still echoed through velvet halls, the true Hero crashed down into the silent embrace of a forgotten forest. His landing struck the earth like a meteor — dirt and broken roots blasted outward in every direction, leaving behind a ragged crater that steamed in the cold night air. He rose from the cracked ground without a word, cloak rustling against the burned edges of the impact zone, his eyes locked on the deeper darkness ahead.
There, hidden among the ancient trunks and shifting shadows, a pair of violet eyes glowed back at him from beneath the deep hood of a ragged cloak. The forest seemed to hold its breath as the two figures stared at each other.
In the space of a heartbeat, the Hero vanished. He crossed the distance with a speed that mocked the very laws of nature — a streak of power and cold wind that snapped the branches around him like brittle glass.
Where once he stood at the crater's edge, he now towered opposite the hooded figure, the forest floor groaning under the weight of the power radiating from him like a rising storm. The hooded figure did not flinch. The hem of their cloak fluttered violently in the Hero's invisible winds, but they stood unmoving, a shard of demonic corruption pulsing in the stillness.
"I will be able to see her?" the Hero asked, his words slow and heavy. His voice rumbled inside the hooded figure's mind like thunder rolling through stone — a voice that left no room for lies.
"Yes, she is waiting on the other side… Everything I told you is the truth… The Hero can see lies from truth after all…" the demonic follower answered, his words oozing out with false reverence as he turned his back on the living legend standing so close behind him. Step by step, the demonic follower walked deeper into the dark woods, branches snapping underfoot, the Hero's silent steps trailing behind.
They moved like ghosts through the black trees until the shadows gave way to an unnatural clearing, circular and wide, where the earth had been scraped clean. At its centre sprawled a grotesque red magical circle etched into the dirt — lines and runes drawn in fresh blood that shimmered in the moonlight like oil on water. The metallic scent filled the clearing, hanging thick in the still air.
The Hero didn't pause. He didn't care where the blood had come from, or whose sacrifice fed the spell beneath his boots. He felt nothing for this world anymore — a world he had saved, bled for, and watched break every promise in return. He had given enough. He had suffered more than any mortal should.
'Maybe it's time they suffer…' the Hero thought, a bitter truth passing through his mind, a testament to his change of character throughout the years as he stepped forward into the centre of the circle. The blood-red lines flared alive the instant they touched him, pulsing brighter, feeding off his presence as if it had been starving for him alone.
The demonic follower's lips twisted into a smile too wide for a human mouth. His eyes glowed with a mad hunger as he pressed his palms together and began to whisper words older than the kingdoms, syllables soaked in cruelty and pact-bound corruption.
He had spent decades preparing for this single moment — every crime, every betrayal, every drop of blood shed in secret led here, to this clearing and this broken Hero desperate enough to trade the world for a glimpse of what he'd lost.
The Hero lowered his gaze to the red runes wrapping around his boots, but his eyes drifted upward, through the trembling canopy and into the endless night sky above. There, past the drifting clouds and drifting embers of magic, he saw her face — soft, warm, smiling down at him through the stars as if she were waiting just beyond his reach. He closed his eyes and smiled back, letting that vision be the last thing he saw of this world.
Above him, the whispering rose to a fevered chant. The demonic follower floated upward, feet leaving the ground as the circle's lines surged outward, stretching like veins across the entire clearing. The red glow bled farther and farther, swallowing the trees until the entire forest pulsed with the heartbeat of the ritual.
CLAP
The follower snapped his hands together again — a sound that split the air like the crack of doom.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM
A colossal pillar of deep red light exploded upward from the forest floor. It ripped through the canopy, split the heavy clouds above, and punched into the night sky like a spear of hellfire. High above, the beam shattered into a shockwave of crimson energy that rolled across the sky, a scar of searing red that tore across the entire continent.
From the frost-bitten peaks of the North to the deepest jungles of the far South, every living soul with power in their veins felt it — a pulse, a warning, a promise that something long buried had awoken again.
In the ruin of the forest clearing, where the circle burned like an open wound in the earth, the Hero was gone — torn from this realm and hurled back to the place where he had lost everything that ever made him human.
On the other side of the ritual, across the vast void where mortal laws withered to ash, a tower of impossible scale pierced the blood-red sky of the Demon World. Floors upon floors stacked like bones in a grave, smaller towers and spires floating around it like shattered moons trapped in orbit.
At the top level of the main tower, where thick red clouds swirled endlessly and the air reeked of death, a figure knelt low on black marble. They pressed their forehead to the cold stone before a vast obsidian throne carved with symbols that pulsed in time with the monstrous heartbeat of this realm.
On the throne, a greater shadow reclined — the demon known only as Mother, whose smile split her cruel face like a wound that never healed.
"Mother, I will not disappoint you…" the kneeling demon vowed, voice trembling, claws scraping the marble as they promised everything and more.
"My daughter, Princess and heir of our kind, you have been honoured with great responsibility by the Demon Lord to carry out this sacred mission. You must not fail and bring disgrace to me or shame our bloodline. Remember — you are one of the very few chosen to pass into the human world. Follow my teachings, Daughter…" the demon sitting upon the towering throne declared, her voice echoing through the vast chamber like a funeral bell. Her eyes, black pits flickering with embers, narrowed as she raised one clawed hand in silent command.
The kneeling demon did not lift her gaze. She stayed bowed low, trembling slightly under the ancient weight of the Mother's final words. Then, in an instant, a beam of pure red light cracked down from the sky, engulfing her in a pillar of blinding power. With a single breathless cry, she vanished — torn from the Demon World and hurled into the fragile realm of men like a blade hidden in darkness.
Back in the human world, countless ordinary people who looked up that night saw only another strange trick of the sky. A flash of unnatural crimson, a fleeting disturbance in a world where magic and the impossible already walked side by side. But among those who truly understood the depth of this world's nightmares, dread slithered under the skin like ice.
Especially in the capital — the beating heart of the kingdom — where the king himself stood on a gold-plated balcony overlooking his restless city. His hair, gold, caught the flickering lights of distant torches below as he turned to the man beside him — his oldest friend and the mightiest mage in the realm. The royal mage stood rigid, his hands gripping the balcony rail so hard the veins in his arms strained under his robe.
"I told you we should have captured him. He was the key — he was always the one behind the prophecy…" the king hissed, frustration bleeding through every word. He gestured up at the rift in the clouds where the last trace of crimson was fading, devoured by the night.
The royal mage did not flinch. His gaze stayed locked on the vanishing scar in the skies. His voice was weary — an old man's voice burdened with truths too heavy for any crown.
"My king, I have explained this to you many times before. The Hero is uncontrollable. My magic is worthless against him — there are very few in all the continent who could stand toe to toe with him, and even they would never risk it. Force does not bind him. Politics fail him. He rejected every offer from every throne, every promise of gold, every alliance. Even your sister — he turned her away too. There was simply no other way. The oracle's prophecy is no longer just words… it's turning into reality before our eyes."
The king's shoulders sank slightly at that. He clenched his jaw, swallowing anger he had no power to unleash. Slowly, he turned back to the city below, its lights twinkling like tiny fires trying to hold back the darkness gathering beyond the walls.
"Forgive me, old friend…" he murmured. Then, louder, with iron in his voice again, he said: "Send a royal decree. Begin the hunt immediately — search for any sign of them, or their supporters, no matter how well they hide. And prepare for a world summit. We must demand the rest of the continent stand with us against this evil. We have no luxury for old grudges now. We stand together — or we all fall."
At that same hour, beneath the polished floors of one of the most famous inns in the capital — a place known to nobles and wandering merchants alike — another gathering stirred in secret. Behind the glamour of its grand dining hall and warm lanterns, the inn's hidden VIP chamber thrummed with danger.
Inside, a meeting was underway that reeked of a darkness far worse than any demon's tooth or claw. These were not monsters born of the Demon World — they were players, thousands of them, come from somewhere else entirely. Men and women who slipped into this world's skin like thieves in the night, drawn here to devour its greatest treasure — its Origin. If demons were the fangs at the kingdom's throat, these players were the rot gnawing at its very bones.
The chamber was dimly lit, its thick stone walls muffling every word. Seated around a wide circular table were some of the most powerful players in the entire kingdom, each bound to guilds that have come to a decision.
Jacob leaned back in his chair, his gloved fingers drumming lightly on the hilt of the sword strapped to his side. Beside him loomed the French giant, his hulking frame squeezed awkwardly into the fine armour of the royal guard.
The two of them were wolves dressed in royal colours — knights in name only, burrowing deeper into the kingdom's beating heart with every passing day. Their plan was simple: wear the King's colours long enough to learn from the strongest knights in the kingdom and gain political standing… then use them when the continental war starts.
Opposite them, sprawled out lazily with a half-smirk, sat the apostle of the Nature Guild. His fingers traced idle patterns over the soft petals of a bright pink flower sprouting from a vine he'd coaxed into life on the table itself — a casual reminder that life and death bloomed at his whim.
Next to him perched the apostle of the Beast Guild, a slender woman draped in leather, a crow settled like royalty on her shoulder, its sharp eyes darting from player to player. Beside her, another Beast Guild elite lounged back, his ranking was quite high and he seemed eager.
The same Mech Guild player — the one Ali had defeated so thoroughly not long ago — sat stiffly near the back of the room, her jaw clenched tight. She hadn't said a word since arriving, her armoured fingers tapping restlessly on the hilt of her mechanical blade as if she could still feel Ali's phantom grip crushing her pride.
Next to her stood a thick-set figure clad in rough grey plating, the unmistakable crest of the Rock Guild etched deep into his pauldrons. He shifted his bulk forward, planting both boots wide apart as he looked around at the sea of dangerous faces in the hidden chamber.
Across the table, unmoving and untouched by the thick tension, sat the player many whispered was the most beautiful on the second level — Celestia Thunderbloom, the apostle of the Lightning Guild. Her eyes remained closed, lashes brushing her flawless skin as if all this scheming deserved no more attention than a passing breeze. Even so, her mere presence sparked a hum in the air — tiny flickers of static that danced around her like obedient spirits.
Near the far wall leaned Atreus of the Adventurers Guild. His spear, taller than any man present, rested against the wall beside him. Beneath the heavy shadows of his helmet, his eyes burned with cold contempt for the cowards around him.
On the opposite side of the long table, half-hidden in the gloom, sat members of the Death Guild, their dark cloaks and pale sigils making them look half-apparition, half-vulture.
Yet among all the killers and conspirators here, only one man's presence made the others uneasy.
Mateo, the monster of the Lightning Guild, stood alone in the corner — no chair, no table, no need for either. His posture was so casual he might have been leaning against the wall of a tavern instead of an underground war council, but the tension rolling off his massive frame made the air itself feel heavier.
His eyes never left Celestia — a silent storm watching the Lightning Guild's newest chosen spark. Even without a title, everyone here knew who Mateo was: brother of the Lightning Guild's elusive leader, former Apostle, and a living legend drenched in half-whispered tales of conquered worlds and broken guilds.
The Rock Guild's representative cleared his throat and raised his chin, voice echoing off the low stone ceiling as he started the meeting.
"Now then. You all know why I called you here. This concerns the elimination of a threat to every single one of us — a threat that cannot be allowed to grow unchecked in this world. This is about Ali."
A murmur passed around the table. Some shifted in their seats, others smirked behind folded arms. The Rock Guild player ignored it and pressed on.
"Our guilds have agreed: we strike him down now, together. Jacob here will provide his location — and as we speak, someone is preparing a teleportation circle to drop us right on top of him. We hit him with everything. No mercy, no mistakes." He folded his thick arms across his broad chest, eyes sweeping the room like a hammer searching for a nail.
"So — who's us in this fight?" he asked, almost daring someone to answer wrong.
A soft scoff cut the silence. Atreus shifted, pushing off the wall with the scrape of iron on stone. His hand wrapped around the shaft of his massive spear. When he spoke, his voice dripped disdain like venom on steel.
"Pathetic…" Atreus muttered from under his helmet. "Only cowards do what you suggest."
He didn't wait for a reply. He picked up his spear in a single fluid motion, the tip glinting in the flickering lamplight, and stepped past the table. A ripple of tension passed through the room — but no one moved to stop him. No one dared.
They only watched as the king of Sparta walked out in silence, his broad shoulders disappearing through the heavy wooden door without so much as a backward glance.
A moment later, the apostle of the Beast Guild rose too, her crow giving a single dry caw that echoed in the stone chamber. She didn't spare a word for anyone — just turned her back on the table and followed Atreus out. The Nature Guild's apostle shrugged lightly, brushing a fallen petal from his sleeve as he drifted after her, a sly grin tugging at his lips like he found the whole thing amusing.
"This is an order from your guilds!" the Rock Guild player barked after them, his face twisting in frustration. But the two didn't even pause — they simply kept walking, the Nature Guild apostle throwing him a mocking little wave as the door swung shut behind them.
Celestia's eyes finally opened — cold, bright, and merciless. She rose with a grace that made her movement feel like silk drawn across a blade. She didn't look at the Rock Guild enforcer at all — she turned to Jacob instead, pinning him with a single look that dripped disdain deeper than any insult. Then she left too, her boots silent on the stone floor, her mother's old words whispering in her mind: never betray a friend.
"Hey — you're Apostles! Act like—" the Rock Guild player tried to snap, but his voice choked off when Mateo's voice cut through the air.
"Watch your mouth." Mateo didn't raise his voice, didn't even shift from his place in the corner. But the weight behind the words cracked the room's courage like brittle glass. The Rock Guild player clenched his jaw, swallowed his anger, and turned away as Celestia vanished through the door.
Jacob leaned forward, elbows on the table, voice bored as he tapped a finger on the map laid out before him.
"I won't fight him. His location should be enough from me."
The Rock Guild brute exhaled through his nose, forced a nod, and straightened to face the others.
"Fine. I see most of you are still loyal to your guild's will — but listen well. Only a select few can be teleported for this strike, so I'll personally choose who's going. The rest of you will not be part of the attack. When we find him, we strike as one. No mercy. No escape. Ali dies — or we all do."
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