I swear I didn't ask to become a demon lord.
To lead legions of bloodthirsty beings to conquer worlds.
All I ever wanted, in all honesty, was a printer that worked.
But it seems the universe has a sick sense of humor.
_______
At "Bright Technology International Trading Co.," every smiling pair of lips was a funeral.
Every quarterly performance report, a mass memorial service.
And Yuan Lin? He was the dead man who didn't know he'd been buried alive.
His life was a vicious cycle of trivial tasks.
Pointless meetings.
Emails that always started with "Dear Colleague" and ended with a request that stole another piece of his soul.
He was an expert in sighing.
An artist in staring into space.
And he held a Ph.D. in the art of looking busy while his mind swam in a sea of indifference.
On that day, things came to an end.
It wasn't just another jammed printer.
It was the humiliation.
"Lin!" screamed Mr. Zhao, the department manager, his sharp voice piercing the office's artificial silence.
"The code you wrote to fix the archiving system... it failed. You've cost my team three hours of work!"
Yuan Lin stood up, feeling all eyes on him.
"But, Mr. Zhao, the code works perfectly. The problem is that the users aren't following the instructions that..."
"I don't want excuses!" Zhao cut him off rudely.
"I want solutions! I corrected your mistake myself. Learn from those more competent than you."
Yuan Lin felt the blood boil and then freeze in his veins.
He had spent two nights writing that code.
He knew it was flawless.
And he also knew that Mr. Zhao knew nothing about programming.
He had probably just rebooted the server and taken the credit for himself.
He returned to his desk.
He sat down.
He stared at his screen.
The cat pictures were no longer funny.
He felt a vast emptiness.
A sense that he was just a small, insignificant screw in a giant, rusty machine that didn't care about his existence.
He was trapped.
A deep, pure despair, the kind that makes you wish the earth would swallow you whole, settled in his heart.
And in that moment of absolute despair, a pop-up window appeared on his screen.
It wasn't a normal ad.
It was black as coal.
The words written on it in crimson pulsed slowly, like a wounded heart.
[Tired of being just a screw in a rusty machine?]
[Do you yearn for the power to crush those who crush you?]
Yuan Lin froze.
The message was too personal.
Too frightening.
He tried to close it, but the close button didn't exist.
He tried to open the task manager, but his keyboard didn't respond.
[The Empty Throne awaits. Will you answer?]
Two options appeared, pulsing with light:
[Accept My Fate] or [Refuse and Fade Away]
He looked at the two options. "Fade Away." The words carried a vague threat.
He looked around at the gray office, at the empty faces of his colleagues, and thought of Mr. Zhao.
What was the worst that could happen? A virus that destroys his computer? That would be the best thing to happen to him in months.
"What do I have to lose, anyway?" he thought with a humorless internal laugh. "I have nothing to lose."
In a moment of desperate defiance, of a childish desire to break something, anything, he moved the mouse and clicked on [Accept My Fate].
The moment he did, distorted whispers erupted from his computer's speakers.
The screen turned into a black vortex that swallowed his desktop.
Lines of red code flashed in a language he had never seen before, a language that looked as if it were made of fire and blood.
It lasted for a few seconds, then everything returned to normal.
Except for a new icon on his desktop.
A black skull, its eyes two empty sockets.
Yuan Lin's heart pounded. This was more than just a virus.
Cautiously, he double-clicked the icon.
A gothic chat interface opened before him, its background a black void where purple nebulae writhed.
He began to read the chat log, and felt the hair on his skin stand up.
[[Demon Monarch Wu Tian]: It has been a long time. The last Lord's energy faded as if it never existed. I fear he has fallen into a trap.]
[[Dark Fairy Queen Xue]: Traps are the price of power, Wu Tian. What matters is that the Tool has found a new vessel. The question is, will this vessel lead us to glory, or to the same abyss?]
"Vessel? The last one's fate?" Yuan Lin whispered, a chill creeping up his skin.
Then, he saw them talking about his own imminent return.
He felt the whole thing was an absurd, elaborate play.
Driven by sarcasm and nervousness, he typed in the chat box: "hhhhhh, you guys are so funny."
But what appeared in the chat was something else.
[[Lord of Eternal Chaos]: Hahahaha... Nothing has changed in you. You are still as absurd and amusing as I remember.]
He stared at the screen, unable to understand what had happened.
Then came the shocked reactions from his followers, who were glorifying his "return" and his "laugh full of disdain."
Suddenly, the interface faded from his computer screen.
Only to reappear directly in his field of vision.
A transparent blue screen, floating before him, no matter where he looked.
[...Soul scan complete...]
[Compatible candidate found: Soul No. 7,341,902,108.]
[Status: Absolute Despair (99.8%). Spiritual Purity (Devoid of ambition and worldly corruption): 97.3%.]
[You are the perfect candidate. An empty soul, pure, and ready to be filled with chaos.]
Yuan Lin felt pure terror.
They had chosen him because of his despair.
His emptiness was his only qualification.
[The "Lord of Eternal Chaos" Protocol has begun. You are now the host. This is a soul contract. It cannot be undone.]
[Objective: Collect 1,000,000 Chaos Points within one Earth year to reignite the flame of the Chaos Lineage.]
[Consequence of Failure: Complete soul erasure.]
[Reward for Success: Unimaginable power, and true sovereignty as the Lord of Eternal Chaos.]
[+1 Chaos Point as a gesture of good faith. Current Balance: 1.]
The blue screen vanished, and the gothic chat interface returned to his vision.
His body was trembling, his mind screaming.
He was trapped in a nightmare from which he could not wake.
Then a new message appeared, from Queen Xue, glowing with a dangerous purple light.
[My Lord...? Your first command?]
Yuan Lin stared at the message.
Then at his new balance of a single Chaos Point.
A million points in a year, or his existence would be erased.
And now he had to issue a command befitting a legendary being.
The quiet funeral of his ambition was over.
The noisy funeral for his soul had just begun.