The morning light crept through the cracks of the old hut, settling on Dante's pale face. The cloth around him smelled faintly of herbs and ashes. Outside, the chill wind carried the sound of coughing and the faint cry of a rooster. Life in the village of Lyrus had never been easy, but for the Lawsons, it was especially cruel.
Damris rose at dawn every day, his back bent by years of labor in barren soil. Lyra offered prayers to the nearest village shrine and returned to work mending torn clothes or sewing for neighbors. She did whatever she could to earn a few copper coins by sunset. Their eldest, Danrick, followed Damris around the fields when possible, though he was barely three. Poverty had forced him to grow faster than he should have.
Inside the hut, Dante could do little other than watch the ceiling beams and listen. His mind was alive with thought, but his body was that of a baby. Each sound—the shutters creaking, the distant barking of dogs—felt like a thousand echoes to his demonic senses, now muted by this fragile human shell.
'So this is what weakness feels like,' he thought bitterly. 'Hollow, powerless… just breathing feels heavy. I once commanded armies that shook the lands, but now I can barely lift my hand.'
Lyra would often whisper to him, unaware of the ancient soul behind those crimson eyes. "Poor baby," she would say. "You'll grow strong one day. You must, my little Dante."
Strong? The word burned in his mind. He would grow strong—far stronger than this world could imagine. But not yet.
Months passed, and Dante began to understand the rhythm of mortal life. The village was small—barely thirty families—and everyone knew everyone else's business. Rumors about the "reborn child" spread quickly.
Some villagers called Dante "the miracle child." Others whispered darker things—that Lyra had made a deal with dark forces to bring her son back. When Lyra went out to the well, women would pull their children closer and lower their voices.
"Did you see the boy's eyes?" one said. "They're red as blood. No human child has eyes like that."
"Lyra says it's a blessing from the gods," another muttered. "But blessings don't come to peasants."
Lyra pretended not to hear, but Dante could sense her trembling hand whenever she carried him home. That quiet suffering told him more about this world than he could have learned from any book.
'So even here, power decides everything,' he thought. 'Back home, the weak feared me. Here, the weak fear anything they can't understand. No matter the realm, vermin will always be vermin.'
Damris tried to ignore the gossip, but hatred and hunger wore him down. There were nights when he returned home empty-handed and stared silently at the dying fire. Lyra would force a smile and tell him everything would improve soon, though both knew it was a lie.
By age three, Dante could walk and speak, though he kept his words few. His voice carried an odd calmness, too mature for his age, unsettling the villagers even more. Danrick, on the other hand, was cheerful and curious, always running after birds or trying to help his father.
The brothers shared a small bed made of straw. Danrick often whispered childish dreams at night. "Dante, when we grow older, I'll be a knight! I'll protect you and mother from bad people!"
Dante would only close his eyes. "And what if I'm the bad people?" he asked once, half-jokingly.
Danrick laughed, unaware of the meaning behind the words. "You're too small to be bad!"
In those quiet hours, Dante tried to meditate—an old reflex from his previous life. Yet every attempt failed. There was no demonic spirit to grasp, no aura to control. The energy of this world felt soft and slippery, impossible to command.
Then one night, while sitting outside under the pale moonlight, he felt a strange pulse. It wasn't demonic spirit, but something thinner, lighter—a faint thread of life weaving through everything.
'Mana,' he realized. 'So this is the source of their power. Weak, unstable… but flexible. Perhaps even a vermin can become something with it.'
From that day forward, whenever he was alone, he practiced breathing slowly, feeling that delicate thread in the air. It was not enough to bend or shape yet, but it was a start.
The days grew harsher when winter arrived. Snow blanketed the fields, and the Lawsons barely had firewood left. Lyra wrapped Dante and Danrick together in one blanket to share body warmth. The air inside the hut hung thick with smoke and cold.
Damris worked all day chopping wood for richer families down the hill. He returned each night with coarse bread that was never enough for four people.
Once, Danrick passed his share to Dante and smiled. "You eat. You're smaller."
Dante frowned. "We both eat."
"But you're my brother," Danrick insisted.
For a moment, something stirred in Dante's quiet chest—an emotion he hadn't felt since his demonic days. Demons didn't share food. They devoured or were devoured. Yet here, this tiny human shared without hesitation.
'Strange creatures,' he thought.'Fragile, foolish, but warm.'
Lyra fell ill soon after the cold deepened. Her hands trembled while sewing, and her cough grew worse each night. Damris tried to fetch medicine, but they had no coins left. Dante listened to their hushed arguments and could sense despair in every word.
He hated it. Hated this weakness.
'If only I could use even a fragment of my past strength,' he thought. 'The sickness would flee before my touch. But now… I can't even warm her hands.'
That night, he sat beside Lyra's bed, placing his tiny palm over her hand. Closing his eyes, he reached once again for that invisible thread. A faint warmth passed from his chest to his fingertips—a spark of mana. It wasn't much, barely a flicker, but for the first time, he directed energy outside himself.
Lyra stirred slightly, and her breathing eased for a moment. Dante smiled faintly. 'So, this is how it starts.'
Spring arrived slowly, but peace did not. Bandits began appearing on the outskirts, raiding small farms. The local guards, too focused on protecting the noble estates, rarely came to poor villages.
One evening, Damris came home later than usual, his face pale. "They attacked again," he said quietly. "They burned the east field."
Lyra gasped. "Will they come here?"
"Not tonight," he replied. "But if they find out about the fields… we'll have nothing left."
The next few days passed in dread. Dante noticed villagers moving in groups, hiding food and water. For the first time, he saw true fear among them.
'So even in peace, mortals wage small wars among themselves,' he mused. 'They destroy each other while the gods watch.'
That night, as Dante slept lightly, footsteps echoed outside. The door crashed open. Three rough-looking men stormed in, one carrying a rusty blade. Lyra screamed, shielding her children. Damris fought back but was struck down quickly. The bandits demanded food, money—anything.
When one of them pulled Lyra by the arm, something inside Dante snapped. His vision blurred red, and for a brief second, he felt it again—the ancient demonic will buried deep within him.
The air trembled around him.
The bandit's hand froze midair, his eyes wide as if he'd seen a nightmare. A faint red glow shimmered in Dante's pupils.
Then, just as suddenly, it vanished.
The men ran out shouting curses, tripping over themselves. Damris and Lyra, shaken, had no idea what had happened.
Dante simply stared at his hands, trembling. 'That was… demonic spirit. A fragment of it. But in this world, how?'
He realized something new: though trapped in a human body, a part of his core still existed—dormant, sealed within this fragile shell.
'I understand now,' he thought. 'My power wasn't taken. It was locked. The question is—by whom?'
The following weeks returned to quiet. The villagers thanked the gods for sparing them, never realizing what truly saved the Lawsons. Lyra recovered slowly, though her health remained weak.
Dante began helping his father and brother in small ways—carrying wood, fetching water. He spoke little but observed everything. Each hardship taught him something new about mortality—about patience, humility, and struggle.
He watched Damris bow before a merchant who paid him unfairly, and it made him clench his fists. 'Power decides everything,' he reminded himself, 'but perhaps… power without compassion breeds rebellion.'
Each night, he practiced mana control. He learned to sense its flow around fire or running water, and once, when a candle flickered out, he managed to relight it with nothing but focus. The light lasted only a second, but to him, it was proof.
One evening, Lyra noticed him staring at the candle's flame. "Dante, what are you thinking?" she asked softly.
"About light," he answered. "It burns… even when it's small."
She smiled. "Yes, but you must never play with fire."
Dante looked at the faint flame again. 'If only you knew, Mother… I was born from fire.'
Years passed. Dante turned five, his eyes carrying wisdom far beyond his age. The villagers still whispered about him, but most fear faded—he was, after all, just a quiet boy helping his family.
Still, sometimes children would run away shouting, "The red-eyed kid is coming!" and he would only smirk.
Inside, however, his mind grew sharper. He had learned enough about human life to understand one thing: even among the poor, ambition burned bright. And he needed that ambition.
He watched knights ride through the village one afternoon, armor gleaming under the sun. "Strong," Danrick whispered in awe.
"Foolish," Dante muttered. "Shiny armor attracts blades."
Danrick laughed. "Then what will you be, Dante?"
For the first time, Dante answered seriously. "Something stronger than knights. Stronger than kings. Stronger than gods."
Danrick laughed again, thinking it a child's dream, but to Dante, it was a promise. The path would begin here, in this poor village, crawling through weakness toward rebirth.
And so, the Demon King Kryzthon—now Dante Lawson—began his journey not among the flames of Hell but in the frozen poverty of Lyrus. He learned hunger before strength, despair before hope, and for the first time in his countless lives—what it meant to live as mortal.
End of chapter