The village elders said the attack was random.
A wandering pack of demons.
A curse carried by the wind.
Bad luck.
Kairo listened from the edge of the room as they spoke, his hands folded tightly in his lap. No one looked at him. No one ever did. And that was exactly what frightened him now.
Because something had looked at him that night.
Since the attack, Kairo felt it constantly—a faint pressure behind his eyes, like the world was listening back. The seal his grandfather left behind sat heavy in his chest, no longer quiet, no longer sleeping.
It was waiting.
Three days later, a traveler arrived.
She wore a long ash-gray cloak and carried a staff carved with symbols Kairo did not recognize. Her presence bent the air subtly, the way heat does above stone. When her eyes passed over Kairo, they paused—just for a heartbeat too long.
That night, she found him.
"You're very good at hiding," she said from the shadows outside his window.
Kairo nearly fell out of bed.
"W-who are you?" he whispered.
"A friend," she replied calmly. "If you choose to be one."
She stepped into the moonlight, revealing sharp eyes and silver hair braided with black thread. The symbols on her staff pulsed faintly.
"My name is Sereth," she said. "I hunt echoes."
Kairo swallowed. "Echoes of what?"
"Power," Sereth answered. "Old power. Dangerous power."
The seal burned.
Sereth's gaze softened—not with fear, but with something closer to concern.
"So it's true," she murmured. "Raizen sealed himself into you."
Kairo's breath caught. "You knew my grandfather?"
"I knew the Demon King," Sereth corrected. "Before he chose to disappear."
She sat on the edge of the roof, voice low.
"When Raizen died, the world noticed. Ancient seals trembled. Creatures that had been sleeping for centuries opened their eyes. And those who once swore to destroy the Demon King began searching for what he left behind."
Kairo's hands shook. "I don't want this. I didn't ask for it."
Sereth nodded. "Neither did he."
She met his eyes.
"But wanting has nothing to do with destiny."
She stood and extended her hand.
"If you stay here, they will find you. And when they do, they won't care that you're just a boy."
Kairo looked back at the village—the quiet homes, the people who never believed in him, the place that taught him he was small.
Then he looked at his chest, where a Demon King slept behind chains of light.
"What happens if I go with you?" he asked.
Sereth's expression was honest.
"You will learn control. You will learn truth. And one day, you will have to decide whether you become the Demon King the world fears… or something it has never seen before."
The wind shifted.
Far beyond the village, in a fortress carved from black stone, a circle of robed figures knelt as a crimson flame ignited between them.
"The heir has awakened," one voice rasped.
"Then the hunt begins," another replied.
Kairo took Sereth's hand.
And the world began to move.