Chapter 1: Ch. 1

The heroes were at the gate. They were the best that the so-called “civilised” races had to offer up; the proudest and the strongest amongst the lot, banded together against a common foe. The sword-wielding Asteria, the woman chosen by the legendary sword Moonslayer. The spell-slinging Nasalis, the infamous genius mage expelled by the Grand Spire. The mysterious thief known only as Ebony Cat, the only living soul to succeed—and survive—stealing from the Divine Archives. Not to mention the woman called saintess, Vespera, whose voice was considered so holy it was imbued with the power of the Goddess, causing her to take a vow of silence.

It was a feat worthy of praise already to succeed in crossing the desolate and barren lands that outsiders called Daimonos, homeland of the demons. Brutal winds and baking sun during the day, and a night chill that turned marrow to ice was only the start of the lands’ curse.

Grotesque creatures that so thoroughly earned the name “monster” it would cause a dragon shame stalked the wastes. They were creatures that existed only for violence, with a perverted bloodlust that came only from an innate desire to cause destruction against the world.

Then there were those that were called demons. With no arable lands and hostility in every corner, the sapient tenants of Daimonos were forced into nomadhood. Without roots, demons survived on hunting the rampant monster population for food and tools, as well as stealing off those weaker than them. They were a people who had developed a culture of battle. This meant that any outsiders visiting the lands could expect “roving raiders” to be their warmest welcome wagon.

Any who managed to survive the inhospitable wastelands, the virulent infection of monsters, and the beckoning blade of the demon populace could call themselves the best of the best. But that still wasn’t enough to reach the Demon King’s castle.

There was only one city in Daimonos. Who knew what outsiders called it, but the locals knew it as Apollyon, the Empty City. Only the strongest demons lived there—not because they claimed it with their strength, but because it held a strange power that would cause the weak and unworthy to writhe and waste away should they step a single foot within.

At the zenith of Apollyon was the castle, where could be found the demon that could say without contest it had more strength than any other of its kin: the Demon King. The sheer destructive force that repelled the feeble was at its peak within the castle, with the throne itself acting as a nexus for the infernal force.

Those unworthy to sit on it would die, executed by its own unwillingness to seat them.

The weak could not rule. This was the law.

From the throne, to the castle, to the city, to the wasteland, Daimonos was a land that seemed to have been birthed only to fester hatred and violence. Was it any wonder that age after age, those who called themselves heroes had sieged it?

But for the past eight hundred plus years, the man who had sat upon the throne was unshakeable by both the heroes circling outside and the treacherous and greedy vassals within. Demons did not have recorded history, but they had long lives and longer memories, and within that memory it was hard to name another who had kept the throne for so long.

But now his rule was crumbling. Not honourably betrayed by a worthy usurper like so many predecessors, but instead falling under the humiliating purge of those who claimed themselves to be blades of justice.

King Vassago, Demon of Dusk, Lord of the Hungry Nether, Warden of the Red Yawn, turned away from the heavy iron doors that bowed under the force of the interlopers, his face calm. He was exceedingly tall, almost nine foot, yet immaculately proportioned. His skin was as cold, pale, and lifeless as marble, translucent enough to see veins pulsing with a blue-purple light below. His inky black hair trailed behind him as though a veil, sweeping across the black stone of the castle ground. The colour was so intensely deep, when he swept his head to the side, it would almost give the impression that should you gaze into the curtain of black, you might see the far off glimmer of dying stars, as though peering into the vast infinite of space.

Four figures kneeled before him, still as a statue. The first, an elderly looking man with four twisting horns like warped branches, spoke in a low, subtle voice.

“Your Eminence. Soriel’s illusions won’t last much longer.”

A feminine figure that could be described most aptly as angelic, with softly falling curls of pure gold light framing her cherubic face, inclined her head, adding in a voice as gently enchanting as bells, “You must flee. The Demon King cannot fall in this way.”

No one saw the small quirk of the lips. It was not the man with star-studded hair they feared for. It was “the Demon King”. A crown, a throne, a legacy; a symbol of demonic ferocity. A demon could die at the hands of his own brothers, but to die at the hands of humans and their ilk was repugnant.

The Demon King, least of all, should suffer such a fate.

It was exhausting. He’d sat on the throne because someone had to. Without a king, the demons were nothing more than a mindless swarm of locusts, without dignity nor restraint. And he had longed for hundreds of years for a knife in his back, practically presenting it on a platter to his self-proclaimed “Four Generals”. But the longer he survived on the throne, the more afraid others were to take it from him.

So he’d left the damn gates open and rolled out the welcome mat for the heroes instead. And now here they were telling him that he couldn’t die here.

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Ah, how fucking exhausting.

He closed his eyes. To die, or not to die? It’s not as though cowardly turning tail and fleeing was considered dishonourable or disrespectful to demons: what mattered most was to survive, by tooth and claw and cowardly cunning if need be. But the Demon King represented all demonic kin. A king who ran would rule only over demons who ran.

There was no choice he could make as and for himself. Every word spoken was spoken for all demons. Every action taken was taken on behalf of all demons. Blah blah blah.

There was a crash as the iron doors were broached. A searing silver light swept through the grand hall, gouging a groove two feet thick in the polished stonework. The blade of light cleanly separated the entire space into two halves, only losing momentum and stopping merely inches away from where Vassago stood.

He perked up.

“Your Eminence, I’ll hold them back.” The horned old man stood suddenly, raising a face studded with scales. An extra set of eyes were squeezed into each oversized socket on his face, with four blinking golden irises staring angrily at the four figures at the door. “I lay down my life for the Demon King!”

The stonework cracked beneath him from the force of his deceptively frail old body kicking off the ground, charging toward the heroes. The woman in the lead with long strands of silvery hair brandished the plain and battered looking sword that gave off a faintly blueish glow, barely deflecting the monstrous birdlike talons that tore at her.

“Rogemel… I’ll stand with you. For the Demon King.”

A voice like sheafs of dry and ancient paper rubbing against each other whispered softly, at a volume that ought to be too low to hear, yet somehow permeated the space. A figure that seemed at first like little more than a bundle of raggedy grey cloth seemed to flicker, then the loose threads of the rags were pulled by an invisible hand, becoming undone. Thousands of threads burst out, scattering into the space of the large hall.

The lithe and hooded figure that had been attempting to skirt the generous shadows of the demonic castle gave a sudden shout as threads wound around their wrists and throat. Thread reconverged into linen, then back into a full raggedy form. Hands wrapped in decrepit bandages reached out from reformed sleeves, smothering the nose and mouth of their prey.

Vassago groaned inwardly. The Four Generals were uniting together under a common cause now. Perhaps it would be better to just go… but where could he run so that the demons wouldn’t find him, wanting him to return to the throne? It wasn’t as though he hadn’t tried to just leave before. An attempt to abdicate had somehow ended up as a demonic invasion. Now should he leave and the demons followed, it would become a full blown reciprocal war.

“My sanguine prince, the Moonslayer may destroy the throne at this rate, and with it sever your life.” Soriel crawled forward, pressing her forehead against the ground before raising it slightly. The black stone of the castle was spotlessly polished so well he could see her face reflected clearly in it, showing genuine concern.

How exceptionally annoying. 

“Leave quickly through the catacombs, escape out the secret exit to the Whispering Lake!”

Vassago narrowed his eyes. Now, why didn’t he think of that? Last time he’d been in the catacombs was six hundred years ago, so it had slipped his mind. Not the escape tunnel, but something else. Something better. Freedom from the tedium of monarchy without having to die for it.

The shrine.

He nodded his head slightly. “Hold them off.”

The two demons breathed a sigh of relief, standing and saluting. “Our life for the Demon King!”

In the eight hundredth and eighty third year of his reign, King Vassago, Demon of Dusk, Lord of the Hungry Nether, Warden of the Red Yawn, “fled for his life”. He disappeared into the catacombs of Apollyon castle and was never seen or heard from again.

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