~ Prologue ~
We never asked to be created. We never begged for the gift of life, yet… we were generously offered the power to take it from others.
When we opened our eyes, we were told to kill… to hunt… to die… and to be hunted down.
We were animals…
We were prey…
We still dreamed… a dream that lacked hope and desire… a simple one…
A world without the Hero... It was a dream within a dream, towards which all the generations of Demon Kings since the beginning of our conception blindly aimed for. For the Demon Kings and the Demons themselves, our kind in general, were not born of love but rather made in the pools of life. We were molded by the hands of the Eternal Gods and then cast off as the disposable toys with which mankind could play with... fight, kill, or destroy...
The Demon King was the most powerful among all the other Demons. He or she was a creature who won against all others from the moment of their conception. All in order to achieve the title of the strongest among them… A campaign of suffering that ended as the sacrifice of blood against the Hero’s vicious army… or to be more specific… as the Hero’s sacrifice for his glory and fame.
Our kind did not understand why we were born... Why were we cursed with such fate when it was never our intention to follow it?
Those who did ended up dead. Those who fought against it ended up dead. Those who fled were chased by death. Those who pleaded the gods… were mercilessly slain by them.
Not even I, the most powerful of all the Demon Kings up until now, could stand my ground against the merciless power of the Hero.
From the start… it was an unfair fight…
But then, you had to ask yourself... How and why could a human born in the cozy and protective environment of their settlement end up having more power than a demon who struggled to survive and fought since day one of their birth? How could a youngster who never fought a day in their life end up defeating a master who trained every day?
The answer... it was laughable really... All the Eternal Gods in this world, evil or good, loved human beings. The Hero carried their blessings, and through them he gained power that far surpassed even that of a demon who trained for a thousand years in the art of sword fighting.
Such were my thoughts as I lay back on my throne, with the gaping wound in my stomach from the Hero’s sword.
He was a young lad, not even a quarter of my age... probably twenty or thirty years old?
“What are you smiling for, Demon?” he spat his words at me.
“I’m crying and smiling...” I corrected him.
He couldn’t see my tears because blood and sweat had mixed with them as they flowed down my cheeks.
“Crying? What for?” he asked.
“At the way your gods are treating us, demons...” I said.
“What are you talking about? You demons are the scourge of our world! You all need to be exterminated!” he declared, and his party members confirmed.
“Really? Even the children who were just born and know not of evil or good? After all, we demons are taught at birth by your Eternal Gods that humans are vile creatures who will hunt us down without mercy just... for being alive.” I coughed up blood.
“Hmph! You think your lies will have any effect on me?” he scoffed.
“I didn’t lie... and I won’t try to prove my words to you. After all... what was that saying? Ah, yes... blind men see no fault and deaf men hear no lies... How could the hero see the bad in slaughtering the children of demons and listen to the words of a dying Demon King who doesn’t even have the desire to take revenge for his own death?” I smiled and then leaned back on my chair and looked up at the ceiling.
“Demon filth, stop spouting words that make no sense!” shouted the warrior in their group.
He was still alive after I had ripped his arm right out of his shoulder socket. That was a barbarian’s vitality for you.
“I wonder though...” I continued my speech. “If I am so close to the Hero who was blessed by the gods, will they hear me if I were to ask them something?” I coughed another mouthful of blood, and I could feel that I didn’t have a lot of time left. “I am but a demon among many... a small soul among giants... what I ask is only the answer to a simple question...”
“Has he gone mad?” the mage wondered.
“Let him speak... Those are just the words of a dying fool.” said the Hero, harsh until the end.
“Tell me, why have you cursed my kind with this endless circle of slaughter and death when all we asked was to live in peace? We didn’t even invade the human lands for countless centuries now, it was always them who pushed deeper and deeper into our lands, and when we told them to stop, they burned down our villages, raped our women, and killed our young... Tell me, oh you so wise gods... what use does this endless slaughter bring to this world?” I asked and in that moment, I felt my life seeping away at a fast rate.
The strain must have made my injury worse and now... I had mere seconds left to live.
With my eyes heavy, my breath slow, and my heart struggling to pump my blood beat after beat, I allowed my gaze to fall on the faces of my enemies.
What would be the most terrible thing I could say to them right now? I wondered, then with a smile on my lips, and looking into their eyes with a gentle gaze, I told them “I forgive you.”
The shock of my last words washed over them like freezing cold water. Their words were stuck in their throats, but their eyes told me all that I needed to know. I may have died in this battle, but somehow, I felt like I had won the war.
Thus, I closed my eyes... and waited for the cold embrace of death to take me away.
My breath had stopped, my body felt weak, without magic flowing through it, without a core where it could form and then control it... there was no more hope for me.
Then it was warm, and I felt as if I had been dipped into a warm ocean. I could stretch out my arms; I could not open my eyes, but I could hear my heart beating. Badump. Badump... the precious sound of life.
But wasn’t it too calm and relaxed? Shouldn’t my heart have stopped?
Time went by, and I continued to remain in this weird state. Death... was a weird thing for a demon, I think. Was I even experiencing death or was this some sort of unspeakable torture that the gods have forced upon me?
My body felt similar but different. I could not put my finger on it… I was… smaller and maybe extremely weak by comparison?
While it was impossible for me to open my eyes, I could feel Magic Energy around me. It was weak. As for my core, it was there, or maybe not? It felt like it had shattered into a thousand tiny pieces spread throughout my entire body. Maybe if I could gather a few of them, I could cast some light in here?
For the time being, I had nothing better to do than contemplate. This place, this death sensation was far too weird. There was this warm liquid all around me, my shattered magic core, and the weird feeling of nakedness and helplessness that a demon should not have.
Should I try to gather those scattered pieces? I asked myself at one point.
If this was doable or not, I had no idea, but it beat boredom. So, I did just that.
Like a stumbling infant, I focused on each little piece and then pulled them with the tiny magic fields around them towards the center of my chest. Moving each piece hurt more than it should have, and the whole process was ridiculously slow, maybe one piece per hour?
Pain, while annoying, could be ignored. Although, since when did demons have an oversensitive body to pain?
I continued the process, painful piece after painful piece, then, when I was just a hundred or so pieces away from finishing my core, I felt… something change.
The fluid around me began to stir, my body reacted out of instinct, moving and turning around until I was upside down.
Then, before I knew it, I was pushed out together with the liquid. A bright light blinded me, and a sharp sting in my bottom made me let out a sharp cry.
Argh! That hurt! And where is that infernal baby crying coming from?! I complained.
“Congratulations, Madame Rugvaria, it’s a baby boy!” a woman announced with a cheerful tone of voice that made my ears hurt.
It’s a what now? Who? I thought, but all I could see were shadows around me.
“Please, let me hold him...” the woman said.
Hold who? Where? I wondered, trying to figure out what was happening to me, but then, when I was taken in her arms, and the sensation of safety washed over me, I realized a most frightening truth.
“My cute little baby boy, so nice to finally meet you... Mama is happy, she sure is!” she said and then snuggled me.
Oh crud... I’m the baby boy... I thought and for the first time in what may have been an eternity, I was terrified.