The world trembled.
Where once stood defiant cities, now only broken spires and ash remained. The banners of men snapped like dead wings in the wind. The Maelstrom's echo had faded into the distance, a distant storm biding its time. But its shadow still loomed.
Across the shattered plains, he emerged.
The White Demon.
No herald. No drum. Just silence so deep the earth itself seemed to recoil.
He walked among the fallen.
Each step cracked stone into dust. Each breath scorched the air. Where he looked, hope curdled.
They were there.
The ones who shattered balance—those who opened the Hellgates and tore apart the seals between realms. The kings who condemned thousands for profit. The priests who whispered blessings while offering blood.
But this is not where it begins.
---
Anthony stumbled into the clearing, breath ragged, blood painting his arms like battle ribbons. His clothes torn, his magic flickering erratically.
The forest held its breath.
Across from him stood Utan, calm and precise, her black tattoos pulsing with mana. She'd been testing him for hours—stripping away his defenses, studying his every move.
"You're adjusting," she said flatly.
"I'm surviving," Anthony growled, conjuring his barrier magic into twin blades. They weren't weapons meant for another—they were born of desperation and innovation. Mana molded not into defense, but aggression.
Utan stepped forward, slipping off a few of her bracelets. "Annoyances," she muttered. "Restrictions. I wear them to remind myself not to kill too easily."
Anthony's brow raised.
"You're strong," she added, "and... attractive."
Anthony blinked.
"But," she continued, voice cold as the dusk breeze, "you're still a boy. A wildfire, not yet a flame. You'd burn out before you ever warmed anything worth saving."
Silence lingered like a wound.
"Come," she said after a moment, motioning to the ridge. "You need to see her."
They approached the cliff edge.
There she stood—Humiko. No longer the mute shadow of the past. Trained under Utan and the White Demon himself, even the Demon's sons had tested her with blades.
Her long black hair flowed in defiance of the still air. No weapons. Just power.
Anthony stared.
She turned, meeting his eyes.
"I remember you," he whispered.
She didn't respond in words—her eyes carried centuries of meaning. A survivor forged in silence.
Utan folded her arms. "She surpasses you now. But not forever. Learn from her."
---
Far away, on cursed plains scarred by battles forgotten by time, the White Demon advanced.
The air trembled.
An army stood waiting—engineered war-beasts and cybernetic zealots, guided by cowards hiding behind sanctified steel.
The White Demon walked.
He did not fly. He did not need to.
His presence was a catastrophe.
The first wave charged.
Guns howled. Cannons roared.
He lifted a hand.
With it, the storm returned.
He conjured lightning not from the sky, but from within—hellfire and memory laced with divine agony. Soldiers exploded mid-charge. War machines collapsed in upon themselves.
The generals screamed.
The Demon said nothing.
---
Atop a broken altar, the High Priest chanted, desperate. The sky pulsed with false divinity.
"May your soul—"
The Demon's gaze ended the prayer.
Magic faltered. The air thickened.
He approached slowly, deliberately. The priest flailed divine sigils into the void. The White Demon flicked a finger.
The altar detonated.
Only smoldering bone remained.
---
From the shadows of the dais, a silver-clad king stepped forward.
"You will kneel before—"
Crack.
The king's throat vanished beneath the Demon's hand. Crown and skull struck the earth as one.
And then—
He finally spoke.
His voice wasn't thunder.
It was the quiet that follows massacre.
"Knees in your blood. And crying, please."
A pause. One heartbeat longer than needed.
"What good will this do you?"
He let them fall.
The ash soaked their legacy.
---
Behind the Demon, the sky refused to clear. Clouds bent in reverence or fear. The land beneath him sizzled with remnants of power.
And yet, there was no satisfaction in his eyes.
Just absence.
The Maelstrom raged still, wandering the horizon like a vengeful ghost. Far from Anthony now, but always watching.
In its wake, demons stirred—the shift in Hell's gates had not gone unnoticed. Old kings, half-buried, half-remembered, began to move.
But the Maelstrom's hunger quickened. It surged across the plain faster than even Anthony's frantic strides could carry him. Panic seized him as its colossal bulk loomed closer.
He skidded to a halt by a battered contraption of steel and steam—a rickety land ironclad piloted by three terrified refugees. Gears hissed and pistons thumped as they barreled through the ash.
Anthony leapt onto the platform, heart hammering. The refugees turned, wide-eyed, their hands instinctively scratching at his back as if to pull him down. He muttered a breathless offer: "Ride with me, and I'll repay the debt."
Instinctively, they reached up and scratched his back in return—a pact forged in desperation—and the machine roared on, the Maelstrom closing the gap with every shaking turn.
And elsewhere, Anthony would soon meet the one whose blood matched his own.
A brother.
Born of the same house, but raised on different oaths. One who bore their family crest like a blade.
A death loomed. Timely. Inevitable.
But that would come later.
For now, only the echo remained:
Unbound wrath.