Chapter 1: The Ordinary Life of Alex
The sun rose slowly over the town of Grendale, casting warm golden hues across the rooftops and sleepy streets. The chirping of birds mixed with the distant clatter of wagons and merchants setting up shop in the town square. To most, it was a day like any other — quiet, safe, and blissfully mundane.
Alex Darnell groaned as the morning light filtered through his curtains, stabbing through his dreams like a dagger. He turned over, tangled in his bedsheets, and blearily opened one eye.
"Ugh… Five more minutes," he muttered, slapping his hand blindly at the clock on his nightstand.
It was 7:03 a.m.
With another groan, he finally kicked off the sheets and sat up. Messy black hair flopped into his eyes as he stretched, yawning like a beast waking from hibernation. His room was a mess — scattered textbooks, half-folded laundry, a broken game controller lying next to his bed like a fallen warrior.
Alex was seventeen. A high school senior with average grades, no clear future goals, and a hopeless crush on a girl way out of his league. He was lanky, a little awkward, and too sarcastic for his own good. In a world full of gods, monsters, and hidden magic, he was, as far as he knew, painfully normal.
That, of course, was about to change.
The school day passed like any other. Boring classes, gossip in the hallways, and the usual whispers about "weird" kids who claimed they saw ghosts or felt spirits watching them. Alex ignored most of it, too busy trying to stay awake in history class and daydreaming about the mysterious girl who sat two rows ahead of him — Sophia Liane.
She was... different. Long silver hair tied into a lazy braid, piercing violet eyes, and a strange calm that made everyone around her uneasy. Rumors said she transferred from some private academy overseas. Alex didn't care. She was beautiful, smart, and something about her made his skin tingle every time they crossed paths.
He didn't know it yet, but Sophia wasn't human. And their encounter was going to be the spark that would set his world ablaze.
That night, Alex lay in bed staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep.
For the past week, he'd been having dreams — strange, vivid visions of war, blood, and passion. He stood atop mountains of bodies with a crimson crown on his head and wings of black fire spread wide behind him. A woman's voice called out to him in a language he didn't understand but somehow felt. It tugged at something ancient buried deep inside his soul.
"My King... remember who you are."
He would always wake up in a cold sweat, breathless, with one word echoing in his mind like a thunderclap.
Asmodeus.
Outside, the wind stirred. Somewhere in the shadows, something ancient turned its gaze toward him. The wheel of fate had begun to spin.
And the boy once known as the Demon King of Lust… was about to awaken.