Book One: Rise of the Demonborn
Chapter 5: Molting the Mortal
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The tower burned by midnight.
Kael stood beneath the falling ash, his cloak wrapped tight around him, though the flames licked close. His army—now thirty-seven undead soldiers, including the bound captain—stood in rigid formation behind him.
All of them were silent. As always.
Vaarkos approached with blood on his claws.
"The outpost has fallen. All obey. One survivor remains… blind, mute. As you ordered."
Kael nodded once, eyes reflecting the flames.
But he felt it before he saw it—*the shift*.
A tearing beneath his skin. Not pain—*transcendence*.
He stumbled back slightly. Vaarkos tensed, unsure if this was death or power. The air around Kael vibrated, warping like heat waves. Black mist poured from his body in spirals. His veins glowed faint red, then white-hot.
Kael fell to one knee, breath steady but shallow.
The dead turned their heads toward him. Not out of will—*instinct*. They felt it too.
Change.
Wings tore from Kael's back.
Not angelic. Not grotesque.Wings forged from shadow and bone, wrapped in silver vein-like etchings that shimmered unnaturally in firelight. They stretched wide, easily spanning four meters. Silent. Sharp. Terrifying.
Vaarkos dropped to his knees. "You are… not just demon."
Kael stood slowly.
The ground beneath him cracked.
"I've shed that skin," he said simply. "I am something else now."
A screen of magic formed before him, shimmering like a mirror. In the reflection, Kael's eyes no longer burned red, but *silver fire*. His horns had lengthened, curved elegantly backward. His body had hardened—no longer frail and young, but lean and predatory.
His aura was suffocating. Even the undead bowed.
Vaarkos rose cautiously. "Do you know what you've become?"
Kael looked to the horizon.
"No name. No title," he said. "But power... listens."
Above them, clouds spiraled unnaturally, forming a rift of black and violet—brief, just a flicker. The forest itself bowed, vines recoiling from Kael's feet.
This wasn't demon magic anymore.
It was *origin* magic.
He had risen past fledgling demon.
Not quite archlord. Not yet.
But enough to command the ancient dead.
Enough to make the kingdoms listen.
And enough to finally return to the village of Therrow—not as a boy...
…but as *their reckoning*.
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