Chapter 7:
Fall of a king
The sky was a burning wound.
Ash and smoke twisted in the wind as if the world itself was screaming.
Leo — no, Roman — stood upon a battlefield drowned in blood. His armor was scorched and cracked, his cape in tatters. Around him lay the bodies of knights, friends, and kings who had stood by his side… only to be cut down.
Across the field, the Demon Lord towered, black armor pulsing with veins of molten crimson. Horns curled from his skull like the roots of some ancient, cursed tree, and his voice rumbled with the sound of collapsing mountains.
“You cannot win, human.”
Roman’s grip tightened on his blade. The wind howled. His heartbeat drowned all sound.
He remembered every face that had fallen to protect this land — and the promise he had sworn.
“I am not here to win,” he said. “I am here to end you.”
The clash was thunder. Blades met with such force the earth split beneath them. Fire spilled from the Demon Lord’s strikes, but Roman’s sword was a sun in the darkness, each swing cutting through shadow itself.
The final blow came with a roar — steel piercing demonic flesh, light consuming the monster’s body. The Demon Lord’s scream split the night, and as he dissolved into ash, Roman fell to one knee, the battlefield silent at last.
“Leo.”
The voice was soft, pulling him from the blood-soaked vision. His eyes opened to the golden light of the banquet hall. Princess Aria stood beside him, her hand resting gently on his shoulder.
“You were… lost in thought,” she said quietly, her expression unreadable.
Before he could reply, another presence drew near.
The current Queen — a woman of striking beauty and cold, distant eyes — passed by their table. She did not speak, but as she moved, her gaze locked on Leo. It was not curiosity. It was calculation… and perhaps something darker.
Leo’s eyes narrowed slightly before he looked away.
The King stood at the center of the grand hall, raising his goblet as the hall quieted.
“This banquet,” the King began, “is special. Not merely to celebrate the birth of our great empire’s founder… but because today marks one thousand years since the First King defeated the Demon King.”
His words rippled through the crowd. Some nobles leaned forward, eyes glinting with interest. Others… were less impressed.
A few murmured among themselves, their disdain thinly veiled.
“Demon King… such nonsense,” one whispered.
“Merely a fable to glorify the throne,” another scoffed.
“There’s no way a being like that ever truly existed,” a third chuckled under his breath.
Leo’s fingers twitched against the table. His gaze sharpened, though he kept his face cold.
If they had stood where he stood… if they had seen the eyes of that monster in the fire and the screams of dying soldiers… they would never speak so carelessly.
The pendant.
The thought burned in his mind. That small, unassuming trinket the King had called “useless” in front of the nobles… they had no idea. No one here remembered what it truly was — the symbol of the first king’s right to rule, a mark of divine authority. It was more than a relic. It was a key.
A weapon.
His jaw tightened. To see his people forget its meaning… to watch it treated like some worthless ornament… it made his blood boil.
No matter what, he thought, I will take it back.
He leaned back in his chair, eyes fixed on the glowing rift in the center of the hall, where the trial awaited. The nobles whispered, the princes smirked, the Queen watched…
They didn’t know.
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