Chapter 29 - The King Returns 

Ash appeared before Destiny's snout before she even realized he had crossed the space between them.

Exe looked through Destiny's crown and thumped his knuckles against her head.

She looked at him with annoyance.

"What's wrong, child? Ready for more war?"

Exe tried to get up, but Ren, Tenka, and Fubuki began dusting off his clothes.

Destiny began looking around as her snout brushed against Demon King Ash's chest.

Her face turned to shock after seeing the Demon King standing before her emerald eyes.

"So it's true… you're alive. Good. Then send me home, Ash."

Demon King Ash opened his arms and embraced Destiny as if he had known her since he was a child.

Destiny shot her colony a glare that promised death to anyone laughing.

Destiny closed her eyes.

After a while, she opened them wide and shoved him away with her snout.

"ALRIGHT. ALRIGHT. ALRIGHT! You're not a child anymore, act like it, Ash."

He looked up toward Exe as their eyes met.

For a moment, they didn't seem that far apart in age, but he still spoke to Exe like a father who had never missed a step.

"How are you, my son? I see you are still with us."

Exe turned around and leaned his back against Destiny's crown.

Ren finished wrapping the gunshot wound on his shoulder with bandages.

Exe looked at his father as Ash continued petting Destiny's snout.

Her face grew more annoyed with every rub.

"Father, are we still going after Drago?"

Ash didn't take his eyes off Destiny.

She let out an annoyed hiss as if she had endured enough of this farce, then gently pushed him away with her snout despite being much larger than him.

"Answer your son already, Ash."

He took a moment to clean his clothes.

For a second, he seemed to remember he was still a king, even in this younger body.

He looked at Exe once more with a serious expression.

"We will. He doesn't belong in the Human Kingdom."

Exe looked over and saw Dante marching toward Ash from behind him.

He turned his attention back to his father.

Ren, Tenka, and Fubuki finally finished patching Exe up before dropping back into his jumper, exhausted.

"Mom was safely protected by a lead soldier from Drago's army."

Exe grunted as the wounds on his shoulder reopened from moving around too much.

FLAP-THWHACK

Ren smacked Exe across the face with her ear and immediately began changing the bandages again.

Exe held his cheek as he stared at Ren like she had lost her mind.

"You've been acting more violently lately."

Then he turned toward his father again, watching Ash step beside Destiny.

"So what now, Father? Do we go after the Human King?"

Ash drew a small black dagger.

An eye was set into its hilt, shut as though it were sleeping.

He lifted it to his lips and whispered a command.

"We must correct what should not belong here."

He looked at Destiny with sad eyes.

The eye snapped open.

Black flames swallowed the dagger.

Ash's eyelids lowered as he watched the weapon change.

The handle lengthened.

The blade widened into a brutal Bowie knife.

Cold.

Predatory.

As though it had matured alongside Ash himself.

"Let's send you back to Hell, Destiny."

Dante stopped a short distance from Ash, watching what was about to happen.

A wave of power rushed outward, blowing Dante's hood from his head.

"Showing off for your little boy, huh?"

Dante had already dressed himself in clothes taken from one of the ruined guild houses.

He smirked as Ash tightened his grip around the blade.

"Let's see if he still has enough power to open a gate large enough for Destiny."

Ash's eyes flared with a burst of violet.

He pulled his arm down, slicing through the air itself.

SKREEEEE-BOOOOOM!

A portal opened, twice the size Destiny needed.

Sweat rolled down Ash's face as he fought to keep his composure.

He looked through the portal and saw his elders.

Each one flared with a different color, as if they were speaking to him in a tongue only Hell remembered.

One elder's bright green eyes flared in open insult, as though mocking Ash for needing rebirth at all.

Ash's expression darkened.

"You dare insult me?"

"You would all be dead if not for me."

His gaze swept across the defiant circle.

Suddenly, his irises ignited with regal violet light.

VRYYY-SHING!

The sound wasn't loud, but it carried the weight of a mountain.

One by one, the Elders felt their Miasma buckle.

Their shadows turned traitor, pinning them against the stone until every Elder was forced to kneel.

"Now, now…"

Destiny slithered toward the portal.

I came to see Destiny off, standing beside Exe as he rested atop Aries.

Destiny's emerald eyes found me as I stepped closer.

She turned her crowned head toward me and bowed, as if greeting royalty.

Casual words slipped from my mouth, probably from spending too much time sleeping in Jane's room and being nosy.

"Y-you good?"

Destiny looked at me—and smiled.

Then she turned toward the portal and slithered past the Elders, forcing them to move aside.

Her tail clipped the green-eyed Elder and sent him sprawling.

"Oops… sorry. I don't know why he opened the portal here anyway."

I laughed at the furious Elder and raised a fist after her.

Destiny only kept slithering deeper into Hell, finding her way back home.

Ash flared his eyes once more toward the group of Elders, as if seeing them off.

They all smiled beneath their cloaks.

Even the green-eyed Elder.

ZIP-THOCK!

Ash closed the portal with a strike from his Bowie knife.

He stared at it as Dante walked up behind him.

I got annoyed because he wasn't this casual before.

Dante stared past my father and looked at me as he approached us both.

"Imagine getting insulted by the old heads and getting protected by your old pet."

Ash didn't look at him.

He sheathed the Bowie knife at his side.

"Imagine still living in my shadow, Dante."

Dante laughed, clutching his stomach as if Ash's insult had cut him open.

He cleared the tears from his eyes.

His smile was so pure, but for some reason, it still felt vulgar.

My father noticed me staring at Dante with an attitude.

"Dante, watch how you speak around me in front of my family."

Ash hugged me with a fatherly embrace.

"Don't kill him now. He is still one of my trusted men."

He walked past me with his eyes fixed on my mother, his wife, Demon Queen Lily.

He walked past Exe, patting his head as he rested atop Aries.

Ren, Tenka, and Fubuki waved him off with their ears.

"Take care of my only son, alright, girls?"

He walked toward his wife and grabbed her hands, looking into her eyes.

"I'm sorry I took so long."

She tightened her grip around his hands.

"I knew you would come back to me."

I turned away, expecting Dante to keep his distance, but he moved up close without warning me.

I backed up instantly, my face twisting with annoyance.

"I'm going back to House 13. I'm tired… and we still have one more day of protection there."

I started walking toward my carriage with Chris already in the driver's seat.

He cracked the reins once, and the phantom horses came to life.

Aries hopped onto the roof with Exe and the girls on his back.

Ash and Lily sat inside the carriage first.

"Don't sit too close to me now. I bet my father told you what happened to Derrek…"

I looked around and saw Dante giving gold to a human child from the slums.

He turned toward me and noticed I was already gone.

"Oh, wow. You really are just like your father, right? Always on the move."

I looked at him wrong, then entered the carriage.

He followed after me and got into the carriage with us.

Chris cracked the reins one more time.

The horses pulled the carriage toward tired old House 13.

"So, Father, what's going to happen now?"

He sat next to Lily in the carriage.

She was by the window, and he sat close, holding her hands.

"For now, we celebrate our new broken family. It is not complete like it once was, but looking forward, we will not let what he did to your mother and me go unanswered."

He turned his eyes toward me and bowed his head, showing his respect.

"And you, Luna… thank you for watching over your brother. Your mother and I both know how out of hand he can get when it comes to power."

Dante's hand covered mine where it rested on the seat.

I looked at him like he was pushing his luck and pulled away at once.

"Uh… you okay?"

Dante only grinned.

"I always figured I'd end up with you, Luna."

I looked out the window, face burning.

How is everyone moving this fast?

Then I remembered.

I'm a demon.

My mother giggled as if I hadn't recently killed my ex-fiancé.

"Don't stress over little things, darling. We never chose Derrek anyway."

Lily rested a hand beneath her chin.

"Your older brother Drago wanted you tied to Derrek… so his friend would gain power after dethroning your father."

I looked at my father as he rested his eyes, his chin tucked against his chest.

More like snoring.

Looks like my father really hadn't slept without knowing if Lily was safe.

Chris spoke from the driver's seat window as he turned into an intersection.

"We will be arriving shortly, everyone."

I sighed and stretched my arms.

I hadn't noticed it before, but the sun had finally set.

We came to a complete stop.

I stepped out of the carriage first and noticed a crimson storm cloud brewing over the Human Kingdom.

"What's happening?"

A violent red pulse shot through the kingdom.

It knocked me off my feet and sent me right back into the carriage, into Dante's arms.

I fainted from the impact.

Dante panicked, calling my name as he tried to wake me up.

"Luna?! Luna!"

Ash stepped out of the carriage and stared toward the Human Kingdom through what remained of the battlefield.

In the distance, the kingdom's borders were being swallowed by red clouds.

Crimson thunder roared through them as if a ritual were about to begin.
KRAA-KOOM!

A bone-chilling shiver ran down Ash, Lily, and Exe's spines.

Ash's eyes widened with disbelief.

"He actually went through with it."

Exe yelled from atop the carriage.

"What's happening, Dad?!"

Lily closed the carriage door and looked through the window at Ash staring into the distance.

"What is it, darling?"

Ash spoke with anger and fear shuddering through his voice.

"He is performing the Rite of Lamia."