Kael Varellion was a man carved of war and vengeance.
The moment his subordinates, Varon and Merek, departed to set their orders in motion, the air in the grand room shifted. The last flicker of warmth from his earlier tender moment with Auren was tucked away behind ice-blue eyes now glinting with dangerous clarity. He stood beside the sleeping form on the bed, gaze sweeping once over Auren's peaceful face, his fingers brushing one last time over the soft locks.
"Rest now," he murmured lowly. "When you wake, this kingdom will no longer have the teeth to bite."
He turned, his long coat flaring like a dark-winged beast, and strode toward the war table.
The halls of the commandeered fortress were no longer silent.
Kael's presence pulsed through every stone corridor, every soldier straightening, every noble's breath held as the Demon Commander passed by. The man known to turn tides of war with a single command was moving. And it was not for a parade. It was for the purge.
He began with the archives.
"You said the suspect lingers here at night," Kael muttered, echoing Auren's words from his journal.
His boots echoed off the marble as he entered the stone-cold hall of records. The candlelight flickered against rows of shelves stacked with scrolls and ledgers, dust swirling in his wake. Hidden mechanisms were uncovered, secret compartments checked. All Auren's notations matched. Someone had been using these paths.
Kael crouched near a locked chest, fingers brushing faint prints of a disturbed layer of dust. A faint metallic scent lingered, like oil on armor.
"Someone careless in hiding their steps," he muttered. "But careful enough to do it under shadow."
He stood, snapping his fingers once.
A black-cloaked shadow dropped from the rafters: one of Kael's elite shadow agents.
"Begin surveillance. No more movement without my signal."
At the Queen's hidden estate, what was once meant to be untouchable, Kael made his mark.
It started with the nobles. Quiet arrests. A few accidents. Suspicious deaths swept under titles like bandit ambush or tragic duel. Kael's shadow network struck with ruthless precision. Even the Queen's own informants didn't know they'd been rooted out until they were already being dragged from their hiding holes.
Within three days, half of her intelligence ring was gone.
Back at the fortress, Kael leaned over Auren's journal again, memorizing everything written in Auren's meticulous hand. He lingered on a passage:
"He told me he'd protect me. But I think maybe... I want to protect him too."
Kael's jaw clenched, a quiet fire burning behind his eyes. The Demon Commander moved for war because of duty. But now?
He moved for Auren.
By nightfall, Kael met with Varen again.
"The Queen has narrowed her operations to the western border. We've pushed her pawns there."
"And the false peace?"
Kael smiled, cruel and satisfied. "Ends with fire."
He drew a mark on the map. Auren's notes circled around that location, too. The final lead.
"Burn it all."
At the war table, Kael stood alone once more. Above, the moonlight streamed through tall glass panes, washing him in silver.
Behind him, Auren slept, utterly unaware of the empire that would be razed in his name.
Kael had gone back to take Auren instead of leaving him. Though the two shadow guards still stood at attention– in the shadows.
And far in the background, barely audible to anyone but himself...
[System Notification:] You've Unleashed A Simping War Demon. Proceed With Caution.
"Inferno in His Name"
The battlefield was not drenched in blood.
Not yet.
But Kael's march was a promise.
The skies above Solvanyr's outer borders darkened with stormclouds, as if echoing the fury beneath Kael's calm visage. His army split into five flanks, each moving like extensions of his will. Silent. Deadly. Efficient.
A thunderous crack split the air. Not of nature, but of siege magic.
"Archers, three marks to the left," Kael muttered, and even with the din of war preparations, his generals heard. They obeyed with religious reverence.
He didn't bark orders. He simply said them and the world moved.
Flames surged from Kael's outstretched hand, his demon blood responding with savage pleasure. The Queen's remaining spies had huddled in a watchtower near the neutral border. Not anymore. The inferno bloomed upward, swallowing stone, steel, and sin.
"Let them know," Kael murmured, eyes like frozen obsidian, "I protect what's mine."
Behind him, his second-in-command gave a slow exhale. "Your Excellency, the informant has confessed. Three names. All nobles."
"Silence them. Quietly. Leave only one to talk."
"And the archives?"
Kael smiled—a sharp, cold thing. "Burned. I left the Queen a note."
The third-in-command shifted awkwardly. "...A note?"
Kael reached into his coat and pulled out a parchment with elegant script.
'Touch him again, and I'll rip your spine out and use it as my quill.'
Meanwhile, in the quiet folds of the void between system channels…
System 707 was pacing- well, flickering in his dimension, screaming into his own code.
SYSTEM ERROR: HOST UNCONSCIOUS
SYSTEM COMMENTARY: EXCUSE ME?! You can't just DRUG my Host and go on a MURDER-SPREE ROMANTIC RAMPAGE. KAEL YOU- YOU DELICIOUSLY DANGEROUS DEVIL!
707 flicked through the surveillance logs, replaying Kael's smug face while gently tucking a blanket over Auren's unconscious form like nothing happened.
"I swear to every line of corrupted code. If you even touch his toe again without consent, I'll glitch your favorite boots into SANDALS."
But no one could hear the system scream.
Except the Host.
Who was very, very asleep.
Back on the front, Kael adjusted his gloves as another camp lit up in the distance.
The Queen's pawns?
Gone.
His reward?
Auren's safety. A world where his name would never again be whispered with threat. A bed still warm, a soft body he'd return to.
"Tell the men," Kael said, dark armor shimmering, "we move at dawn."
"And our objective?"
Kael looked up, eyes gleaming with purpose.
"The Queen's crown."