The throne sat empty.
Liam stood behind it, fingers brushing its jagged edges, eyes scanning the room long after the generals had dispersed.
He had held their fear—but not their trust.
That would take more than posturing.
It would take control.
And knowledge.
He turned away from the throne and walked into the shadows behind it. There was a door—nearly invisible, hidden between folds of darkness enchanted to repel attention. But Liam remembered it.
Chapter 22: The Chamber of Origin.
A throwaway location in the book. A dead-end.
But that was before the Demon King knew how to read between the lines.
He reached for the handle.
The door opened with a whisper.
Inside, the air changed.
No torches. No magic flames. Just cold—not the kind that chilled your skin, but the kind that brushed your thoughts.
The room was small.
Circular.
Stone walls curved inward like the inside of a tomb. But at its center stood a single object:
A mirror.
Tall. Oval. Framed in bone-white metal.
It didn't reflect the room.
It reflected Liam's thoughts.
He stared into it.
And the mirror stared back—not with his demon form, but with flickering visions: A college dorm. A laptop screen. His old body, sprawled across a bed, dead to the world after binge-reading a book he hated.
[System Alert: Hidden Relic Detected]Object: The Mirror of RememberingDescription: "Not all transmigrations are accidental."Status: Bound. Unlocking latent memory fragments…Progress: 1%
Liam backed away.
"…What?"
The mirror rippled.
A voice echoed inside his mind.
"Who are you pretending to be?"
His heart raced. Not out of fear—but anticipation.
There was more going on than just waking up in a villain's body. This mirror didn't belong to the Demon King.
It belonged to whoever brought him here.
[New Quest Unlocked – Thread of the False Author]Objective: Discover how and why you were placed in the role of the Demon King.Reward: ???Penalty for failure: Narrative collapse.
Liam stared at the quest prompt.
Then at the mirror.
Then at himself.
"I'm not just rewriting the story," he muttered. "I'm breaking the goddamn spine."
Elsewhere, far beneath the continent…
A figure in a dark cloak walked through a library that shouldn't exist—where the books had no titles, and the shelves bled ink.
They paused.
Looked up.
And smiled.
"The piece has moved."