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Chapter 2 - Demon Successor

Chapter 1 – The Successor of Shadows

The world had always looked past him.

Arata Kurozawa sat in the last row of his classroom, the clock ticking away another meaningless day. No one spoke his name. No one asked for his notes. When roll call came, teachers often skipped over him without realizing. Even his parents rarely looked at him directly.

It was as if he was cursed—to exist, yet never matter.

Arata never cried about it. What was the point? Loneliness wasn't sharp anymore; it had dulled into a constant ache, a hollow weight pressing on his chest.

"Why am I even here?" he muttered under his breath, watching dust motes float lazily in a shaft of sunlight. The words dissolved in the empty air, unheard.

But that night, as he lay in bed staring at his cracked ceiling, something changed.

---

The Summoning

The air grew cold. Not the gentle chill of autumn—but a suffocating stillness that stole the warmth from his bones. His heartbeat slowed, then faltered, until silence filled his body.

When his eyes snapped open, his bedroom was gone.

He stood inside a vast cathedral of obsidian stone, its walls etched with glowing crimson veins. The ceiling arched endlessly above him, like the ribs of some colossal beast. Torches burned with black fire, their light stretching shadows across the floor.

At the center of it all stood a throne—towering, jagged, and bound in chains thicker than Arata's body. Upon that throne sat a corpse clad in ruined armor, its crown cracked, its eyes empty sockets leaking trails of darkness.

Arata's breath caught. His instincts screamed to run, but his body refused to move.

Then—

> "You have arrived… at last."

The voice did not echo in the hall. It spoke inside his bones. The corpse shifted, a sound like stone grinding against stone. From its chest erupted a glowing sigil, black and red, pulsing like a second heart.

Before Arata could scream, it shot into his hand.

"Ahh—!" He collapsed to his knees, clutching his palm as the mark burned into his flesh. Agony surged through his veins, but beneath the pain was something more—power. Whispers filled his ears, thousands of voices chanting one word in unison.

> "Successor."

Arata gasped for air. The mark pulsed, its rhythm syncing with his own heartbeat. When he looked up, the corpse upon the throne was crumbling to ash. Its crown did not fall—it dissolved into pure shadow, swirling around him like a storm before sinking into his chest.

Memories not his own flooded his mind. Armies bowing, kingdoms in flames, gods screaming as they were dragged into the abyss. One name repeated itself over and over, carved into the very bones of history:

The Demon Lord Varxiel.

And now, Varxiel's throne was empty.

---

The Inheritor

The cathedral doors burst open. Knights in silver armor stormed in, their blades glowing with holy light. Behind them, robed priests chanted in a tongue that made Arata's ears bleed.

"There! The ritual is complete!" one priest shouted.

"Kill him before the mark takes hold!" barked a knight.

Their eyes locked on Arata—not with indifference, not with dismissal. Fear. For the first time in his life, people were looking directly at him.

Arata rose to his feet, his hands trembling. Shadows coiled around his body, rising and falling like smoke. His reflection shimmered faintly in the polished obsidian floor: eyes glowing crimson, a black crown of aura forming above his head.

The knights faltered. One of them whispered:

"The Demon Lord's… successor…"

Arata's lips curled into something between a smile and a snarl. Just hours ago, no one in the world cared he existed. Now, every eye in the room was fixed on him.

Finally.

"I was invisible to the world," Arata said softly, his voice echoing in the cathedral. "But now…"

The shadows answered his unspoken command, writhing outward like serpents. Swords shattered, torches died, and the crimson veins in the walls flared as if rejoicing.

"…now the world will remember me."

The knights charged with desperate screams.

Arata raised his hand. The mark on his palm blazed, and the shadows exploded like a storm of blades. In an instant, steel, flesh, and bone were swallowed whole, their cries silenced beneath the roar of darkness.

When the chaos subsided, only Arata remained—standing before the throne, crimson eyes burning in the silence.

He clenched his fist, feeling the weight of destiny press down on him. The whispers had not stopped. They called, begged, demanded one thing of him.

And he no longer wished to resist.

> "Very well," he whispered. His voice, for once, was heard. "I accept this fate. I am Arata Kurozawa—the one this world shall know as… the Demon Successor."

The cathedral trembled. Outside, the sky split with crimson lightning, and kingdoms far beyond felt the shiver of a new shadow awakening.

The throne of the Demon Lord had found its heir.

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