Snow and ash danced together in the air, two dying elements swirling across a battlefield that should not exist for someone like him.
Simon had no armor.
No blessing.
No ancient bloodline.
No divine prophecy carved into fate.
He had only a sword.
A dull metal blade, chipped at the edges, weighted by countless hours of sweat, blood, and repetition.
Before him stood Vala — the Forty-Second Demon King — a creature molded by centuries of carnage, magic, and dominance.
Vala's presence alone warped the storm around him.
Space bent.
Air thickened.
The world itself seemed to flinch beneath his shadow.
Yet Simon stepped forward anyway.
His boots sank into blood-soaked snow.
His breath steamed violently, chest rising and falling like a warrior ready to drown but refusing to do so quietly.
Vala's voice rolled, deep and rumbling like a mountain shifting:
> "You are brave, human-shell. Or stupid. I enjoy both."
Simon raised his sword. "I didn't come to entertain you."
"Then why stand before a king with nothing?"
Simon's heart pounded. But his voice did not crack.
"To prove that nothing can still swing a blade."
For a moment, even the storm seemed to hold its breath.
Then Vala laughed — a brutal, grave-shaking sound.
> "Show me, little ember."
Simon moved first.
A breath.
A step.
A burst forward like a starving wolf lunging at a lion.
Steel flashed.
No wasted motion.
No hesitation.
Ten thousand strikes practiced in perpetual dusk beneath Orba's cold gaze compressed into one clean slash.
Vala did not dodge.
He raised a clawed hand — not in defense, but in curiosity.
Metal struck flesh — and sparks burst like stars.
The force knocked Simon back several steps. His bones rattled, and his breath burst out in a grunt.
Vala's arm bore a shallow white line — a mark, nothing more.
A wound?
No.
An insult.
Vala blinked slowly. Then his lips curled.
> "You have teeth."
Simon inhaled hard, steadying his stance again, every muscle aching.
Good.
Let it hurt.
Pain meant he was alive.
He lunged again.
Slash.
Parry.
Spin.
Strike.
His sword traced lines in the storm, art painted in desperation and discipline. He moved like a man possessed by purpose, or perhaps like one who had long ago stopped fearing death.
Vala responded lazily, each gesture effortless, casual cruelty in motion.
Claws blocked steel.
Energy rippled through the air, distorting vision.
The world trembled each time he stepped, as though the land itself understood hierarchy better than mortals ever could.
Simon's blade carved wind and willpower.
But Vala carved reality.
A backhand strike came — faster than thought, heavier than fate.
Simon barely raised his sword.
Metal met force.
The impact hurled him across the snow, body tumbling, ribs cracking.
He crashed into a frozen boulder, breath crushed out from his chest.
Warm blood filled his mouth.
He wiped it away and stood again.
Slowly. Painfully.
> "Not bad," Vala murmured. "For prey."
Simon chuckled — a dry, broken sound.
"I've lived prey. I'm done being it."
The demon king raised a hand, magic swirling like storm-born flame.
Vala did not chant.
Did not gesture dramatically.
True power required no theatrics.
A sphere of condensed void formed at his palm — a black flame that consumed light without fire.
He flicked his wrist.
The blast ripped the earth open.
Snow vaporized.
Stone melted.
Air screamed.
Simon barely rolled aside — the attack brushing past, burning a line across his back like the kiss of oblivion. Flesh sizzled, nerves howled.
He staggered, vision blurring.
> "You run well," Vala taunted.
"Running," Simon panted, "isn't the same as retreat."
He charged again.
Not because he believed he could win — but because he believed he should fight.
His sword raced forward, aura of raw intent surrounding him.
Vala caught the blade between two fingers.
Two.
And squeezed.
Metal groaned.
Cracked.
Snapped in half.
Silence fell.
Simon stared at the broken hilt in his hand.
Then he looked up at Vala — not with despair, but with a strange calm.
"Then I'll use my hands."
He drove his fist forward.
Weak.
Human.
Stupid.
And yet Vala did not move.
The punch connected — a tap against an iron mountain.
Simon's knuckles split open. Blood dripped, steaming in freezing air.
Vala stared at him.
Confusion.
Annoyance.
Amusement.
> "Why continue?"
Simon breathed once — steady, final.
"Because quitting never made my life better."
The demon king's expression darkened.
"Then die a fool with pride."
He raised his palm.
Black fire gathered again — death made tangible.
Simon exhaled, ready to leap again, even if his arms failed, even if his bones shattered.
Better broken from trying than empty from surrendering.
The blast descended—
A ripple thundered through the abyss.
Not sound.
Not magic.
Authority.
The world itself bowed as a voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere:
> "Enough."
The storm vanished.
Shadows pulled back.
Time seemed to slow like a beast lowering its head.
Orba appeared — not walking, simply existing into place — standing between Simon and that obliterating flame.
Not interfering with urgency.
But annoyance.
Vala's fire dissipated like smoke.
"Orba," Vala growled. "This meal is mine."
Orba's tone was cold, razor-thin, uninterested.
> "He is mine."
Two kings stared at each other.
One radiating primal brutality.
The other radiating calculated cruelty.
Then Vala laughed again — curious, hungry.
"A pet? Or a mistake?"
Orba's eyes never blinked.
> "A tool."
Simon breathed once — betrayal sharp as winter.
But he did not deny it.
He did not break.
Tools swing too.
Tools shape fate too.
And tools can become weapons.
Orba tapped his cane against the frozen ground — a sound too soft and too powerful.
> "He lives. This time."
Vala smirked. "Then next time, send him sharpened."
Snow fell again, quietly, as the Demon King returned to his throne.
And Simon collapsed to one knee — not unconscious, just painfully aware of his body.
Orba glanced down at him.
> "Impressive. Pointless. But impressive."
Simon spat blood into snow.
"Pointless doesn't mean worthless."
Orba's lip twitched — faint approval, faint mockery.
> "Then rise. And sharpen yourself again."
The moment Simon's fingers brushed the hilt of Orba's sword, time seemed to fracture.
A whisper, an ancient growl, a firestorm of power surged beneath his skin. That sword—once hanging lazily at Orba's hip, too powerful to feel like anything but a mockery of restraint—now thrummed like a living thing in Simon's grasp.
The blade pulsed with infernal flame, runes igniting along its surface, devouring air, hunger echoing through every vein in his body.
Vala's sneer collapsed into something between shock and instinctive terror.
"You—!"
No spell completed.
No roar formed.
No defense rose.
Simon didn't wait.
He did not breathe, did not think, did not hope.
He acted.
The sword tore through the air, a single burning arc. A wave of abyssal fire erupted forward, swallowing Vala whole. Black-green flame devoured flesh, bone, and magic all at once. The chamber roared like a dying star.
Vala screamed once.
A sound so primal it shook mountains—cut short as the fire consumed him, collapsing his body into drifting ash.
Silence fell.
Violent, cruel silence.
His throne shattered. His castle walls trembled. And then, from the blackened smear where a Demon King once stood—only dust remained.
Simon dropped to one knee.
His lungs clawed for air. His hand shook around the hilt, seared raw by power he had no right to wield. His heart hammered like it wanted to break free from his ribs.
Then, he laughed.
A broken sound at first, then roaring, breathless, delirious laughter.
He won.
Not cleanly.
Not honorably.
Not gloriously.
But he won.
He didn't care about fairness.
He didn't care about pride.
He cared about one truth:
Victory meant survival. Losing meant becoming a corpse no one remembered.
If the world expected him to play fair, then the world never knew what it meant to live afraid every second.
He rose shakily. The sword burned against his palm—a reminder this victory was borrowed. Stolen. But his smile only widened.
"You looked down on me," he whispered to the smoldering dust. "Just like everyone before you."
He'd been called weak, disposable, prey.
Yet here he stood, while a Demon King—a ruler of the Abyss—was nothing but ash on the blackened floor.
The flames licking the blade began to coil around his arm, tasting his skin like serpents hungry for blood. Simon hissed, nearly dropping the sword.
The fire wanted more.
More destruction.
More life.
More souls.
But Simon forced his grip to steady.
"No."
His voice was hoarse but firm.
"I won. Not you."
For a grotesque moment, he felt the sword resist—like a living predator refusing to release its prey. As if the sword laughed in his mind.
Then, reluctantly, the fire dimmed.
The blade cooled.
And silence settled once more.
Simon wiped sweat and blood from his face, eyes stinging under the weight of exhaustion and triumph.
He wanted to sleep for a week.
He wanted to scream his victory into the chasm outside the castle.
He wanted—peace.
But peace didn't exist here.
Not in the Abyss.
Not under Orba.
Not in the life he chose by surviving too long.
A slow clap echoed behind him.
Sharp.
Mocking.
Controlled, as if amusement barely restrained itself beneath contempt.
Orba stood at the entrance, arms crossed, crimson eyes glowing like twin suns bleeding on the horizon.
Obviously, he'd been watching.
Of course he had.
"You cheated," Orba said, voice casual—dangerously casual.
Simon swallowed. "I won."
"You used my sword."
Simon stared back, refusing to bow his head. "You didn't say I couldn't."
A long silence.
Then—Orba smirked.
The smirk of an executioner amused his prey survived longer than expected.
"You're learning."
He approached slowly, boots crunching over the charred ground, dust rising around him like ghosts. He examined the remains of Vala's throne, then the ash scattered across the stone.
"One of the Forty-Seven Demon Kings," he murmured. "Gone. By a human."
Simon forced himself to stand straight. He still held the sword, barely.
"So," Simon breathed, "was this enough?"
Orba tilted his head. "Enough to live another day."
Simon nearly laughed again, though it sounded more like a cough.
That was the closest thing to praise he would ever get.
The fire in his veins cooled, leaving nothing but raw, throbbing agony. His arm felt flayed, nerves burning from channeling magic that shouldn't belong to mortals.
He stumbled, catching himself against a shattered pillar.
Orba didn't help him.
He never would.
"Walking on your own is part of the lesson," Orba said simply.
Simon clenched his jaw. "It hurts."
"Good. Pain keeps the unworthy alive just long enough to become useful."
Simon laughed bitterly. "I can't tell if you're complimenting me or insulting me."
"Yes."
He didn't specify which part was the yes. Typical.
"But understand this." Orba stepped close enough for Simon to feel hellfire radiating off his skin. "You did not kill Vala. My sword did."
Simon looked down at the blade, fingers trembling around it.
"For power you do not own," Orba continued, voice like stone scraping steel, "you must pay a price. Always."
Simon nodded once.
He knew.
He had always known.
In every world, power was never free.
Orba snapped his fingers.
The teleportation circle blazed beneath them, hellish symbols rewriting reality as easily as a child scribbling in dust.
"Drop the sword," Orba commanded.
Simon hesitated.
It felt like letting go of the only guarantee he had—his only shield against every nightmare waiting to tear him apart.
Then he exhaled and released it.
The sword vanished in a flash of embers, returning to its master.
And Simon returned to the Abyss he knew—
Dark halls.
Cold stone.
Endless hunger and whispers in the shadows.
But something was different.
This time, Simon walked with fire in his bones and the memory of a Demon King's death behind him.
Weak?
Prey?
Maybe once.
But today, the Abyss tasted fear of him.
---
He collapsed on the stone floor of his chamber, breath ragged, body trembling from power poisoning and spiritual exhaustion. His skin was scorched, muscles screaming, veins trembling with leftover magic.
He might die in his sleep.
He might not wake up.
But as his vision blurred, Simon felt something unfamiliar at the edges of his mind.
Pride.
Not arrogance.
Not delusion.
Just the quiet, stubborn pride of someone who had been broken, beaten, trained, tormented—and survived anyway.
He whispered to no one, voice nearly too quiet to hear:
"I can do this."
Even if it killed him.
Even if he had to crawl his way through the abyss for decades.
He would climb.
He would rise.
He would never be weak again.
And if the Abyss demanded a monster—Then a monster he would become.