Fire no longer merely burned — it devoured.
The night sky, once meant to be black, had turned a bleeding orange, raining ash born not from timber, but from the charred remains of human bones.
Not one house.
Not one street.
The entire village was being remade into a living hell.
Kaera fell hard. The skin of her small palms tore open as they scraped against blistering stone. Her breaths came short, her lungs screaming as thick smoke—reeking of burnt flesh—flooded her chest.
Between collapsing ruins, human cries shattered the air, only to be cut short by a sickening—
KRAK
The ravenous snap of a neck broken without mercy.
Demons.
They were not merely attacking.
They were feasting.
The black tide tore through anything that still breathed, claws long as blades ripping life apart with savage delight.
"Mother...!" Kaera's voice was small, hoarse, swallowed by chaos.
A towering shadow lunged toward her—three meters tall, eyes blazing red. Yellowed fangs dripped acidic saliva that sizzled as it struck the ground.
Before death could brush her skin—
SCHLICK!
The sound of flesh being pierced thundered in her ears.
The massive claw drove deep, bursting through her mother's chest from behind, the jagged tips erupting into view before Kaera's eyes. Thick blood—hot, metallic—splattered across her face.
The world went silent.
The fire faded.
The screams vanished.
Only the sound of her mother's blood dripping onto the earth remained.
Tick... tick... tick...
No scream escaped her lips. Only fractured breaths and violent tremors that crawled from her fingertips through her entire body.
With what little life remained, she gripped Kaera's small shoulders. Her sharpened nails sank into her daughter's skin—not to wound, but to anchor herself, as if trying to pour every last fragment of her spirit into that fragile body before she drifted into darkness.
"Kaera..."
The name left her mouth with bursts of thick crimson foam. Her red dress was drenched and heavy now—not from dye, but from the warmth endlessly pouring from the gaping wound in her chest.
"Run. Please... don't look back. Don't let this broken face of mine be the last thing you remember."
"Mother... it hurts..." Kaera sobbed, tears mixing with the blood on her cheeks.
"Shhh..."
With trembling fingers slicked in red, her mother pressed one to Kaera's lips.
She smiled.
Not a beautiful farewell—but a tragic one forced through a jaw nearly shattered. The final performance of a mother hiding hellish agony to calm her child.
The demon roared in irritation and ripped its claw free.
Her mother's body jerked—then collapsed upon the earth, no longer whole.
"MOTHER!!"
Kaera's scream tore through the sky, shredding her own throat.
As the demon raised its arm to sever her neck—
A crushing pressure descended upon the battlefield—so heavy Kaera's ribs nearly splintered beneath it.
BOOOOM!!
The ground erupted.
Not in flame—but in a surge of dense black force that exploded outward. Demons disintegrated mid-snarl, reduced to dust before they could even cry out.
Slowly, Kaera lifted her head.
At the center of the crater stood a figure more terrifying than any demon before.
A tall man.
His armor, once silver, was now obsidian-black, soaked in thickened blood. Disheveled hair veiled half his face, yet behind the darkness, a pair of golden eyes burned—like dying suns refusing to fade.
"Astaroth..."
The name trembled from the lips of the last surviving elite demon, who now shook violently as it dropped to its knees.
The Legend.
The former General of Hell.
Kaera's father.
Astaroth said nothing.
He swung his black blade.
Each strike did not merely cut flesh—it split the air itself. He moved like a wounded beast, tearing apart every dark creature that dared approach his wife's corpse.
But the sky grew darker still.
Thousands more demons descended like locusts.
Astaroth was overwhelmed. A black spear pierced his shoulder—another through his thigh. He dropped to one knee, golden blood spilling into the soil, mingling with human crimson.
"Father!!"
He turned.
For a fleeting second, the inferno in his eyes dimmed—replaced by the one emotion a general fears most:
Helplessness.
"Kaera..."
From a ruptured portal, chains of black magic lashed out, coiling around his neck and arms, dragging him toward the dimensional fracture. He did not fight for himself.
He fought to buy her time.
"Don't look for me. Let this hatred die with me!"
DOOOM!!
The portal sealed shut with a deafening roar.
Silence reclaimed the night.
Only the crackle of dying wood remained. The demons vanished as if their sole purpose had been to reclaim a lost "asset."
Kaera knelt alone in the graveyard of her village.
She stared at her hands, still wet with her mother's blood.
No sob escaped her now.
Her tears had dried—burned away by the inferno that consumed her home—leaving behind only hollow, lifeless eyes.
Within her chest, something began to pulse.
Something violent.
Uncontrollable.
Not fully human.
Not fully demon.
The Demon King believed they had reclaimed their greatest weapon.
They were wrong.
They had just left behind something far worse.
----
Ten autumns later.
The flames that devoured the village had long since faded, leaving behind ash and forgotten history.
But the "weapon" abandoned within those ruins never stopped sharpening itself.
She was no longer the weak little girl crying in the dirt.
****