Vol. 2 CH. 5 – The Shadow King

 

PART# 1

 

Back in the past there was traveler of unknown origins that came to Caladium. The traveler was a young man brimming with opportunity and vigor as he had only stepped out from his life as country boy.

 

At first, he was kind young man that helped others no matter how difficulty the task was;  farming, hunting, feeding cattle and poultry, fetching water and bunch of things that would normally done by most people of their own.

 

The young man was truly kind.

 

But then one day, the young man got into a fight in one of the townsfolk of Caladium. Being a town of elves, almost everyone there were elves with long life span that had seen people come and go in their life. They were the kind of people that would prefer the old way of living, far away from impure thoughts and negativities.

 

However the young man was from a country that was only starting. With its people only numbering a few hundreds and towns only about ten or twenty, the young man traveled to different countries in order to gain more knowledge about the world.

 

This was a time about 300 years in the past. When most countries were just starting and most of the human countries were just but small tribes and villages.

 

The young traveler was none other than the Shadow king Crats, the famed 10^th Demon Lord.

 

“I was a fool back then…. Filled with dreams and naivety, only seeing the bright side of things even though I already know that everything was a lie…”

 

Seated on his throne inside an ink dark space, where no light was present, yet everything glimmers in the dark, the Shadow King muttered in a very low voice as he saw a dream of a past that had long since he had forgotten. 300 years had passed since then and he had already crashed numerous cities with his own strength, obtained through rigorous experiences.

 

But in the end, he sought nothing but the peace that he had wished before. In the end, he won the peace and quiet yet lost the very thing that loved the most. That was the heart of a human being.

 

It has been 300 years since he became a Demon Lord. His human body lost its physical form and most of his humanity. His appearance now was a dark mass of smoke covered with nothing but a cloak. His eyes glowed red within the darkness and his soft breathing can be heard from his nonexistent mouth.

 

The 10^th Demon Lord became a monster that far removed from any physical existence. He lives within the border of life and death, located within the Inverted world of light. It is also where souls of the dead gather and swirl within a cauldron of never-ending heat.

 

Limbo…

 

For two hundred and fifty years, Shadow King Crats had never left his domain. His minions, the Nightmares, had been his eyes to see the world of mortals. Back then, the world was quiet and there were less conflict due to small countries having small borders.

 

But after a few decades, the human community began to expand and make their own countries. His fellow demon lords causing trouble here and there were already causing much chaos in their wake but even so, the world was quiet back then.

 

However, now was different. Heroes were called forth from a different dimension in order to slay the Demon Lords. In total, there were about 13 Demon Lords, excluding himself and the Dark Lord Trause that decided to live apart from the world; the ones causing trouble were the 9^th, 11^th and 13^th Demon Lords.

 

Aside from the 9^th Demon Lord that had been slayed a month ago, the Flame Knight Esmeth and the Soul Eater Vraheim, were plotting something in their domains. Esmeth, who resides near the borders of the Dwarf Kingdom Dwvargon, where most of the active volcanoes reside, had already begun amassing his forces. The fire monsters that can burn most of everything in its path were quickly increasing in numbers.

 

Soul Eater Vraheim was collecting the souls of the dead in order to create an army of the undead in his domain. The 13^th Demon Lord was a troublesome foe even for Crats since Vraheim uses the souls of the dead to make an army. Be it monster or humans, he can take it and transform them into monsters of his own. With the world filled with more living beings than before, his monsters were merely increasing.

 

Although Vraheim was an upstart Demon Lord, he had the most troublesome power of all…

 

“Hmm… I see good work”

 

Shadow King Crats cut off his thoughts as he had a report from one of his Nightmares. It said that a few minions of Vraheim had manipulated the minds of some humans near Caladium. Making them go mad with power and obscenity. Shadow King Crats cut off his communications from one of his minions and turned to look at the desolate throne room he was currently in.

 

Caladium, it was the place he once stayed in in order to gain knowledge of the world for the benefit of his people. It was a kind place that helped in in his time as a human but in the end…

 

“They were the ones that turned me into this….”

 

Shadow King Crat’s voice bellowed as he remembered the old fight he had with one of the Elf elders 300 250 years ago. The elder once belonged to one of the old Demon Lord’s cult was the one that turned him into a Shadow beast when he received a certain item from him.

 

At that time, Curse artifacts were but a fantasy that was why Shadow King Crats accepted the item in good faith. In the end, he was betrayed and was chased away from Caladium; away from the woman he had loved before.

 

“Elfianna… my old love, how I wish to be with you so…”

 

His sad words echoed to the empty space around him as he reminisced of the past long since forgotten… In the end, no one heard his sad cries that which only reside within the shadows…

 

-

 

Edsel Rose, she was once a famed elf mage that helped beautify the lands encompassing Paracellumn. Her role as the Queen’s advisor gave her the power to order people to protect nature around the kingdom, protecting them from monsters and the ever so nature consuming humans.; which was the reason why there were so many trees within the country of elves that the entirety of the country was a labyrinth itself.

 

At that time, the Queen removed Edsel from her post since Edsel had found a family of her own. But the surrounding elders didn’t took such retirement kindly and blamed Edsel for the overgrowth of the trees around their country.

 

Guilt stricken, Edsel decided to move away from the main capital and decided to live in some place far for politics, far from the duties of an advisor, she moved to Caladium.

 

Alongside her husband, a Demon-Spawn half elf and half human, they lived within the forest that acts as the borders between the human lands and the elves. During this time, their work was merely forestry and lumberjacks, the couple would cut trees and replant them then sell the lumber to human towns for money.

 

It was a quiet time for them but life became hard when the elf elders that worked under the Queen sent human mercenaries to their home. Her mother raped and killed by those humans, her father beheaded by the very elf elder that he served, her brother and sister given to the mercenaries as prize and her husband was…

 

“We escaped from them…fortunately”

 

During on their run, Edsel and her husband lived in a more secluded place. Near a river at the foot of a mountain, there they made a new home for their family. The life there was bit hard due to having no contact with the outside world but is better than being hunted down like animals.

 

They had to start from scratch, living inside caves and eating fruits. They built their house far away from any towns or villages so that they won’t be tracked down. But Edsel was a mage. Her magic power was higher and more potent than her husband. Because of that, many of the Spirit use elves were able to track them down.

 

Edsel fought for her and her husband but with the constant battle day after day, she too had become exhausted. She became sick and bedridden and when she was at death’s door, her husband came with a medicine. She was saved because of that but in the end that action his was the one that put them in danger.

 

“I didn’t think I was pregnant with Dahlia at that time… Because of that, I couldn’t fight”

 

Because elves don’t give birth much in their life, their reproductive abilities became weak. Each time a female elf would get pregnant, their body becomes weak and they won’t be able to move for most of her pregnancy.

 

In the end, her husband died. Burned at the center of some elf town, for being a Demon-Spawn, her husband drew his last breath under the hands of Pernicious Caladium.

 

“Dahlia was still inside my belly at that time so I didn’t know what truly happened. But after Dahlia was born, I immediately went to town to search for him. Only to find out what happened to him”

 

After finding out that her husband died, Edsel quickly ran back home to collect Dahlia. Because staying at their home now would be dangerous, she decided to live in one of the human settlements for now.

 

“But that too was a wrong decision”

 

Driven away far from home, Edsel chose to live in some human settlement and live as villager. She constantly hid the fact that she had a daughter in order to fool the humans in their settlement and to avoid having her daughter killed in the same way as her husband.

 

However, one day a human suddenly came inside Edsel’s house discovering Dahlia, a Demon-Spawn inside her home, and then suddenly demanded to give the girl to him. As a mother, she sprang into action and protected her daughter.

 

The man was a burglar and was attempting to rob her of her things after all. But once the man took a good look at her, the man changed his demands and wished to be serviced instead in exchange for being quiet.

 

Although she herself can’t bear the touch of any other man besides her husband, she gave in to his will and accepted the burglar’s demands.

 

For many months, Edsel became the toy of that burglar. Day and night, almost every day she was being forced to do the man’s bidding and offers her womanhood. But then Dahlia attacked the man, using the very same magic her husband was adept in, Dahlia killed the burglar using Dark magic spell… <Leech Life>.

 

“After that, we were chased by that man’s group up until the mountains. We were captured once but we escaped when I killed their leader but in the end, they used Dahlia against me and forced me to….”

 

“Don’t say anymore…”

 

Kyoushiro made Edsel stop telling her story as soon as he saw her expression darkened. One can tell how much she had gone through just to keep her daughter safe, the bags under her eyes proved it. Even more so, the lashes and burn marks he saw on her skin when he cleaned her were the proof of her struggles.

 

Kyoushiro pity the woman before her and sighed.

 

This is one horrible coincidence…. - Kyoushiro thought as he crossed his arms and recalled the very reason his trip had stopped here.

 

The first request of Elfianna was to visit Paracellumn for a sort of cultural exchange program. The trip was on its way when Elfianna received a distress call from the one that would inherit her throne. The ship stopped at Caladium where it was deduced that it was the place near where the princess sent her letter.

 

Because of that, all four of them heroes took separate paths to look for the missing princess. Koizumi chose the mountain, Katsuto to the west and Minami to a human settlement. Kyoushiro was asked to stay due to his famed reputation as a criminal and also a Demon-Spawn.

 

But because he felt anger from being treated horribly by some people he didn’t even knew despite acting tough, his curse mark nearly consumed him and almost took his mind. Still, he came across a scream from someplace near and decided to help even though his mind was still suffering from the corruption of the curse.

 

After that he rescued Edsel and Dahlia from the men that belonged in the same group as the burglar that raped her over and over again. Then it came to this situation…

 

As usual, this world is crazy… to think that even a guy like that would stoop so low…. - Kyoushiro bit his lower lip as he cursed this world for its cruel deeds. The fate of those that live in this kind of world were twisted, the good gets soiled while the horrible bad people would always stand on top.

 

This world needs to be destroyed, it needs to be purified and burned in order for everyone to survive. The people of this world need to be killed; they need to be put to judgement for their heinous crimes against rights of the people…

 

They need to be…. Slaughtered…

 

“!?”

 

As a surge of pain struck Kyoushiro’s head, he had realized that he had lost himself to his anger again and his curse mark was about to resurface again. The heat of the campfire lessened the cold air that passed over him for a bit and the scent of something burning came to Kyoushiro’s nose.

 

The fishes he had caught was on fire, Edsel took those fishes into the air using wind magic and put out the fire. The sad state of the good fish registered inside Kyoushiro’s eyes, making him laugh at himself for not paying much attention to his surroundings.

 

Kyoushiro gave Edsel the cooked ones he had saved for later. The ones that Edsel took were too burned to be consumed by someone. Edsel looked puzzled for a moment but as she took the properly cooked fish from Kyoushiro’s hand, she realized that this was an act of kindness out of the goodness of Kyoushiro’s heart.

 

Feeling such kindness after such a long time, Edsel burst into tears…