It was the year 2632 of the Augustian Calendar, in a world known to its inhabitants as Americia.

It was the end of an era of blood and war, a time of desperation unlike any its people had known. At least… that is how it was until the goddess Almalexia called upon a miracle and managed to summon a Legendary Hero, the likes of which was unseen in the world since long before the Era of the Dragons. She had brought a message of hope, and through force of will and power, she had united all the races of the world.

Their armies had marched across the continent, driving back the Demon Lord’s forces that oppressed their people. Time after time, battle after battle, they fought with a righteous fury against a prophecy of darkness that threatened their very existence.

Strangely enough, with each and every victory, little could be done to prevent the growing dread that was preparing to engulf the world. By the time they reached the Demon Lord’s castle, the feeling of an immaterial dread had permeated through each and every corner of the world.

But they had the Legendary Hero, the one of legends who could accomplish miracles that defied even the gods! In an epic battle, she slew the Demon Lord. Yet even in this moment of triumph, the feeling of dread was not lost, and instead only continued to deepen. In his dying breath, the Demon Lord laughed upon the Hero and her followers, and delivered them a final message of torment: “Though I have met my end, you shall all still fall! Foolish mortals! We… were all that held back… those monsters… from the wastelands… To think we found another Demon Lord out there…”

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A tyrannical figure rose from behind a large, black granite pedestal interlaced with lines of copper and arcane diagrams. It was a towering monster, standing at least 6 feet and 9 inches tall. It walked around the pedestal, its jet black gauntlets scraping across the stone as it passed from the pedestal. Numerous mana crystals attached to small towers at even junctures around the inner and out rings of a diagram spanning the center of the room, and numerous mirrors lined the outer walls.

As the Demon Lord walked past them, reflections of various distorted shapes and sizes enhanced the crimson colors dominating the joints of the armor, caused by a slow bleed cut from millennia of chafing. Out of each arm, a long sharp bone protruded and curved like a wicked talon. Out of its head, four black horns grew and curved to four points by each corner of its face, while the dark red and black skin emphasized the sharpness of his eye. A yellow pupil cut a slit through the red and gold hued iris, similar to that of a cat’s eyes. All of it created a spectacle that was beautifully terrifying…

Normally a daemon wouldn’t live anywhere near long enough for the bone to grow out like this, normally they died in the infighting the daemon kingdom is renowned for in spite of their incredible potential for longevity. Any daemons that made it over 800 years began to be targets of the younger generations, for fear they would accumulate too much power. Historically, Daemons over 1000 would be strong enough to be crowned Daemon Kings and generally established large realms until their eventual demise. However, everything changed with the advent of the Demon Lords and the God of Darkness. In order to prevent infighting, the God of Darkness would create only one Demon Lord per world.

Sendrien Dagon, the eldest Daemon and the First Demon Lord, born in the Age of Dragons and forged in the flames of Ishtar’s War of Extermination, heralding the beginning of the Era of the Gods.

This new era was meant to become an era of peace and prosperity, but with the Fall of the Dragons, the God of Darkness descended upon the world. His target: The most powerful Daemon in each world. It infected them with its will, and through its unholy power it turned them into a terrifying evil. Through the Demon Lords, a new race was born. The Demons: Terrible monsters born of the miasma from a Demon Lord, and infused with its will.

At the end of the War of Extermination, Dagon was the first target of the God of Darkness. However, such a being should not be taken lightly. He fought against the corruption of the God of Darkness, and buried himself in ruins deep within the most inhospitable wastelands of his world. There, he tore a gateway into a void, where he used his power to forge a small new realm, a place he considered to be his prison.

Over time, his mind slowly corroded from the God of Darkness influence, and he dedicated all his remaining sanity to forging a Miasma to destroy the world and himself. Sealed within his prison, he never once sought to look outside of it, focusing only one making weapons and spells of ever greater power and lethality.

In the ages of his self-isolation, his sole focus was on perfecting his weapon of destruction and amassing enough power to guarantee the end of the world.

The consequence of this was that he had become truly ignorant of the world at large, ignorant of himself, and ignorant of the consequences of his new station as a Demon Lord. The Miasma, being gathered and concentrated across Millennia, leaked out through the gate over time into the world he no longer cared to see.

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I clutch my forehead. I hear the whispers again. I just want it all to end.

‘Eat their hearts. Devour them all. Burn and Dominate.’

“Shut up!”

‘Pillage their lands. Break their spirits.’

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

‘Claim their souls. Take their lands. Make them bleed.’

“Never, ah, it can never just be a moment’s peace, can it?”

This damnable voice just won’t stop…

‘Strip the flesh.’

It makes it so damn hard to think…

‘Salt the wounds.’

Sometimes I just want to scream it in to silence…

‘Make them suffer.’

At least, it should all be over soon… after 10,000 years, everything is finally ready.

‘Heed my call.’

Yeah right, as if I will let your voice take me over, God of Darkness.

‘Eat their hearts. Devour them all. Burn and Dominate.’

Here it goes, on repeat again. This madness just never ends… you really just stopped trying after only a few centuries…

‘Pillage their lands. Break their spirits.’

God-damned autopilot is what this is…

‘Claim their souls. Take their lands. Make them bleed.’

Hmm? What the hell wandered in here? Last I checked this area was uninhabitable when I moved in…

A pair of Demons sprint down the hall, coming from the direction of the portal. Upon seeing Sendrien Dagon, they immediately drop to their knees and lower their heads, with their bodies quaking at his presence.

“Master! We are sorry, for we have failed you! The enemy is coming here, they aim to take your life!”

Who is here? What enemy? Why does anyone know where I am?! And… what strange looking Daemons? What strange behavior… Do they fear me, or is that reverence?

“Detect Life. Eyes of Magnus.”

A pair of magical eyes open in the clouds above the city. A suffocating magical aura rains down from them, granting Dagon vision of the outside world in which he can see everything in perfect clarity.

What?!? Since when did a city get built around my castle! It is overflowing with the Miasma I was making to wipe out life, and yet these strange daemons are not only living in it… but thriving. How? To top it off… they seemed to be fighting a coalition of humans, elves, dwarves, goblins, giants and so many others. They must have come because of these new daemons… but why did those come here in the first place?

Even if they managed to find out what I was up to, it’s too late for them. The Miasma has been unleashed. The world will perish, and when the Miasma runs its course I too will die with it. Although the fact those daemons seem to be living just fine in it seems to throw a wrench in the whole thing.

A pool of viscous black forms in the air next to Dagon, and a blade handle comes out of it. He grasped the handle, and pulled out the lethal weapon from the darkness. It is a brutal weapon designed for a singular purpose. Its blade runs 4.5’ long, with a snake-like trough running down it to let the blood flow out when someone is stabbed. It is made of Adamantium fused with Magecite, the base minerals used in forging mana crystals. The blade is connect to a twin at the handle, and the twin can rotate on a swivel to make a dual blade for added dexterity at the cost of greater risk too myself.

With a satisfying click at the application of mana, and a flick of the wrist, the other half of the blade unlocks and gets flipped around into the dual blade configuration, before locking back in to position.

I have no idea who they are or what they are talking about, but I intend to destroy everything. This world doesn’t deserve to exist. The people don’t need to suffer in it any longer.

Swiftly and mercilessly, the blade spins between Dagon’s fingers, before slicing the heads off the two demons bowing before him.

“What a monster… you would even cut down your own allies?!”

Seems a paladin entered my demesne, wielding full plate and a holy sword blessed by the goddess Almalexia. And with him, a tough looking archer, a questionable looking rogueish fellow and… a heroine.

She is absolutely gorgeous. Yet… she seems so familiar. Yet it can’t be. She died before I became a Demon Lord. My head… it hurts. It’s getting worse.

The Heroine shouts to her party, yet her voice sounds distant to the Demon Lord.

“Something’s wrong… he’s in pain. We have to do something!”

I feel the presence of some goddesses… seems like I really hit the jackpot. With this much firepower, they can end it. But something is wrong. I can’t focus anymore.

In a voice, whose low rumble causes the ground and walls to shake, the monster speaks for the first time in Millennia, almost possessed by a will that is not his own.

“My name is Sendrien Dagon, Demon Lord of Destruction. I am sorry, but this will be the end. Prepare yourselves. It is coming.”

*DOOM*

Agh… Everything is going black.

Behind Dagon, the magic array activates, unleashing the torrent of stored Miasma.

I can feel my body moving, it is as if it’s fighting on its own, but I can’t see anything. All I hear are the screams. This damned connection to the God of Darkness is throbbing unbearably. I don’t think I can resist it any longer…

…

…

“GRAND PURIFICATION!”

DAMN! It feels like I just got hit by a meteor!

Sight returns to Sendrien Dagon. It is just the Heroine left, almost everyone with her… dead. Brutally. In pieces. Everywhere. Except one man, on the verge of death, hysterically crying “He ate them! He ate all the goddesses! The darkness took them all! It’s all over!”

In spite of the wreckage left behind, Dagon is not in good shape himself. His arm blades are broken, and his armor is completely shattered. All his horns seem to have been torn off his head.

It feels like my connection to the God of Darkness has been severely weakened. How? That spell… Grand Purification… it’s supposed to be a spell only able to be used by Legendary Heroes. The kind who can only be called by a high ranking goddess facing a calamity. It’s so hard to summon one, not even the war against the dragon’s qualified. Just what… had I become?

Desperation pervades throughout the eyes of the Heroine, carrying only a hint of hope. She is in as bad of a state as the Demon Lord she fought.

“It worked! Hold on a little longer Geralt, please! We can stop the Demon Lord transformation from completing!”

“Hahaha, even if… we stop it… all that miasma… will bring an unstoppable wave of demons… this is the end for us! Hahahaha!”

The… what? Is that… me she is talking about? The miasma will bring demons?!

A magic formation appears beneath the Heroine, its sudden appearance causing her eyes to widen in shock. Any decent practitioner of magic could tell what it was in an instant: a summoning formation.

‘KILL! KILL! KILL HER NOW!’

The voice in Dagon’s head reverberates with incredible force, threatening his mind once again. He charges at her, catching her in the circle as it begins to activate…

She yells out “GRAND PURIFICATION!” once more while he stabs with his blade, fully clad in a malevolent aura. Then, the world around them disappears.