Chapter 31 - Rise of the Demon King - Part 1

Monday 17th of May - Chias, Chochica Empire - Andromeda Galaxy:

Nazar was sitting in a conference room with many other officials of Chochica Empire. Spanning from sub-rulers, ministers, generals and more.

The Chochica Empire is one of the largest empires in the surrounding galaxies.

Every city or continent has its own ruler who answers directly to the ruler of that planet. The ruler of that planet answers directly to the ruler of the sub-empire who answers to Baros - who oversees the whole empire. Baros then answers to Nazar. He takes the matter to Nazar and he makes the final decision in some matters. But most of the time, he takes care of it by himself.

Solace has a similar role to Baros.

However, most decisions are made by the rulers of the city or the planet unless they affect the empire as a whole.

Unlike most large empires, Chochica Empire is divided into sub-empires. Small groups of planets are divided into sub-empires.

Nazar changed this because he wanted to reduce the burden on the throne world. And to let those people make decisions which affect them directly. If everything is done at Chias, some decisions might not be right for those people.

Most of them were not here physically, but they were here via holograms.

If someone saw it, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the real thing and hologram.

In this massive conference room, there was a massive round table.

Baros and Lian were sitting to each side of Nazar.

Lian is his personal bodyguard and a friend. But she is also his advisor.

Baros is the overseer of the whole empire.

"How Eldah Prime's defence? Has there been any problems recently with the Jabalot Empire?"

Eldah is one of the many sub-empires of Chochica Empire. It is divided into many planets such as Eldah Prime.

Eldah Prime is located near Jabalot Empire - a single planet empire full of monsters.

"- We have had no contact with anyone from Jabalot Empire recently. Our intel suggests that they might be planning something. We will let you know as soon as possible. -" The highest ranking general of Eldah Prime spoke via the hologram.

The general answered Nazar's question very politely.

"And what about Planet Yamer? Are they recovering well?"

"- Ah, yes, your majesty. There does not seem to be any problems. -" The ruler of that planet spoke via hologram.

Since the number of issues is very high, every representative answers the questions as fast as they can so they can cover everything.

Of course, they send reports each week and Nazar has to personally read and review them. So, he will get a more detailed answer in the weekly report.

"What about the people in the other city? How are they?"

"- They seem to be recovering very well thanks to you, your majesty. -"

"That's good to hear. But…"

Nazar seemed troubled.

"I wish nothing like that had happened to them."

There was a bit of silence in the room for a little while, so Lian took the lead.

"Any news on the dragon?"

Nazar's troubled expression changed with an interested one.

He is the one who is looking for the dragon.

For many years, he has been searching for him. He has used every method but hasn't found anything.

Even till this day, he knows it's impossible but he has still tasked his empire and angels and demons to find the dragon.

Of course, it's a secondary mission. They are not to waste too much time or resources on it.

"- Nothing. -"

Hearing their answer, Nazar nodded a little.

"Thanks."

He let out a deep sigh as he leaned back in his chair.

"Any other problem? Baros?"

"Ah? Ah."

Baros didn't look like he was paying a lot of attention.

"Oh, nothing. That will be all today."

Nazar smiled and nodded.

Most of the holograms vanished as the representatives bowed slightly.

The representatives who were here in person bowed slightly too before they left the room.

"What's wrong, Baros?"

Lian stood up and left the room without acknowledging Baros.

So, Nazar guessed what happened.

"I take it she didn't take it well?"

"She said she doesn't care. And just left."

"Well… the relationship between the two of you haven't been the same ever since you revealed your true identity but it was getting better, right?"

Baros nodded.

"Now it went back to square one, huh?"

For thousands of years, Baros ruled over this empire - but only as a cover. The Church of Michael was ruling the whole empire as they wished. Baros was a high priest in name only.

The position of king was previously referred to as High Priest.

Since Baros is immortal, the Church ordered him to change his looks every few decades. Because they wanted to show their people that the king is not always the same.

This way, they had the people's trust and had someone who would never betray them.

After a very long time, people didn't like the ruling of the High Priest so they showed disinterest.

Baros used that opportunity to find a way to give the throne to someone worthy. Someone who will stop the Church of Michael.

But it took him a very long time.

A few years ago, the throne world was under attack by an unknown entity.

Within a few days, the throne world was left in ruins. The economy of the whole empire was down. There was chaos in most parts of the empire. People were dying.

The empire was going to go down in flames.

But luckily, Nazar came to their aid.

He saved the empire then Baros asked him to be the ruler. After all, it was Nazar who rose the empire back from the grave in a matter of two years only.

Ever since then, Baros revealed everything to his people. He revealed how the Church ruled behind while he was used and how he made it look like the king always changed.

Though people didn't believe him but Baros told his story.

To pay for his crimes - as Baros called it, Nazar ordered him to help him fix the empire and then oversee it.

Baros has regained most of his trust.

But.

"You raised her. So, I thought she would understand. Oh well…"

When Baros was using the name Luan. She raised Lian as her own.

However.

Since Lian was an artificially created person - as part of a program that included hundreds more, she was just a weapon. Even though Luan did her best to raise her as a normal person but the Church of Michael had different plans for it.

As an artificially created person, Lian was physically stronger, faster and more durable compared to other Chochician people.

Furthermore, inside her were embedded hundreds of types of fighting styles.

But that's not what made her unique.

If was her ability to use as much as magic as possible without losing her life completely.

But as an artificially created person, she could only live up to 30 years.

She could use as much as magic as possible but as soon as she turned 30, she will die.

The Church of Michael used her as a weapon to gather information and take care of people who would cause the empire problems.

And to keep her in check, they would make her perform any kind of activities such as drugs and sexual activity with her target before taking them out. Her superiors would come up with a very weird excuse to try and justify why she had to take drugs or use her 'charms' - as they called it - to complete a mission.

It didn't serve a purpose but the people in charge were simply messing around with her as they didn't see her as one of their own.

From a very young age, she was exposed to violence, death, sexual activities, sexual violence and more.

It scarred her for life.

But Baros - at that time using the name Luna - did everything to save her and the other artificially created people but he failed in every turn. He simply didn't have enough power to stand up against the whole of the Church who would use these artificially created people to fight for them.

Many years later, when she met Nazar, he saved her. But before he could save the rest of the artificially created people, they died with the old empire.

Baros could have saved them and her if he had known about his powers.

But Baros simply didn't. He accepted the explanation the Church gave him.

"Well… first, you need to get your mind right and then talk to her about it."

Baros nodded.

Even though he wasn't able to save her, he still considered her his daughter.

Nazar stood up.

"Take a few weeks off. I will take care of things here. Go somewhere, relax, and get things off of your mind."

"No, it's--"

"That's an order, Baros."

Baros looked down and said, "Okay, your majesty."

Nazar walked out of the room.

As he was walking, he found a five-years-old child running in the corridor.

It was a small child with blue eyes and silver hair.

Seeing him, Nazar smiled.

"Uncle Nazar!"

The kid came running and threw himself towards Nazar.

Nazar picked him up in his arms.

"Oops. I ran in the… Ka… Ka...CA...co...co... corridor again. Sorry," the child said as he smiled shyly.

"Ohhh, your English is getting better, Ereh."

The muscular butler with silver hair and green eyes was walking fast towards were Nazar and the kid named Ereh were standing.

"I apologize for his behaviour, your majesty."

"Ah, no it's okay, Rager," Nazar said as he smiled widely.

Ereh Noah is Ella Noah and Rager Noah’s three years old son. He has good relationships with Nazar since they share the same birthday.

(/Your appointment with the queen of Dryan Empire will begin soon./)

Nazar frowned once he heard Solace’s voice in his head.

"I totally forgot about that…"

He put down Ereh on the ground.

"Sigh. What is it about again?"

"It's about the mining of one of the rarest metals in the universe," Solace answered as she appeared out of thin air. "That planet has been under Chochica Empire's protection for a very long time. And there seem to be some people causing trouble. So, you are going there to meet the queen and helped them find a way to keep themselves safe."

"Usaium is one of the rarest metals in the universe so trouble is to be expected if I am being honest. Should I put a barrier around it?”

Solace shook her head.

“They don’t want to be anti-social.”

Nazar gave her a blank look.

“Is Lian coming too?"

"Yes."

"You?"

Solace nodded.

"Let's get going."

Nazar's finger twitched and both Nazar and Lian found themselves on a distant planet.

လလလ

Sunday 16th of May - London, UK - Earth:

In a cafe in the centre of the city, Solace was sitting down.

She was wearing a red dress with black sunglasses.

Her hair was also braided.

Solace right now did not look like the usual Solace who wears a skin-tight armour made of nanites.

“She is late.”

In front of her, on the table, there was a cup of iced coffee.

She looked at the coffee and examined.

As she did, she scratched her head.

“What’s the point of coffee if it's iced? Isn’t it traditionally supposed to be drunk while it's hot?”

She sighed lightly.

“Humans… Sometimes it’s hard to understand them,” she muttered to herself.

“Sorry, I am late.”

She heard a voice behind her and looked back.

She saw Laura who was wearing blue jeans and a white shirt.

“I got caught up in some traffic.”

Solace just gave her a blank look.

“So, why did you ask me to meet you out here?”

“Hm? Well, I thought you would appreciate it if you looked around,” Laura said with a smile as she sat down on the chair opposite Solace.

“I ordered something random for you, so it should be here in a few minutes.”

“Thanks.”

Solace took off her glasses, which immediately vanished into the thin air.

Those were not normal glasses. The glasses had monitors in it which allowed Solace to do her job even while on Earth.

So, now that Laura was here, she took it off.

“Serious question: why do you not want your memories erased?”

Laura’s expression became serious.

“As I told you before, it is my life. And I don’t want to forget about it.”

Solace sighed.

“And because...”

“Hm?”

“I didn’t tell you this before but I used to dream of something.”

Solace was not sure what Laura was saying.

“Ever since I was young, I used to dream of this other world and these people I had never met before. I couldn’t recall their names or even their faces - except for my own, my brother, my parents and a few other friends. I knew the overall ‘story’ but couldn’t recall the ‘characters’.”

Solace just stared blankly at her.

“But then many, many years later, I met Nazar. And one of these ‘characters’ changed into him. I would see the dream frequently even after but Nazar’s face was added there.”

Solace’s mechanical eyes widened slowly.

“And when I remembered the other world, I finally understood what that dream was. It was my memories of the other timeline.”

“Could it be…?”

Laura looked at her in a confused manner.

“You do remember the time when the Nameless One had infected you with odd energy, right?”

Laura nodded.

“I think that might be the reason. So, if you remember it, then so does Aeron and--”

Solace stopped speaking.

“I see.”

Laura tried to make sense of it but she didn’t understand.

So, she asked another question.

“Hey, why was I infected with that energy? What exactly was its purpose?”

“Oh.”

Solace thought about how she should word it.

“I know the basics of it,” Laura said as she smiled wryly. “If I was 1 mile… or 1 KM... or a similar distance away from Nazar, I would have died. But that’s not all, is it?”

Solace shook her head.

“No, that’s not all. It was used as a way to manipulate Nazar’s emotions.”

“...”

“You know how his emotions went out of control? Or how he would calm down when he was around you? And how he fell in love?”

Solace pointed at Laura’s chest with her index finger.

“All because of that energy which was inside you.”

“Oh…”

“But… Even though you two fell in love in that kind of way, you developed real emotions towards one another.”

“Uh, what?”

Solace sighed slightly as she held out her palm.

“Look into this.”

In her palm, many different brightly coloured energy spheres appeared.

“These spheres are emotions of a human.”

Next to those spheres, a darker version of each colour appeared.

“This is what manipulated emotions look like.”

“Oh, I see.”

“And at that time, even if it was manipulated at first, it was only for a very short time. Like a week at best. The Nameless One wanted to mess around with Nazar not knowing how what these emotions were. And also you just so he could torture Nazar later on.”

Solace noticed the depressing aura around Laura, so she wanted to change the subject.

“One of these days, the big man is going to find out and then I will be the one in trouble, you know?”

Hearing that, Laura's depressed state changed slightly.

“Eh, I am sure he won’t hurt you. After all, he loved you deeply.”

“Oh, you are going to make me blush,” Solace said with a straight face.

“It’s kind of hard joking around with a robot… er… android?”

“Whatever helps you sleep better at night.”

“Okay, an android then.”

Seeing her mood change, Solace wanted to get to the point of today’s visit.

“I don’t have much free time since I have a lot of duties at the empire, so let’s cut to the chase, Laura… Why did you call me here today?”

“...”

Laura sucked in a breath.

“Who else remembers?”

“The original timeline?”

Laura nodded.

“I do. Nazar does. You do. Aarin, Lucifer, Michael, Reaper, Omegan, Arael - the God of Power, Esme - the leader of the Gods, the Nameless One, the Supreme One and of course...”

Solace trailed off.

There was someone she didn’t want to name.

“And recently Emma remembered.”

Laura’s eyes slightly widened.

“I think more and more people are starting to remember.”

“Why is that?”

“I am not sure myself… Nazar went through my memories last night. It seems a lot of it are fake and manipulated memories. His are not so different. We don't know who or what is doing.”

“Why isn’t he doing anything about it?”

“Manipulated memories of his own, manipulated actions, manipulated emotions… Even if he could do something... ”

She sighed.

“I am not sure if you know this, but he finds everything boring. And for the first time in a very long time, he is feeling excited again.”

“...?”

Laura was not sure what to think of this.

“It’s complicated.”

“I see...”

"Everything is when it comes to Nazar."

After a few seconds, the waiter brought out Laura’s coffee.

“So… What kind of person is he really in this world?”

Solace was not sure what Laura meant at first.

“The one you are used is--”

“Is him just pretending, right? I kind of noticed.”

“But the real one… I would say he is not that different. He is just more broken, sad, ruthless, smarter, bossy and kinder - if I were to simplify it. I would say currently, he is a mix of Nazar before meeting you and after you died.”

“Ah?”

“I guess I will need to explain what he did after that in more details.”

Solace sighed once more.

“After Emily returned, the Nameless One had taken over her. She killed you, Aria and Emma. And then tried to destroy everything, starting from the end of time until the beginning. He was going to take young Nazar and raise him as his own. And of course, use him to recreate everything in his image.”

"..."

"However, he didn't know about Nazar's godhood. So, he failed. Nazar killed him and the destruction of the rest of the time stopped - which neither I, him nor anyone else knows how."

Laura was left stunned after that.

"Then after that, he lived two lives. To his loved ones, he was this average kid with abnormal hair and eye colour. But to other people outside of Earth, he was this powerful being who only looks for entertainment."

"..."

"On Earth, he would put on a mask and pretends everything is fine. He had decent relationships with his family but they always noticed that he might be hiding something. His brother noticed many times that Nazar being very secretive, doesn't want them to know something and that he is just pretending."

"I see… Wait, what happened to his friend, Emily?"

"Oh, her. Well, Nazar got rid of the abnormal energy and that's it. She is a normal person too."

"Oh."

"So, she is also ali-- hm?"

All of a sudden, Solace felt something. Something very strange.

With an alarming expression, Solace stood up and looked around.

"What…?"

She was sensing an increase in magical energies around her.

Magic she has never felt before.

"Demonic…? No. It's different yet similar. Very similar."

She followed the trail of the magical energy with her eyes and found something unexpected.

"Is that…? That's not possible."

"Solace?"

Laura was not sure what had suddenly gotten into Solace.

Following the trail of Solace's sight, Laura found out that Solace was looking at an empty road.

To Laura, it seemed like an empty road. Nothing out of the ordinary.

But Solace could see something else.

In the middle of the day, a dark horse was being ridden by a knight in black armour.

Both the horse and the person were giving off an odd aura of darkness.

Solace also noticed that dark energies were coming out of the horse and the person.

"They are real…?"

Solace, stunned, soon saw the horse and the knight move in front of her and vanish from her sight.

She tried following it but couldn't. It seems to have vanished from this world completely.

လလလ

Monday 17th of May - Chias, Chochica Empire - Andromeda Galaxy:

After a long day of dealing with politics, Nazar was finally free.

Late at night, inside a large bedroom, on a large bed, Nazar was sitting down and reading a book.

He was reading Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan. He is not very interested in Star War movies or shows but he does enjoy the novels and comics of Star Wars universe.

“Why did I not read this sooner?” Nazar muttered to himself.

He was reading the book at a normal speed.

If he wanted to, he can finish it in a few seconds but he was taking his time with it.

He suddenly closed the book as a serious expression appeared on his face.

“Oh?”

He felt something odd.

“That energy… Huh?”

All of a sudden, in front of Nazar someone… No, something appeared.

From the large bed in this large bedroom, Nazar was looking at a dark horse with red glowing eyes which was being ridden by a knight in dark armour.

Nazar could feel the odd aura of darkness from it.

Dark energy was coming off from both of them.

“A...”

Nazar’s eyes slowly widened as he carefully looked at the knight.

The knight did not have a head.

No, it did. But the knight was holding their head under their arm.

Nazar looked at the head and saw the long black wavy hair on it.

Analysing the face and the body, Nazar noticed it belonged to a woman.

“Dullahan?”