Juin felt an unbearable pressure coming from above him as the sound of thunderclap continued to sound next to his ears. Surrounding him, a sea of lightning descended, creating a cage of lightning around him. He found himself soon unable to see past the bars of lightning bolts.

“H-help…” Juin shivered as he tried to make himself as small as possible so as not to touch the lightning. He forced himself to look up, and that was when he saw the image of a red, goat-like creature with huge horns on its head and blood all over its body.

“ARGGGGGHHH!!!” Juin yelled at the top of his lungs before he fainted on the spot.

…

Back at the capital city of Alercane, thunderclaps were heard all over, but they barely covered the sound of the war going on at the moment.

“Hold them back!” Stolas roared at his army of demons as they battled against the oncoming slaughter. News of King Lucifer being incapacited was somehow leaked to their enemies, and they had just taken the young king to a safe place when their enemies arrived.

Stolas picked up his weapon, a huge double-felling axe with the royal emblem of Alercane engraved on one side and Stolas’ own family emblem on the other. A black form of energy was released by Stolas, and this energy flowed into the axe, giving it an eerie, red glow.

“DIE!” Stolas roared as he slashed the axe down on the group of enemy demons before him. A huge black wave that reeked of death was sent out by the axe, and for the enemy demons who had no magical powers, the moment they saw the wave, they immediately retreated, either behind their compatriots who had shields or flying into the sky where they could dash far away in an instant.

For those who failed to run or hide in time, the moment the wave of black energy touched them, their bodies started to rot at an alarming rate.

“ARGH!”

“STOP!”

Yells could be heard from miles away as these demons succumbed to the rot, until they were nothing but puddles of black tar-like goop on the floor.

“Damn, I hate your power, Stolas,” Annais murmured as she stood in the sky, her red wings out. It was a good thing that she wore a backless dress, or she would have been exposed when she spread out her wings. Her favorite weapon, a blood-red scythe with the royal emblem on it, floated beside her.

“Shut up!” Stolas glared at her. “Are they safe?”

He looked around at the bolts of lightning that were targeting the enemy army and knew that Izzy was the one who summoned this. However, this made him worry. Izzy might be strong, but she was overexerting herself by doing this while taking care of the king at the same time.

Annais nodded grimly. She came immediately after placing a ward around the king’s hiding place.

When she saw a new wave of enemy army oncoming, she put her hand out, upon which her scythe floated onto her opened palm. As she tightened her grip on the handle of the scythe, her red eyes turned redder as she smirked, “Let’s worry about ourselves.”

Stolas grinned. “I won’t die until I see the king again.”

He raised his axe and roared, “Soldiers of Alercane, protect your city, protect your king! CHARGEEEE!”

“CHARRGEEE!” the soldiers yelled as they rushed forward, some by running on the grounds and some by flying, but all of them rushed toward their enemies without any hesitation or fear.

The sound of explosions and weapons clashing, the smell of death, blood everywhere… All these only increased everyone’s desire to fight. They were demons, and the more blood and mayhem there were, the stronger they became.

Meanwhile, at a room hidden deep beneath a dilapidated temple,

On a bed that was completely made out of ice, lay the young king. The ice bed, which was so cold that it would normally freeze anyone who touched it to death, was nothing to the young king.

“Lucifer…” Izzy touched the young king’s face. The cold bothered her, but since she was a demon proficient in the elements, she could still handle the cold by regulating her own temperature.

Izzy looked at the symbol she drew on the ground using the young king’s blood. She had sealed the cut she made on his palm earlier, but it was still bleeding… which told her that those dark symbols on the king’s body were making it hard for him to heal.

Izzy looked up, and her pure white eyes shone in the dark room while she “watched” what was happening outside.

“We’re running out of time…” she murmured to herself. After taking one last look at the king with eyes that were about to cry, she stood back, away from the symbol that she drew with the king in the middle.

She then closed her eyes. With her hands out, palm faced upward, she chanted a spell. Her voice, which was gentle and soft at first, got louder and louder, and eventually, her voice got so hoarse to the point that she no longer sounded like a woman.

A deep, creepy voice continued to chant, and the entire room seemed to vibrate from it.

The young king’s body that was on the ice bed suddenly lifted itself into the air, about 15 cm away from the bed, and a white-reddish form of energy surrounded his body for a moment.

When Izzy saw this, she continued to chant… until the white-reddish energy separated itself from the young king’s body, forming another version of the young king, albeit a see-through version.

The young king’s physical body slowly floated down onto the bed, while the soul version of him floated higher and higher. Izzy sent a “feeler” to sense the king’s body, and she could feel that his organs had slowly stopped functioning.

She looked down at her hands and saw that her hands were wrinkled now, almost like that of an old woman on her deathbed. Izzy smiled sadly. The cost of using a forbidden spell was huge...

However… She forced herself to focus. Her surroundings seemed to move at the speed of light, passing through numerous civilizations and worlds...

When she finally found her target, she asked, “Do you seek for strength? Or do you want to live like now for the rest of your life?”

To her surprise, the young vessel she found for the king’s soul suddenly yelled as if he had seen a ghost. When he fainted, Izzy blinked and frowned, wondering what kind of vessel had she found for her king.

She would prefer someone stronger, someone who could help her king out in whatever world he was in, but unfortunately, she was running out of strength.

ZAP!

She sent a bolt of lightning across the dimensions, right in the middle of the young boy’s legs.

It seemed that her scare tactic worked, for the boy immediately woke up and pulled his legs together.

“I’ll ask you one last time. Do you seek for strength? Or do you want to live like now for the rest of your life?”

The boy was shivering so badly that Izzy wanted to send another bolt of lightning to heat him up, and maybe burned him to zap since he appeared so useless.

“I-I don’t know.”

“Are you going to bow down to your destiny or take your own destiny in hands?” Izzy asked in that hoarse, demonic voice.

“I-I don’t want to die…” the boy cried as he looked up at her.

Izzy did not know why, but the boy’s expression signaled that he was extremely terrified.

“Am I that ugly?” Izzy thought to herself. She was one of the top beauties in Alercane… Even if she had aged slightly, she should still be OK looking. The boy’s response was pissing her off, and in her anger, she realized several more bolts that hit the ground around the boy, scaring him into jumping around and eventually standing on one foot.

“I-I’m sorry!” the boy yelled as he raised his hands.

“Answer the damn question!” Izzy snapped angrily.

“W-what do I have to give in return?”

“Well, I can either give you strength, or just zap you to death.”

“That’s not much of a choice!” the boy protested. When Izzy glared at him, or rather, the image the boy was looking at currently, the boy froze and nodded. “Good choice. Great choice. You’re indeed a wise goat.”

“A what?!”

“Nothing!” the boy immediately said. “I want strength!”

He thought about all the images he saw earlier, of all of his humiliation, and he clenched his fists tightly as he hissed, “I want all the strength that you can give me!”

“Contract form.”

With that said, Izzy sent the young king’s soul across the dimensions.

Unknown to her, her action had caused multiple portals to open temporarily across the world they were in, thus allowing tens to hundreds of demons to cross into the new world.

...

“Argh!” Juin yelled as he held onto his hand, which was cut by the sword earlier, and he saw a symbol on it. He then looked at the huge blood symbol on the ground and realized that they were the same symbol.

Then to his surprise, the symbol on his hand disappeared, along with the cut earlier.

When he looked up, everything was… gone. There was nothing on the ground, and everything seemed so peaceful.

Juin took a step, but all of a sudden, he felt extremely dizzy, and the next thing he knew, the floor was getting bigger and bigger in his sight.

...