The six heroes. Just three words, such a simple sentence, but everyone in the system knew what those three words meant. Six heroes who died slaying all 72 Demon Lords and ending their cycle of reincarnation. Six heroes who united the separate races to end Demonkind once and for all. Six heroes who fought until their last breath to make sure all the Demons were dead. Six Heroes who became legends, immortalize for their sacrifice.

There is a saying that killing a Demon Lord was easy, but making sure the stay dead is a whole other matter. The Demon Lords were curious creatures. There were always 72 of them present in every cycle and they were nigh unkillable. Even if one managed to kill one, another will be born inheriting the knowledge and skill of their predecessor. This was their racial skill, their ability to pass on memories on to their progeny.

Killing even a single Demon Lord was considered impossible, so when the heroes managed to slay 72 of them, it was akin to seeing a miracle. There are some religions even today that worship the Six as messiahs sent to save the world. This belief was given legitimacy when no new Demon Lords were born since the Final War. They didn't manage to pass on their memories. This further emboldened the masses into believing that the Six were sent by God. In the end all the credit of erasing the demon menace went to the Six heroes, when in actuality they fell under the squishy hands of a certain blobby Demon Lord. The continent knew peace at last since the Demon menace was wiped away from the face of the world. Demons terrorising the masses became a thing of the past. It became just a cautionary tale. One which you scare little children with, but that was about to change very soon.

x-x-x-x-x

“AaaaHHHHhh!!!”

A Vision Master in the Precog Institute of Science woke up screaming his lungs out! He gasped, trying to catch his breath while his hands white knuckled, clutched the sides of the pod he was meditating in. He ripped the breathing mask attached to his face, trying to get some normal air inside his lungs as soon as possible.

Sirens rang through the building.

Alert! Breach in Pod No 1!

“Get the medic!”

A runner came hurried to the Vision Master with a clipboard and a water bottle. It was always best to get the vision fresh, as the subject tends to forget the details as time went on.

“Master Pike!”

The runner skidded to a halt in front of the Seer and offered him the water bottle. The Vision Master Pike grabbed the bottle and quickly downed the bottle in one go. His eyes were still dazed, the vision still in the back of his mind.

“Another Vision, Sir?” The young runner asked excitedly. He was a new addition to the Institute and idolized Master Pike, the best Seer in the unit. He was responsible for preventing a lot of major crimes and several of them was deemed confidential, secrets of the highest order.

The Vision Master was still in a daze. His hands shook as he stared into the empty bottle he held. The vision still swam behind his eyelids and the message he received was still ringing in his ears.

“Master Pike, Sir?” The runner asked uncertainly. This was the first time he saw the master so out of it. He was usually so calm and rational. Whatever this vision was, this was going to be big.

“Sir?” The young runner asked again, his hands on his clipboard poised and ready. He had to note everything down. This vision could possibly change the course of history. The runner gulped nervously, but kept his hands steady. He was determined to play his part. This could be a story that he eventually told his grandkids. He would say to them, that he was there when it happened and he played his part in making history.

“Sir!” The runner said sharply, trying to snap the Master back to the world of the living.

The Vision Master looked up, his eyes were crazed and wild. He looked at the runner straight in the eye and said. “Its coming!”

The runners eyes widened, his hands flying across the page on his clipboard!

“What's coming, Sir?!”

The Vision master stared passed the runner and said in a hollow voice. “There was a message”

“Message, Sir?”

The Master's eyes focused on the runner once again. “It said it was coming! And there will be memes!”

The runner’s hands stopped dead on the clipboard “Huh?”

“God damn you elf” the Vision Master cursed in a hush whisper.

The runner had his mouth open, astonished at the story he would say to his grandkids.

“Um… Should I file it under the report sir?” he asked skeptically.

“No, No! Alert the council!” Master pike said looking at the other pods that were lined next to his. There was a series of gasping and screaming as all the other Vision Masters woke up. They woke up from their meditation as though they were fleeing from a collective nightmare. The sirens rang continuously, as more and more Masters woke up from their pods.

Alert! Alert! Alert!

The runner stood there, shell shocked with the clipboard hanging limply in his hand, unable to comprehend what was happening in front of him. He woke up with a start when Master Pike’s hand fell on his shoulder.

“Alert the council” Master Pike said once again grimly. “This is going to be a big one”

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

A confusing set of memories kept playing in the mind of the Demon Lord. He tossed and turned in distress as the memories kept on coming, playing in a continuous loop. His mind kept replaying the same set of memories over, and over, and over again. The loop never stopped. It was as though his subconscious wanted to sear these memories in its soul forever. It was the memories of his greatest failure.

There was a river of light and he was drowning in it. His screams were muffled and muted under the water. There was a roar of rushing water and strange beasts. He was being chased.

The Demon Lord struggled futilely. He was a prisoner of his own mind. His thoughts were muddled and his own memories were repeatedly fed to him by his subconscious. The Demon Lord had absorbed thousands of memories that could last a million lifetimes, but there was only one set of memories he kept coming back to.

He was drowning in a river of light. The sound of the rushing water and his screaming rang through the night. Strange beasts of shadow and tendrils made of darkness rushed after him.

His mind got more fragmented as the memories came rushing in.

He had to get away…

The waterfall…

He had to get to the waterfall…

His mind got even more fragmented. His psyche teetered on the brink of collapse. Sounds of cracking glass could be heard as his memories began to shatter.

He finally reached the waterfall.

He was celebrating his victory.

A tendril of darkness speared through him.

He screamed in pain, and dropped the soul of the elf he was holding on to.

The elf fell down the waterfall.

He screamed in unimaginable agony as the tendril that pierced him, sliced him in half.

The memory kept repeating in his mind in an endless loop. It played over and over and over again.

He dropped the elf and the tendril sliced him in half.

He dropped the elf and the tendril sliced him in half.

He dropped the elf and the tendril sliced him in half.

The memories cracked and broke apart. It shattered like glass and only bits and pieces of it could be seen. Even still, the memories didn’t stop, it kept looping back to the beginning. The memory of his failure kept repeating in his head.

The tendril of darkness speared through him.

He dropped the elf.

And then the tendril sliced him in half.

The spear pierced through him.

He dropped the elf.

Then the spear sliced him in half

Spear pierced him.

Pierced him.

Pierced ….

Why did this happen? He had planned for everything. The demon lord dove deeper down his memories to find the reason. He had to go back, even further back. Back to the moment of his triumph. The moment of his victory. The moment he lost it all.

There was a blinding light as the two cores fused together. He felt a searing hot pain inside of him when he finished the fusion. He had done it! He had made the impossible into reality! He remembered the elation he felt at his achievement. He reveled in his success and celebrated his victory.

That was when the tendril speared through him.

He dropped the elf.

And then he was sliced in half.

He could still feel the searing flash of pain he felt after the fusion. It was stuck in his subconscious like a thorn unable to be pulled out. His mind was trying to tell him something. He had to remember.

The fusion was completed in a blinding flash of light.

Then, there was a flash of pain, near his core. He had gotten distracted.

The spear pierced him.

He dropped the elf.

His mind was completely fragmented now. He could barely form a coherent thought, and yet he kept struggling. He had to know. He had to know the reason.

That flash of pain that came after he finished the fusion, didn’t come from his new core. No, It came from somewhere else. Where did the pain come from?

He had to know. He dove deeper into his mind. His mind was shattering into a million pieces. The memories flashed before his eyes, flowing around him like a cloud of dust. He was drowning in memories. It flowed into his mind with unimaginable speed and ferocity, almost too fast to be understood.

The fusion, the pain.

The fusion, the pain.

The fusion, the pain….

Pain! Pain! Pain!

It was the pain that had distracted him, but it hadn’t come from the core.

The memories kept flashing before his eyes, repeating endlessly, continuously looping.

Pain! Pain! Pain!

The pain hadn’t come from the core. It came from a tiny soul which he was hiding within himself. The soul was flickering unsteadily, almost like a candle on the verge of being snuffed out. Just as the cores finished its fusion, the soul woke up. It flashed bright with a white-hot intensity as it tried to get out of the grasp of the Demon Lord.

This was the pain that had distracted him. The pain that came from a tiny soul. A tiny soul he had within him.

Elf!

He remembered the elf flashing white hot right after he finished the fusion. His hazy memory became clear as he finally put the final pieces of the puzzle together.

Elf!

He completed the fusion.

The elf attacked him.

The spear pierced him.

He dropped the elf.

And the spear sliced him in half!

God damn you, elf!!!!!!

“I’ll get you elf! If it’s last thing I do! Son of a @&@. Toothless remaining @#$% of a horse shoved up your @&₹! Filthy pieces of @&[email protected]“

The obscenities seem to flow like water from his mouth as the Demon Lord was reborn. He was dragged kicking and screaming in to the new world.

"I can see the head."

"You are doing great Mistress. The baby is here"

"Now. Push! Push! Push!"

"He is out. The baby is here."

“Son of a @&@. Toothless remaining of a horse shoved up your @&₹! I will pieces of @&[email protected]“

The baby Demon Lord was still cursing up a storm but the only sounds that came from his mouth were the incoherent wailing of an infant. His eyes widened as he heard the cry of a newborn infant, every time he opened his mouth.

“Son of a @&@...”

He paused in mid cry when he heard himself. His tiny fist shook cutely, as he began to throw another tantrum. The reality of the situation he was in had finally hit him. He was reborn, but he had lost all his powers. He didn’t even have time to construct a new body and he would now be stuck in this ridiculous form for the foreseeable future.

He has got a powerful set of lungs, doesn’t he?” A blurry form loomed above him.

“He is so cute. Look! Look! He has got Vergil’s eyes”

“Let me see! Let me see!”

“Arrrrgghh!!!!” The baby lord screamed incoherently at the blurry giant faces that were looking at him. He wasn’t cute! He was a Demon Lord!

Elsewhere, a thousand Seers and Vision Masters were left clutching their skulls as they felt a dangerous premonition pass over them. A great evil had come to the Sol system. The baby lord had come!

The intense wailing of a new born babe could be heard within a birthing chamber as the former demon lord screamed out his frustration.

“Goddamn you, elf!!!!”