Elio's POV

I woke in the Imperial infirmary with no memory of how I'd survived the ambush at Blackridge Pass. My team told me I'd been found unconscious, surrounded by dead demons, the only survivor of my unit.

"You must have unleashed the full power of the Mark," Mage Kestra theorized. "It's the only explanation."

But something felt wrong about their explanation. Empty spaces in my memory that should have held something important. When I asked about Neri, silence fell across the room.

"I'm sorry, Hero Elio," Saint Therion finally said, his voice gentle. "Support Mage Neri fell in the battle. His body was never recovered."

I didn't believe it at first. Couldn't believe it. Neri, gone? The one constant in my life, the person who knew me before I was anyone special—just... gone?

Grief hit me like a physical blow. I spent days in a haze, going through the motions of recovery, of planning, of being the Empire's symbol of hope. Inside, I was hollow.

"You must focus on your mission," the Celestial Envoy told me during one of its rare visits. "The fate of all realms depends on your strength of purpose."

"My best friend is dead," I snapped, surprising myself with the vehemence. "Died following me into a trap I should have avoided."

"Sacrifices are necessary in war," it replied, its voice like chimes. "His death serves the greater good."

I wanted to scream, to rage against this cold calculus. Instead, I hardened something inside me. If Neri was gone because of this war, then I would end it—quickly, decisively. No more unnecessary deaths.

"When can I return to the field?" I asked.

"As soon as you're ready, Hero."

I was back in combat within a week, leading increasingly aggressive campaigns against demon strongholds. Where once I had been cautious, now I was ruthless. The Mark burned brighter with each battle, fueled by grief I couldn't process and anger I couldn't express.

My team noticed the change.

"You're taking too many risks," Knight-Captain Lyra said after one particularly brutal engagement.

"It's working, isn't it?" I gestured to the map where demon territories were shrinking rapidly. "We're winning."

"At what cost?" she pressed, concern breaking through her usual stoicism. "You're not the same since Blackridge."

I didn't answer. How could I explain that without Neri, without that last tether to who I was before the Mark, being the Hero was all I had left?

The strangest part was that our victories were coming too easily. Demon forces that should have been formidable seemed to retreat without explanation. Traps we marched into somehow failed to spring. It was as if someone was clearing our path.

"Perhaps the demons are losing their will to fight," suggested Saint Therion.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that something else was happening—something beyond our understanding.

Then came the dreams.

They started three months after Blackridge. Dreams of shadows that spoke in familiar voices. Dreams where I walked through demon encampments and they bowed as I passed. Dreams where a figure sat on a throne of obsidian, face hidden in darkness, watching me with eyes I somehow knew.

I never told anyone about these dreams. They felt too private, too important. Sometimes I'd wake with tears on my face, though I couldn't remember why.

As our forces pushed deeper into demon territory, I began to notice other oddities. Evacuated villages that should have been defended. Supply lines left unguarded. Tactical retreats that preserved demon lives while ceding ground to us.

"It's almost like they want us to reach the Demon Citadel," I observed during a strategy meeting.

"A trap, perhaps," said Mage Kestra.

"Or surrender," countered Saint Therion.

Whatever it was, we pressed on, following this strange path of least resistance. I led more missions personally, driven by a compulsion I couldn't name. Each step toward the heart of demon territory felt like moving toward an answer—though I wasn't sure of the question.

One night, deep in former demon lands, I wandered away from our camp. The moon was full, casting sharp shadows across a battlefield we'd taken that day. Among the demon dead, I found a medallion—obsidian with strange symbols carved into it.

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When I touched it, a jolt ran through me. Images flashed in my mind: a shadowy throne room, a figure crowned in darkness, a familiar laugh turned strange.

I pocketed the medallion without telling anyone.

That night, my dreams were clearer than ever. I stood in a vast chamber, facing the shadow king directly.

"Why are you letting us win?" I asked the faceless figure.

"Because this war needs to end," the king replied, his voice distorted yet hauntingly familiar. "Too many have died already."

"Demons attacking human lands started this war."

"Did they? Or were they pushed by forces beyond either of our understandings?" The shadow king leaned forward. "Have you never wondered why the Celestials care so much about a human war?"

I shifted uncomfortably. "They uphold the divine pact that keeps balance."

"Balance," the king repeated. "Always balance. One rises, one falls. Light ascends, shadow deepens." He paused. "A Hero emerges, a Villain must match him."

"Is that what you are? My destined villain?"

The shadow king's laugh was soft, pained. "I am what circumstance made me, just as you are."

Something about him tugged at my memory—a void where something important should be. "Do I know you?"

He stood, approaching me. For a moment, I thought he would reveal his face. Instead, he placed something in my hand—an identical medallion to the one I'd found.

"You did, once," he said softly. "Perhaps you will again, when all this is finished."

I woke clutching the medallion, now warm against my palm. The one I'd found on the battlefield lay cold beside my bedroll. Two identical pieces, perfect mirrors of each other.

Like me and Neri had once been.

The thought came unbidden, painful in its clarity. I examined the medallions closely and noticed tiny writing along the edges, in a script I somehow understood despite never having seen it before.

"Two halves of one whole," I read aloud. "Separated by fate, united in purpose."

Something clicked into place—a theory so wild, so impossible that I couldn't even fully form it in my mind. But the seed was planted.

When we resumed our march toward the Demon Citadel the next day, I wasn't just leading an army to victory anymore.

I was searching for answers.

Neri

Becoming the Demon King was simpler than I expected—and infinitely more complex.

The demons accepted me without question. Something in the magic that transformed me carried authority they recognized instinctively. I stepped from the shadow portal directly onto the obsidian throne, and they knelt as one.

What no one had prepared me for was the knowledge that came with the transformation—centuries of demon history flooding my consciousness, revealing truths the Empire had long suppressed.

The demons hadn't broken the ancient pact. They'd been slowly, deliberately pushed out of their ancestral territories by Celestial manipulation. The war wasn't about good versus evil—it was about balance tipping too far toward light, and the natural correction that followed.

And the Hero—my Elio—was just another piece on their cosmic board.

"The previous king refused to play his role," explained Vazrek, the demon general who had witnessed my transformation. "He wouldn't oppose the Hero directly. The Celestials found his... noncompliance problematic."

"So they arranged for his replacement," I concluded. "Me."

"A human transformed carries both perspectives," Vazrek said. "The Celestials believe this makes you perfect for their narrative."

Their narrative. Their grand story of Hero and Villain, light conquering darkness. I had no intention of following their script.

My first acts as Demon King were unorthodox. I studied Imperial military strategy—which I already knew intimately—and began orchestrating a strategic retreat across all fronts.

"We're surrendering territory," Vazrek observed, not questioning but curious.

"We're preserving lives," I corrected. "Demon and human alike."

I ordered evacuations ahead of Imperial advances, ensuring civilians—yes, demons had civilians, families, children—were safely relocated. I sabotaged our own traps, made sure supply lines were conspicuously abandoned, created the illusion of a crumbling resistance.

All to bring Elio to me faster, with minimal bloodshed.

Some demons questioned my methods, but most understood when I explained my purpose. "The war ends when the Hero confronts the Demon King," I told my council. "So let him come. But on our terms, not theirs."

At night, when the weight of my new existence pressed heaviest, I used shadow magic to glimpse Elio. I saw his grief over my "death," his subsequent hardening, his reckless push forward. It broke what remained of my human heart to watch him suffer, but I couldn't reveal myself—not yet.

Instead, I reached out through dreams, planting seeds of doubt about the Celestials' version of events. I left signs for him to find, breadcrumbs leading to the truth.

And I prepared for our inevitable confrontation.

The Demon Citadel, contrary to Imperial propaganda, was not a place of evil and suffering. It was a city—beautiful in its own way, with architecture that used shadow and light to create effects impossible in human construction. Thousands of demons went about their lives there, creating art, raising families, building a society that had more in common with humanity than differences.

I refused to sacrifice them for the Celestials' "balance."

"Evacuate the city," I ordered as Imperial forces drew near. "All non-combatants to the shadow sanctuaries."

"And you, my king?" asked Vazrek.

I touched the twin medallions I'd created—one left for Elio to find, one kept with me. "I'll face the Hero alone, as prophecy demands."

"He'll kill you," Vazrek said bluntly. "That's what the Celestials have shaped him to do."

I smiled, though it felt strange on my transformed face. "He might surprise you. He has certainly always surprised me."

As the city emptied, I prepared the throne room for Elio's arrival. No traps, no ambushes—just truth. I collected evidence of Celestial manipulation, ancient texts predating the supposed "demon betrayal," records of peaceful coexistence between our realms before the Celestials intervened.

And I waited, reaching out through dreams one last time.

Elio, my friend, I called into the void between us. Come find me. See the truth with your own eyes.

I felt his consciousness stir, reaching back unconsciously. Who are you?

Someone who knows you better than you know yourself.

I sensed his frustration, his confusion. Neri?

The connection snapped as I recoiled in shock. He shouldn't be able to guess, to remember. The Celestials had altered his memories.

Unless their hold on him was weakening.

Hope—dangerous, fragile—bloomed within me. Perhaps there was a chance after all. Not for me—I had accepted my fate the moment I took on this form. But for Elio to break free of their manipulation, to see the truth before the final confrontation forced his hand.

One way or another, our story would end where it began—with just the two of us, face to face, the rest of the world fallen away.

Just as it had always been.