The noon sun shines down from a clear blue summer sky above the ruins of a large city. In the centre stands a dark castle, unmarred. The plant life that is gradually reclaiming the city stays clear of the dark walls leaving a dead dusty barrier between them and the ruins. The walls at a distance appear a dark brown, almost black. On closer inspection, however, one's mind whispers that they are the exact texture and dark carmine colour of dried human blood. The dark castle has four small towers, one on each of its four corners, with a fifth in the centre. The fifth tower is a large twisted mockery of the laws of gravity being spat upwards distorting the roof around it as it passes through.
Walking in and out of the castle are a myriad of creatures in various shapes, sizes, and dress or lack of. At a glance, most would be called demons. They speak in almost as many tongues as they have forms creating an unholy racket of noise. Within the chaos can be heard sobbing and screams as some of the creatures carry their prey through the gates.
Many use large sacks which contain struggling crying, growling, or whimpering forms while some smaller creatures simply carry theirs in the open. Prey can be guessed to be anything slow or stupid enough to get caught, with the creatures treating humanoid and not the same. There is no beauty in this captivity, no romance to be found or imagined. All dirty, old and young, sentient or beast. Almost all the are prey are bleeding, tired, and scared. The few that aren’t scared are mercifully already dead.
North of the castle, barely still pushing above the ruins of a sprawling gutted building stands part of an old stone tower. Only half its original height remains and vines twist around it relentlessly tugging it to join the other rubble on the ground. At the top of the tower is a bare and open floor with the walls having mostly crumbled away. The east side of the floor has the opening of a damaged staircase. Soft footsteps can be heard ascending the stairs, followed by a figure wearing a simple grey robe with the hood up. Walking a slow confident pace, seemingly unafraid of the harsh wind tugging their robes, they approach the southern edge and look out at the dark castle silently.
The sun moves slowly across the sky and the only changes to the robed figure are those of the wind on their robes as they billow softly. Strangely no matter how the wind blows nor the angle it comes from the hood stays seated concealing their face. As the sun is setting and the wind dying down the flap of large wings can be heard. The hooded figure turns and tilts their head slightly to watch seemingly unperturbed as a creature almost three times its height lands on the tower to its right.
The tower shakes slightly and loose bits of stone are dislodged, falling away as the weight of the creature settles in. An entire body of deep red scales glistens in the light of the setting sun as taloned claws, on the end of muscled legs, bite deeply into the stonework. The demon, with large leathery wings and five dark red eyes upon its face, spreads its fanged mouth wide in a nasty grin as it brings a nasty clawed hand forward to snatch the easy prey in front of it. Just before it reaches the robes uncertainty flashes quickly across the deep set red eyes of the demon, and it freezes in place talon outstretched.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
The cloaked figure hasn’t moved at all since it heard the demon’s wings, and still stands with head slightly cocked watching it. Uncertainty turns to worry in the demon’s eyes at the lack of a response. Bringing the outstretched claw back and resting slightly on its haunches a surprisingly soft, almost musical and childlike voice slips from the demon's lips, “Why aren’t you scared of me?”
Straightening their neck and turning to face the creature the cloaked figure raises their left hand and gently pulls back their hood. The now exposed face of a young man with jet black shoulder-length hair shows a playful grin. His soft features and playfulness do nothing to detract from his eyes which show an ever-changing spectacle. Storms of fire, ice, magma, and chains are just some of the things the demon glimpses before breaking eye contact and looking down. The young man’s playful grin drops as he turns from the creature once more facing the dark castle.
“I spent the last five days here in the city, looking around, waiting for someone to talk to,” the young man speaks softly and the demon is forced to lean a little closer to hear better, “you’re the first to pause their strike so, since you’re still alive, you can listen to my story.”
The demon’s eyes scan the man’s clothes closely looking for signs of a fight, of damage taken or splatters of blood. The careful look shows the robe unmarked even by dust despite the apparent claim of living and fighting through a city of demons for five days. More worried by this revelation the demon replies, “You weren’t scared. That made you interesting or, more likely, dangerous.”
“Good instinct. I wanted to tell this story to someone before the next part starts. You’re alive and seem smart enough to listen, so it gets to be you. You’ll understand why it couldn’t have been someone less,” the man looks the demon up and down with a sly grin, “demonic, as the story continues. I was here when all this happened,” the young looking man spreads his arm wide gesturing over the city. “Back when this city, known as Correnas if you were interested, was the jewel of the human empire. The untouchable capital, the peak of human civilisation and centre for magical research in the known world.”
The man’s arms fall and he turns to face the demon again, “This was roughly six hundred years ago before your kind existed in their present form or prowled the mortal realm.” Taking a bow the man looks straight into the demon’s eyes, once more forcing it to look away at the images within, “My name is Alick, and I plan to tell you the true story behind the rise of the Demon King and his grand dark Castle of Sin.”
Alick motions with his right hand and a strong localised wind suddenly blow away the dust and rubble from the edge of the floor they are standing on leaving it much cleaner. Sitting down to face the castle he motions for the demon to join him as he continues speaking with a smile that causes the demon to pause for a moment before it moves closer perching next to him. “It is also the story of how I made a boring world interesting.”