A tall, slender, man with pointy ears flees from the army of the infamous ‘Demon King’. His sharp black eyes, usually brimming with confidence, were filled with fear. His neat, short brown hair was unkempt and ruffled, as he had no time to take care of his appearance.

The man in question, Alexis Verdice, an elf appointed as royal mage, is unable to do anything about the arrival of the Demon King, and thus, shamefully flees, as if his normally composed, noble demeanor and pearly white robes were all for show.

But nobody could blame him, the Demon King was a being beyond comprehension.

The city of Fawksmarch was doomed.

Palojia was doomed.

__________________________________________________________________________

The island of Palojia was varied and beautiful. From dazzling rivers that fed into the great Catacer waterfall that seemed to flow upwards, to the colorful forest that the Catacer resided in, and the strange twisting mountain range that bordered the ocean, preventing anyone inside of Palojia from making easy contact with the outside world.

But the Palojians had no desire to have contact with the outside world. They enjoyed the peaceful isolation.

The world was cruel, and this was one of the only safe places they had.

It was a place they could call home.

A place untainted by the outside world.

Of course, not all Palojians were good people, but they believed that their God, Aldir, would protect them from malevolent forces.

__________________________________________________________________________

The Existence had many names over the lifespan of the world it created. Its people were divided on its existence. Some called it God. Some did not believe in it.

However, it did not mind. It was proud of its creation, and gently corrected the mistakes of the sentient beings, believing that they would learn from them.

But it started losing patience.

Over thousands of years it struggled to see how the sentients could not change. The sentients used the gift of free will to rip each other apart, and destroy all the blessings it gave them. The sentients were too fixated on destroying themselves, and as a result, failed to progress as a civilization.

The Existence grew tired of fixing the sentients' mistakes, time and time again. They would never learn. The Existence stopped interfering with the world, and simply watched, thinking that it handheld the sentients too much, that they could change by themselves.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

__________________________________________________________________________

The world is in turmoil. A great war is happening. The Kingdom of Hedel is unable to support refugees, but it would not be good for their image to abandon them. Thus, the king sends the refugees out to sea under the pretense of being sent to shelter.

The refugees were hopeful at first, but soon realized they were left to die. A week came without food. Land was nowhere in sight. Children lost their strength to cry. Starvation drained their morale, and the refugees had no energy to survive.

But somehow, under some miracle, they sail onto the island of Palojia. There, their thirst and hunger was mended, and so were their souls. They had regained hope for the future, and wanted to forget about the outside world.

These sentients managed to develop something all the nations had failed to do before them. They created a place where everything lived in union. They had created a happy nation. A peaceful nation, where war was not known. It was exactly the kind of thing the Existence wanted.

But it was too late. The Existence was already indifferent to this world. It already planned to abandon the world, and its parting gift was the Demon King.

__________________________________________________________________________

With a world in constant turmoil, there were bound to be hateful people. People who had no hope for the world, and wished for it to end. Orphée was one such person.

His circumstance was not uncommon. He was the result of a noble who forced himself on his mother, who worked as a prostitute at the time. He hated how he couldn’t help his mother, and how she had to overwork herself to support them. But above all, he couldn’t stand the fact that she loved him. Despite being the son of a dirty man, he was still cherished by her. Due to this, in spite of the dire circumstances, he was happy.

Of course, a situation like that could never last. After his wife was found to be infertile, and an heir was not possible, the noble found Orphée and took him away to be his heir. Orphée couldn’t resist, being only an adolescent boy at the time.

His father taught him how nobles operated, the dirty jobs they got into for profit. Orphée became desensitized to it. Starting wars, making deals with scum, using innocent people as scapegoats, all for profit. He became numb to the rot of the world.

His only feeling was longing for his mother. That feeling overpowered any guilt he had. He only listened to his father because eventually, his father’s deeds would catch up to him. And they did. His father’s corruption was exposed, and he was to be executed for his crimes.

After his father’s death, Orphée finally had the opportunity to see his mother. He headed to the brothel that he used to live with his mother at, hoping to find out where she went, or if she was still working as a prostitute. It had been years since he had seen her, Orphée was now a fully grown man. Truthfully though, he hoped that she had found a better job. But all he got was an obituary.

His longing turned into grief and regret. When he did dirty jobs, his excuse for it was that it was all for the sake of his mother. But, with this, he was unable to forgive himself. He didn’t only blame himself, he blamed the world. If the world wasn’t so sick, he could've returned to his happy life with her. His repressed hatred for the world all came rushing back to him, and he cursed the world. He was exactly the kind of person the Existence wanted.

Someone that would end the world if given power, rather than someone who would save it. So the Existence gave him a blessing, allowing him to turn his hatred into physical power and followers.

And thus, the Demon King was born.

__________________________________________________________________________

No matter how much the denizens of the world prayed, they would not get a response.

The Palojians begged for their god to save them, but Aldir remained silent.

It was clear now to Alexis.

God had given up.

God had abandoned this world.