He smells blood and Lavender as he rushes through the forest, but with the smell comes a scent he knows all too well—the smell of Demons.

Two Demons stand in front of a girl wearing rags. She struggles to drag these heavy bags as she slowly follows behind them. "Look at her; how can someone from a Royal Draconic Family be so pathetic? She can barely be a good enough slave," the demon says, picking up this girl by her tail. Her bright amber hair covers her face as she whimpers. "It might be the metal around her neck," the demon says, chuckling.

"Draconic Metal...this is used to hold down and weaken dragons of all sorts." A black vulture circles overhead as the demon swings the poor girl from side to side.

Tears fall from the girl's eyes as the Demons squeeze her tail. "Why...why did he do this to me? After all I did for him, I helped him. I protected him. If I can escape these disgusting Demons, I'll. I'll." She murmurs to herself.

She could hear barely audible footsteps quickly approaching them. Looking through her hair, she could barely see a figure dressed in black slide across it.

He sees the Demons, and they are holding a girl as they stare him down. Unsheathing his blade, it looks dull from extensive usage, jagged, and rusty from blood.

"Look at what we have here, another human. Have you come to save this girl?" The Demon says, mocking the man in black as he continues to swing the girl back and forth. The other Demon laughs as he opens his hands. "Evocation: Demonic Missle." Black and red energy surges from the Demon's hands as they blast toward the man in black. The man's eyes darken as he casts the same spell against the Demon. "Demonic Missle." The two spells clash as they cancel each other out. "He can copy spells?!" The Demon says, stunned.

"Die," he says with a growl. In a blur, he slashes the Demon's hands clean off. The man in black pulls out a flintlock pistol. Click! It goes as he points it at the Demon holding the amber-haired girl.

The Demon holds the girl up to use her as a shield. She looked at the man in black and saw an unceasing rage emitting from his eyes. Still, he hesitates to pull the trigger as he makes eye contact with her.

The Demon holding the girl smiles sadistically." Too afraid to hurt the girl? Then you must be here for her." He laughs mockingly after stating this.

The other Demon's hands regenerate as he rushes the man in black; the man in black dodges the Demon by sliding between his legs.

The Man in Black swipes his finger across his blade, which gives off a blue hue. "Conjuration: Sword Burst," he says, throwing the sword into the back of the Demon that attacked him.

"Argh!" the Demon growls as he turns around. "Throwing a farcical blade like that into me will do nothing for you—" Shulk! The Demon's sentence is cut short as multiple blades extrude from his body. They disappear as quickly as they came, and the Demon drops to the ground in a pool of blood.

The Demon holding the girl backs up a few inches. "What...so you did use Magic?!" he shouts as he conjures up weapons that glow bright and transparent. He tosses the girl on the ground. "Then how come we didn't enter Mana Statis?!"

The amber-haired looks up. "The Demon is conjuring up Spiritual Weapons." She says weakly.

The Man in Black stands up and looks at the Demon. "I do not need to waste my Mana on the likes of you." He dashes towards the Demon, and the Demon engages him as well. He throws his Spiritual Weapons at the Man in Black as he dodges and blocks some of them; simultaneously, the rest cut and stab him, stopping him.

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The Demon summons another Spiritual Weapon to stab into the Man in Black. The Demon smirks. "Foolish human, to think you would blindly run towards me is honestly mind-boggling."

Blood leaks from the Man in Black's mouth as he gets stabbed. "I'm still too weak to handle you on my own. It angers me even to do this." He puts his hand over his mouth, gripping his face as smoke emits from his hands. His eyes turn a fiery orange as he rips his mouth, only showing fire.

He rears the same hand back and blasts the Demon back—a sudden pressure changes the area around them. "We're in Mana Statis now," the Man in Black says as the smoke clears around his face, showing a skeletal mask covering his nose and mouth. "Isn't that what you wanted?" he says, looking at the Demon in pure rage.

The Demon looks at him. "Those eyes, you are one of us? Why didn't you say so? If you wanted the girl, I would've given you to her. She barely serves a purpose to me-"

"I AM NOTHING LIKE YOU! YOU ARE NOTHING BUT FODDER FOR THE SLAUGHTER!" The Man in Black shouts at the Demon as an orange flame ignites around him, "I Intend to rid the entire world of you and anyone that would even think of working with your kind!"

He holsters his gun as he rushes the Demon; his mask opens up as he takes a bite out of the Demon, causing him to yell. "W-What are you doing?!" He says in a panic, trying to get the Man in Black off of him but to no avail, as he begins to burn to a crisp from the intense flames. "These flames remind me of hell, but hotter..." he says as his body burns to a crisp. The Man in Black stands over the burnt body as his flames subside, his mask vanishes, and his eyes return to their standard brown color.

Pressure around the world diminishes as the girl looks up and sees the Man in Black over her. "Thank you...but who are you?" she asks weakly as she struggles to get up.

The Man in Black disregards her as he squats down and digs into the body, pulling out a dark glowing orb flowing with purple electricity. He also pulls out another orb from the other Demon's body.

"Hey! Don't ignore me! I want to know your name..." the girl says, eyeing him. I'm Mira, a princess from the Diamond Kingdom—" Crunch! She sees the Man in Black pop both orbs into his mouth as he crushes down on them. "Uhhh, ew! What are you doing?!" she yells in disgust.

"These are Demon orbs, not very big ones, but they'll still boost my power." The Man in Black says in between chews. He looks Mira in the eyes, and Mira can see no emotions in his eyes.

"You hate them, don't you?" She asks him as she glances down at the ground.

The Man in Black looks at her. "I do; I will eradicate every last one until nothing is left. I will get my revenge."

"Revenge...I can..." Mira thinks as she looks up again, facing the Man in Black. I can help! I owe you that. You saved me from these Demons, and I can bring you to the ones who sold me to them. I want revenge, too! They don't deserve to just go on in life carefree after what they did to me. They don't get to."

Mira stopped talking as she felt a jacket wrapped around her. Alatar leans close to her as he lights up his index finger with an orange flame. "Don't move. I don't want to burn you," he says as he hooks the metal collar around her neck. Mira blushes as she feels the collar getting hotter and hotter until it clatters on the ground. Alatar picks it up.

"Alatar, my name is Alatar." He turns around and takes his sword out of the body of the dead Demon. He says to Mira. "Mira, right? You can take me to who did this to you?" he asks, swinging the blade's blood and sheathing it.

Mira nods. "Uh, yes! They live in the Diamond Kingdom...where are we now?"

"Between the lands of the Bronze and the Iron Kingdom," Alatar says, taking a cloth from his pocket as he cleans his hands. "Now that I know where they are, are you sure you want to go down this path? Revenge does something to the soul. I could return you home, and you can return to being a Princess."

Mira walks up to Alatar. "They are trying to take my place as the rightful heir to the throne; I cannot let them simply sell me away into slavery to some disgusting demons," she says confidently.

Alatar turns around and looks down at her. "Then let's get moving. Nightfall is coming, and we should find refuge soon. If we head north, we should reach the end of the Bronze Kingdom, and then we'll arrive at the Iron Kingdom." Alatar says as he continues to walk down the trail. "Don't fall behind, Princess."

Mira smiles as she follows behind Alatar, pulling the jacket closer to her. She smells Blood and Smoke from the coat as she looks at Alatar's back. Something about him reminds her of a legend she recently heard, losing her thought as a black vulture squawks down and starts eating the demons' corpses.