The Demon lord’s palace in the capital was truly a marvel of architecture and art, at least by Demon standards. The massive gardens surrounding it were decorated with all manner of flowers and trees. The many colors and scents created an aura of peace and harmony that is almost intoxicating.

“THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE”

Beyond the peaceful gardens; behind the gilded doors, a scream rang out.

“…I apologize for raising my voice, but this failure can’t be allowed tolerated. You left the capital when I explicitly told you not to. The forest near the village you went to was wiped off the map, and Uzan has been afflicted with some sort of mental ailment. Not to mention that you brought back the mangled upper half of the human when you knew very that I wanted him to remain unharmed. This will cause an uproar among the clans.”

The demon lord sat loftily upon his throne, his usually calm expressions now conveyed a much different image. The old demon, covered in scars, burns, and bruises was none other than Onvyr, the one respected most by the demon lord.

His head was bowed in respect and reverence, and his words were carefully selected to not offend.

“my lord I—”

“I’m not done talking…your story…it doesn’t make much sense either. The human went toe to toe with Uzan? The strongest demon of this generation? And when critically injured, he self-destructed using some mysterious device, taking the entirety of the forest with him. If that was—”

The demon lord’s words slowly grew distant as Onvyr’s mind wandered. He remembered his battle with the human, hints of regret sullied his face as the images got more vivid in his head.

The human took a stance with no sword in hand, the bizarre sight made Shiira mock him under her breath out of ignorance. Onvyr on the other hand was mortified, he knew that stance all too well.

When the demons first arrived in the human world and destroyed japan, they made the mistake of overlooking the few survivors who made it out in time and escaped the brutal massacre of their people.

The few thousands who made it out were burned by the fire of war, and hatred was seared permanently into their hearts; a hatred that manifested itself in that stance.

The stance itself was merely the first step of a technique pioneered by the Japanese survivors who were chosen for the augment program and joined the war against the demons. It was later adopted by all augment soldiers and used early on in the war.

‘Iai’…the name alone struck fear into the hearts of the demon soldiers. A suicide attack based on the swordsmanship of the destroyed japan, Onvyr remembers the first time it was used very well—as if it was etched into his mind.

The amount of destruction it caused seemed so far beyond the grasp of the human at the time leading him and the rest of the demons to believe it was divine punishment for abandoning their world and gods.

Onvyr watched in terror as a blade of light slowly took shape in the human’s hand, gradually growing until it took its final form as a curved thin sword.

“too bad I won’t be showing you any mercy demon…now feel it…FEEL THE WRATH OF HUMANITY.”

The human slashed the air in front of him tearing the very space asunder. It was almost as if the world did not know how to react to such a disregard for the cosmic laws, and the slice in space only grew larger to Onvyr’s horror.

To think I forgot about this attack, what a blunder.

Onvyr looked at Shiira’s figure as she ran through the forest, with sweat dripping down his face.

She’ll never make it out alive, to think he was capable of using the Iai. He must have died early on before the war escalated enough for the humans to ban such a two-edged sword of a power.

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The earth suddenly shook and the air heated up to an unbearable degree, and became hard to breathe even for Onvyr, who had a thousand years to train his body.

I need to save those three before the Iai reaches the final stage—

It was as if someone turned on a light switch…light enveloped the entire forest in a matter of seconds, burning away everything, even the air itself.

The lush green ground became scorched and lifeless, the tall old trees turned to mere cinders, and the flowing river was reduced to nothing more than a bed of dry dirt.

In the midst of the annihilation stood Onvyr, burned so severely, it appeared as if he dove into the warm embrace of the sun itself.

Behind his scorched body were the two injured demons being healed by Shiira who was shocked beyond belief. The utter destruction caused tears to well up in her eyes, she was utterly broken as the truth was now plainly in front of her. She, who claimed strength all her life, was nothing but a small fish in an endless ocean, an ocean where true beasts hid in the dark depth and let those above believe their own lies.

“I-Is this the power of god?”

She blurted out a question in a frightened voice. A question directed to no one but herself.

“worst…this is the power of humanity…I’ll go retrieve whatever is left of his body, you go ahead of me to the town.”

Onvyr walked away, leaving behind a broken shell of a warrior to face the horrors of the truth by herself.

“Onvyr… can stop spacing out and answer the question?”

The old demon looked up at the demon lord, finally looking at him eye to eye.

“my lord…I have been nothing but loyal to you for many years, just as I was to your father, and his father before him, and all your great ancestors who ruled over us after we crossed the gate. I will never lie to your majesty or risk putting you in harm’s way, there isn’t a single lie in my report sire.”

The demon lord closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and cracked a smile.

“I don’t doubt you Onvyr, how could I? you’ve been my mentor and ally since I was but a child, I’m just very stressed right now, I apologize.”

Onvyr looked back down, hiding his face in shame from the demon lord.

I am sorry, but for the current balance of power to be maintained, the truth must be hidden for now… even from you my lord.

“what of the others sent on that mission? The report said that the one named Bari doesn’t remember a thing, and that promising girl Shiira collaborated your story to the letter, but apparently, she threw her Ash’ai name away and left the capital. What do you make of that?”

Once again, the words of the demon lord grew distant as memories of the aftermath of his battle with the last human replayed in his mind, almost as if his own unconscious was mocking him for telling petty lies.

His explanation about keeping the balance of power by falsifying her report and testimony, Shiira’s anger and refusal to do so, and her eventual acceptance and surrender. He wasn’t proud of himself for what he did, in a single day he killed the last of a great species, drove a promising young warrior into a corner for his own goals, and even lied to the lord who trusted him above all others.

“I believe she wants to walk a different path in life, maybe seeing Uzan’s battle against the human, made her understand that being a warrior is simply not for her.”

“…”

“my lord?”

The demon lord sighed before speaking up again.

“that makes sense I suppose, but it’s quite unfortunate. Even if she was just adopted by the Ash’ai clan she was still quite powerful. Perhaps I should send—"

Suddenly the door to the private royal meeting room burst open, and a guard rushed inside.

“HOW DARE YOU—”

“I’m sorry my lord but we must escort you immediately, the magic library has been destroyed, and it seems that the attacker is making his way here rapidly.”

“a terrorist attack on the capital? That’s absurd. how did the attackers make their way into the library? It’s within the confines of the royal palace what are my guards doing?”

Cold sweat ran down Onvyr’s head as a question popped into his mind.

“the reports are scattered since every guard who stood in his way is dead, but we know that there’s only one attacker but we don’t know how he got into the castle undetected.”

The question was simple, yet it had evaded Onvyr until now.

“damn it, our best magic researchers were there studying the humans’ remains.”

If he managed to come back from the dead once, can he come back again?