Reborn as the First Boss, Book 3 Prologue (Patreon)

Prologue – Demon King

It had been a day like any other. The days did not change much, here, in the land of Utron, upon the Shadowed Continent. Shadowed? He had laughed, when he finally saw the truth of things, all those years ago. The sun still shone upon the ‘shadowed’ lands. The only reason they had the name was because the so-called Enlightened Lands could not have someone who flew in the face of their gods have power, without decrying them as evils to be destroyed.

He had been one such fool, once upon a time. A war orphan, he had been raised in an orphanage run by the church of Cineas, Goddess of War. From the age that he could hold a knife, the warrior nuns had taught him the ways of battle, the ways of war. They had filled his head with tales of glory, and of righteous causes to overthrow great evils in the world.

When the mantle of the Hero came upon him, he knew what it meant. Everyone knew. War was coming. The Great Demon Emperor was gathering his forces, to attack the world once again. Everyone knew the war was coming, but the only question was where? Would it be the Enlightened Lands, or the Spirit Rift? Perhaps the Savaged Realm? Or even the fabled Forgotten Havens?

But, in all the ‘wisdom’ that the church had bestowed upon him as a child, he had known better. After all, a defensive battle gave too many possible advantages to the attacker. They got to choose the time and place of the engagement, striking at a single point, to concentrate their forces, while the defenders had to be on the lookout across the entire front, spreading their forces and draining both readiness and resolve.

Indeed, that had been how the land of Zaglela had been lost, in the last Demon War, and become Meskaele, the primary stronghold of the Demon Army upon the southern continent, giving them access to the Savaged Realms. The Hero of that time, a priest of one of the ‘lesser’ gods of the beastmen tribes, had sacrificed themselves to power a barrier, which held the demons at bay, preventing them from sallying forth from Meskaele so long as his bloodline lasted. A defensive measure, but one that had tied up the forces of the southern continent for the last two hundred years, before the Hero’s Mantle came to him.

No, he had said, he would not sit back and wait for the demons to come to him. Gathering comrades to his side, he went into any dungeon that he could find, pushing to get as strong as possible. If he could get enough power, and break through into the higher Tiers of being, then he could lead a force to take the fight to the Great Demon Emperor himself.

A foolish thought, in hindsight. He had been young, and a fool. The tales of the Great Demon Emperor did not do justice to the depths of his power. Even though he had managed to push himself into the higher levels of the second Tier, and was looking forward to getting into the third tier as he passed into the Shadowed Lands, he found that the Great Demon Emperor was well and truly above him, all the same. Tier Four. It was all but unheard of, to the point where most thought it only a myth, or an artifact that the Voice of the World reserved for mighty creatures like dragons. But that power could not be denied.

He had been beaten, and killed. But he had prepared for that. With the help of a renegade mage, he had developed a ritual that would let him transcend fate, and give him the chance to overcome the Great Demon Emperor. Or so he had thought.

His ritual had worked, even if that annoying god Eztar had cursed him. He had bloodied his hands with the sacrifice of the innocent, but it was for a good cause. A dozen deaths to give him a dozen attempts to fight the Great Demon Emperor, and destroy him. A worthy weapon in the fight against the demons.

But it had not been enough. His companions died around him, until soon only Muriel, the Veiled Battledancer of the Moon, remained by his side. The camp followers had all perished, including Ayleth, the keeper of his false immortality, and her child. He was on the last of his lives. And so, he had become Darksoul, the Betrayer, and traded the mantle of Hero for that of rulership, becoming the Demon King of Utron.

But the Voice of the World remembered that he had once been Mighell Brightsoul, Hero of the Blade, and that he was one of the pair that had created the Profane Master’s Unholy Transfiguration of Fate. It was little known to those outside loremasters and those who studied the deepest secrets of the arcane, but crafting a new ritual, one recognized by the Voice of the World itself, connected one to the ritual itself. The creator would know, any time that the ritual was performed, and get a sliver of XP for the casting. Of course, most of the known rituals were ancient, to the point where the creators had all passed into the realm of death, and whatever came after, and the connection between them and the ritual was severed.

Darksoul knew this, academically. He had been granted plenty of time to learn, in the last two centuries. The warrior nuns had taught him more than just how to fight, after all. Any thug could fight. A true warrior had to be able to think, and learn. He needed to know his strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of his enemy, so that he could prepare the battlefield accordingly, and ensure victory. Let others fight for glory, the warriors of Cineas fought for victory. That was what he’d known, growing up.

So, he knew that, should anyone conduct his ritual again, he’d be notified. And yet, the notification he’d received still surprised him. After all, he had not written the ritual down, and had not spread the knowledge elsewhere. The mage who had helped create it had gotten caught by the Inquisition when they found him marked by a Divine Curse, and was slain. There shouldn’t have been anyone left who knew the ritual.

“I guess the old mage hid his notes somewhere, before his death,” Darksoul muttered as he dismissed the notification he had spent the last day considering. If someone else had taken up his ritual, it meant that they were planning something big. There was no other reason to anger the gods like that, unless they were looking to do the impossible. Something like killing the Great Demon Emperor.

Darksoul picked up his mighty sword and looked at the black blade, thoughtfully. “Now, will they follow in my footsteps, or will they succeed where I failed? Will I finally have a challenger worthy enough to test my powers against?”