There was no grand trumpet to announce his arrival.
No thunder of cavalry. No war drums. No banners raised high.
The boy walked through the ruined gates of Eloria alone.
The guards who stood watch at the city walls had already been reduced to silent, bloodied heaps—expressions twisted in disbelief. They had died not to protect the kingdom, but because they stood in the way.
The streets of Verdantia's once-glorious capital lay frozen in fear. Doors were bolted. Windows shuttered. Only the crows and the stench of death stirred in the alleys.
And through it all, he walked.
A ten-year-old boy, barefoot and draped in a cloak of shadow—made not of fabric, but of power. His short hair, once matted with filth, was now damp with the blood of his captors. His crimson eyes, like molten rubies, stared ahead with an expression that wasn't rage… but emptiness.
The people watched through cracks in their homes.
Some whispered, "Is that… him?"Others gasped, "He's still alive?"A few cried, "It's the demon!"
And yet none dared step outside.
Because deep in their hearts, they knew: death would be kinder.
The Throne Room
King Malerius never expected his son to reach the palace. He believed the guards would kill him like all the others.
He was wrong.
By the time the king received word of the massacre at the outer gates, the boy had already torn through the palace walls like a shadow of vengeance.
The throne room was lined with noblemen, trembling guards, and priests too paralyzed to run. The Queen sat beside the King, her jeweled hands clutching her silk dress as if it could shield her from fate.
He entered with no fanfare. No announcement. Just silence.
The royal red carpet was stained black by blood where his bare feet stepped.
The guards raised their spears.
They never got to lower them.
With a flick of his fingers, shadows erupted from the marble floor, twisting like vipers and spearing each armored man through the throat. No scream. Just wet gurgles and the echo of metal clattering to stone.
The nobles fell to their knees. Some begged. Others tried to flee. None escaped.
The boy stood before the throne where the man who called him "evil" had ruled.
King Malerius rose, his voice shaking. "You… you dare enter this sacred place?"
The boy didn't speak. He only stared.
The King, his pride outweighing his fear, roared, "You were born cursed! You are the reason this kingdom rots!"
Still, no response.
The Queen sobbed, tears streaming down her face, "Please… if you have any soul left—"
The boy walked forward.
With every step, the flames in the torches dimmed, the air grew colder, and the weight of his presence pressed like chains around the hearts of all present.
He reached the throne.
And then…
He took it.
Not with declaration.
Not with ritual.
He simply sat.
And no one stopped him.
The Beginning of Tyranny
There was no coronation.
No priest blessed his name. No noble bent the knee in loyalty.
There was only silence… and fear.
The child who had been locked in chains now sat upon the throne of kings. And from that moment forward, his reign began—not as a ruler, but as a warden of vengeance.
His first command was not to kill.
It was worse.
He ordered the imprisonment of his parents—not in golden cells, but in the same rotting pit where he had spent his first decade. No light. No food. Only poison and pain.
"Let them taste ten years of what they gave me," he whispered to the guards before sealing the gates with magic no one could break.
Then came the nobles.
Each one dragged before him. Each one judged. Not by trial or evidence—but by memory.
He didn't torture them with cruelty. He tortured them with precision.
He remembered everything.
The noble who had signed the first decree to mark him as "evil"? Stripped of name, title, and flesh—buried alive beneath the court he once ruled.
The priest who preached that he was a curse from the gods? Forced to pray for mercy until his throat bled dry, then locked in a holy chamber with no doors… to starve.
The blacksmith who forged the cursed chains that bound his arms? Those same chains crushed him in a slow, drawn-out execution.
Every sin was answered.
Every cruelty returned.
And the people began to whisper.
Not "savior."Not "king."But Devil.
The Kingdom's Fall into Fear
Verdantia did not rise again.
It knelt.
Under a sky that seemed darker by the day, the people of Eloria lived in terror. His shadow covered the land like a sickness. Not a single soul dared speak out.
He did not smile.He did not laugh.He did not love.
He merely existed.
And his presence alone was enough to silence armies.
But amidst the silence… no one questioned what they could not see.
The mark.
None ever saw his back again.
None realized that the very child they had tried to kill—the boy they had cursed as the spawn of evil—had borne the mark of the Seer's prophecy.
The mark of salvation.
It had appeared when he awakened at ten years old, burning bright on his back like divine fire. But by then, it was too late. No one had seen it. No one knew.
And he didn't care.
He never even looked.
He had been made a monster.
Not born one.
A Throne Built on Silence
Years passed.
Not a single rebellion survived more than a day.
The crops never regrew. The sun rarely shone. Verdantia became a husk of its former self—beautiful only in memory, its golden age buried beneath ash and shadow.
He did not rebuild.
He did not create laws.
He simply watched, ruled, and punished.
The people called him False King. Demon Emperor. The Red-Eyed Curse.
And yet, none dared challenge him.
They believed him immortal.They believed he could not be stopped.
And he?He believed nothing.
He ruled not out of ambition, but because there was nothing else left. He did not know how to govern. He did not care to learn.
He only knew one truth:
If the world gives you nothing but pain, you return it—tenfold.
Final Line
And as the kingdom knelt beneath his rule…
As the people prayed for a new prophecy…
As the world whispered legends of the merciless devil who wore a child's face…
Not a single soul saw the truth.
Not one person looked close enough to see the mark hidden beneath the scarred flesh of his back.
The mark that proved he was never evil…
He was the savior they were too blind to see.