The girl held her little sister’s hand and stood quiet as dusk before two graves; the small one wiped tears like rain off a window, while the older let family memories drift like incense smoke.
An old bridge with the taste of antiquity arched over the creek like a spine; a slow breeze combed the leaves; deep woods breathed like a green sea; the shallow stream stitched silver along the bank; a pretty girl by the water framed the scene like a painted scroll.
Yet—
The girl’s delicate face brimmed with rancor like stormclouds rolling over a spring sky. “Dead Hero, stinking Hero, rotten Hero—I'll hammer you flat, hammer you flat, hammer you flat!” She swung a wooden mallet and pounded clothes like a drum.
Her grip was wrong; the mallet slipped and smacked her hand. Whoosh—she hopped up like a startled sparrow. “Ugh! Ow, ow, ow!” Her eyes reddened like cherries; she shook her hand as if flinging off sparks.
Behind her, a middle‑aged woman chuckled and rubbed her head like smoothing wild grass. “You little imp. How many times have I told you—no big swings. You never listen! Looks like someone’s dinner gets cut tonight.”
The girl hugged her head and squatted like a hedgehog, tear‑shine rising like dew. “Nooo…”
The woman sighed and pinched the girl’s cheek like testing a ripe peach. “Playing cute doesn’t work on your mother.”
“I’m not!” the girl protested, cheeks puffed like buns fresh from steam.
“Every time I tell you to wash clothes, you go at it like you’re trying to kill someone,” the woman said, tone dry as winter reeds.
The girl muttered under her breath, voice small as a mosquito. “Exactly…”
“Mm?!” Her mother’s brow lifted like a drawn bow.
“Uh… nothing.” The girl stayed crouched, a fortress of elbows and hair.
Another sigh, slow as evening wind. “Let me do it. You go tend the herb garden.”
Head down, she nodded. “Okay.”
In the herb garden—
She tossed weeds aside like flinging fishbones, glanced toward the house, and wiped sweat like salt off her brow. “Man, I’m starving. Is lunch done yet?”
She squatted, lips pouting like a plum, and sorrow surged like tide. To think I—the supreme of the Demon Race—have learned this rustic rhythm. Damn Hero. It’s your fault.
He, the Demon King—Pandora—now lived as a human girl: Edlyn Bruyal.
Because of the Hero’s meddling, his reincarnation landed centuries later, like an arrow fallen cold; the Demon Race had faded from the continent like mist at noon, and even he was no longer one of them.
For fifteen human years, he had considered suicide, but lost to the body’s frailty like a blade dulled by silk; she feared pain. He had considered revenge, but hunger gnawed like rats and weak strength sagged like wet rope; it’s hard to fight on an empty stomach.
So he bowed to reality, the way bamboo bends in wind.
The Demonic Lord reasoned like stones stacking a wall: eat well to gain strength; gain strength to recover power; recover power to find the old networks of the Demon Race; find the Demon Race to rebuild; rebuild to take revenge.
Therefore, eating mattered—like firewood to a flame.
Thus the Demonic Lord convinced himself to live as a girl, the way a tiger wears a cat’s coat.
His daily rhythm went like a village bell: morning, help his little sister brush and wash, then breakfast; late morning, attend the tiny school a priestess had founded—knowledge pried like oysters, though she didn’t like it; noon, eat, curse the Hero ten times before the nap like counting beads; sleep. Afternoon, help with housework, then eat; night, do homework—still reluctant as a mule; bathe, fold clothes; before bed, curse the Hero a hundred times like blowing out lanterns; sleep.
“Sis! Sis!” From not far off, a small girl, seven‑tenths like Edlyn, hopped along like a sparrow. The Demonic Lord dropped her gloves, scooped her up, and pinched her cheeks like kneading dough. “You little rascal, what is it?”
The little one pinched Edlyn back, impish as a kitten. “Sis, the priestess sister came to chat with Mom again. Sis, you’re naughty.”
“…!” The Demonic Lord’s eyes popped like seeds, then she pinched the little cheeks again. “Come on, go in with me.”
With her sister as a shield, maybe the penalty would be light… maybe.
Cradling her sister, she tiptoed home like a fox.
But Mother’s face was dark as a storm; she said nothing, only told the two children to play on the back hill.
Edlyn blinked, surprise flitting like a firefly; no punishment today. She whooped softly and dashed uphill with her sister like wind over grass.
Edlyn’s father?
Old Bruyal.
Since becoming a mercenary, he returned home about every half‑month, stayed a week like a warm brazier, then went out again for work.
The Demon Race had fallen, but the magic beasts, without keepers, grew wild like thorns; they often threatened nearby towns like wolves at a fence.
Most mercenary work now was culling beasts, a harvest of danger.
Edlyn smirked; human suffering was honey on her tongue.
But sometimes her father faced risks sharp as broken glass. To protect the household’s income—at least, that’s how she framed it—Edlyn often made special talismans, and handed them to him like sending out a prayer.
And… the problem began there.
Edlyn’s talismans were the Demon King’s own blessing, a brand like frost on glass. When certain people noticed, how would they react?
Soon, the priestess asked the sisters back and carried away their parents’ bodies like cold logs.
The sisters returned home.
But home was now a char of ashes, a black field after lightning.
Did the Demon King ever have parents?
The prior Demon King—born without sex and chopped to pieces by the first Hero, never meeting anyone’s eyes—perhaps nothing there counted.
Then what of the man who risked his small strength every day like a lantern in wind, to feed their family—did he count as her father?
What of the woman who nagged like rain, disciplined with a stern hand, yet loved warm as soup, and cooked delights for the Demon King—did she count as her mother?
The girl standing there did not know; her mind was fog on a river.
She wiped her tears like brushing dew from leaves; she could not believe a proud Demon King would weep for humans. Perhaps he truly changed, truly accepted her form, like iron tempered into a new blade?
The Demonic Lord stared toward tomorrow, and felt lost as a boat in night.
Under cover of evening, she led her sister away from the priestess’s house like shadows leaving a lamp, and with what money remained, bought a small place in a sparse village near the Draco Empire’s border.
Edlyn looked at her young sister and didn’t know what to do; thoughts fluttered like moths around flame.
She herself wanted to find the remnants of the Demon Race, gather the survivors like seeds, raise the banner, and rebuild; then—revenge. And find her “nemesis.”
But her sister? As a frail human, a low‑tier demon could crush her like a snail under heel.
Yes, Edlyn could guard her day and night like a watchdog, but what if? Besides, in her current state, she didn’t even know if the demons would recognize her as their Demon King, or turn away like strangers in rain.
The future felt heavy as a gray sky; the young Demonic Lord was full of melancholy.
She laid her sleeping sister in the living room like setting down a feather, and slipped into her makeshift “alchemy room”—if that shack could be called a room—like a cat.
She looked at the mirror and the tender, pretty face reflected there like a peach blossom, and sighed. “You can’t accomplish the grand work of the Demon Race looking like this.” Eyes flicked left and right like minnows. “Without any Demon traits, can you even call yourself a Demon King?”
So the secret‑working girl began her nightmare, a brew like thunder in a cup.
The Demon Race possessed a secret potion that could turn a human into a half‑demon; the cost was steep as a cliff—one full week of soul‑chant from the current Demon King—so they never used it in war.
There was a fatal flaw too: the kind of demon you became was uncertain, a dice roll in the dark.
The Demonic Lord hadn’t grasped that, or pretended not to. She stared at the Succubus tail on her backside like a red ribbon and the little wings on her back like black leaves, and Edlyn—having once turned into a human girl—thought of suicide again, like a blade returned to its sheath, trembling.
