“So bored…” The thought drifted like a pond without ripples, a lone cicada crying into dusk.
Twilight bled across the plain, the sun smearing rust over the scruffy weeds. Her hair, red as sunset lacquer, lifted in the breeze like a silk ribbon. Eyes on the flaming edge of the sky, the girl felt verse rise like mist from a lake. Her fingers itched to weave a poem and pin this moment to the fading light.
A rough voice cracked the hush, like a boot stomping into fallen leaves. “Holy crap, someone actually came to this godforsaken place!”
Astonishment rang bright and crude, as if footsteps in a shrine. The words stabbed like a cold needle. She remembered the cruel truth: she was lost. Yes, lost enough to end up in a place even birds refused to bless.
Her name was Xi—Xi Winlester Glachidor. The Glachidor Clan seldom surfaced in common talk across the Human Kingdom. Those who knew the name sat on thrones or waited in their shadows, like hawks watching from high pines.
The clan was old as the mountains, its roots sunk in the Era of Demonic Chaos. Legends said the Glachidor Clan paid a near-extinction price to end that time of ash. They were benefactors of humankind, the lamp in a howling storm. Elves and beastkin bowed with measured grace, and even proud dragons had to admit the clan’s bright deeds.
As the clan’s heir, Xi knew her history like stars on a clear night. She also had to face a bitter dawn. Glory was a tale carved on stone, far away. In the manor today, even the daily candles sputtered for lack of coin.
Because their origins stretched back to foggy ages, Xi often rummaged through dusty rooms like a fox in old snow. She hoped to dig up an antique worth selling, or next month there’d be no one to sweep the halls. Honestly, if she sold everything, the Glachidor Clan could blaze for a few more centuries, like a comet across night. The elders refused, their voices hard as bronze. “The honor of our ancestors must never be profaned.” Then they shoved the earning task onto her, like piling firewood on a slim branch.
Enough. She fumed, heat flickering like a brazier.
Clunk. A magic scroll tumbled out of nowhere, fluttering like a moth.
Dense characters crawled over the vellum like ant trails. Most were ancient ash, letters from a time buried under frost. Since the clan sprang from the Era of Demonic Chaos, knowledge of that script was their pride. Xi could pick out a few sparks. “Space…” Her heart snagged like cloth on a thorn. “Is this a teleportation scroll?”
A single scroll like that meant tens of thousands of gold, coin heavy as a rain of ingots—enough to keep the manor’s lamps warm for decades. But the ink’s style screamed of that chaotic era. Items tied to those times carried a brand: they often led straight into a Demon King’s palace.
The Demon King—a creature born of that storm-torn age. Back then, the world was a battlefield of night. Demon Kings roamed like thunderheads, and life burned into charcoal. Dragons, untouchable as mountains, were said to be penned like cattle, shackled to dark crowns. Each Demon King’s palace hoarded wonders bright as constellations. Anything worthy of a Demon King’s gaze glowed with price beyond counting.
Xi tore the scroll open, hope flaring like a paper lantern.
The higher the lantern, the harder the fall. She expected gilded halls where bards sang of light on marble, a palace sharp as starlight. Instead, the world snapped and dumped her into a bare wasteland. No mysterious, handsome palace. No jeweled troves. Just hungry soil and a wind like a dry bone.
So, it was only a simple teleportation scroll. The truth bit like frost. “I just burned a scroll worth tens of thousands, for this?” She wanted to slap herself, palm hot, cheek stinging. Even if it didn’t lead to a Demon King’s palace, anything that bent space was worth more than a field of wheat. And the cruelty had one more thorn. Most teleportation scrolls were two-way, or how else would palace raiders escape? This one fizzled single-use, shimmered into dust and light, then vanished like fireflies.
Worst of all, she had no idea where she stood, under this enormous, indifferent sky.
Xi scanned the emptiness, heart a tight fist, eyes a clear blade. No one in sight.
“Excuse me—who are you?” Polite words came first, cool water poured before wine. Her upbringing stood straight like bamboo, even while panic scraped her ribs.
“Who I am doesn’t matter.” The reply rang inside her skull, a voice in a stone well. “Girl, see the stele ahead? Put one hand on it.”
She turned, searching, but the voice kept echoing in mind, not air. What now? Her thoughts tangled like grass. A scroll from the Era of Demonic Chaos. A barren land as if scrubbed by talons. This smelled of Demon Kings. Her guard rose like a drawn bow.
“Why do that?” Suspicion sharpened her delicate face, a blade wrapped in silk. History hid warnings like buried thorns. Someone once freed a Demon King from a seal. Sages vanished like mist, and guardians dwindled like harvested fields. Many races bled to kill that freed monster, paying iron tax in bone and fire.
The voice softened, like a warm hand from behind a door. “Listen… I’ve been sealed for years—too many. The angel who sealed me said I could leave only if someone made the stele shine. I’ve waited a thousand years, a thousand winters and summers. You’re the first soul to step here.”
“Sealed? You’re a Demon King.” The words fell like stones.
“Right. I’m a Demon King’s… strategist.”
“Liar.” Her lips tightened. She drifted away from the stele, slow as a cautious cat.
The voice grew urgent, wind rattling shutters. “Don’t go. I’m not lying. The angel told me this too—when fate brings the person who can break my seal, I must serve them. Tell me, have you ever seen a Demon King kneel willingly? I was moved long ago, like ice thawing under spring sun.”
Warm light pooled out of nowhere, holy and clean as dawn over snow.
“I’m truly innocent. I was human once…” His voice sloped into sorrow, rain tapping on a lonely window. He spoke of family held to a dagger, of serving a Demon King with a heart full of ash. He drowned in guilt, then met an angel made of clear sky. And when the Demon King sensed his change, that king slaughtered his lover, cutting the last red thread.
By the end, the inexperienced girl’s eyes shone wet, reddened like a rim of sunset.
“I can’t forget it—her last breath told me to live.” The grief swelled, a tide against black rocks.
Xi let out a held breath, soft as falling petals. “I understand. I don’t know if I’m the one the angel spoke of.”
Near-impossible trials braided with a romantic fate; the girl yielded, a seed sprouting through stone.
She laid her hand on the stele. A burst of light shattered the gloom, bright as hammered gold. Petals whirled through the air, crimson as fresh dawn—Divine Bloom, some say dyed by divine blood. Ripples fanned out across the land, water rings on a moonlit lake.
When the light sank, Xi stared ahead, face smooth as still water. A black-haired man stood there, shadow cut clean against the pale stone. “You lied to me.”
The stele told her the truth, plain as carved script. He was a Demon King, and the seal came from a Glachidor ancestor. Only Glachidor blood could lift it, like a key forged to one lock.
She felt no real fear. The stele’s last line burned clear: the ancestor left the scroll to pass down this captive. Whoever carried Glachidor blood and freed him would trigger a contract shaped by the stele itself. The releaser would be the Demon King’s master.
“Fraud of a Demon King…” Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment, a blush like plum blossom. That sob story had nearly wrung tears from her. Shame pricked like nettles.
“Greetings, Master. From now on, this Demon King will serve you heart and soul.” He straightened, serious as a soldier and twice as ridiculous. “If you tell me to hit your father, I swear I won’t hit your mother. If you tell me to kiss your left cheek, I swear I won’t kiss your right. If you tell me to warm—”
“Shut up.” Xi bit the words, teeth like frost, eyes like cold stars.
“Yes!”
“What’s your name?”
“Reporting, Master, I—” He blinked up, thinking, clouds drifting across empty sky. “Huh. What was it again?” He frowned, then brightened suddenly, like a lamp relit. “Sorry, it’s been too long. My name is Ouyang. Family name Ou, given name Yang. Full name, Ouyang. And the most important part—still unmarried. If anyone’s inter—”
“Enough.” Xi rubbed her temple, a crane hiding its eyes with a wing. This was a Demon King? The stele said he ranked at the bottom, weakest among the crown of night. Yet she doubted whether even the title suited this man with his rickety dignity.
If he truly counted among Demon Kings, the entire pack of that era ought to be weeping. One Ouyang like this could drag a mountain of reputations into the mud.
Meeting him made her question the myth itself. Were the records wrong, or was Ouyang a lone, absurd exception? Imagine an age ruled by a flock of Ouyangs—an era of chaos by clumsy jesters. The thought was terrifying, like laughing on the edge of a cliff.
