The plunge hit harder than any sword.
The world went cold, weightless — then crushing. Daemon's lungs squeezed tight as the river swallowed him whole, dragging him into its freezing, endless embrace.
Caldrin's hooves kicked and thrashed beside him, the stallion fighting for its life as the current pulled them deeper.
The shock of it didn't scare him. It wasn't fear that bloomed in his chest, but something else.
Relief.
The ogres' roars above were long gone, replaced by the silence of deep water. For a moment, all the world was blue and black, and for the first time in days, Daemon let himself drift.
His wounds throbbed against the cold, his bones ached from the fall, but the river was gentle compared to the battle he'd crawled out of.
"Tch. Monsters above, monsters below," he muttered under his breath as his head finally broke the surface, gasping for air.
Caldrin surfaced too, soaked and snorting hard, swimming with desperate kicks toward the shore. Daemon steered the horse with one hand tangled in its mane, letting the current do the rest.
When they finally crawled onto the muddy banks, both of them lay there for a while — man and beast, staring up at the sky like they'd both been born again.
The forest beyond the river was unfamiliar, wilder, darker. And yet, as Daemon sat up, wiping blood and grime from his mouth, a slow smirk stretched across his face.
That leap hadn't just saved his life.
It had led him somewhere new.
His eyes narrowed at the landscape. A thick mist curled at the edges of the woods, and in the distance, something else — a faint glint on the water. The river flowed into a basin, where red light reflected off its surface, as if the water wasn't water at all... but blood.
His pulse slowed, eyes sharpening.
"A river of blood."
The old tale came back to him like a knife to the throat. He'd heard it once — in his past life. A story whispered by travelers and drunkards about a place where the Demon King's sword slept beneath a river painted red.
And here it was. By pure chance — or fate — the water hadn't just carried him away from death. It had carried him toward his next step.
"Heh. I should've died today." Daemon stood, stretching his sore limbs. "But I guess the world still needs me breathing a little longer."
He glanced toward Caldrin, who snorted as if agreeing.
The river had delivered him to his next hunt.
And this time, it wasn't monsters he'd be fighting.
It was destiny.
That leap hadn't just saved his life.
But when Daemon pulled himself out of the cold river, soaked to the bone and bleeding at the edges, he wasn't thinking about fate. He was too busy catching his breath, wiping the mud and water from his face. Caldrin shook the river off his coat nearby, the stallion just as exhausted.
Daemon's gaze drifted lazily across the landscape, half expecting another ambush — or worse, another cliff. But what he saw made his body pause, stiff and alert.
Beyond the tree line, a strange glow pulsed against the mist, flickering off the water's surface. The river bent there, flowing into a wide, unnatural basin where the water gleamed dark and red under the pale light of the full moon.
At first, he thought his eyes were still playing tricks from blood loss. But no — the longer he stared, the more the color deepened.
It looked like blood.
"...No way."
For a long second, his mind was blank. And then, like a stone dropping into still water, the memory surfaced — sharp and cold.
An old tale. A stupid story whispered to him and Gabriel when they were barely old enough to hold wooden swords. About a place where the rivers ran red — a cursed basin that once devoured the Demon King's blade, sealing it away beneath its dark surface.
Back then, Gabriel had been so afraid of that story he'd refused to sleep near windows for weeks.
And now, the irony hit Daemon like a quiet, bitter joke.
"Gabriel, the golden hero. Me, the demon king."
"And yet you were the one scared of shadows."
He chuckled under his breath, the sound sharp and dry. The old myth had always sounded like nonsense — a bedtime scare meant to keep children from wandering too far into the woods.
But this wasn't a story. The river in front of him was real. And if the tale had any truth behind it...
Daemon climbed back onto Caldrin's saddle, wiping the last of the dried blood from his lip. His crimson eyes locked onto the glowing basin as the horse snorted, ready to move.
"A river that never joins the main current..." he muttered. "And leads to a sword meant for a king."
He gave the reins a gentle tug, steering Caldrin toward the path that followed the bloody water's bend, the full moon cutting the trail clear through the mist like a pale compass.
"It's funny," he murmured to himself.
"I thought tonight was the end."
"Turns out, it's just the beginning."
But the deeper Daemon rode along the river's strange, red flow, the more the forest began to change.
The sounds shifted. The usual nighttime symphony of crickets and owls faded, replaced by low, distant echoes,the kind of sound no ordinary animal made.
His stallion, Caldrin, stiffened beneath him, hooves growing hesitant with every step. The horse's instincts were sharp. If Caldrin was on edge, there was something wrong.
Daemon's eyes narrowed, his hand resting lightly on the hilt of his worn blade.
No monsters. No aura. Nothing. Just the steady pulse of that blood-colored river guiding him forward like a thread tied to fate.
And then, the path ended.
The trees thinned, revealing a clearing — and at its center stood something that pulled the breath from his lungs.
A rock formation, massive and jagged, shaped like a human skull. But not carved — no craftsman could've built this. Nature had twisted stone and time into the shape of death itself. From its gaping mouth, the red river poured, like the skull had been bleeding for centuries. Vein-like vines crawled across the stone, pulsing slightly under the moonlight, as if the whole thing were still alive.
Caldrin backed up, snorting, nearly throwing him from the saddle. Daemon gripped the reins tightly and steadied the horse, though his own pulse skipped a beat.
For the first time in a long time...
his body felt the old flicker of fear.
"So this is where you've been sleeping..." he muttered under his breath, eyes locked on the skull's hollow gaze.
He swung himself off the horse and walked to the edge, standing just at the line where the stone met the dark, red water. The air here was heavier, charged, like the world itself was holding its breath.
"I guess I need to go in..."
He tilted his head, a dry smile creeping onto his lips.
"...and claim what's mine."
With one last glance at the night sky, Daemon stepped forward, into the mouth of the beast.