---
In the capital city of Aetherreach, night fell like a curtain of dread.
The nobles celebrated beneath golden chandeliers, toasting their families, hunting ranks, and bloodlines. Among them were students of Valor High—elite academy for the gifted.
One table laughed the loudest.
A group of teenagers, dressed in prestige, drunk on power.
"He's really dead?" one smirked.
"Dropped like a bug," another scoffed. "Didn't even fight back. Weak trash."
Kael's former bullies.
The ones who had humiliated, tortured, and finally left him for dead in that alley.
They were laughing—
Until the lights flickered.
The room turned cold.
And then the doors blew open.
---
A wave of shadow flooded the ballroom.
Nobles screamed. The walls cracked. The chandeliers shattered.
From the swirling abyss stepped a figure in black robes, a jagged crown of bone on his head, face hidden behind a mask shaped like a broken fang.
> "Greetings, insects."
> "Your god has come to collect."
---
Panic erupted.
Guards rushed forward—only to be turned into ash the moment they touched his aura.
The air grew thick with bloodlust. Those with weak wills collapsed, their minds broken by pressure alone.
Malveth—the demon clone—floated above them, arms spread like wings of death.
---
He pointed at the table of bullies.
"You laughed when a child begged for mercy."
"You kicked him while he bled. You called it justice."
"Now… beg."
They didn't get the chance.
The shadows erupted from beneath their feet—impaling, crushing, silencing.
One tried to run.
He exploded mid-step, turned inside out by a cursed ripple of void.
One tried to scream.
A claw dragged her voice into silence.
Their blood soaked the marble floor. Their corpses vanished into the black.
---
When it was over, only silence remained.
Nobles who had watched and done nothing now wept in corners.
Malveth looked down at them, eyes glowing behind the mask.
"This is but the first song in my opera."
"Tell the world…" he growled. "The Demon Lord has returned."
With a flash of darkness, he vanished.
---
Far away, watching through a projection crystal, the real Kael sat calmly, sipping tea beside Orren.
"They'll think he's a monster," Orren murmured.
Kael nodded. "Good. Let them rally against him."
"What about your other clone?"
Kael smiled faintly.
"He's about to become the hero who saves them from the demon."
---