Dragon King: Throne of Demons and Gods

The city twisted around them like a bad memory that refused to fade.

Streets stretched too far before folding into themselves.

Buildings leaned in strange angles, some sagging like they were melting, others twisting toward the sky like they'd forgotten gravity. Nothing made sense.

Some windows showed the world as it was. Others showed nothing at all. Some showed things that hadn't happened yet.

It was like walking through someone else's dream... or nightmare.

Bel, Crest, and Airi moved quietly through the broken maze of streets. The air was too still. The sky above was the wrong shade of blue. Every step felt like it echoed too long.

Crest stepped around a bent lamppost growing out of the road sideways. He reached Bel.

"Bel, please," he begged, voice low.

Bel didn't even look at him.

"Ten seconds."

Airi moved ahead of them, her pace quick. Either the dream didn't bother her… or something else did.

Crest jogged up beside her.

"Airi, come on. I didn't mean to actually hit you. I'm barely even hurting you. I'm just doing what Bel said—"

She didn't stop walking.

"Oh, that's your defense now? 'Just following orders'?" Her voice was sweet and sharp at the same time. "Funny. I felt some tension behind that last hit. You letting off steam on me?"

Crest winced. His black eye pulsed like a second heartbeat.

"I'd never— Airi, I don't want to hit you. That's not it."

"Then grow a spine," she snapped, turning to face him. "Hit like a man, then."

Crest's jaw locked. For a moment, he considered just... running. But instead, he sighed in defeat.

He raised his hand and slapped her on the back.

The noise resonated in the street, then, silence followed.

Crest's eyes squeezed shut.

Bel slowed his steps.

For a few seconds, Airi slowed down, then she turned around slowly and smiled at Crest.

Then her fist moved like lightning.

It hit him full in the cheek. A clean, loud impact. He flew sideways, crashed through a half-collapsed bench, and groaned as he rolled into the street.

"BEL!" he shouted, voice cracking. "I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE! YOU HIT HER!"

Bel blinked once.

"No."

Crest sat up, dirt in his teeth.

"WHY NOT?!"

Bel's tone didn't change.

"I don't want her to develop any blessings against me."

Airi raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, really? So the mighty Demon Lord is afraid of me now?" Her smirk sharpened. "What's next? Afraid to shake my hand in case I unlock an anti-Bel blessing? You made me take hits from him. HIM of all people!"

Bel didn't turn.

"I'm not afraid," he said calmly. "You're just too fragile. If I took over Crest's job, I might kill you by accident."

Airi narrowed her eyes.

Then she jogged to his side, walking beside him now.

"You know everything about me. My powers. My limits. But I still know nothing about you."

Bel kept walking.

"You dodging every question on purpose now?"

Still nothing.

"Are you even listening?"

Bel finally frowned, raised one eyebrow slightly.

Then, in that same flat tone, he asked.

"If an harmless slap can trigger your battle condition… what happens when you give birth? Wouldn't that activate a dangerous blessing?"

Airi stopped dead.

Crest froze from behind, peeking through his swollen eye.

There was a moment of stillness.

Then Airi blinked once, expression blank, too blank. That dangerous calm before the eruption.

"Oh, I don't know," she said, voice sharp and syrup-sweet. "Maybe I'll grow claws and rip the father's face off mid-labor. Want to test the theory, genius?"

Bel tilted his head slightly, studying her face like she was a problem he hadn't finished solving.

Then his eyes lowered, just for a second, to her stomach. Thoughtfully.

Airi blinked.

Her mouth opened, then color rushed into her face.

"H-Hey! What the hell are you looking at?!"

Bel didn't flinch.

"Hm? I assumed you were offering."

Airi's brain locked up for a moment.

Her face went from pink to red to nuclear.

"Y—You—That's not—! I was being sarcastic, you creep!"

"I see," Bel said calmly, then turned his gaze to the road ahead. "Now I understand a little more the curiosity behind human experiments."

Airi nearly exploded.

"I'M GONNA PUNCH YOU INTO A NEW BLOODLINE!"

Crest dragged himself from the ground, holding his bruised face.

"And of course, they're flirting... I shouldn't have come with them."

The street narrowed as they walked, the air thinning into something sharp.

The air darkened, not into night, but into a kind of sickness, an overcast hue that bled violet into like an infected wound. Then came the smell.

Metal. Old blood. Something... spoiled.

Airi was the first to slow. Crest followed, eyes narrowing as his boots crunched over shattered stone and something softer beneath.

The next corner revealed the massacre.

Bodies sprawled across the street like discarded dolls, knights in dented armor, adventurers with gear half-drawn, civilians caught mid-sprint.

Eyes were missing. Most of them. Torn out. Not with blades or claws, but with careful hands.

Bel came to a halt.

"Be cautious," he said, voice lower than usual.

They stepped lightly, weaving between limbs and silence. Airi glanced down and paused beside a child's body, no wound, just glassy hollowness where her eyes should've been.

Then a voice.

It came from behind.

"Mask, mask, put it on, before the sun is gone..."

They turned.

A little girl stood at the edge of the corpses. Barefoot. Her dress was soaked, the hem dragging crimson across stone.

Her eyes sparkled with innocence that didn't belong here. Her smile was too wide.

She stepped over a corpse, twirling slightly as she walked.

"Masks, masks, put them on. Before the sun is gone. Hide your face, play your part. And be eaten by the ones with hearts."

Airi's hand twitched toward her blade.

Then breath touched her ear.

"Everlasting fire..."

She spun.

A corpse was standing behind her. Bones cracked as it moved, ribs torn wide open. Its neck was broken. Still, the voice came.

"Everlasting fire," it rasped. "Burn... Or die cold."

All around them, the bodies began to stir.

One by one.

Standing.

Grinning.

Eyes still missing, but faces bent in joy.

"Where the heart lives, the stage rises."

"The crowd waits."

"They cheer for you."

Some of the risen wore the faces of people they'd known. Arkel, Logan... even Crest's parents. Their expressions flickered between pain and bliss, mouths stretched into euphoric smiles.

Bel said nothing.

He raised a single hand to his shoulder's level.

At his fingertip, a small purple spark began to flicker. It pulsed lightly.

The circle tightened.

The crowd came forward, laughing, crying.

Crest's legs locked. Airi backed closer to Bel.

Then the wind turned violet.

It wasn't a sound. It was a sensation, like pressure folding in on itself. A tornado of purple wind spun around them, cutting the stage clean.

The performers moaned as they faded.

They vanished in waves of pleasure, like lovers disappearing into smoke.

Crest saw the ones that looked like his parents. They dissolved, laughing. Whispering something he couldn't hear.

When the storm faded, there was only ash.

Bel lowered his hand.

The three stood in silence.

Then a voice returned. Light and familiar.

"Too cold. Or too hot. Doesn't that get boring?"

They turned.

The little girl was there again, standing in the middle of the ash.

Smiling.

Somewhere in the broken dream city, chaos spread like fire on dry leaves.

Hypnos moved through the shadows.

Where he passed, silence followed. People, adventurers, knights, anyone unlucky enough to cross him, collapsed like puppets cut from their strings.

They didn't scream. They didn't fight. One moment they were there, breathing, running, swinging swords.

The next, bones cracked inwards with soft, sickening crunches. Their bodies twisted, snapped, fell. Eyes wide, jaws slack.

Mirrors floated above the city like glass moons. In each one, a reflection of Hypnos stared back, unblinking, cold, and waiting. Some survivors took to the skies, trying to flee.

They never made it far.

Mid-flight, their wings stopped moving. They fall asleep and dropped into the black rivers cutting through the city, vanishing without a sound.

Hypnos didn't chase. He simply walked. Calm and Detached. Each step like a clock ticking toward the end.

He paused beside the corpse of soldier frozen. A sharp-faced woman, hands raised above her head, mouth half-open in a scream she'd never finish.

"This one... dreamed of her husband," he whispered. "In a little cottage. Smoke from the chimney. A child not yet born."

His eyes didn't blink.

"It was a quiet dream. How vulgar."

He continued walking, humming softly to himself now, a lullaby sung in reverse.

"Eye the close, flame the snuff, hush now stars, time enough."

His path led toward the coliseum, but he didn't rush. Rushing was for the awake. He drifted like a curtain in breeze.

Another corpse waited for him beside a fountain. A healer this time, robes stained red, one hand still clutched to a shattered staff.

Hypnos tilted his head.

"Cake," he murmured. "She dreamed of cake. Pistachio, with gold flake."

His expression didn't change.

"Mortal longings are so small."

He stepped inside the broken arena. The battlefield was a ruin of an intense battle, scorched stone, broken pillars, blood splattered like paint. Threads and light had torn this place apart.

And at the edge, a trail of blood. Thick, red, and still warm.

It led to what had once been a proud body.

Akedios.

He was still alive, barely. His body looked like it had lost a war with itself, torn, pierced, drained.

Blood leaked from his eyes, nose, ears. His chest rose and fell in uneven jerks. His wounds oozed like ink in water.

Hypnos looked down at him, face calm.

"It looks like it's too late for you."

Akedios let out a rasp of laughter.

"... Looks like... you were luckier."

"We are facing Sacred Warriors," Hypnos said. "And two Heroes. This outcome was always possible."

Akedios coughed. More blood.

"I... learned that... the hard way. But some of them… weren't like the others."

His gaze drifted behind Hypnos.

He smiled, teeth red.

"You're insane."

Hypnos turned.

A man walked through the fog of dust and ruin. He didn't rush. He didn't need to.

Kardrax.

He didn't carry weapons. He didn't glow with magic. But something about him bent the space around his presence, like gravity warped.

Hypnos stared.

"Is it him?"

Akedios twitched.

"Careful," he whispered. "This one… isn't normal."

Then something inside him gave out. His muscles seized. His back arched. Blood pulsed from his mouth in one final surge. His body spasmed, then went still.

No scream. No cry. Only the sound of something snapping deep inside. Then the body dissolved, like smoke escaping a fire that had already gone out.

Kardrax looked down.

"So much noise for a corpse."

Hypnos didn't react. But the temperature dropped.

His aura began to rise. Not like a wave, but like a curtain falling, smothering the world beneath it.

"You tortured my subordinate."

Kardrax tilted his head, a cruel smile pulling at his lips.

"Please. If I wanted to torture him, he'd still be begging for it."

Black flame bloomed on top of Hypnos's wings. Shadows stretched.

Kardrax didn't flinch.

"That's more like it. A pastor and now a chicken. I knew this day would be a party."

The wind stilled.

Then the air cracked as their auras clashed.