I Reincarnated as a Demon King,I Will Kill Everything

The battlefield of Crowmere lay silent.

Not the silence of peace, but of ruin. The stones were cracked and bleeding. The statues of the Moon Goddess lay shattered, their broken faces staring at nothing. Ash drifted through the air like tired snowflakes, clinging to wounds, to armor, to broken banners.

We stood at the center of it all.

Selena leaned on her halberd, her breath misting in the cold air. Blood streamed down her arm, but her eyes burned with hunger. Nana knelt, shield across her knees, sweat dripping into the cracks of her helm. Rena staggered, her armor scorched and blades chipped, but her grin was wide. Clarissa wiped her mouth, red stains at her lips, her face pale but still steady. Zereth was on one knee, his staff trembling, shadows leaking from the cracks in his soul. Malrik coughed smoke, his chest glowing faintly from overusing the rift. Nysha was nowhere visible, until her shadow peeled off from a broken wall and she appeared at my side, expression blank, blades dripping silver blood.

And me—

My gauntlet still pulsed rainbow-black, faint sparks dripping off like dying stars. Noa's voice trembled in my arm.

"Crown integrity: thirty-one percent. Soul integrity: unstable. My Lord… you should not even be standing."

I smirked, blood trailing down my chin. "And yet, I am."

The circle in the sky was gone. The Custodians were corpses—or whatever passed for corpses when they were made of oath and scripture. Only Calem remained, his silver blade dim, his breath uneven. He stood across from me, eyes cold but faintly shaken.

"This is not your triumph," he said softly. "It is your curse. The Choir will not stop. They will come again, and again, until your soul is ash."

I stepped forward, every muscle screaming, every wound burning. My gauntlet rose, heavy as the sky.

"Then let them come. Ash is still heavier than light."

For the first time, Calem did not reply. He sheathed his sword with a slow motion, his eyes lingering on me. Then he turned, stepping through the ruins until his form vanished in the smoke.

Selena spat on the ground. "Coward."

"No," I said. "Not coward. Patient. He's waiting for the next opening."

Rena's laugh was sharp, mocking. "Let him wait. We'll just kill him again."

But I said nothing more. My body screamed, my soul wavered. The Genesis Chamber had left cracks inside me. Every step felt like walking through a battlefield of my own bones. Still, I forced myself to stand tall. My demons looked to me for strength. And if I faltered, they would break.

So I smiled.

"Victory is ours," I said. "Crowmere has fallen. The Custodians lie dead. The Choir bled tonight."

They raised their voices as one.

"Victory for our lord!"

The sound shook the ruins like a second collapse.

We returned to Hell the same night.

The Black Gates opened at my command, swallowing us in shadow and spitting us back into the First Layer. The difference was instant—the air heavy with sulfur, the sky churning red, the ground black and sharp. But this time, the demons cheered.

Word of Crowmere had reached them already. They saw their king return, gauntlet blazing with divine scars, demons at his side still breathing. They saw victory written in blood.

The roar of thousands shook the caverns.

"My lord has slain the Custodians!"

"The Cathedral bleeds!"

"Silence devours the Choir!"

They knelt as we passed, the weaker ones trembling, the stronger ones lowering their heads in respect. Even the High Demons on the cliffs bowed, their eyes wide.

Selena smirked. "It seems your legend grows."

"Legends mean nothing if we die tomorrow," I muttered. "We need more than cheers. We need strength."

Zereth coughed, leaning on his staff. His shadow flickered dangerously. "My lord… forgive me, but my soul cracks further. If it is not mended soon…"

I nodded. "I know. You will not break. I'll see to it."

Clarissa stepped forward, her eyes dark and sharp. "We must replenish. Blood is low. Flesh is spent. The soldiers need elixir, or they'll collapse within days."

Rena's blades clinked as she sheathed them. "And training. They are not ready for another Custodian. Tonight was proof. If we had faltered, even once—"

"They'd be corpses," I finished for her.

Noa hummed faintly inside my arm. "My Lord… logic suggests immediate fortification. Your soul cannot withstand a second Genesis use without collapse. Recommend one cycle of recovery. Recommend research into forbidden methods of soul-weaving."

I raised my eyes toward the red sky of Hell. "Then we will recover. But we will not be idle. Tomorrow, we begin again."

That night, I sat alone in the Hall of Silence.

The great chamber echoed with nothing. The torches burned black, giving light but no warmth. In the center, I knelt, gauntlet resting on my knee, my breath shallow.

I closed my eyes and sank into myself.

The cracks in my soul spread like spiderwebs. The Genesis Chamber had nearly torn me apart. If not for Celes' lingering strength, buried deep in me, I might already be gone.

Her voice came faintly, like a dream.

"Niel, why do you keep walking this path?"

I opened my eyes inside the soul-space. Celes stood there, glowing faintly, more ghost than spirit.

"Because there's no other path," I said simply. "If I stop, we all die. If I keep moving, maybe we live."

She tilted her head, sadness in her eyes. "But every step devours more of you. One day, there will be nothing left but the silence."

"Then silence is enough," I said.

She sighed, reaching out, but her hand faded before touching me.

"Stubborn, as always."

And then she was gone.

The next day, training began.

The demons gathered in the Pit of Gravity, the massive arena carved into Hell's first layer. I stood above them, Noa pulsing faintly, my wounds hidden under black armor.

"You tasted victory," I said, my voice carrying across the pit. "You think that makes you strong. But Custodians will not care about your cheers. They will break you like twigs unless you learn."

I snapped my fingers. Runes flared across the arena. Gravity multiplied a hundredfold. The weaker demons collapsed instantly, screaming as their bones cracked. The stronger ones trembled, their muscles shaking under the weight.

"Stand," I commanded. "If you can't stand here, you'll never stand before the Choir."

Selena paced among them, her halberd tapping the ground. "On your feet, worms."

Nana planted his shield into the ground, glaring at the struggling soldiers. "If you fall, you die. If you rise, you live. There is no middle ground."

Rena moved with speed, slashing her blades at any demon who faltered, forcing them to defend even while crushed by weight. "Fight me or die under your own weakness."

Zereth raised his staff, binding runes that added bursts of shadow pressure to random soldiers. "Adapt, or be erased."

Their screams filled the pit. And slowly, one by one, they began to rise.

Noa whispered in my arm. "Progress noted. Efficiency increasing. My Lord, the path you are carving it is brutal. But effective."

I did not reply. I only watched.

Because I knew this was only the beginning.

That night, when the training was done and the soldiers lay half-dead in the pits, I returned to the library of the ancient demons.

The shelves were bones. The books were bound in flesh. The air reeked of old ash. I lit no torches; I needed no light. The words burned on their own, written in scripts older than the Choir, older even than Hell.

I searched for one thing: how demons of the past had broken their chains.

Noa hummed, scanning with me. "Soul-weaving methods detected. Dangerous. Unstable. High probability of permanent loss."

"Loss is fine," I whispered. "As long as I can keep moving."

And then, buried deep in the final shelf, I found it.

A single page, half-burnt. Words scrawled in blood that had not faded even after centuries.

"The King who devours silence will one day devour the Choir itself."

I stared.

Noa pulsed faintly. "Prophecy classification. Possible correlation: you."

I closed the book and stood.

If the Choir thought Hell would kneel forever, they were wrong.

We would not kneel.

We would not stop.

We would devour them all.

The night stretched long, but I did not sleep. My soul still cracked, my body still burned, but none of it mattered. Because tomorrow, the Choir would whisper of Crowmere's fall. The Custodians' corpses would be carried in rumor and prayer. And the world would begin to fear the silence.

And fear is the first step to breaking them.