Prince of Gluttony: Born from Betrayal

"They're in the school?!"

'That's what I said. Well I don't know if they are my former disciple or one of their descendents.

Can let out a slight sigh of relief as he entered the classroom.

Despite his best efforts, he was still late. The door creaked open, and all eyes turned to him.

At the front stood Anna, her gaze sharp and unforgiving.

'First day back and you're already late, Mr. Sinthorne?'

Cain met her glare steadily but said nothing.

Anna held the look for a moment longer, then turned back to the class, silently signaling him to take his seat.

Cain slipped quietly into the row nearest the front, his mind already racing with what he had just learned.

However it wasn't even a minute before Gaius burst out laughing, the sound quiet but unmistakable in Cain's mind.

Why are you laughing now? Cain thought sharply, narrowing his eyes.

'Because,' Gaius replied with a smirk in his voice, 'I have already found one.'

Cain froze, instantly on alert. His head snapped up, scanning the classroom.

'Who?' he demanded silently.

'Your teacher,' Gaius said casually. 'She must be a descendant.'

Cain's expression didn't change, but internally, his mind reeled.

Anna?

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She had already resumed the lesson, her voice crisp and commanding as she wrote something on the board. There was no sign that she had noticed his stare or that she was hiding something.

Yet he couldn't shake the feeling that Gaius was right.

Anna's chalk clicked rhythmically against the board as she wrote the title at the top.

"The Fracturing of the Heroic Age."

Cain blinked. He knew the name. Everyone did. But as Anna turned back around and began to speak, he felt a strange weight settle in the room.

"This lesson," she said, "is about the ones who ended the Immortal Betrayer."

Cain didn't react, but he felt Gaius still in the back of his mind clearly but he was oddly silent. Listening intently to what Anna had to say.

"The Betrayer's rampage reshaped the continent. Countless lives were lost. Kingdoms toppled. Cities turned to ash," Anna continued, her tone firm, practiced. "And yet, for all the chaos and destruction, there was a group that stood against him. A coalition of Heroes, as history would come to call them. They were the very same disciples that the Betrayer had raised."

She turned and tapped the chalk against the board. "Together, they succeeded in doing what no one else could. They shattered the Immortal Betrayer's body, sealed the fragments, and scattered them across the world."

Gaius remained quiet. Cain noticed. He didn't like it.

"But what most histories tend to gloss over," Anna continued, pacing slowly in front of the class, "is what happened after the victory. Because peace… was short-lived."

She drew three lines on the board under the title.

"After the Betrayer's fall, the Heroes fractured into three factions."

Cain leaned forward slightly, brow furrowing.

"The first were the Hardliners," Anna said. "They despised the Betrayer not just for what he did, but for what he stood for. He had begun redistributing power. Teaching the common people. Even his disciples were drawn from all walks of life. The Hardliners reversed all of it. They believed the world had suffered because power had been shared too freely."

Cain's jaw tensed, but he didn't speak.

"The second faction were the Sympathizers. They believed the Betrayer had gone too far—but that his ideals had merit. That his legacy was misunderstood, or even twisted. Some believed he had been manipulated or betrayed himself." Anna's voice dropped slightly. "They were few in number. And they paid the price."

She turned from the board to face the class again.

"They were labeled Demons. Their status revoked. Hunted. Their names erased from monuments. Many were executed. The Hardliners saw them as traitors."

Cain felt something sharp knot in his chest. His fingers curled under the desk. Still, Gaius said nothing.

"The final group," Anna went on, "were the Moderates. Those who neither fully condemned nor fully supported the Betrayer's ideals. They tried to act as peacekeepers between the other two. They didn't succeed."

She let the silence hang for a moment, letting the weight of history press into the room.

"It is because of this division," she said at last, "that the Age of Heroes ended not in glory, but in bitterness. And from those fractures… came the era we live in now."

Cain sat still. His body was calm. His mind wasn't.

Gaius wasn't just quiet. He was stunned...and deeply hurt.

The betrayal hadn't ended with him. The traitorous disciples had gone to war over him and those who had stood by his side until the end were hunted down and killed by those that they called their brothers and sisters.

Gaius' thirst for revenge wasn't dampened by this information, it was sharpened and honed, ...like a blade freshly drawn across a whetstone.

Cain didn't know what to say. He didn't even know if he should say anything. Gaius wasn't just angry. This was something deeper. A hollow ache masked behind fury. The pain of being remembered as a monster by the very people he had once called family. That and the grief of knowing what came after.

They turned on each other. They turned on us.

The words weren't said aloud, but Cain felt them. Gaius didn't need to speak, Cain could feel his emotions radiating from the depths of his own soul.

Anna continued on, oblivious to the building storm within her student.

"These factions," she said, "still influence our world. The Hardliners became the noble clans, the bloodlines who still hold most political power. The Moderates' descendants fill bureaucracies and universities. As for the so called Demons....despite the years of persecution and hatred, they continue to exist.

Cain's eyes flicked up.

"In some parts of the world, they still hold power. Hidden enclaves. Rebellious provinces. Even entire kingdoms that reject the Hardliners established authority. Most of the world reviles them. But they endure."

Cain felt Gaius stir again, slowly. Alert now. Focused.

Anna hesitated for only a breath before continuing.

"Of all the remnants, the most infamous is the Dreamonia Kingdom. Its Duchess rules from behind shadowed walls. She has never been seen in public, not in over a decade. But her influence is undeniable. Her power… even more so."

Gaius suddenly whispered, his voice hoarse and fragile.

'Ask her.'

Cain's brow twitched.

Ask what?

'Ask her the name of the Duchess. Please.'

Cain hesitated. He didn't like drawing attention to himself. Not anymore. But Gaius had never begged before.

Raising his hand slowly, he ignored the sidelong glances from other students.

Anna paused mid-sentence, her chalk hovering over the board. "Yes, Mr. Sinthorne?"

"…What's the name of the Duchess of Dreamonia?" Cain asked, keeping his tone as neutral as possible.

The question clearly caught her off guard.

Her eyes narrowed just a touch, suspicious. "Why do you want to know that?"

Cain held her gaze. "I'm… curious."

A beat passed.

Then, with a faint shrug, she relented. "Her name is Catalina Dreamonia."

Something inside Gaius broke.

Cain felt it like a physical tremor.

'Catalina? Who is that?'

Cain's question was met with silence from Gaius. Then, a whisper so soft Cain barely caught it.

"She's my wife."

Cain felt like the world had tilted just slightly. His breath caught.

His wife?

That name. That title. That kingdom. She had survived. Not only that, she held power.

He didn't dare speak, didn't dare move.

Anna continued the lecture as if nothing had changed. As if the names and histories she spoke of weren't cracking open old wounds.

But Cain knew.

Gaius had just found something he never thought he would.

Hope. And pain.

Both were unbearable.