Standing like an ancient monolith, a demon of imperial presence watched over the silence of the cave. He wore intricately crafted armor of silver and gold, gleaming even under the faint glow of the magical stones embedded in the cavern walls. In his right hand, he held proudly the banner of the Demon Empire—a blood-red standard that fluttered subtly despite the absence of wind.
His beard was thick, golden like the sunrise; his wild hair fell to his shoulders, partially obscured by two massive brown horns that rose like the twisted branches of an ancient tree. His eyes did not move, but his body—rigid with muscle and laced with scars hidden beneath his armor—radiated strength, as if the very weight of the cave was contained within his presence alone.
At the center of the small underground space, a crystal spring bubbled gently. Modest, no wider than fifteen meters, it reflected the glow of the three silver moons shining outside the cave entrance—a perfect night wrapped in the silence of stars.
But the silence was torn.
The purple rift at the back of the grotto, quivering like the dying eye of a beast, began to tremble. A second later, a shockwave of indescribable force exploded outward from the portal.
The world broke.
An explosion of fury, as vast as a nuclear detonation, erupted from the earth, swallowing dirt, stone, and everything that lived nearby. The vegetation, the animals, the very base of the mountain—everything was reduced to dust.
A half-kilometer-wide crater yawned open where life had once thrived. And from the center of that newly born abyss, ashes still danced in the air. The sky, once a silent witness, now stared down upon a world reshaped by the fury of the dungeon. And the demon, unmoving as ever, finally opened his eyes.
Sales was no ordinary demon.
He was the captain of the royal guard of Queen Selene's castle, one of the most respected figures in the entire Empire. His name carried weight, his presence demanded silence, and his loyalty was absolute.
He had been assigned to a seemingly simple mission: to guard the newly discovered dimensional rift embedded deep within a forgotten cave. A post many of his rank would have considered a waste of talent. But Sales was not like the others. He was a demon of principle. A creature of discipline.
Absolute order and unwavering devotion to his Queen's will.
For sixteen days, he remained there. No questions. No rest. As if that mission was his sole purpose. Guarding the silence. Guarding the rift. Until the silence ended.
The explosion came without warning.
A wave of destruction swept through the cave like a divine sentence. The ground split. Stone turned to smoke. The glow of the magical stones was consumed, as if reality itself had been devoured.
But Sales did not move. That colossal force, which would have reduced any soldier to dust, was nothing more than a breeze against his face. His golden hair swayed gently, as if touched by spring wind.
Then, his eyes opened.
The rift, still pulsing in the thinning air, trembled. But not like before. Something inside it had broken.
The purple edges burned, spiraling with chaotic light.
At its core, the energy no longer pulsed with rage—it was imploding.
Like a dying star, the portal collapsed in on itself, devouring its own essence, shrinking like lungs gasping their last. Each second twisted the surrounding space, as if the very fabric of the world was being wrung out.
And then, in its final contraction, it vomited the survivors.
Six figures were spat from the void like flesh-and-bone projectiles. Five of them crashed to the ground, unconscious, their bodies ravaged by battle: Glenn, Seraphine, Dalia, Dorian, and Aeloria.
Fragments of blood, shattered armor, traces of prana—everything hung in the air like the residue of a celestial war. And with them, last to emerge, came the monster.
The Guardian.
He was not defeated. His massive body still looked intact, his chitinous plates gleamed, his stinger still pulsed, his many arms still armed—at least the four that remained.
But his eyes... his eyes were destroyed. The only visible wound. And it was enough for Sales to keep his fist clenched.
The vigil was over.
Sales stared at the creature before him with cold, analytical eyes. His experience far surpassed anything any member of that group could comprehend.
A single glance was all it took to grasp the scale of the threat. The creature ejected from the rift was no mere monster. It was the living core of a dungeon—one far beyond what any rookies should have encountered.
A chaos-born Guardian, generated by the collision of volatile energies and likely carrying a multitude of deadly abilities. A being not easily defeated even by stronger, more experienced parties than Glenn's. And yet… five youths had survived.
Or almost—since all of them hovered on the brink of death.
"This… is madness," he muttered, his deep, raspy voice echoing through the crater.
"How the hell did these five survive that?"
Little did he know, the veteran warrior of the royal castle, that only one of them had faced the monster to the end. Only Glenn had remained conscious in the face of such horror.
The Guardian, overtaken by blind rage, surged forward with a bestial roar. His mutilated body still radiated power, and like a cornered animal, he lunged at the only being still standing. His four remaining blade-arms swung in a brutal, killing blow.
But there was no impact. No cut. No metallic clash of combat.
The blades struck Sales' armor as if they had hit the face of a mountain carved from eternity. The force of the blow was canceled at the moment of contact. The creature recoiled for a second, confused—then its few remaining violet eyes lit up, preparing to unleash a rain of destructive lasers.
But at the faintest pulse of Sales' prana, the beams froze.
The creature's eyes trembled. Power gathered but was never released. Terror spread across the beast's features. It was as if the very elements around it refused to harm this man.
Desperate, the Guardian gathered all that remained. The energy forming in his scorpion tail was ten times greater than what had nearly killed Glenn. A final strike—a colossal purple beam—fired at point-blank range.
The blast lit up the crater. The world seemed to halt for a moment.
And then… nothing.
The monstrous energy crashed against Sales' armor, which now glowed with a scarlet pulse. The beam didn't explode. It generated no shockwave. It didn't push, burn, or pierce. It simply... vanished. As if the universe had chosen to ignore the attempt.
Sales, his face unmoved, raised his free hand—the one not holding the royal banner. With a single cutting motion, he slashed the air before him.
The creature understood. It felt it. And it fled.
In a burst, it opened a dimensional portal and emerged hundreds of meters away, far from the warrior's reach.
But its body was torn. The stinger had been obliterated. The blade-arms were gone. Only its unnatural exoskeleton had prevented total annihilation.
Like a wounded beast, maddened by fear, the Guardian opened another portal, trying to escape even further, to some dimension—anywhere far from that abomination.
Sales then raised his banner.
The fabric vibrated with a deep crimson hue, like living blood calling for execution. A faint whistle cut through the air—a sharp, elegant note like the cry of a diving eagle.
And that was the end.
The Guardian, once so feared, so resilient, was reduced to dust.
No screams.
No resistance.
No glory.
All that remained was silence, dust, and the weight of the royal captain's presence.
Sales furrowed his brow as he looked down at the bodies before him. Each of the five young warriors spat out by the rift was barely breathing. Multiple wounds, extreme exhaustion, collapsed magic. Glenn, in particular, looked more dead than alive. The seasoned warrior didn't need a diagnosis to understand: there was no time to lose.
Five cords of prana, thin as silk threads but pulsing like living arteries, extended from the crimson banner he held. In an instant, they wrapped around the bodies of the five, and with a blink, all of them vanished.
**
In the castle, inside the tower of the royal consort candidate, in a specific training room filled with books, artifacts, and floating scrolls, Elian raised his head. His eyes reflected the void for a moment before fixing toward the direction of the distant explosion. His book slipped from his hand, floating gently to the floor.
"You actually did it… you damned little anomaly."
The smile that curled on his lips was sarcastic, but laced with a rare flicker of pride. With a fluid motion, he rose from his chair and walked calmly, disappearing through the doorway.
**
Meanwhile, far away, the silence was broken only by the sound of bodies collapsing. Lesley stood at the center of a massacre. Her stance firm, her body still veiled in smoke, her hands dripping with blood—not her own, but others'.
"The rats are dead… but the broodmother still hides out of reach."
She twisted her foot, crushing the skull of one of the last survivors.
"Pointless cleanup… as long as the head keeps hiding."
Her eyes lifted toward the sky cloaked in crimson clouds. A whisper slipped from her battle-worn lips.
"Glenn, come back to us alive..."
**
At the highest tower of the royal castle of the demon empire, a solitary figure watched the sky. Selene stood motionless on the balcony of her chamber, like a living painting. Her long white hair danced with the night breeze, and her crimson eyes were lost among the three silver moons that shimmered above the world. A distant memory stirred there, between the stars.
In the palm of her right hand, until then hidden by a glove of dark satin, a tattoo of black wings—like those of an eagle—flickered in silent agony.
Its color was fading slowly, as if being erased by time.
Selene caressed it gently, her fingers tracing each line as though touching fate itself. Her lips moved without sound, uttering a silent, ancient prayer—older than the empire itself.
But then, as if she sensed something, her eyes lifted. And for the first time in twenty days, a small smile—shy, almost forgotten—bloomed across her hollow expression. Like the first flower blooming in a ravaged field.
**
Not with glory.
Not with peace.
But with survival.
Among ruins, stars, and wounds that still bleed,
remains a name that refuses to be erased.
Glenn.
The insect the world and fate bet against...
But that still refuses to die.