Chapter 2: THE CURSE IS BORN
Months passed since the Princess had been cursed. Despite the time having long since finished, the baby she carried, cursed with the weight of the universe, had yet to be born. Meanwhile, the Demon King's many wives had given birth to strong children, each one a potential heir to his empire. But even as the Demon King's empire grew, there was still no sign of the Princess's child.
Then one day, a boy—Raiden, as his mother named him—was born. Upon birth, the child absorbed half of his father's power, a surge of dark energy that filled the room. The Demon King, witnessing this, couldn't help but smile with satisfaction.
"Another half of me to use," he said with a grim satisfaction, his eyes gleaming with ambition.
But the boy's mother, disappointed by her son's dependence on borrowed power, looked at him with disdain. "I could have given birth to a stronger child. One who doesn't rely on borrowed power."
The Demon King dismissed her complaints, uninterested in the weakness she perceived. After all, the boy's power was more than enough to be useful. Raiden was taken to the Tower where the Princess had been locked away, the place where she had been confined ever since her exile.
Inside the Tower, the Princess had long since been stripped of her former life, and as the years dragged on, she became more and more isolated. When Raiden was brought to her, she saw nothing but the fragile, innocent child who needed care. She took him in, loving him as her own, despite the circumstances.
But as Raiden grew, he admired the Demon King's power more and more. The boy's obsession with his father grew, and he began to treat the Princess cruelly, forgetting the love she had shown him, as he followed in the footsteps of the one who had raised him—his father. Despite the mistreatment, the Princess held on to the hope that her son, Tenma, would one day find his own way, away from the shadows of the demons.
In the meantime, the Princess's own cursed child, Tenma, was still within her womb, much delayed beyond the expected time. The days stretched into months, and the people whispered, for the curse had not yet manifested in full. The town folk, with their fears, began to murmur that the curse had arrived.
At last, one fateful day, the Princess finally felt it—the stirrings within her. The baby was coming.
The cries of the newborn filled the cold air of the castle, and for a moment, the world seemed to hold its breath. The child, with pure black hair and crimson eyes like the flames of the underworld, was born. His name was Tenma.
"My child," the Princess whispered through tears, her voice full of both sorrow and love. "I don't care if you are cursed. You are my baby. All of this... it's my fault for the forbidden love I carried with your father."
The Demon King, enraged at the birth of the cursed child, moved to end the boy's life. He had no patience for the legacy of weakness the child represented. But the Princess, in desperation, stopped him.
"No!" she cried. "You will not harm him. He is my son!"
The Demon King hesitated, the darkness in his eyes narrowing as he weighed his options. The child was weak, frail. He could always dispose of him later if needed.
"Fine," the Demon King grumbled. "Let him live. He can serve as a guard at the gate when he grows older. His aura is weak enough for now."
As the Demon King walked away, he muttered to himself, "Maybe one day he'll prove useful."
The townspeople, however, were not as merciful. They called the castle "The Curse", referring to the Princess and her newborn as embodiments of divine punishment. The people whispered that the gods had forsaken them, and in their eyes, the Princess's son was nothing more than a curse sent to bring ruin.
And so, the child Tenma was born, but not in the way the world had expected. The story of his fate had only just begun, and the world would soon learn whether he would be the harbinger of destruction or salvation.
part 2
At long last, after a year beyond her due time, the Princess gave birth.
The child she bore into the world came with a mark—a white lily symbol drawn upon his back as if carved by the hand of fate. But his birth was not a celebration. The baby cried… and cried… and cried. His wails pierced through the halls of the tower, never ceasing, never calming.
And then the scars came.
With each passing second, jagged wounds appeared across the baby's fragile body, blooming like cursed flowers. His cries twisted into pained screams, echoing with the agony of something far beyond a newborn's understanding. The Princess, terrified and heartbroken, asked herself, "Is this… the curse?"
Every time she healed him, new scars would rip open, tearing through his skin again and again. This torment went on for days. Unable to endure seeing her son suffer, she found a way to put him to sleep using rare herbs. For a time, this was her only mercy: silence.
Each day, she would wake him five times to feed him, only to send him back to sleep, his cries silenced by the potion's lull. And every day, she wept as she tended to his ever-forming scars, her own heart breaking alongside his body.
The boy grew quickly, and with growth came fury. There were moments she would find him awake, scratching at the walls, fists bruised, whispering curses to the gods—curses far too powerful for a child to know. "Why me… why did they do this to me?" he would scream. "I'll make them pay."
Then, one day, the herbs stopped working.
No sleep, no escape, only endless pain.
Desperate, the Princess made a decision she had long feared: she would return to the Heavens. She would beg her father—the Heavenly King—to spare her son, to lift the unbearable curse. And so, she left the Castles behind and crossed the realms, back to the gates she once walked through as royalty.
The guards at the Heavenly Gates laughed as she approached."Look what love dragged in," one of them mocked."She threw away her crown for a devil, and now she comes crawling back."
But she ignored them and pushed forward. Inside the grand chamber, the 21 gods stared down at her, silent and cold. She knelt at the center of their judgment, tears pouring from her eyes.
"Please," she begged, "Lift my child's curse. Take my life instead. Please, Father…"
The Heavenly King—her father—laughed.And the gods joined him.
"I could take your life," he said, his voice cutting like ice, "and keep his curse just the same. You forget, daughter—when you left, I swore I'd curse you too should you ever return. No daughter of mine gives herself to filth, birthing scum in the shadows."
Then, as if delivering a divine sentence, he pronounced her new curse.
The hall went silent. The Princess sat frozen, trembling, as the words of her fate unfolded. Even the gods who had joined in the laughter fell quiet, disturbed by the weight of what had been spoken.
One of the guards at the edge of the chamber murmured, barely audible:"Even for a demon… that's too cruel."
The King heard him.
He stood from his throne and called out, "You. Guard. What's your name?"
The man hesitated, then answered: "Kage."
The god narrowed his gaze. "Who is Kage?" he mocked. "Who remembers Kage?"
The guard's eyes widened in fear. But it was too late.
"I am everything," the Heavenly King said, raising a hand. "Everything is me. I can erase your name from existence. I can rewrite this world where not even the sound of your name remains… or twist your very name into a number."
In an instant, the guard vanished—erased, forgotten, his soul lost to nothingness.
The Princess, now burdened with a second curse, was dragged out of the chamber, her muffled sobs the only sound that followed her.
She returned to the Castles, a shadow of who she once was.
And there, waiting in the tower of black stone, was her son—still screaming, still cursed as his face is covered in tears and a blooded wall.