Kairo dreamed of fire.
Not the wild inferno of destruction—this fire was still, dense, pressing down like gravity. He stood in an endless black plain beneath a sky fractured by red fractures, as if reality itself had once been struck and never healed.
A throne waited behind him.
He did not turn.
"You've changed the seal."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere—deep, layered, no longer pretending to be gentle.
Kairo's chest tightened. "I know who you are."
A presence stepped forward—not summoned, not invited.
Raizen did not look like a grandfather here.
He stood tall, cloaked in shadow that bled like smoke, horns crowned with faint ember-light. His eyes burned—not crimson this time, but something colder, sharper.
Assessment.
"You were not meant to do that," Raizen said.
Kairo clenched his fists. "She was going to die."
Raizen regarded him in silence.
Then he laughed.
Not kindly.
Not cruelly.
Amused.
"So," the Demon King said, "you chose attachment."
The word sounded like an accusation.
"I chose her," Kairo shot back. "You told me to let them underestimate me. You didn't tell me I'd have to sacrifice everyone around me just to stay human."
Raizen's smile faded.
"You misunderstand," he said. "I did not seal my power into you so you could stay human."
The sky cracked wider.
"I sealed it because you were capable of refusing it."
Kairo faltered. "Then why are you angry?"
Raizen stepped closer. Each step bent the world slightly, as if reality remembered kneeling.
"Because you did something I did not," he said quietly.
Kairo swallowed. "You ruled."
Raizen nodded once. "And I was right to."
The words landed like stone.
"I ended wars," Raizen continued. "I crushed empires that would have burned the world slowly instead of quickly. I made fear efficient."
He leaned down, eyes level with Kairo's.
"And I never apologized."
The seal trembled—not with hunger, but with conflict.
"You think refusing power makes you better," Raizen said. "But refusal is a luxury bought with someone else's blood. Tell me—how many will die because you hesitated?"
Kairo shook. "I won't become you."
Raizen straightened. "Good. I didn't choose you to replace me."
That surprised him.
"Then what did you choose me for?" Kairo demanded.
Raizen turned away, gazing toward the cracked horizon.
"To prove something," he said.
The throne behind Kairo groaned—cracks spiderwebbing across its surface.
"I wanted to know if a Demon King's power could exist without a king," Raizen said softly. "If strength could be restrained without rotting. If the world was worth trusting."
He looked back.
"So far," he said flatly, "the world is failing that test."
The fire dimmed.
Raizen began to fade—not banished, not defeated.
Watching.
"One more thing," he said, voice echoing as the dream collapsed. "The Council will not try to erase you again."
Kairo's heart sank. "Why?"
"Because you've done something worse than become a Demon King," Raizen replied.
The last thing Kairo heard before waking was his voice—no longer amused.
"You've become a problem they can't control."
Kairo woke with a sharp gasp.
He lay on a narrow bed in a dim room lit by flickering lamps. His chest ached—but the seal was calm, alert, awake.
Sereth sat nearby, pale but alive, watching him like she expected him to vanish.
"You spoke," she said quietly.
"In my sleep?"
"No," she replied. "To something inside you."
Kairo stared at the ceiling.
"He's not on my side," he said.
Sereth exhaled slowly. "Demon Kings never are."
Outside, the Low Cities stirred uneasily.
And far above them, in halls where fear dressed itself as order, the Council reconsidered everything it thought it knew.
Because Raizen was right.
This time, the heir wasn't rising to rule.
He was rising to defy the shape of power itself.