Rumors always traveled faster than truth.
They slipped through taverns on the breath of drunkards, crept between market stalls in half-whispered warnings, and crossed borders carried by merchants who swore they had seen the impossible with their own eyes. By the time they reached the capital cities, they were no longer stories—they were threats.
A town rebuilt overnight.
A monster that chose not to kill.
A man who stood while gods watched.
And at the center of it all—
Valen.
The first delegation arrived at dawn.
They came under white banners, their armor polished, their faces tight with rehearsed calm. Knights of the southern kingdom, escorted by a robed envoy whose eyes never stopped moving. They halted at the edge of town, refusing to come closer.
Mira watched from behind a broken wall. "They're afraid to step inside."
Valen nodded. "They should be."
Not because he would harm them—but because they knew he could.
The envoy cleared his throat, voice amplified by magic. "Valen. Former Demon King. By decree of the Council of Crowns, you are to submit to observation and binding."
Kael stiffened beside Valen. "Binding?"
Valen raised a hand, signaling him to stay calm. "You speak boldly for someone standing at a distance," Valen replied evenly.
The envoy swallowed. "You are an unknown variable. Power on your scale cannot be allowed to exist without control."
Mira's hands clenched. "Control," she whispered bitterly. "That's always the word."
Valen took one step forward.
The ground did not shake.
That frightened them more than if it had.
"You fear me," Valen said. "That is reasonable."
The knights shifted uneasily.
"But understand this," he continued, voice calm but carrying. "I have already chosen restraint. I live among humans. I protect them. I teach others to do the same."
The envoy's jaw tightened. "So you claim. But kingdoms have fallen to beings who spoke of peace."
Valen's gaze hardened. "And kingdoms have fallen because they struck first."
Silence fell.
The envoy hesitated—then spoke the words he had clearly been ordered to say. "If you refuse compliance, the Council will act."
Valen looked past them, toward the town. Toward Mira. Toward Kael.
Toward the lives he had chosen.
"I already refused," he said softly.
The delegation withdrew within minutes.
They did not look relieved.
They looked terrified.
By nightfall, the fear had spread.
Scouts reported troop movements near borders. Mage towers began long-range divination focused on the valley. Churches rang warning bells, proclaiming omens and false prophecies.
Some called Valen a guardian.
More called him a disaster waiting to happen.
In the capital of the western kingdom, a council chamber erupted into shouting.
"He was a Demon King!"
"He still carries the shards!"
"He defied the gods themselves!"
A lone voice cut through the noise. "And yet he did not destroy the town when he could have."
The room fell briefly silent.
Fear filled the gap.
Back in the valley, Kael paced restlessly. "They're going to come," he said. "Armies. Heroes. Maybe worse."
Valen sat on a low stone, watching the horizon. "Yes."
Kael stopped. "That's it? Yes?"
"They always do," Valen replied. "The world fears what it cannot control."
Mira stepped closer. "And what do you fear?"
Valen was quiet for a long moment.
"That they will force me to prove them right."
The sealed shard pulsed violently that night.
Not with hunger.
With agitation.
It felt the fear. The hostility. The preparations for war. And it learned the lesson the world was teaching:
Power invites violence.
Valen stood before it, hands pressed against the barrier he had created. "Not this time," he murmured. "I won't let you learn that."
But the shard did not answer.
It was listening elsewhere now.
Far away, in a land Valen had never walked, another shard bearer looked up from a burning battlefield and smiled.
"So," the bearer whispered, eyes glowing with warped delight, "they're afraid of you too."
He stepped over corpses, power roaring freely within him.
"Good," he said. "Fear makes things honest."
Back in the town, the hero approached Valen under the cover of night.
"You see it now," the hero said. "Restraint doesn't calm the world. It unsettles it."
Valen met his gaze. "Then I will endure their fear."
"And if they attack?"
Valen's eyes flicked briefly toward Mira's house.
"Then I will protect what I chose," he said quietly. "Even if the world calls me a monster for it."
Above them, unseen, something vast moved through the clouds.
Not the gods.
Something sent by them.
And the world, trembling in its fear, unknowingly marched closer to the edge of judgment.