History insists it was inevitable.
Not because of hatred.Not because of ambition.But because Gilbert had reached balance—and balance, in this world, never lasted.
Four great eras had passed before it.Each one longer than the last.Each one ending not with collapse, but with correction.
And when the fifth great era began, Gilbert prospered.
Elven canopies glowed brighter than ever, their cities humming with living magic.High-Human enclaves perfected their craft, bodies and magicules indistinguishable from one another.Human nations expanded trade routes that crossed continents. All empires at peace with each other.Troll forges burned clean and steady deep beneath the mountains.Even demons grew quiet more territorial but restrained, contained.
It was called a golden period.
That was how they always named it.
The illusion shifted.
They stood now at the edge of a mountain range unlike any other. The land around it was fertile, almost reverent—valleys rich with life, rivers unnaturally calm. No cities dared climb its slopes. No banners flew near its peak.
"Mount Hulios," the priestess said.
The mountain did not look hostile.
"It has always been here," she continued. "Before borders. Before races learned to name themselves. And it awakens only when the world believes it has mastered itself."
The sky above Hulios darkened. Deep within the mountain, something shifted.
Not a heartbeat.
A memory.
Tolstoy frowned. "A mountain?"
"Yes," the priestess replied.
The illusion drew them inward.
Stone layers peeled away like pages turning, revealing a vast hollow at the mountain's core. There were no chains. No wards. No seals carved by hand.
There never had been. There was just a vast hollow chamber.
At the centre of the hollow stood a shape too still to be alive.
A throne grown from obsidian and bone waited for someone to sit on it.A crown fused into a skull that was not quite humanoid.A body formed as if the mountain itself to become a king. A mountain trying to become a god.
Magicules did not drift here.
They bowed.
"When all races reach prosperity," the priestess said quietly, "the pressure becomes too great. Magic pools. Curves inward. And history responds."
The thing on the throne inhaled.
"The Demon king is born from magicules that are left after no one needs them. Magicules like to flow, but without purpose it goes hey wire. So to keep the balance, Gilbert came up with a solution 'Mount Helios'."
Every race felt it.
Recognition. The Devil King opened its eyes.
Just awareness.
It stood, stone cracking from its form like a shedding shell. With each step, reality recalibrated itself around it—gravity adjusting, magic realigning, fate tightening its grip.
"It was never seen as an invasion."Priestess continued. "It is a war of destiny, if you will."
Grey's jaw tightened. "And the sides?"
The illusion widened again.
Elven war councils convened beneath ancient boughs.High-Human conclaves activated long-prepared contingencies.Troll gates sealed, forges roaring as pressure weapons were born.Demons knelt—not in worship, but in acknowledgement.
"The Trolls and the Devils aligned," she said."The Elves and the High-Humans answered."
Faker's voice was low. "And the humans?"
"They survived where they could," the priestess replied. "History rarely favours those without leverage."
Mount Hulios erupted—not outward, but upward. A column of darkness pierced the sky, visible from every corner of Gilbert.
The Fifth Great Era had ended.
The First War of Reckoning had begun.
...
The Devil King was not born screaming.
It woke to silence.
The first thing the Devil King became aware of was weight.. the weight of it's fate.
"It's happening again" It spoke as the mountain shook.
He did not need to ask who he was. The world already knew. It had shaped itself around that knowledge long before his eyes opened.
He rose.
Obsidian cracked and fell away from him like shed skin. The throne behind him did not collapse; it simply ceased to matter. Magicules recoiled, then aligned, flowing toward him in perfect obedience. Not worship. Not fear.
Function.
The Devil King was an answer.
He remembered the eras before this one—not as memories, but as patterns. Four times before, the world had grown confident. Four times before, prosperity had hardened into arrogance, abundance into imbalance. And four times before, he had awakened in this same hollow, beneath this same sky, at the precise moment the world believed itself complete.
He did not hate Gilbert.
Hatred required preference.
He existed to correct.
As he stepped forward, the mountain reshaped itself—not crumbling, but yielding. Every step recalibrated the laws around him. Gravity adjusted. Mana density normalised. Probability narrowed.
Far beyond Hulios, the first ripples spread.
In elven forests, ancient trees groaned as their roots drank magic too quickly, too greedily.In High-Human sanctums, perfected circulatory systems began to strain, magicules pushing past optimal thresholds.In troll forges, pressure climbed to dangerous levels—and the elders smiled grimly.In demon lands, lesser devils knelt instinctively, not to a ruler, but to a constant.
The Devil King lifted his gaze.
He saw the world as it truly was—not divided by borders, but by distribution. Magic pooled where it should not. Faithless abundance stretched the fabric thin. The mythical races had drawn too close to the source, and the lower races were paying the price.
Balance had tipped.
History demanded response.
He did not summon armies.
They came to him.
Devils emerged from fractures in reality, drawn to the axis of correction. Demon Lords stirred—one per great era, each recognising the same signal they had answered before. Troll elders opened sealed gates, their mountain-halls vibrating with resonance that matched Hulios itself.
This was not alliance born of diplomacy.
It was alignment.
The Devil King did not speak, yet his will propagated through ley currents like a command written into the planet's crust.
Contain the excess.Apply pressure.Restore equilibrium.
Across Gilbert, elves and High-Humans felt it at the same moment.
Not a threat.
A verdict.
Elven councils convened beneath glowing canopies, realizing too late that listening to the world was no longer enough when others had begun reshaping it. High-Human conclaves activated contingencies prepared across generations the bloodlines refined for a war they had always known would come.
Because deep down, every race remembered.
The Devil King always came when the world believed it no longer needed him.
Standing at the peak of Hulios now, he looked across Gilbert—not with malice, not with triumph, but with inevitability.
This war was not punishment.
It was maintenance.
And as the Fifth Great Era bled into the First War of Reckoning, the Devil King took his first true breath and the world began to break exactly where it needed to.