The demon lord's throne room smelled like burnt copper and old incense.
Seris noticed this first.
Before the architecture.
Before the oppressive darkness.
Before the figure slouched on the obsidian throne ahead.
Her boots made no sound against the polished black stone.
Decades of assassination training had taught her that silence was the difference between success…
…and a closed casket.
Behind her, four shadows moved in perfect synchronization.
Lyth, the Sword Saint, held her blessed blade low and angled—ready to explode forward in a draw-cut that had split mountains. Her silver hair was tied back with wire, not ribbon.
Practical. Always practical.
Kaiva, the Priestess of the Descending Light, clutched her scripture tome against her chest. Her fingers were pale around the leather binding. Holy script glowed faintly beneath her skin—seven prayers of smiting carved into her bones during the Anointing Rite.
They had burned for three days straight.
She hadn't screamed once.
Rasha, the Beastkin General, prowled on the balls of her feet, claws already extended. Her amber eyes tracked heat signatures in the dark, reading the flow of air, calculating trajectories.
She'd killed sixty-three demons on the way here.
Bare-handed.
The blood was still drying on her forearms.
And Iona—the Royal Strategist—hung back with her enchanted monocle lowered, mapping the room's runework in real-time.
No wasted movement.
No hesitation.
She had spent six months designing this infiltration down to the second.
Every contingency planned.
Every trap accounted for.
Every escape route memorized.
Seris adjusted her grip on the poisoned needle between her fingers.
Essence of Godsblood.
Distilled from the tears of a dying saint.
It had cost them fourteen lives just to acquire one vial.
Fourteen good soldiers who had burned alive in holy fire during the extraction.
The figure on the throne hadn't moved.
He sat with his chin resting on one hand, head tilted slightly.
Watching them.
Waiting.
The Demon Lord Vael.
He looked…
tired.
That was the first wrong thing.
Not monstrous.
Not raging.
Not wreathed in hellfire or surrounded by legions of the damned.
Just tired.
"This body isn't mine. I recognized it the moment I awoke—another world, another life, and a villain's fate carved into every bone. I know how it ends. I know their hatred, their prayers, their strikes. And yet… I am here, and I will use it. Not as him. But as me"
Like a man who had worked a double shift and come home to find his house on fire.
His armor was black, yes—but not ornate. Functional. Scarred. The kind of wear that came from use, not decoration.
His hair fell loose around his shoulders, dark and unbound.
No crown.
No dramatics.
He looked almost human.
"You're early," he said.
His voice carried across the empty hall—not loud, not magically amplified—just clear.
Matter-of-fact.
Like they had missed a scheduled appointment.
Lyth moved.
Her blade blurred.
She crossed fifty meters in a heartbeat, holy steel screaming as it carved through the air.
The thrust was perfect—angled between the fourth and fifth rib, straight into the heart.
A killing blow refined through ten thousand repetitions.
Vael didn't move.
The blade punched through his chest.
Silence.
Blood welled around the steel, dark and thick. It ran down the length of Lyth's sword, dripping onto the stone with soft, rhythmic taps.
Vael looked down at the blade protruding from his sternum.
"Hm," he said.
Then he looked back up at Lyth.
"Cleaner than last time."
Lyth's eyes widened.
Kaiva's hands snapped up. Holy light flooded the chamber as seven layered barriers slammed into existence around them—containment seals designed to trap demonic regeneration, to lock corruption in place, to prevent escape.
Rasha launched sideways, claws raking toward his throat in a spray of motion.
Iona's monocle flared as she activated the pre-prepared runic traps embedded in the floor—seventeen sequential bindings meant to immobilize even a duke-class entity.
Seris moved.
Three steps.
Needle raised.
Straight for the carotid.
The poison would stop regeneration.
The holy seals would contain him.
The bindings would lock him down.
And Lyth's blade would finish it.
Four seconds.
That's how long the entire sequence took.
Vael died at the two-second mark.
His head lolled forward.
Blood poured from the wound in his chest. From the gash Rasha's claws tore across his throat. From the needle puncture in his neck.
The light left his eyes—not dramatically, not with some grand declaration.
Just the simple, mechanical shutdown of a body that had stopped working.
He slumped in the throne.
Dead.
The five heroines stood in formation, weapons drawn, breathing hard.
The chamber was silent except for the drip…
drip…
drip…
of blood hitting stone.
"…Containment holding," Iona whispered. "No demonic energy signature. No regeneration detected."
Kaiva's hands trembled around her scripture tome.
"The light… it's not reacting. There's no corruption to purify."
Lyth stared at her blade, still buried in his chest.
"He didn't even try to block."
Rasha circled the throne slowly, sniffing the air.
"No trap. No ambush."
Her ears flattened.
"He's just… dead."
Seris stepped closer.
Something was wrong.
Not with the kill—that had been perfect. Textbook execution.
But the way he had looked at them.
The way he had spoken.
Cleaner than last time.
What did that mean?
She reached for his wrist.
No pulse.
Cold skin.
No heartbeat.
Dead.
"We… won?" Kaiva's voice was barely audible.
Iona's monocle clicked as she cycled detection arrays.
"Vital signs negative. Mana circulation ceased. Cellular decay beginning. He's—"
Vael's eyes opened.
Lyth ripped her blade free and swung again in pure reflex—a horizontal slash that should have decapitated him.
He caught it.
Bare-handed.
The blessed steel—enchanted to burn demon flesh on contact—sat harmless in his palm.
For the first time, something flickered in his gaze.
Not fear.
Not anger.
Recognition.
"Seventeen traps," he said, looking at Iona. "Last time you used twelve. Good improvement."
He stood.
Lyth tried to pull her sword back.
It didn't budge.
Vael released the blade and stepped down from the throne. Blood still soaked his armor, the hole in his chest knitting shut with soft, wet sounds.
Not regeneration.
Not the rapid, aggressive healing of demonic magic.
This was something else.
Slower.
Methodical.
Like a film playing in reverse.
"Kaiva," he said quietly. "Seven bone-carved prayers. That's new."
His eyes softened almost imperceptibly.
"Did it hurt?"
Kaiva stumbled backward, holy light flaring around her hands.
He didn't advance.
"Rasha."
His gaze shifted.
"Sixty-three demons. Forty-two with spinal breaks. Twenty-one with crushed throats."
A faint nod.
"You've gotten faster."
Rasha's fur bristled.
"How do you—"
"Seris."
He looked directly at her.
"Godsblood poison. Fourteen casualties during extraction."
A pause.
"I remember the first time you tried that."
Her breath caught.
"I'm sorry for your loss."
The needle slipped from her fingers.
"Who are you?" Iona demanded. "What are you?"
Vael studied her for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
Not cruel.
Not triumphant.
Just tired.
"I'm the Demon Lord," he said quietly. "And you are the eighth group of heroes sent to kill me."
He turned and walked back toward the throne.
His footsteps echoed like a countdown.
"Eighth?" Lyth's voice tightened. "What does that mean?"
Vael paused.
He didn't turn around.
"It means," he said softly, "that you've just completed attempt number eight."
The air in the chamber seemed to drop ten degrees.
"Attempt?" Seris' pulse hammered in her throat. "We killed you."
"Yes."
"You died."
"Yes."
"Then how—"
"Because dying," Vael said, settling once more onto his throne, "was never the problem."
He rested his chin on his hand again.
Those exhausted, ancient eyes swept across them.
"The first death is always the easiest."
Silence fell like a blade.
Lyth raised her sword.
"Then we'll kill you again."
"You will," he agreed. "Many times, probably."
Kaiva's voice shook.
"You're insane."
"Perhaps."
A faint exhale.
"But I am also the only thing standing between your world… and annihilation."
Iona's monocle flared.
"Explain."
"No."
"No?"
"Not yet."
He leaned back, fingers drumming once against the armrest.
"First, we're going to have a conversation about marriage contracts."
The five heroines stared at him.
"…What?" Seris breathed.
Vael's smile widened—just slightly.
There was something almost resigned in it.
"I'm proposing," he said.
"To all of you."
---