Evening fell over the orphanage like a funeral shroud.
The children laughed inside, chasing each other across the hallway, unaware that the world was already tilting sideways—just slightly. Just enough.
Eren sat near the hearth, knees hugged to his chest. His fingers dug into the fabric of his worn pants.
He tried to breathe normally.
He tried to smile when one of the boys called him "ghost-face."
He tried to answer when they asked if he wanted to play.
He even tried to laugh when they shoved him down again, scraping his elbow on the stone floor.
But it was all static.
"This is what they are," he whispered to himself. "This is what they always were."
Violet toddled up to him, her teddy bear limp in one arm. She was always kinder than the rest—quiet, innocent. She tilted her head.
"Are you sad again?"
Eren forced a small smile. "No. Not anymore."
He reached into his pocket, fingers tightening around the bottle.
One last chance.
He walked to the small kitchen where Sister Mari usually hid the sugar cookies. The younger children—five, six, maybe seven—gathered around him when he offered the sweets and juice.
"Special drink," he said softly, pouring careful drops into paper cups. "It'll help you sleep better."
Violet clapped her hands. "Yay!"
"You're the best Eren"
He gave her the first cup.
Then the others.
They drank it without question—laughing, snacking, yawning one by one as their little bodies began to slow.
Eren poured the last of it into his own cup, still warm from his hand.
He looked at them—those small, tired faces.At least he can save this kids so they won't feel pain.
"It's better this way," he whispered.
"Let's go inside"
The kids followed Eren smiling while feeling tired.
Outside, high above—
Daemon stood on the roof of the orphanage, cloak rustling in the soft wind.
He stared down through the cracked shingles, sensing the stillness inside.
The silence was deafening.
Not a whimper.
Not a cry.
Only breathless, dreamless sleep.
A field of young lambs, laid down for slaughter.
And he smiled.
"I guess it's time."
Daemon stood above the burning quiet.
Through the shattered window, he saw them—Eren and the small children asleep in perfect stillness. Even the nuns... slumped over in their chairs. Gone. Peaceful.
Exactly as planned.
He didn't knock.
He leapt.
From four stories up, his body dropped like a shadow falling from the heavens. The ground cracked beneath his boots when he landed—a sharp, echoing boom that rippled through the soil.
Someone stirred.
A guard stepped around the side, sword half-drawn.
He didn't have time to blink.
Daemon's form blurred—a single step, a whisper of shadow, then blood sprayed across the wall.
The man's head hit the ground two seconds after his body.
Daemon kept walking.
One by one, they came—scrambling out of corners, drawn by noise, by instinct. Human reflex. Noble reflex. But they were weak. Undisciplined. Ornamental guards, not warriors.
Daemon carved through them like a scalpel through silk.
Blood painted the stone path.
Flesh crumpled like wet parchment.
Screams tried to rise—and died with their owners.
In three minutes, the orphanage was surrounded by corpses.
Daemon stood at the gate, drenched in red, his breath calm.
Behind him, the bodies twitched. Some still gasped for air.
He didn't bother finishing them.
He turned toward the building, wiping a splatter of gore from his mouth. His crimson eyes reflected the moonlight like twin embers.
"Shall we burn this place?"
He reached for his core.
Deep beneath his sternum, his demonic essence stirred—a pulsing, seething force barely contained.
His fingertips grazed the air in front of him.
And it answered.
Flame. Black. Whispering. Alive.
"Gabriel told me never to use this again," he murmured.
"But that was the Gabriel's in my past life."
He inhaled.
Once.
Twice.
And on the third breath, he opened the floodgates.
His dark aura ignited, laced with hellfire—an unnatural flame not born from heat, but from hatred.
He channeled it—half of his demon core—and shaped it into a sphere glowing in his hand like a dying star.
"I'm not ready to unleash it fully."
"But a spark... is enough."
And then he whispered the name of the cursed skill he'd sworn never to use again.
"Hell's Echo."
But this time... only half.
He forced his corrupted aura into shape—flames leaking from his fingertips, licking across the air like ink set ablaze.
Not a mushroom cloud.
Not a collapse of space and soul.
But a surge. A wave of fire born from hatred and grief.
He hurled it across the courtyard—directly into the orphanage's main hall.
The glass shattered.
And the building ignited.
....
Inside the orphanage—
Eren lay still, the children around him unconscious. The sleeping drug had worked as intended.
But not everyone had drunk it.
Sister Mari stirred from her prayer mat, blinking at the thick scent of smoke. Her lips parted in confusion—until she saw the glow beneath the door.
Then she screamed.
"AAAH HELP !"
"SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE!"
The fire moved fast. Too fast.
The wooden beams cracked.
The floorboards curled.
The walls wept heat and sulfur.
One child tried to stand, coughing. Another tripped and was swallowed by flame. The older boys—the ones who had bullied Eren—shouted, shoving others aside in blind panic.
But it was too late.
The smoke was already choking their screams.
The men who worked in the kitchen burst into the hallway, shouting for help, but the exit had already collapsed. One tried the back door—only to find it melted shut.
Screams. Cries. Coughing.
And then, slowly—nothing.
And Eren ?
Eren didn't move.
He sat cross-legged in the playroom, surrounded by toddlers curled up in sleep.
Violet still held her teddy bear.
They looked peaceful.
Unaware.
Untouched.
He could have left. He could've crawled out the back window, could've followed the others to the rooftop—maybe survived.
But instead... he smiled.
He clutched the same empty cup he had used to drink the last of the sleeping potion.
And closed his eyes.
"Thank you," he whispered.
The fire reached him less than a minute later.
It did not spare him.
....
Outside—
Daemon stood near the iron gate, cloak fluttering in the rising heat.
From where he stood, he could hear everything.
The nuns' shrieks. The children's panicked cries.
The banging on walls.
The begging.
His cloak fluttered in the wind, glowing embers drifting like fireflies around him.
He watched it all without blinking.
"I'm sorry"
A soft apology came out of daemon mouth without knowing and he smiled knowing the humanity he has left was slowly disappearing .
"NOOOO!"
A scream tore through the night air—
raw, human, broken.
Lilac dropped to her knees in the dirt, her white robes streaked in soot and ash. Her hands pressed against the charred ground as if trying to feel for life beneath the ruin.
The Book of the Demon King dropped from her trembling hands.
Its cover thudded softly against the floor.
A symbol scorched into leather: a crown of thorns wrapped around a bleeding eye.
The same symbol she had seen in the flames—in that vision, in that dream she had ignored.
And now...
They were dead.
Every child.
Every nun.
She had felt it in her bones. Woken choking on smoke that wasn't there. Heard the screams before the wind even brought the scent of ash.
And now, from the window of the temple's high tower, she could see the smoke rising in the distance—a pillar of black tearing through the sky like a wound.
The orphanage was gone.
Footsteps echoed behind her. Slow. Measured.
Lilac didn't lift her head.
She knew.
Daemon emerged from the shadows like a bad dream—calm, blood still flecked on his sleeves, cloak fluttering with the wind.
He looked down at her without a hint of gloating.
Without hate.
Only truth.
He crouched, picked up the fallen book, and gently dusted off the ash from its spine.
Then he leaned in, his voice softer than a whisper.
"When I said I would take something precious from you..."
He stood.
"...did you really think I wouldn't?"
Lilac trembled, eyes wide, pupils shaking.
He turned his back to her and began walking away.
"They're gone," he said over his shoulder.
"And it's your fault."
He didn't wait for a reply.
He left her there.
Shaking. Shattered.
Her breath caught.
Her eyes filled.
And then—
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
It ripped out of her like she was being torn from the inside.
The scream of a saint who failed.
The scream of someone who believed in light and was swallowed by darkness.
She screamed until her knees bled, until her throat cracked raw, until her voice was gone and only sobs remained.
But Daemon never looked back.
The book was his.
The revenge had only begun.