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She was her majesty, the only remaining princess and the next Demon King. She fulfilled all expectations and even more, she was a product of perfection within demon biology. She quickly outgrew her training regiment and was ready for battle, her gaze contained a fiery will that not even her father understood where it came from or how it came to be...
Using her authority, she visited the nobles. She left her own capable subordinates in charge of maintaining her side of the demon kingdom. Occasionally magical girls would wander over and cause mass destruction, but she left it up to her army to deal with it, parting with detailed instructions ready. It wasn't as if she trusted them to be strong or anything, in fact she hadn't trained them much.
She wouldn't care if their border collapsed, causing the wanton death of the demons. To maintain her side of the border, she merely used her dominating strength to quell all opposing forces.
"What brings you about, princess?" (Laveri Tsari Adel)
A demon noble, while demons arise from monster evolving into higher species, gaining humanoid builds and Intelligence in the process, there was always the original elusive demon species, born intelligent and strong and adorned with 2 horns over their temples. The horns channeled complex magic, giving them the upper hand over all creatures. A superior organism to speak of.
"... Just a careful inspection of our ranks, traitors have shown up in my territory, resulting in the deaths of 2 loyal subordinates of mine." (Hikari)
"Ah... I see..." (Adel)
He wore a two piece suit fitted with armour inside his outer suit. His clothes buldged with sharp edges as the protective gear under threatens to pierce through his clothes. The clothe that was used to sow those articles were specially procured to produce particularly robust articles that could withstand the sharpness of his armour at all times.
"... What did you think of the previous great hero, Yulora? If she were still here, do you believe things would be far better?" (Hikari)
"... For all respects, I believe that we can only do so much within our lifetimes. That is why life as intelligent beings, much akin to the humans that we so look down upon, is so similar. We squander as much as we can and we throw ourselves into the heat of battle to accomplish as much as we can.
Your sister was weak. Not physically or magically, she was weak of heart. Most of us expected her to sacrifice her subordinates to escape herself. We wouldn't blame her for that, the weak live to serve the strong here. The strong deserve to live another day, the strong will continue to make an impact in the war. If the weak dies, nothing changes. If the strong die, strategies are forced to conform. " (Adel)
She didn't really expect such sophisticated speech, at least when compared to the rabble soldiers. He eloquently voiced out the reasons why things happened the way it did, why her sister died an undeserved death, why the other demons looked down on her for it. 'I see', she thought upon this revelation. Adel truly opened her eyes. She hated it, she understood that there was always some truth to the situation, but it was insignificant compared to the fury that eternally dwelled in her heart.
Her sister loved the masses, loved the kingdom. But she was repaid with ridicule. The concept of the strong accommodating for the weak does not exist in demon society. It was a cursed land where its residents evolved rapidly from mindless beast, often they're unable to throw away those uncouth instincts. The law of the jungle was brought along, they become unable to progress socially as a result.
A stagnation that resulted in their timely destruction, the humans never stopped advancing. The demons' tactics were analysed and taken advantage of, a combination of multiple factors helped to propagate it. First was the increase in population for the humans, leading to humanity gaining more magical girls. The second was the dissection of demon tactics, they were primitive and easy to analyse, allowing humans to overturn the natural biological superiority of the demons.
Even with all that, there was still no hesitation. In truth, she was already somewhat aware of how things were. The only difference between now and before was that things were explicitly put into words. Perhaps she was also a savage wild beast who could never be mollified by words.
"... I see, you've made your choice. Then you would be right to do so. I predicted that you would come here and gambled on my life anyway, expecting to convince you.
You are correct in your assessment of things. It is precisely our demonic view of things that made me unable to understand why I couldn't convince you. It was much easier through a human lens, but... I looked down on them too much to consider that. Alas, it's too late to reconsider now.
I am the lynchpin of demon nobility, I would be the first on the list to kill, but also the hardest... Too bad for me huh? I will meet a fate similar to your sister. " (Adel)
"...?! What...? Are you talking about? " (Hikari)
Her face paled, but she quickly recovered. Disregarding his words as distracting drivel in the way of her conquest. He was right in his own assessment of all things in this demon kingdom, she would kill him and then all of the nobles. If she utterly annihilated their social structure, she could force a change within the kingdom as its sole ruler.
"Ah... Nevermind. You're in fact stronger than I am. I meant that it is but a fact... That I as archduke of the demon kingdom live to serve the royalty. If you deem it necessary you could demand that I bring you all the heads of the other nobility, but you aren't the type of person to do that.
I won't fight, you'll need all the energy you can save. I've never seen it before, would you at least smile before you kill me? The same one that you would have in your earlier years... " (Adel)
"..." (Hikari)
She was left speechless once more. Why someone as capable as Adel would simply let her kill him... She had assumed that there would be a tense struggle, with the Victor inheriting the title of successive ruler over the demon kingdom. With her out of the picture, it would fall to his archduke family to take over and serve a heir. But circumstances were circumstance, he stuck to his values to the very end. That much, she could at least respect.
She almost felt bad. So she gave him a smile.
"Hahah...!!! That's one incredibly ugly smile! You must've forgotten how to-" (Adel)
She lopped his head off before another word and disintegrated his skull with a black beam of magic. No trace was left, his territory was left in utter chaos and conflict. News of it wouldn't take long to spread, so she quickly travelled to the other noble territories, one by one she claimed their heads. At those times, there was no dialogue needed. They pleaded for their lives, that was enough for her to lose interest, so she quickly ended her job.
On the next day, multiple territories fell to the magical girl forces. The only ones that were left standing was Adel's and hers. Her army barely survive with their high moral and the knowledge that she taught them. Adel's was also diligently managed and his subordinates quickly adapted to his absence while maintaining security.
"Plea-!!" (Noble F)
With a brush of her palm through the air in front of her, a black beam of light swiftly engulfed his head, leaving behind another headless body. The nobles were manually purged by removing the heads of the heads of their families. Those that failed to maintain their territory turned into army fodder for the remaining territories to use as rank and file soldiers, others were obliterated by the assaulting magical girls. Soon, this piece of territory in South America would fall and they would have to retreat to the earth's core.
The fall of the demon kingdom was in tandem with the proliferation of human societies. Prosperity rained across human civilisation while the demons hid underground in their limited safety. When the day was about to end, she returned to the demon castle. The place where royalty lived and her previous home. She hadn't returned since she ventured outside and took up her sister's mantle.
She walked towards the throne, avoiding the courtesy of kneeling. The king inwardly excused her conduct as a princess and as a high achieving hero who replaced her older sister. Her father gazed at her expectantly, she must have gotten some good news to have arrived there in person. This time, the detachedness of royalty and common people resulted in a the ironic downfall of the king. He who looked down on his own people as the apex of his species, now would lose his throne due to this egotistical self isolation.
"What brings you here, Lixia?" (Father, Enerthymia vee dohante)
He was all smiles as he awaited for his daughter to part her lips. The humans must have been defeated, at least the borders must have expanded. His informant should reach him by now, but maybe they're allowing his daughter to deliver the good news!
"I did... Very well, father. Say, did Yulora do well...?" (Hikari vee Lixia, Demon Princess of Lament)
"... Hmmm??? Why bring that failure up? Anyway! How much territory have you stolen from the humans?" (Father)
He spoke with a hearty laugh and a skip in his tone. His upbeat attitude was met with a splash of cold water. Her cold ceaseless gaze full of unknown intent drilled through his presence, probing into his soul. For a moment, cold sweat dripped down his back but he dismissed it. He breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it was his imagination, but when he layed eyes on her once more, she was no longer there.
She used that miniscule opening to slip closer. A single black laser beam shot from up close, to which he barely dodged. He stopped believing it was playful fun, and looked questioningly at Hikari. Not noticing another beam of light approaching from the back. She proved her superiority over magic, a pure beam of magic energy usually had a straight but powerful trajectory. She curved it from around his back to his side, and shot multiple of such curving shots.
Her magic wasn't programmed to curve after some time, she was altering their trajectory in real time and keeping track of 20 shots at the same time. She was born superior and she made full use of it, overwhelming her father. He dodged the first few, but one of them hit, then another, and another, and another, and another. Their recoil travelled into his body, pushing him into a certain direction to get hit by the next. She shot another batch of 20 when he successfully survived the first.
This time he was too injured, he had bleeding wounds all over and his breath was falling short. Her magic was enchanted to stop demonic regeneration, the Demon King lineage was born with a first skill that commanded biological and magical authority over every other demon, she could manipulate the biology of other demons and herself as long as she was stronger. In this case, she stopped his regeneration, proving her superiority over him. She claimed the title as the strongest demon in history.
His body leaked his bodily fluids all over the floor in front of the throne. A large chunk of his torso, hips and limbs were missing. His left arm held his stump of a right arm that was gone from the elbow down. A single leg supported his now lopsided but lighter body. A large hole bore through his torso from his chest to his hip, leaving his body a bloody mangled crescent moon of flesh.
"W... Why...?" (Father)
He could only muster so much. Stopping his regeneration as a superior demon reduced him into mere fodder. Adel would have been plenty stronger than him. His thoughts rushed to make sense of things, but all his energy was spent trying to survive, so he resorted to asking her. The same pleading eyes that all the other dying nobles had resided on his face. What a weakling, she thought. He doesn't deserve to know, he should die with regrets. Those were her last thoughts regarding his existence, as she sent the castle ceiling down to squash him into paste.
Almost akin to The Great Disaster, 50% of demonkind was gone. They retreated with roughly 4 000 000 individuals and recovered back to 8 000 000 by the time The Great Disaster struck a lethal blow to humankind. With this great reduction in numbers, Hikari easily reformed the weakened demon society, completely excising the nobility system to leave herself as the sole ruler, an absolute monarchy.
She detested all of demonkind for condemning her sister to an untimely death, her sister who actually didn't die in training but on the battlefield... Her sister who loved demonkind so much that it will receive undeserved protection from Hikari...