The battlefield was filled with screams, clashing steel, and the relentless roars of demons. Blood soaked the earth because the flames of war were consuming everything in their path.
Aurelia, the hero of humanity, lay lifeless on the blood-soaked ground. A spear had pierced her chest. Her emerald eyes, once so full of fire, now stared blankly at the carnage.
Ronan fell to one knee, his sword shuddering as he used it to hold himself up. Blood flowed from innumerable wounds, each breath shallow and labored.
"I am. not done yet," Ronan whispered through clenched teeth, his voice weak but unyielding.
Across from him stood a giant, dressed in thick black armor. His enormous sword was stuck into the ground next to him, but what really made him stand out was that crimson eyes were glowing menacingly through the slits of his helmet. The air itself seemed to quiver at the presence of Zorak, the Demon King.
Zorak swept his sword easily across his back and rested it there. "Take the rest of your wretched soldiers and withdraw. This war is finished for you. There's no point to wasting any more lives here."
Zorak turned his back, taking slow steps across the battlefield, each step sending shudders through the ground. "I have no stake in senseless slaughter. I'm through with this fight," Zorak said, his voice growing distant.
Ronan clenched his fists, the knuckles turning white. His voice cut through the air, laced with fury and pain. "Fuck this. isn't over yet!"
Zorak halted and turned a little to the side to glance back at Ronan. "Why? Because I killed your precious hero? Is that what's driving you?" he asked, his voice silky smooth, almost mocking.
"Fuck the hero! I don't care damn about her," Ronan growled, forcing himself up. As he did so, black sword began glowing; pulsed with dark, nasty light, and all his effort was to make energy it broadcast with a malicious vibration around it. His eyes seethe with rage mixed up desperation. "What I want is revenge for all of them you have taken, from me. Your ending it, what I am here to give!"
"So be it," Zorak said, his crimson eyes glowing brighter as he turned fully towards Ronan. "I grow tired of this masquerade. If you wish to die so keenly, I shall make it quick."
Just in time for Zorak raised the blade which then started crackling with an unholy energy and, radiating a surging aura, suffocated the battlefield.
Ronan gritted his teeth and held his sword firmly as black energy started to swirl around it in mad circles, pulsating with his own desperate will. "I will take revenge, Amy," he whispered into himself while stamping a firm foot onto the blood-sodden earth. Then he roared and charged.
As Ronan made his charge, Zorak met it with calm poise, hefting his monstrous blade and bringing it down onto the ground in a booming crunch. Shockwaves rippled outward from the place of impact. Ronan, though, twisted his body into a blur of motion using his legs to propel himself to roll under the downward slash.
Using his newfound momentum, Ronan swung upward, striking Zorak's side. Dark energy trailed the blade as he sent it on its way, leaving a darkness-colored smear behind. The Demon King scoffed as he sidestepped his strike that he swatted with a wave of his sword.
"You are really fast, huh?" said Zorak mildly as he narrowed his crimson eyes and pushed Ronan back with sheer strength.
"And you're slow," Ronan spat again, pressing forward.
This time, Ronan faked high before spinning low, swinging his blade at Zorak's legs. The Demon King jerked his foot up to avoid the slash, striking back with a swift horizontal blow aimed at Ronan's waist.
He dodged in time, the knife-edge clouding above him. Ronan let it pass above as thunder was tearing through heaven; he came back on the attack, upward-moving to make Zorak send his sword upward in riposte. The collision propagated wave like action outward from that impact and made the pair lunge backward, scooping pits with their heels in earth.
"You're harder to kill than most," Zorak added, voice almost so tranquil it sounded tinged by sarcasm.
Ronan did not reply. He sprang forward again, a blur of speed and accuracy. He mashed a dozen attacks forward, his blade slicing from unanticipated angles, each swing fueled with desperate energy. Zorak deflected and blocked with near mechanical efficiency.
But Ronan did not fight to match his strength against Zorak's. Instead he probed, watched, and waited for an opportunity.
And so he found one.
When Zorak completed his swing of his sword, Ronan was quick to sidestep and close the gap to him, reaching into his grip in reverse, twisting his wrist to reverse his sword. He was looking for the weak, shivering light flickering below the Demon King's armor - his core.
Zorak saw the movement too late. Ronan's blade clashed with a booming crack, slicing through layers of defense around the core and detonating it.
The Demon King stepped back, his glowing crimson eyes wide-open with shock. "You. how did you know?"
Ronan said nothing. He drew the last dregs of the failing power and rushed at the exposed core of the Demon King with his sword thrust into it. The blade sank deep into the core, and a deafening expropriation erupted.
It was an eternity later that Ronan gasped for air as his eyes sprang open. He was sitting upright with his chest heaving and gasping as he sought to breathe, cold sweat running down his face, his heart racing with a fierce acceleration, threatening to jump out of his chest.
Zorak fell to his knees, clutching his chest, where once his core throbbed. His growl was low and guttural, his voice shaking with rage mixed with pain.
"You sneaky little rat," Zorak spat; blood dripped under his helmet. "Nobody was supposed to know about the core."
Sagging to his feet, Ronan grinned through blood and exhaustion. "Guess I'm full of surprises," he said, his voice strained but defiant.
Suddenly, the morning light flared out- abruptly and much brighter than before Zorak's aura, casting eerie shadows over the battlefield. "You have forced my hand, mortal," he said, rising to his feet. "No one threatens a king and lives to tell of it."
Before Ronan could even react, Zorak unleashed a dark, consuming energy that swept across the battlefield like a tidal wave. The ground trembled as the air became thick with oppressive power.
As if the sheer bulk of Zorak's sword were unstoppable, it tore through Ronan's chest in sheer terrifying speed and precision.
Ronan gasped, blood spilling from his mouth as he looked at the blade where it had gone through him. His vision blurred, knees buckled under him, but he would not fall all the way down.
Zorak towered over him, his voice low and cold. "You came closer than anyone ever has," he said, almost with a kind of respect. "But this is where your story ends."
With a swift jerking motion, Zorak pulled his sword free, sending Ronan's body crashing to the ground. Blood spilled beneath him as the world around him seemed to retreat and fade.
As darkness shut in, Ronan gritted a weak smile. Though his voice was barely above a whisper, there was no mistaking the strength of will that lay behind it.
"This. isn't over," he croaked. "I'll be back. again. and again. till I rip your heart from your chest. with my own hands."
Zorak gazed down at him. "You amuse me, mortal," he said, turning away. "But your defiance will amount to nothing."
As Zorak walked away, his voice remained in the air, chilling and cryptic. "We're all pawns in his grand game, mortal. Including you."
Ronan's vision went black, the world fading away.
Ronan woke up suddenly, gasping for breath, drenched in sweat.
He looked around, the familiar surroundings striking him in every detail. The wooden floor was worn, the small bunk beds, the scent of old books and fresh bread-the orphanage he had grown up in.
Ronan raised his hands and saw that they were returned as small, delicate fingers. His hands, his body-they were not the knight he had fought for on the battlefields. They were a child's.
He stumbled out of bed, his breathing ragged as he caught a glimpse of himself in the cracked mirror across the room. The reflection staring back at him was unmistakably his seven-year-old self: a small, frail boy with soft jet-black hair that curled slightly at the ends and bright blue eyes.
"I… I'm back again," he whispered. "Back in this body…"
And some sweet and irritated voice called him.
"ohh? Our king just woke up?"
Ronan slowly turned his head. Standing in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest, her face irritated and pursed, was Aurelia. Seven-year-old Aurelia, with her piercing green gaze and rumpled blonde tangles.