John slams his palm against the keyboard.
All four monitors flash the same mocking word: Defeat.
He lost—again.
Leaning back in his chair, he stares up at the ceiling, sighs, and slowly spins.
By chance, his eyes land on the clock hanging crookedly on the wall.
11:59 PM.
His heart jolts.
He quickly closes the game and opens a separate application.
With practised fingers, he clicks Join on the "Demon Group" call.
The screens shift, splitting into seven windows, each one filling with the face of a man or woman.
Each face is different, each one dangerous.
Mike, a blond man with sharp blue eyes glowing faint purple, speaks first.
"Everyone's here. Let's begin."
John nods and leans forward.
Evelyn returned. So—what's the next step?"
A woman with raven-black hair, violet eyes, and faintly pointed ears speaks next.
"We need to revise the plan."
Blake, pale as a corpse and wearing a permanent sneer, narrows his eyes.
"Why? The first two seal families fell just fine."
Cecilia—the elven woman—responds calmly.
"Because they were isolated."
"But now, with the time to reinforce Axeris's seal nearing, the twelve families have begun reconnecting."
"They've started coordinating through the Demon Hunter Club."
Blake snarls.
"Those damned Hunters. They raided one of my nightclubs again."
"And now they're keeping us from unsealing Axeris?"
He slams a fist down off-screen.
"We should teach them a lesson."
Around the call, murmurs rise—some quiet, others sharp.
Some nod in agreement.
Others stay silent.
But no one objects.
Mike speaks next, calm but firm.
"Not now. Our main objective is getting our hands on the keys."
Alaric, a man with brown hair and reptilian, slit-pupiled eyes, leans forward.
"I don't think the keys are necessary anymore."
Lilian, with honey-colored hair and faint purple markings curling around her neck like tattoos, frowns.
"What do you mean?"
John, silent until now, narrows his eyes and focuses on Alaric's display—he's their expert in demon magic.
Alaric continues, voice steady.
"I've studied the keys—dissected their essence."
"And I've created a formation capable of revealing the location of Axeris's seal."
Mike's tone sharpens with anticipation.
"What do you need?"
Alaric replies without hesitation.
"A member of each of the Twelve Seal Families who has awakened their demon blood."
"Or someone with the highest blood purity—still alive."
Blake scoffs, grinning.
"Difficult—but still easier than collecting all twelve keys."
Cecilia's voice cuts in, cold and clear.
"Then we strike all targets at once—or as close together as possible."
"If we move too slowly, they'll be warned—and the Demon Hunters will catch our scent."
"They're already on us. If they uncover any of our identities, it's over."
The group falls into discussion—strategising, debating, refining the plan.
Finally, one by one, they end the call.
John closes the app, stands from his chair, and walks across the dimly lit room.
He stops in front of a large painting on the wall, silent, staring.
He holds the painting and moves it left, and then a click is sounded.
He steps back and pushes the wall beside the painting, and it opens like a door.
It reveals a dark staircase going downward.
In his palm, a purple flame appears, and using it as his light source, he steps inside the dark staircase.
He walks and reaches a corridor. From the corridor, sobs can be heard. And he steps forward, and it comes to light that both sides are prisons.
He walks the entire corridor and passes 12 prisons.
Six on each side, and each of them holds a little girl between the ages of 15 to 18 years old.
He wonders which one he will choose tonight to satisfy his hunger.
He also has demon blood in his body, but he is not like the Manford family.
Their family ancestor were defeated by a demon during their possession.
And a demon took over their ancestor's bodies.
But nobody found that his ancestor had been possessed by a demon.
And his ancestor also started a family.
And they become no different from Demon Blood families, and even their family demon blood is the dominant one, as the demon won, not the other way around.
It increases their strength and they are more powerful than members of the Demon Blood families in the same realm, but they also have side effects.
The family that took over his ancestor was incubus, and so he has the blood of incubus in him.
And so has an unnatural sex drive.
And he found that the hunger that can only be satisfied by teenage girls.
He opens the door of one prison cell and enters.
----
Elsewhere, in a private lounge above a pulsing club dance floor, two men sip wine while watching the crowd move below them.
Their bodies are marked with glowing purple tattoos that ripple faintly with energy.
One of them, a silver-haired man with sharp blue eyes, swirls his glass and speaks.
"Lance, why were you sent here?"
The red-haired man beside him, green eyes gleaming in the dim light, answers calmly.
"Zake, have you heard about the attack on the Manford family's eldest daughter?"
Zake nods, sipping his wine again.
Of course, he had—he's the head of the Demon Hunter Club in Terrilyn City.
Though he answers to no one but the headquarters, keeping tabs on major crimes is still his duty.
Especially because such incidents could be the work of demons.
When a demon begins to possess someone, two consciousnesses battle for control.
The result is volatile emotions, unstable thoughts, and often, acts of extreme violence.
Then there are the worshippers—those who learn of demons and trade loyalty for power.
"I looked into it," Zake says evenly. "No signs of demon energy. The girl returned home safe."
Lance glances at Zake, eyes lingering on the tailored suit, the polished glass, the quiet elegance.
He sighs, remembering the man he met three years ago.
Zake had been assigned to Terrilyn temporarily, wounded and recovering.
His appointment was supposed to last a year.
But Zake had stayed.
He'd built a life here—he even had a family now.
Yet despite the passing years, his cultivation remained stalled at the Upper Level Demon Exorcist realm.
Their talents had once been equal, but Lance had already advanced to the Demon Weaver realm.
Zake should have broken through, too.
But instead, he'd chosen a different path—the comfort of position, the taste of authority, the stability of leading the Demon Hunter Club.
In exchange, his edge had dulled.
His will to fight, to climb the path of demonic cultivation, had eroded into comfort.
Under any other circumstances, Lance wouldn't have even acknowledged him.
But for the mission ahead, he needed Zake's cooperation.
Lance sipped his wine and asked evenly, "Do you know about Axeris?"
Zake frowned, the name tickling something at the edge of memory.
"I think I've heard it before…" he murmured.
Lance shook his head slowly. "During our training, when we were still rookies. Teacher Gote mentioned Axeris."
Zake's eyes widened as the old memory surged back like a flood.
"Yes," he said, breath catching. "Now I remember… wasn't he the demon who came to our world 495 years ago—"
"—and was sealed," Lance finished, his voice low and steady.
Demons are roughly divided into five realms—Inferior Demon, Lower Demon, Middle Demon, Upper Demon, and the highest: Demon Gods.
Of these, only Inferior and Lower Demons cross into the human world.
When they possess a human body successfully, they receive the blessing of the Demon World.
If the possessed human cultivates and ascends to the Demon Count realm—a middle-level demon rank—they gain the ability to open a Demon Gate and return to the Demon World.
At that point, the demon and human fully merge, and the resulting entity is instantly promoted to a Middle Demon.
Inferior and Lower Demons use this method to grow stronger, because in the Demon World, they're treated as nothing more than ants or consumables by stronger demons.
Here, in the human world, they're safer. Even if the possessed human dies, the demon loses nothing.
But if that human reaches the Demon Count realm, it becomes a bargain—instant advancement with no risk.
Middle Demons rarely care about this world. They already live comfortably in the Demon World.
Upper Demons care even less, except for a few at the peak of their rank, who are stuck just short of breaking into the Demon God realm.
To make that final leap, a ritual is required: enter a lower world, infect it, and transform it into a Lower Demon World—a realm where demonic races can thrive.
Demons call their home the Upper World, and all other realms, including the human world, are considered Lower Worlds—fertile ground for conquest and evolution.
Axeris was one of those peak Upper Demons, seeking godhood, and this world was meant to be his stepping stone.
But Axeris failed. His power was suppressed by the laws of this world, reducing him to the level of an initial Middle Demon.
Even so, it took the combined might of the Twelve Demon Families and the Demon Hunter Club to seal him away in a small dimensional space, 495 years ago.
Since then, every hundred years, the twelve seal families have been tasked with reinforcing that seal.
Remembering all of this, Zake's expression tightens as his thoughts circle back to the Manford family—a name he knows well.
He's always known they were one of the Demon Families, but now it clicks.
His eyes widen. "The Manfords… they're one of the Twelve Seal Families."
Lance nods grimly. "And two of the others have already lost their keys to the dimensional seal."
Now Zake understands why Lance was sent here—the headquarters suspects someone is targeting the Manford family.
Zake exhales heavily. "I'll post a high-priority mission—track down whoever attacked the Manford daughter."
Lance nods again. "We need to scrutinise every incident in the city, big or small. It might look like petty crime on the surface, but demon worshippers are getting smarter. They're manipulating ordinary people to do their dirty work."
Zake sips his wine, jaw clenched, a storm brewing behind his eyes.
If he ever got his hands on a demon worshipper… he'd rip them apart.
They had disturbed the peace he had fought so hard to build.