For a moment, neither Azeron nor the demons moved.
Smoke curled through the ruined village, drifting past scorched rooftops and burning carts. The red wound in the sky pulsed slowly behind them, illuminating everything in a hellish glow. Dead villagers lay across the dirt paths like discarded dolls. The air was thick with blood, ash, and something else—
Fear.
Not his.
Theirs.
Azeron felt it washing over him from every direction, whispering at the edges of his awareness. The demons' instincts howled, telling them to flee. To submit. To bow.
And Azeron—
He didn't know why, but he felt strangely calm. Empty. Hollowed out.
"Why… why are you afraid of me?" he whispered.
His voice didn't sound like his.
It sounded layered—his human tone mixed with something deeper, ancient, resonant. A Monarch's echo.
One demon lunged at him. Desperation overrode instinct.
It was fast.
Azeron was faster.
His body moved with perfect, inhuman precision—ducking low, pivoting, slashing upward. His claws tore through flesh like wet parchment. The demon's torso split open, collapsing before it even realized it had been killed.
Azeron stared at his hands, chest heaving.
He hadn't meant to do that.
He hadn't even decided to move.
His new body simply… acted.
The remaining demons scrambled back, but a cold chime cut through the silence.
[FEAR ENERGY ABSORBED]
[Authority +1]
[Predatory Instincts Stabilizing…]
[Warning: Host's emotional state is collapsing. Initiating suppression.]
Azeron gasped as an icy pressure wrapped around his mind.
"Stop… stop—what are you doing to me?" he demanded.
The system didn't answer.
It didn't need to.
His grief—his pain—his horror—everything was shoved into a sealed corner of his mind, leaving only a strange, crystal-clear clarity.
His mother lay dead a few feet away.
He knew he should feel something.
He didn't.
He couldn't.
The system wouldn't let him.
"Enough."
Azeron forced the word out, voice shaking. "I'm not… I'm not your puppet."
The system hummed—not quite defying him, but not obeying either.
The last demons hissed weakly, caught between their orders and the terror radiating from him.
Azeron's jaw clenched.
He didn't want to kill them.
He didn't want any of this.
He didn't want—
His vision blurred, and suddenly he wasn't seeing the demons.
He was seeing his mother.
Her soft hands. Her tired smile. Her voice calling him inside for supper. The way she hugged him too tight when he had nightmares as a kid.
She was gone.
Ripped away.
Something inside him cracked—
And the system pounced on it.
[Emotional Surge Detected]
[Instability → Fuel]
[Fear Aura Unbound]
Azeron's aura exploded outward in a shockwave of pressure.
The demons collapsed instantly.
Some screamed. Some clawed at their throats. Some simply froze, unable to move as if invisible chains bound their limbs.
Azeron's eyes darkened into abyssal voids.
"Don't," he whispered, voice trembling. "Don't make me hurt anyone else."
But the demons heard something entirely different.
They heard a command.
A Monarch's command.
Kneel.
One dropped to its knees, trembling violently.
Azeron sucked in a breath.
He hadn't spoken that word.
He hadn't used his voice at all.
The Authority in his very blood had.
[Subjugation Attempt Initiated]
[Weaker entities will bow before the Host]
[Success Rate: 100%]
Azeron stepped back, horrified.
"No—stop—"
But the demons were already kneeling in the dirt, heads bowed so low their horns carved lines in the ground.
This wasn't a battle.
This was a coronation.
Azeron's hands shook.
He didn't understand. He didn't want this. He didn't want to rule anything. He just wanted to bury his mother and run far, far away from demons and monsters and systems and—
A violent rumble shook the ground.
Azeron looked up.
The red rift above them flared brighter. Something massive shifted behind the crack in the sky—something far larger and stronger than the lesser demons he had killed.
A deep, guttural growl rolled across the land.
Azeron's breath hitched.
"What now…?"
A colossal claw pressed against the thin membrane of the rift—black, jagged, long enough to crush a carriage in one swipe.
Then—
A face.
A demon far larger than any building in Rivenwood pressed against the tear in reality. Its horns curled like twisted blades, and its eyes glowed with an intelligence the lesser ones lacked.
A High Demon.
No.
Worse.
A Demon General.
Azeron stumbled backward. The kneeling demons trembled harder.
The General pushed harder against the rift, but couldn't enter. The tear wasn't wide enough for something of its size.
Yet its voice seeped through like poison.
"Primordial…" the General rumbled, its tone thick with hunger and awe. "A Seed… reborn. A Monarch's scent… after so many centuries."
Azeron felt cold to his core.
It was talking to him.
The giant demon leaned closer, its eyes focusing on him with predatory interest.
"You are unclaimed," it growled. "Untamed. Unshaped. Perfect to devour."
Azeron's legs refused to move.
Every instinct screamed to run, but the pressure of the demon's presence held him frozen like a trapped animal.
[Warning: The Host is being targeted by a higher entity]
[Initiating defensive protocol…]
[Locked Skill Awakening]
Azeron gasped as heat surged through his chest.
[UNLOCKED: Monarch's Gaze (Rank: F)]
[Effect: Forces fear into hostile intent. Overwhelms weaker minds.]
He didn't think.
He didn't choose.
He simply looked up.
His eyes met the Demon General's through the crack in the sky.
Black and crimson light flared from Azeron's pupils.
The Demon General recoiled with a roar, stumbling backward inside the rift as if struck by a physical blow.
The sky shook.
The rift trembled violently, shrinking around the giant's form.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" the demon bellowed, clawing at the collapsing tear. "A fledgling Monarch cannot—!"
Its words were cut off as the rift snapped closed.
Silence.
The sky returned to its normal dark-blue hue, stars faintly twinkling above.
Azeron fell to one knee, gasping for breath. Sweat dripped down his face. His body throbbed from the backlash of using an ability his form wasn't prepared for.
But the demons around him remained kneeling.
Broken. Terrified. Subjugated.
Azeron looked at his trembling hands.
"What… what am I?"
The system answered coldly.
[You are The Uncrowned. A Monarch without a throne.]
Azeron swallowed.
He didn't want a throne.
He didn't want power.
He wanted his mother back.
But all he had now was death behind him, demons kneeling before him, and a future carved by a system that didn't care what he wanted.
The wind shifted, carrying the last echoes of the Demon General's roar across the ruined village.
Azeron stood slowly, fists clenched.
He was alive.
The village was dead.
And the world would know what happened here.
Whether he wanted it or not.
The Uncrowned had risen.