All Chapters of The Demon King Who Raised A Hero: Chapter 21
- Chapter 30
70 chapters
Chapter 21
The Killing Fields***Night did not bring rest.It brought ghosts.Kael sat alone in the dark, back against cold stone, breath shallow and controlled as if even breathing too deeply might tear something loose inside him. The estate slept. Servants moved quietly beyond the walls. Eron had finally fallen into an uneasy rest after the events in the square, exhaustion dragging him under despite Kael’s insistence on warding the room three times over.Kael had not slept. He couldn’t because the moment silence settled, the memories came. Not dreams, not fragments but memories that are whole, intact, and merciless.The killing fields had found him again. The sky had been red not metaphorically and not poetically. Red because the clouds burned, red because the land below reflected the fire, and red because the air itself had been saturated with blood and magic until the world could no longer tell the difference.Kael—no, he had not been Kael then—stood at the center of it as Demon King Vahrak.
Chapter 22
Knives in the Quiet***The first attempt came quietly.Not with fire, not with holy trumpets or divine judgment.It came the way the Church preferred its dirtiest work done in silence, deniability, and shadows that could be blamed on anyone else.Kael felt it before it happened.Not danger exactly because danger was loud, crude, impatient. This was subtler. A wrongness in the air, like breath being held too long. The wards around the estate had not been breached. They hadn’t even been touched.Which meant the threat was already inside.Kael stopped mid-step.The corridor outside Eron’s room was dim, lit only by a single lantern swaying gently from a draft that should not have existed. The servants were asleep. The guards posted at the outer gates remained too ignorant.Kael closed his eyes and extended his senses not outward, but inward, slipping beneath the surface of the world where intention left faint impressions. There were three presences, human-trained but empty.“Assassins,” h
Chapter 23
Blood Remembers***Kael did not sleep.He stood at the window long after the estate had gone quiet again, watching the moon drift behind thin clouds, listening to the city breathe as if nothing had almost gone terribly wrong.As if someone had not tried to kill a boy in his care, as if blood had not already been spilled.The first assassination attempt had failed but Kael knew better than to call that a victory.It was a test. And tests were always followed by corrections.The seal beneath his chest pulsed slowly, heavily, like a heart that did not belong to him anymore. It remembered what his mind tried to bury. It remembered what his hands were capable of.Kael pressed his palm against his sternum, jaw tightening. Not yet, he told himself I will not become that again.A faint sound pulled his attention—soft, almost imperceptible. It was footsteps, not guards, not servants, it was too light and too deliberate.Kael’s gaze sharpened.He turned away from the window and moved without so
Chapter 24
Hunger Beneath the Blood***Blood did not wash away so easily.Kael stood beneath the courtyard fountain long after the water had turned clear, hands braced on the stone rim, head bowed. Dawn light crept over the estate walls, pale and indifferent, touching the scars on his knuckles, the faint tremor in his fingers.He had killed, not defended, He had not reacted but he had hunted and the worst truth of all is that the act had felt right.The seal beneath his chest pulsed again, deeper now, slower. Not a warning but an acknowledgment.Kael clenched his jaw, forcing his breathing into a steady rhythm. Suppression, discipline, and control. He had practiced these things longer than most civilizations had existed.Yet the hunger stirred anyway. Ancient, patient, and awake.He felt it when the servants passed nearby.A subtle awareness—heartbeats, warmth, the faint electric thrill of life moving beneath skin. He had felt it once before, a thousand years ago, when the killing fields had str
Chapter 25
The Edge of the Abyss***Kael woke to screaming.Not the kind that echoed through halls or tore from a human throat.This scream lived inside him.It ripped through his chest as a blade dragged backward, tearing against the seal, against restraint, against the fragile illusion that control was still his.He gasped, bolting upright.The room was dark, silent, and normal. And yet his vision swam with red.The hunger had not slept.It coiled around his thoughts, slow and patient, a predator content to wait now that it knew he was weakening. Blood remembered blood. Power remembered release.Kael pressed both palms flat against the floor, grounding himself through stone, through weight, through pain.Breathe.The seal pulsed. Once then twice. A third time—hard enough to make him cry out.Cracks spread through it like lightning beneath skin.He staggered to his feet and forced himself down the corridor toward the sealed chamber beneath the estate. Every step felt heavier than the last, his
Chapter 26
What Light Cannot Unsee***Eron had seen blood before.He had grown up poor. Hunger bred violence. Streets taught lessons no book ever would. He had seen men beaten for coins, women dragged into alleys, bodies left under rain like refuse no one wanted to claim.But this—This was different.This was violence with purpose.The chamber still rang with echoes when Eron staggered back, Kael’s weight heavy in his arms. The runes along the floor guttered like dying stars, smoke curling from cracked sigils. Shadows retreated reluctantly, as if dragged away from a feast.Kael’s body was burning not fever—power.It pulsed beneath his skin in violent surges, veins lit faintly with ember-gold light. His breathing was shallow, uneven, every exhale scraping like glass in Eron’s ears.“Kael,” Eron whispered again, fear tightening his chest. “Please.”Kael did not answer.Eron pressed both hands to Kael’s chest instinctively, holy light spilling out of him in a panicked flood. It was clumsy, uncontro
Chapter 27- Oath Written in Ash
The estate burned, not in flame but in sound.War horns echoed beyond the walls, low and thunderous, rolling across the city like a warning meant for gods and mortals alike. Guards ran through the courtyards, armor clashing, voices raised in panic. Church banners appeared at the far gates, white and gold snapping in the wind.And at the center of it all, Kael stood alone.Blood dried dark on his hands. His clothes were torn, his body screaming in protest, but his eyes were clear for the first time since the hunger had awakened.Eron was gone, not dead, not taken. Gone.Kael felt the absence as a limb ripped away.He closed his eyes, breathing in slowly, carefully. Every instinct urged him to act the way he once had—to seize control, to dominate the field, to remind the world what a Demon King looked like when cornered.The hunger stirred eagerly.Let me, it whispered. Say the word, and they will kneel.Kael clenched his fists.“No.” The word echoed inside him, sharp as steel.He found
Chapter 28-Eyes That Do Not Blink
They arrived at dawn.Not with banners raised or horns sounding, but with silence. The kind that pressed down on the city like a held breath.Kael felt them before he saw them.He stood on the balcony outside the east wing, watching the fog curl low over the streets, his senses stretched thin and aching. The seal over his core still burned where his oath had torn through something ancient. The hunger was quieter now—but not gone. Watching and waiting.Then the air shifted. Cold, measured, and observed.Kael’s jaw tightened.“They’re here,” he murmured.Behind him, Eron paused mid-step. “Who?”Kael didn’t answer immediately. His gaze was fixed on the main road leading toward the estate. Figures moved through the fog—slow, deliberate, cloaked in white and ash-gray robes threaded with faint gold runes that caught the morning light.Not knights, not priests but investigators, the Watch’s true eyes.“The ones who don’t ask questions,” Kael said quietly. “They already know the answers.”Ero
Chapter 29 — The Weight of Watching Eyes
They did not leave.That was the first thing Kael understood when morning came and the air still felt tight—as though the sky itself had leaned closer to listen.Holy investigators never truly departed. They embedded themselves in a place, in people, in routines. They became absent who watched.Kael stood at the window of the west wing, fingers resting lightly against the cold glass. Below, the estate moved under a false calm. Servants walked more carefully. Guards spoke in lowered voices. Even the birds seemed reluctant to sing.The gods were listening.And the investigators were their ears.Behind him, Eron sat at the edge of the bed, knees drawn up, staring at his hands as if they no longer belonged to him.“They’re still here,” Eron said quietly.Kael didn’t turn. “Yes.”“How do you know?”“Because everything feels heavier,” Kael replied. “Like breathing through water.”Eron swallowed. “That’s not normal, is it?”“No,” Kael said. “It’s deliberate.”The summons arrived an hour late
Chapter 30 — Fingers in the Soul
The mark did not fade.That was the first thing Kael realized when night fell and the estate lights dimmed, when servants retreated and guards doubled their patrols with rigid, fearful efficiency.The sigil burned quietly in Eron’s soul.Not visibly, no glowing brand on skin but Kael felt it with every breath. A slow, rhythmic pressure, like a heartbeat that wasn’t Eron’s own. Each pulse sent a faint tremor through the air, a vibration only someone like Kael could sense.Divine probing had begun, not violently, not obviously. Worse, Careful.“They’re touching you,” Kael said softly, standing at the window of Eron’s room.Eron sat on the bed, arms wrapped around himself. He hadn’t slept. Every time he closed his eyes, the mark flared inside his chest, flooding him with heat and whispers he couldn’t understand.“It feels like…” Eron hesitated, searching for words. “Like someone keeps opening a door in my head and pretending they didn’t.”Kael’s jaw tightened.That was exactly how it sta