There were no trumpets to announce his return.No cavalry. No banners. No war drums.
Only a boy.
Alone.
He walked through the shattered gates of Eloria—once the capital of Verdantia, now a ghost city haunted by memory.
The guards had already fallen, their bodies twisted in disbelief.They hadn't died to protect the kingdom.They'd simply been in the way.
The city streets lay frozen in fear.
Doors bolted.Windows shuttered.No one dared step outside.
Only crows moved.And the stench of blood.
Through it all, he walked.
The Boy
Barefoot.
Draped in shadows—not cloth, but power.
His short hair was matted with the blood of his captors.His crimson eyes, glowing like molten rubies, stared ahead—empty, not enraged.
People peered through cracks in their homes.
"Is that him?""He's still alive?""The demon…"
But none stepped forward.
Because deep in their hearts, they knew:
Death would be kinder.
The Throne Room
King Aldric never believed his son would survive.
He had ordered his death.
Twice.
First in the birthing chamber.Then at the pyre.
He thought the child was gone—erased from the world and from history.
He was wrong.
By the time word reached the throne room, it was too late.
The boy had returned.
The royal court was assembled.
Nobles. Priests. Guards.
Queen Isabella sat beside the King, pale and trembling, her jeweled hands clenched in her lap.
He entered without announcement.
No fanfare.No herald.
Only silence.
His bare feet stained the red carpet black.
No Mercy
The guards raised their spears.
They never got to lower them.
With a flick of his fingers, shadows burst from the marble floor, twisting like serpents, impaling every armored man before a scream could rise.
The nobles dropped to their knees.Some begged.Others fled.None escaped.
The boy stood before the throne.
King Aldric rose.
But not as a king.
As a man confronting what he had buried.
"You dare enter this sacred hall?" he shouted, voice cracking.
The boy did not answer.
Aldric stepped down. "You were born cursed! You are the reason this kingdom suffers!"
Still no reply.
Queen Isabella sobbed softly, but said nothing.
The boy walked forward.
Each step dimmed the torches.Froze the air.Crushed the room beneath the weight of his presence.
He reached the throne.
And sat.
No words.No ritual.
He simply sat.
And no one stopped him.
The Beginning of Tyranny
There was no coronation.
No priest dared speak his name.
No noble pledged loyalty.
Only silence.
Only fear.
He did not begin his reign with slaughter.
He began it with judgment.
His first command:
"Take my parents. Lock them in the pit."
The same pit where he had spent ten years.
No light. No food.Only poison.Only pain.
"Let them taste what they gave me," he whispered.
The gates were sealed with ancient magic.
No one ever saw the king and queen again.
The Trials
Then came the nobles.
Dragged before him one by one.
Not judged by law.Not by evidence.
By memory.
He remembered everything.
The noble who signed his death decree?
Stripped of title, of skin, buried alive beneath the court.
The priest who called him a curse?
Forced to pray until his voice bled, then sealed inside a shrine.
The blacksmith who forged the cursed chains?
Crushed by the very metal he once shaped.
The Name They Gave Him
Verdantia did not rise again.
It bowed.
The sun rarely shone.Crops withered.No songs were sung.
He ruled not through law, but through presence.
The people whispered:
Not savior.Not king.Demon.
The Throne of Silence
He rebuilt nothing.
He passed no laws.
He spoke little.
He simply ruled.
Not out of ambition.Not out of vision.
But because there was nothing else left.
He did not care to lead.
He only knew how to watch.
How to punish.
Because if the world gives you only pain...
You return it.
Tenfold.