Darkness had become his only friend.
Ten years. Ten long, agonizing years in the black belly of Verdantia's deepest prison. No light. No warmth. No name. Only the sound of his own breathing, and the sickening symphony of pain that never ceased.
He had stopped counting the days long ago. Time did not exist for him. Only suffering did.
But today... something stirred.
The boy — now ten years old — lay curled on the cold stone floor, naked and skeletal. His body, a map of scars and burn marks, twitched as an unfamiliar energy crackled through his bones. His red eyes opened slowly, glowing faintly in the dark like embers beneath ash. The air grew heavy, pulsing with something ancient. Something forbidden.
Magic.
It surged through him like a storm. No chants. No control. Raw, unfiltered power flooding his veins. It was not kind. It was not gentle. It tore through his cells like wildfire.
His back burned.
Not from poison. Not from flame. But from the truth he had never been allowed to know.
A mark — unseen by all, unspoken by the world — had emerged.
A swirling sigil of light and shadow etched into his flesh. The mark of prophecy. The mark of the savior. The mark that should have protected him from the hatred, the flames, the blades.
But no one had seen it.
No one knew.
And now... it was too late.
The iron doors of the dungeon groaned open — a ritual they performed once every three days to check if the "demon" was finally dead. The guards entered with torches and blades, laughing, spitting, muttering prayers. They expected silence.
They found death.
The first to step forward never had time to scream. A black spike of mana burst from the boy's body, impaling him through the throat. The second guard turned to flee, but his legs gave out as the stone beneath him liquefied and swallowed him whole.
The third tried to beg. His head exploded before he finished the word "mer—"
The boy rose slowly, his emaciated form trembling. Not from weakness — from rage held too long. From power newly born. His expression remained blank. Eyes empty. He was not angry. He did not scream. He simply moved.
Cold. Calculated. Silent.
One by one, the remaining guards died. Some screamed. Some begged. None were spared.
The boy walked barefoot over their corpses, the blood soaking into his skin like ink into parchment. The chains that had bound him since infancy shattered as if they were made of paper. He reached the prison gates. Stared.
And the steel bent away from him like it feared his touch.
He stepped out.
The sky above Verdantia had never looked darker. Clouds swirled like bruises across the heavens. Thunder rumbled in the distance, though no storm had been forecast. Birds fled. Dogs howled.
The Devil had risen.