The Demon Realm.

Uriel, the Goddess of Destiny, watched silently over the Gate she summoned. Unlike her previous, dignified self, the poise of the Goddess was nowhere to be seen. Her dress was in tatters, and her entire body dripped with sweat. Her legs crumbled under her weight, and she barely had the strength to move.

It was the aftermath of sending Thanatos over to Earth. For the sake of altering the future, Uriel had sacrificed her power, her lifetime, to open a Gate massive enough to send Thanatos through. Easily the most powerful Demon to ever invade Earth, the cost of opening the Gate was high.

Therefore, this final invasion had to succeed.

It must succeed.

Else…

One minute passed. Uriel wondered why Thanatos hadn’t returned yet. It was meant to be a simple mission. The Demon of Death would appear in front of Jin Valter and slice his scythe through his throat. The death mist she’d developed over the years by harnessing Thanatos’ power should be enough to end Jin, who hadn’t finished growing yet.

Two minutes passed, and Uriel’s mind went haywire. She considered all of the possibilities of failure, and maybe Thanatos had completed his mission but was unaware of how to return.

Three minutes passed, four minutes passed, and eventually…

“Thanatos… You moron…”

The Gate Uriel created, the Gate that was meant to bring Thanatos back home, had closed shut. Uriel’s connection with the Demon ghost was severed, and the backlash whipped her head around, causing a minor concussion. And within the backlash, something else invaded her mind. Something so immense that her soul couldn’t withstand the pressure, and her eye sockets started bleeding.

For one final time, Uriel used her power to ‘look’ into destiny. Darkness overcame her inner world as a Blood Moon rose from the edge of the horizon. The sacred light mesmerised the Goddess of Destiny, and she stood motionlessly as a divine being descended.

Long black hair that seemed too perfect to exist in the mortal realm. Golden crimson eyes that seemed to be just as dazzling as the Blood Moon above him. And a Godly aura that forced all lower beings to kneel and pray in reverence.

It was the same…

It was precisely the same in her dreams, her nightmares…

‘He’ was born.

‘He’ was coming to fulfil his destiny.

‘He’ was going to rule over all Demonkind.

The rise of the Hegemon, the Overlord of the Universe, was now inevitable.

“ARGHHHHHH!!!”

Uriel let out a soul-piercing shriek as she convulsed on the floor. Spasming out of control, Uriel suffered a panic attack and a deathly cry for help. She felt her entire soul being devoured by the remnant of the Hegemon, and if nothing was done, she would have fallen insane right then and there.

“Uriel, wake up!”

Fortunately, before the Goddess crossed the point of no return, a warm, sturdy hand grabbed her shoulders.

That warmth instantly woke Uriel from her nightmare, and what little she had left of a soul was now steadily recovering. The lifespan she’d lost was recovering rapidly as well, as her destroyed and weakened body soon showed signs of returning to her hallowed past.

There was only one entity in the entire Universe that could help Uriel in this manner.

The Demon Sovereign, Igni.

“Sovereign… You’re out of seclusion.”

Still drenched in sweat, Uriel attempted to kneel before her leader but was stopped by Igni’s warm, ever-compassionate hands.

“Don’t, Uriel. Focus on your own recovery first.”

“Thank you, Sovereign.”

Uriel smiled and couldn’t help but look at her charismatic leader. Standing at five metres tall, the Demon Sovereign was massive by human standards. Well-built with defined muscles that would make a bodybuilder on steroids feel ashamed; the Demon Sovereign had the peak physique.

Red-hot, eternal flames burned wildly over the Demon Sovereign’s head and eyebrows, making Demon far more terrifying than it already was. And most importantly, the amount of magic power that hid within that compact body was staggering.

Easily housing a thousand times more magic power than Cthulhu or Baishe, the Demon Sovereign was akin to a force of nature. Given his power, the Demon Sovereign could end the Demon Realm whenever he chose. Even a single sneeze from the monster was enough to level mountains and split apart the ocean.

And yet, even with all that power, the Demon Sovereign was no match for the Hegemon.

“So… Thanatos has failed, huh?”

“I apologise, my lord!” Uriel burst out in tears while struggling to keep her emotions in check. “If only I had raised him better and accompanied him… Perhaps we could have prevented the birth of the Hegemon.”

“It’s not your fault,” the Demon Sovereign said. “We’ve done everything that we could. Thousands of years of planning and preparation, yet we couldn’t prevent the Hegemon’s birth. As you said, it was destiny.”

“My lord…”

“…”

The two comrades remained silent, neither daring to say the first word. They knew the wheels of fate couldn’t be stopped when Thanatos failed on Earth. The Hegemon has not only been born but he’s grown to the point where he could annihilate Thanatos. If that’s the case, the Demon Realm had little hope left.

“How much time do we have?”

p

“He will invade the Demon Realm?”

“Yes, he will. And we’ll all become his slaves.”

“I see…”

A grim atmosphere hung over the two demigods of the Demon race. Knowing that they would be enslaved wasn’t a pleasant feeling, and knowing that they were helpless to stop it, the two Demon Lords felt a tight knot strangling their throats.

“Is there a possibility that your predictions are inaccurate?”

“You know full well how accurate my visions are,” Uriel somehow managed to calm herself and reaffirm her abilities. “My visions are why you became the Demon Sovereign and unified the Demon Realm.”

“I apologise,” the Demon Sovereign shook his head. “I was just trying to find some semblance of hope.”

“No, I understand…”

They were scraping the bottom of the barrel. Uriel’s visions were never wrong, and her power led Igni to rise to the top and dominate the Demon Realm. The only time Uriel failed to predict the future was when Hegemon became involved.

That was why the Goddess of Destiny attempted to tamper with fate. Desperately praying to change the future of Demonkind, she concocted a plot to invade Earth. Initially, the first plan was to eliminate all of humanity, but given their limitations, Uriel could only aim for the moment they’d identified Jin and pray that Thanatos could kill him immediately.

Alas, with that plan falling through the cracks, there was no stopping the Hegemon now.

The worst part of it all was Uriel could no longer open Gates to Earth. After sending Thanatos over, the Goddess was rendered powerless. She wasn’t even able to predict her own future now. Essentially, the Outer Demons were now sitting ducks at the mercy of the Hegemon’s pleasure.

“How powerful is he?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“How powerful is the Hegemon?” The Demon Sovereign asked with trepidation in his voice. “Do you think I can win if I go against him with my ascended form?”

The Demon Sovereign burned up with red flames while turning multiple colours. First orange, then blue, and finally… Black.

“I-Igni, you…”

“I wasn’t idling during my seclusion, you know?” The Demon Sovereign smiled. “I mastered the black power you’ve cultivated from Thanatos. Also, my skin and body have been altered to deny his magic. In this state, do you think that we stand a chance?”

The Demon Sovereign asked Uriel with some semblance of hope. Now that he had cultivated his final form, Igni believed that he could at least put up a decent fight against the newly-born Hegemon.

“… If he’s in perfect form, we won’t last a single nanosecond with him.”

However, Uriel’s reply immediately doused that tiny sliver of hope that the Demon Sovereign had with freezing cold water.

“The Hegemon is an existence beyond that of Gods. In the future, he will unify the Universe and conquer every planet worth conquering. He will overcome the laws of the Universe and create a dynasty that will last for millions of years. To him… We’re nothing more than ants.”

“How terrifying.”

The Demon Sovereign almost gave up all hope after Uriel’s assessment. She was the one who knew the Hegemon the best, after all.

“But… That’s many years in the future.” Not willing to give up on Demonkind just yet, Uriel’s mind came up with one morsel of hope. “Right now, he isn’t in his peak form. If we fight him now, there’s a slim chance that we can kill him.”

Perhaps she was too optimistic about it, but Uriel was trying to find one ray of light to help the Demon race resist the Hegemon.

“But it all depends on our luck. If the Hegemon invades us immediately on an impulse, we might have a shot. However, if he develops his skills and attacks a year, no, a month later…”

“We lose?”

“Yes,” Uriel sighed heavily. “We will become his slaves.”

“I see…”

The Demon Sovereign released his ascended form and returned back to normal. Gazing into the distance, he muttered out:

“Then I shall pray he’ll come sooner rather than later.”