The Demon Lord And His Hero

That night, Syryn was holed up in the alchemy room.

Darkness pervaded the shut and locked room. The heavy cotton curtains were all drawn, not allowing a single slice of light inside.

He sat in a corner of the room and meditated. Syryn looked inwards, tracing the lines of his magic through the mana pathways that were spread out in a pattern just as beautiful and intricate as the nervous system. He felt his mana core hum to the movement of magic that he circulated in a slow lazy current. Syryn was actually wasting time because he wasn't ready to face his demon.

Reluctance weighing down his mood, he freed the demon little by little. He grew a pair of horns, then allowed his canines to lengthen. And after much internal debate about the wisdom of what he wanted to do, Syryn opened his third eye.

It was in the middle of his forehead but the colour was off. The black coloured pupil was horizontal; similar to that of a goat's.

The moment his third eye opened, Syryn felt a rush of madness engulf him. Overlapping colors of purple and black washed across his vision. The colors swirled inwards like a spiral and it began to suck his consciousness inside it. The half demon was disappointed though it was a result he had expected.

He still wasn't ready for the eye. Not even this lifetime.

The half-demon covered the eye with a palm of his hand and forced it to close. The eye lid slowly dragged itself down, covering up the horizontal pupils, and then it was gone from his forehead.

Some demons were born special. Red had his version of blood magic. Syryn had his cursed eye. Unfortunately, he hadn't mastered it despite his best efforts to. Not even in his past life did he manage to discover its use.

The first time he had kept the eye open for a few minutes, the half-demon had been drained of his mana. The next time he tried it, Syryn had been rendered unconscious. The final and third time he kept the eye open, insanity ripped him out of reality and Syryn had dreamt for months. Floating in and out of consciousness, the half-demon was unable to tell real-life from his dreams. Sometimes, there were harrowing moments of clarity that made him realise he was trapped in a semi-lucid state, but those moments had been rare. Unable to figure out the secret to his eye, Traxdart had asked Syryn never to open it without his supervision. And he'd obeyed.

Syryn vowed that he would figure it out this time. But such a mystery as his eye was not so simple that he could sort it out in a few years. And he had no time to pay it any attention when there were pressing matters that demanded he look at them.

Like right now, his demon was whispering to him.

Selkie.

It was a clear message pregnant with hunger and thirst. Woven in that raw need for prey was a passion that licked at his senses and promised a kind of satisfaction that nothing else could give to him. Syryn didn't believe that at all. There were other things more satisfying than selkie meat.

Like what? It asked him.

Syryn hadn't tasted everything in the world so why was it asking him that? He radiated frustration. There had to be better tasting food that wasn't selkie.

But that's why every other selkie was killed. Tastiest food.

Fine! Maybe they were delicious. But demons just hadn't discovered the other tasty prey that existed. The world was full of exotic creatures and plants that remained out of the reach of demons. Why were they so myopic? Did they taste everything they'd laid eyes on? Had any demon tried eating a lightning bug? No. Maybe those were simply more delicious than selkie.

But selkie smells good. Lightning bugs smell like metal.

Fermented fruits sometimes smell like crap but they taste good too, Syryn replied. Alcohol was also delicious. And dried fish smelled bad but it was still tasty when cooked.

The alchemist realised how strange this exercise was when he looked at it from the perspective of someone who wasn't a half-demon. He was talking to himself because his demon was essentially him, but stripped down to a jumble of crude needs and raw power.

Selkie blood, it whispered. Prey.

Blood in a tube. Do you want it or not? He waited to feel the satisfaction from the demon, an answer that would indicate its approval of Syryn's offer. It didn't happen. All he received was more pulses of hunger.

"Why?!" This time he snarled in frustration. "I can't do that to Riha again!"

A wrestle for dominance ensued. Syryn's control had been waning but it was apparent now how bad it had deteriorated. Just one time he stupidly let himself feed on Riha and it had caused his demon to flare up. Syryn regretted his actions bitterly. But it was too late to cry over spilled milk.

"I'll do it once," he told himself. "Just one more time."

A wave of satisfaction cooled the energy that was roiling inside him.

"One last time."

Syryn leaned his head back on the wall behind him and felt tiredness seeping into his skin. He didn't want to kill Riha but he had to do it again. The demon was persuasive if nothing else.

"You think you've won haven't you?" Syryn said to himself. "I know you're just waiting for a moment of weakness. Then you'll pounce and take over our body, kill Riha and eat him."

Syryn felt a trickle of happiness at the image he presented to the demon. Its desire to eat Riha burnt with an intensity that shocked the alchemist.

"No. No. I won't let it happen."

It didnt care about what Syryn wanted. The demon would take it regardless of the alchemist's will. And if Syryn didn't feed it, there was hell to be had for him.