The Demon Lord And His Hero

"Where's your satchel, Ryn?" Rowan asked as they headed towards the injured mer king.

"I don't know. They took it away from me when I was imprisoned. Maybe I should ask the king."

"You'll have better luck questioning his attendants."

The duo found the king being tended to by a mer who was himself in a similarly wounded state. Both had large swathes of their skin ripped off by the force of water. The attack had also inflicted deep cuts that kept bleeding out like a leaking faucet.

"Who are you, really?" The mer king asked the mage. He sounded weary, resigned to his defeat.

"Honestly, I don't know myself. What I do know is that I'm now the new king of Silisia." Syryn leisurely reached out to pluck the crown right off the mer's head. "I'll be taking this, thank you very much."

Syryn placed the crown on his head though its circumference exceeded the dimensions of his head. The gold crown slipped down over the mage's forehead.

"I appoint your son, Drevin, as the proxy king of Silisia while I am away," Syryn informed him. "And as for you, I think the sirens would appreciate my efforts when I hand you over to them."

"No!" The mer king growled. "I would rather die here than become a servant to the-"

"Then kill yourself."

Syryn's heavy-lidded eyes gazed at the mer king without warmth.

"Execute yourself with your trident."

The mer king's hand was tight around his weapon. His pride had been crushed and he was forced to relinquish his crown to the monster that he himself had imprisoned in Silisia. He had thought the human weak and soft. The mer rued the day he had allowed Syryn to be brought to his kingdom.

"The saviour of Silisia... How are you the saviour?!" The mer bellowed in rage. "My men are lying bathed in their own blood. Is that what a saviour does?!"

Rowan was confused by the mer's words because he hadn't heard of the prophecy.

Syryn removed the crown from his head and examined the turquoise coloured gems on it as he answered the deposed king.

"This is karmic retribution for murdering the oracle. Did you think that you would face no consequences for your actions? I am the saviour of Silisia. I've saved this place from a foolish king. And did you know? This kingdom was scheduled for complete annihilation by the leviathan. But now that I'm here, the crisis has been averted."

How did Syryn know? The sage had told him. His spiritual control over the leviathan had been waning after the sage's death. With Syryn taking the reins, their bond with Levia was being mended. It would only solidify and strengthen more with time.

"How do you know that?!" The deposed king asked.

"I'll tell the answer as you breathe your last breaths. Come to think of it, I don't even know your name. But I suppose it doesn't matter."

Syryn crouched beside the mer. He touched the mer king's wrist, eliciting a negative reaction from the mer. He seemed almost fearful.

The mage wrapped his fingers around the king's wrist and guided his hand upwards till the trident was directly pointed at the mer's throat.

"It's your decision," Syryn softly told him. "Let it not be said that I forced the former king of Silisia to commit suicide."

Rowan felt sorry for the predicament that the mer king had fallen into. He wasn't sorry enough to rescue him but he could sympathise with having to choose between two terrible evils.

"You're a demon," he spat at Syryn, unaware of how right he was.

"I know," Syryn replied. He let go of the mer's wrist and stood back up. "Hurry up and die."

The light dimmed in the mer's eyes. He had decided how he was going to die. The mer closed his eyes and gathered strength for what he was about to do. Then with a great roar, he lunged at Rowan, expecting the man to kill him like he had the others when the guard had attacked Syryn.

The anti mage evaded the mer's attack with ease. He had understood the intentions of the mer and acted accordingly.

"You should have attacked me," Syryn told the merman. "Maybe then Rowan would have fulfilled your wish."

Bloodied as he was, the mer rose to his full length. "You'll have to kill me before I allow myself to be handed over as a slave to the sirens!"

Syryn thought about the man on the island who was looking for him. The mer was really wasting his time. Refusing to kill himself and refusing to become a slave, who did he think he was?

"Levia, show yourself," Syryn loudly called out towards where he knew the leviathan was buried.

A terrifying but cute head popped out of the sand and she came swimming towards Syryn like lightning.

The mers who saw her recoiled in horror. Small as she was, it was clear as day that she was the monster that had damaged Silisia.

"I have somewhere to be," he told Levia. "Follow this mer and make sure he doesn't leave Silisia. I'll inform the sirens so they can come to pick him up in a few days."

With the threat of a Leviathan guarding the kingdom, he knew that the sirens would not have the guts to attack Silisia even if they were informed of its current defenceless state.

"Levia, be good while I'm gone. And you," Syryn eyed the helpless king. "You'll never escape her, you know that, don't you?"

The mer was filled with anger but with no way to vent it. His fury showed in his silent unfiltered glare.

"You have a few days to take action. Have a nice time with Levia."

Saying so, Syryn turned around and looked for an attendant when he spotted a siren watching him from a distance. Smiling, Syryn headed towards Enkansh.. The siren could help him find his missing satchel.