Chapter Text
He found this place by accident.
It was the part of the town where the veil between worlds had been thinning for centuries. There were no humans here, only creatures. And silence. Fog covered the area, hiding the dry ground. Black branches of trees stretched toward the pinkish sky, twisting like veins. And the sunlight was not golden, but green.
He liked it here.
The swamp gurgled one last time, completely swallowing the body. The corner of the demon's lips slowly curled upward. He had promised them redemption, deliverance from sin, and he had fulfilled it. He had delivered them from everything, even from life itself. The demon could still taste that sweet metallic flavor of another's blood in his mouth. He could be careless during the harvest, greedily draining body after body until he was covered in red, but never after. Afterward, he had to clean everything, wash everything away, hide everything, and pull the mask of a benefactor back into place. Such was the order for one who had been created from chaos. Thus he had existed for centuries, devouring, destroying, and remaining unnoticed.
He walked back unhurriedly, his hands carelessly tucked into his pockets. Crimson eyes lazily swept over the landscape and the long-abandoned houses overgrown with heather. Suddenly, he stopped. A chill ran down his spine. Instinct told him to hide, but the curious part of the demon urged him forward.
Someone was standing there near the crystal tree. Pale skin reflected every glimmer of light, shimmering with strange colors; a dark lock of hair concealed part of an expressionless face; clothing perfectly embraced a slender body. It was not a human, nor a demon, nor any other lesser creature. Something ancient, something powerful.
Interesting.
The demon stepped out from his makeshift hiding place, which the very same heather had provided. No. No longer a demon. That was his other guise. He slowly approached this creature, feeling with each step how his clothes became tighter. How the demonic essence wished to break free from its human restraints, to reveal itself, to show off, to test whether this creature was truly that strong.
His footsteps made almost no sound, yet the stranger turned around anyway. It seemed as though he looked directly into the essence of things, or perhaps simply through them. His face remained indifferent.
"Ah, this place... Neither alive nor dead. So strange, is it not?"
His voice was soft, intended to wrap that slightly husky timbre in false warmth. The demon did not even notice that he had held his breath, waiting for an answer that never came.
"I never thought I could meet someone here. How—"
He fell silent when the stranger simply walked past him. The demon clenched his jaw tighter, scarlet irritation flashing in his eyes.
No one had ever disregarded him like that. No one had ever walked away from him like that.
He slightly turned his head toward the retreating figure—a straight back, a smooth gait, the sway of a sword at the hip. The perfection of indifference. But something was wrong. Something betrayed a certain wrongness.
And he would find it.
He would get inside, tearing apart that white canvas of skin with his claws. He would draw blood so that this expressionless face would twist with at least something: pain, fear, pleasure, it did not matter. But for now, he drew only his own, tearing open his lower lip with a fang. To restrain his own essence that struggled to break free and whose pride had been wounded.