Chapter 1
The corner of the cell was damp.
Not with water—with something darker, something that had soaked into the stone over years and years until the smell of it became part of the air itself. Felix pressed his back against the wall, knees drawn to his chest, arms wrapped tight around his legs.
He didn't know where he was.
But he was sure of one thing.
The demons surrounding him—their horns, their claws, their eyes that glowed in the darkness like embers — told him everything he needed to know.
The demonic continent .
He shivered.
Terror covered his heart like a second skin, cold and suffocating. He curled into a smaller ball, as if he could make himself disappear, as if he could shrink down to nothing and slip through the cracks in the stone.
I have no bloodline.
The thought came unbidden, sharp as a blade.
And family…. They say when my mother gave birth to me she was already dead. But I had my father who was well to do but he to was gone now with my whole village.
His breath hitched.
Should I just kill myself?
The thought of death flashed through his mind—not as a terror, but as a form relief. A door he could walk through and never have to feel see again.
Not far from him, half-hidden in the shadows, a small stick lay against the floor.
He picked it up.
His hands trembled his vision blurred. This pathetic.
He placed it at the center of his neck with force.
Do it.
His hand shook.
Do it. The prisoners cheered.
But he couldn't he gave up.
"I am too much of a coward."
His voice cracked, falling apart in the silence of the cell. The tears came —hot, shameful, endless. He came from a well-to-do family. He had no bloodline, yes, but he had been content. He had been safe. He had been happy.
Now that life was over.
there was only this cell and these demons.
---
At the corner of the cell, a demon with tiny horns laughed.
He elbowed the larger, scarier demon beside him—a creature whose face was all scars and whose eyes held the kind of hunger that never went away.
"I told you," the small demon hissed, grinning. "He wouldn't have the balls to do it. Hehe."
The larger demon did not laugh.
Instead he moved.
His fist connected with the small demon's skull—once, twice, three times. The sound was wet, final, the sound of something breaking. The small demon collapsed into a pulp of blood, bone and things that no longer had names.
The other demons in the cell did not dare m speak or even look.
Felix watched with teary eyes.
---
"Aye!"
The voice cut through the corridor like a blade through silk.
A humanoid demon walked into view—his hand resting on the hilt of a bloody blade, his posture casual, his eyes pitch black like tge abyss. He moved with the easy confidence of someone who had never met a problem he couldn't solve with violence.
"What is going on here?"
The rowdy cells fell silent.
The demons who had been whispering, laughing, tormenting— stopped. Their heads lowered and their bodies stilled.
The sound of clashing metal echoed.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
Gentle and deliberate.
The demons understood the sound.
So they remained silent but Felix continued to grieve.
---
"Ohhh."
The guard's voice was sorrowful, but beneath it—sarcasm and amusement. The casual cruelty of someone who had seen a thousand humans cry and had enjoyed every single one.
"Human. Why are you saddened?"
The guard leaned down, pressing his face against the bars of the cell. His eyes found Felix—not through the crowd of demons, but past them, as if they weren't there at all.
Felix shivered.
Deep fright settled into his bones. His sobbing stopped—not because he was brave, but because his body had simply forgotten how to make the sound.
He did not dare raise his head.
"Did your whole family die?" The guard's voice was almost kind. "Did your lover betray your heart? Tell me." A smile spread across his face—too wide, too sharp. "You might just get out of here if your story is good."
Felix raised his eyes.
His expression dead and empty. The face of a boy who had already died inside and was simply waiting for his body to catch up.
But deep in his heart—a wish burned.
The death of this demon.
The guard saw it.
He always saw it.
"You are looking at me like you want me dead."
He smiled.
And stepped back.
"Guard." His voice was bored now. Dismissive.
"Fetch this pig of a human and throw him into a random pit."
Two flying-type sinners floated into the cell. Their bodies twisted wrong and wings that should not have been able to lift them carried them anyway. They opened the heavy cell door like it was nothing.
One of them entered.
It picked Felix up like a ragdoll—one hand wrapped around his arm, lifting him off the ground without effort, or care. He dangled there, weightless, as the sinner floated back toward the door.
"Where are you taking me to?!"
Felix's voice cracked, broke, reformed into something desperate.
The sinner punched him.
The blow landed against his ribs—not hard enough to break, but hard enough to steal his breath but enough to remind him where he was.
"Do not damage my product," the guard who seamed to be tge leader said, not looking up.
The sinner hissed but said nothing.
Felix knelt on the wet floor, holding his belly, trying to remember how to breathe. Before he could process the pain or could even stand—the sinners picked him up again.
Carrying him out of the cell.
As whispers followed.
"He's dead."
"They always die."
"Another human gone."
The demons in the corridor watched him pass. Their eyes gleamed in the darkness. Their smiles stretched wide.