SO I'M A DEMON PRINCE NOW WHAT

The devourer of despair

The battlefield did not breathe.

Varian stood between them — between Rael, bleeding but grinning, and Future Rael, the Executioner himself, who for the first time looked like prey. His silver-black robes flowed without wind, his presence crushing the ground into dust simply by existing.

The rain of blood still dripped from the shattered cathedral, sizzling when it touched the earth. Each drop seemed to recoil from Varian’s aura, evaporating before it could stain him.

“Varian…” Future Rael whispered, voice hoarse with a fear Rael had never seen on his own face before.

Rael tilted his head, smirking despite the knot twisting in his gut. “So let me guess — you’re another self from the future, huh? Don’t tell me my twenty-years-later version turns into a monk with bad fashion sense.”

Silence.

Varian’s eyes flicked to him — and in that single glance, Rael’s breath caught. It wasn’t killing intent. It wasn’t rage. It was worse.

It was apathy.

The look you gave something so far beneath you it wasn’t worth judging.

Rael clenched his jaw. “Tch… bastard.”

Future Rael swallowed and finally found his voice, though it trembled. “Stay back, boy. You don’t understand. This man—”

“I’m not your boy,” Rael cut him off, his smirk returning like a blade. “And if you’re scared of him, then I’m twice as curious.”

Varian finally spoke, his voice flat, layered with something that wasn’t quite human.

“You two mirror each other in arrogance. You mistake sparks for suns. You think bleeding and surviving makes you worthy of this battlefield.”

His hand rose lazily.

The world shifted.

Rael gasped — no, not gasped. Choked. His knees buckled as invisible pressure slammed him down. The earth itself cracked beneath his weight. Future Rael dropped too, his crimson blade rattling against the stone.

Neither of them had been touched. Varian had simply willed it.

“You cannot even stand in my presence,” Varian said. “And you dare call yourselves warriors?”

Rael’s teeth ground together. His instincts screamed at him to submit, but rage burned hotter. Slowly, trembling, he forced his leg to straighten, inch by inch. The veins in his arms bulged, lightning sparking weakly around his fists.

“Y-You think… you can just… look down on me?” Rael spat blood, his grin returning through clenched teeth. “Sorry… I don’t bow.”

Future Rael hissed, his face pale. “i***t! You’ll die!”

But Rael was already rising.

Varian tilted his head, expression unreadable. “Defiance in the face of inevitability. Predictable. And yet…”

He lowered his hand, the crushing weight vanishing instantly. Rael staggered forward but didn’t fall.

Varian’s lips curved into the faintest smile. “Show me. Show me the difference between what you are… and what you think you are.”

The battlefield, once frozen, began to tremble again.

Rael’s aura flared violently, lightning tearing open the skies. Future Rael’s crimson energy boiled in retaliation, unwilling to be outdone before this new presence.

And Varian stood between them, calm, cold, as if daring them both to strike.

The air itself rippled like torn silk. Lightning streaked down the ruined towers, cutting shadows across Varian’s calm face.

Rael wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand, smirking. “Alright then, monk-boy. You want to see the difference? Fine. Let’s make this arena shine.”

Future Rael’s eyes twitched. “You… absolute fool. You think this is about pride? He’s not an opponent you measure yourself against. He’s—”

Varian spoke again, his tone unchanging.

“Too slow.”

A sound cracked the world.

Rael barely caught the blur with his eyes. Varian had moved—no, he hadn’t moved. He had simply been standing in front of Rael, hand outstretched, fingers inches from Rael’s chest.

Rael’s heart skipped. Instinct screamed dodge—and his body, almost before his mind, lit up in a violent surge of lightning. He twisted sideways, sparks ripping apart the air where Varian’s hand grazed it.

The entire ground behind him—half the cathedral—vanished. Not exploded. Not shattered. Erased.

Future Rael staggered, his breath sharp. “He—he touched nothing. And reality—”

“Quit explaining!” Rael barked, electricity still dancing around him. “If I think too hard about it, I’ll puke!”

Varian lowered his hand, not even sparing a glance at the annihilated ruins behind him. His eyes were fixed only on Rael.

“You react,” he said. “Good. Show me if you can act.”

Rael grinned like a devil. “Gladly.”

With a thunderclap, Rael shot forward, his fists glowing white-hot with compressed lightning. He spun midair, releasing a jagged arc of raw energy aimed straight for Varian’s neck.

But Future Rael leapt too, crimson blade in hand.

“Don’t embarrass me by dying first, brat!”

Their attacks crossed in the air—lightning and crimson flare roaring toward the same target.

Varian lifted one hand.

Tap.

His finger brushed the blade.

The crimson light shattered like glass. Future Rael was thrown back, skidding across the ground in a mess of sparks and broken stone.

Rael’s lightning hit full force—except it didn’t.

It froze, midair, inches from Varian’s skin, as though time had stopped for it alone. Rael’s eyes widened.

“The hell—?”

Then his own lightning turned back on him, reversing in a whip that slammed into his chest.

“GAAH!” Rael crashed through three collapsed pillars, coughing blood, body twitching from his own rebound.

Varian’s voice followed, steady, calm. “Unrefined. Your power betrays you.”

Rael spat red onto the rubble, laughing hoarsely. “Heh… heh… damn, you’re good at insults. Almost like me.”

Future Rael dragged himself up, crimson aura blazing harder to cover his own tremor. “This is beyond you, boy. Beyond us. He bends cause and effect. Your attacks—your very laws of nature—serve him.”

Rael staggered upright, wiping his mouth, grin stretching wider. “So what you’re saying is… I gotta punch him before the laws realize it.”

Future Rael gawked. “That’s not how it—”

“Shut up, old me!” Rael shouted, sparks flooding his limbs again. “I don’t care how impossible it sounds. I’ll make it possible.”

Varian, for the first time, tilted his head with mild curiosity.

“…Try.”

⚡ The world erupted again.

Rael vanished in a storm of lightning, his speed folding the air. He didn’t aim for Varian’s body—he aimed for his shadow. His fist came down, blazing, before Varian could even blink.

Or so he thought.

Varian’s hand rose like an afterthought, catching Rael’s fist. Sparks screamed against an invisible barrier.

The force shook the ground. Buildings collapsed outward. The sky cracked with thunder.

Rael’s teeth clenched as his lightning surged, his other hand already swinging. “DOUBLE VOLT—”

But Varian flicked his wrist.

Rael’s body was hurled backward like a ragdoll, smashing through the ruins and embedding into the ground, coughing up dust and blood.

Future Rael snarled, crimson energy bursting wildly. He swung his blade, sending arcs that split the very horizon. “If one spark fails, then two shall burn together!”

He dove in—faster, sharper than Rael had. His strikes overlapped, creating afterimages, each one a killing blow.

Varian raised his palm.

The world stopped.

Rael blinked. The rain froze midair. Future Rael hung suspended mid-strike, blade an inch from Varian’s chest, unable to move.

“What the—”

Rael staggered up, eyes wide. His voice cracked with fury. “HEY! You can’t just—freeze him like some cheap time-stop trick! That’s not even fair!”

Varian’s gaze flicked to him, calm.

“Fairness is a delusion of the weak.”

Future Rael’s blade dissolved into crimson mist, his body thrown back in an eruption of reversed gravity. He hit the earth hard enough to crater it.

Rael roared. “I SAID—”

His aura spiked beyond reason. Lightning exploded outward, tearing the battlefield in half.

“DON’T—”

The sky went white as bolts rained down.

“—LOOK DOWN ON ME!!!”

For the first time, Varian shifted. His eyes narrowed slightly as Rael’s body erupted in a storm unlike before—his horns half-glimmering through his human disguise, hidden power bleeding out without his permission.

Future Rael coughed from the crater, his eyes widening. “…He’s… unlocking it already? That soon?”

Varian lowered his stance slightly, one hand lifting again.

“Good. At last… something resembling resistance.”

The storm Rael unleashed wasn’t like anything before. Lightning shredded through reality itself, striking so violently that clouds ripped apart into rifts of pale-blue void. The ruins shook, mountains far beyond the horizon trembled, and even Future Rael—who had thought himself numb to insanity—could only stare.

Rael’s chest heaved, his grin manic, blood dripping from his nose. “Not… done yet…”

A jagged line of light pulsed down his arm, across his collarbone—faint, glowing, sinister. A horn shimmered through his disguise, half-formed, protruding like a blade of obsidian from his skull.

Future Rael staggered, eyes widening. “No…! You i***t… if you let it out now—!”

Rael barked back, sparks snapping against his tongue. “Shut it! If he’s this damn strong… then hiding it’s just suicide. I’ll deal with the fallout later!”

Varian’s voice cut through the storm like steel through silk.

“You expose yourself, little devil?”

Rael’s grin widened, fangs glinting. “Damn right I do. Let’s see you erase this.”

He disappeared.

No thunderclap followed. No trail of light. Just raw silence—Rael folding his very existence into speed itself, his horn amplifying him beyond reason.

Varian’s eyes flicked sideways—too late.

Rael’s fist connected with Varian’s jaw.

The world shattered.

The shockwave blew the rain into steam, cracked the cathedral ruins into powder, and sent Varian sliding back, his sandals dragging furrows in the stone.

Future Rael froze, mouth open. “He… he hit him…”

Rael landed, bloodied lips stretching into a lunatic grin. “Ohhh, that felt good.”

Varian straightened, touching his jaw. For the first time, the monk’s expression shifted—a faint mark on his cheek, a bruise forming where no bruise should.

“…Impressive,” Varian said softly. “You exist… beyond my calculation.”

Rael spat blood onto the ground. “Good. Means I get under your skin too.”

But his body trembled. He could feel it—the horn wasn’t just power. It was hunger. It whispered, tugging at his mind. Break. Consume. Tear.

Future Rael staggered up, crimson aura flaring desperately. “Brat—control it! If you give in, it won’t be you fighting anymore, it’ll be—”

Varian’s voice overrode him.

“Show me.”

And suddenly he was in front of Rael again. Not moving—just being.

Rael swung instinctively, lightning roaring from his horn, his arm a blade of pure voltage.

Varian caught it.

One hand.

The entire battlefield detonated around them from the clash, but Varian’s grip held fast, unshaken.

Rael’s eyes went wide. “Wha—”

Varian’s gaze pierced into him. “But still weak. You channel the horn. You don’t command it.”

He twisted Rael’s arm, slamming him into the ground. Rael coughed blood, his bones creaking under pressure.

Future Rael roared, leaping forward, crimson blade tearing open reality itself in a desperate s***h. “GET OFF HIM!”

Varian didn’t even look. His free hand rose—fingers tapping the blade—

Snap.

The crimson edge broke, scattering into shards. Future Rael howled, clutching his hand as the weapon’s backlash burned him alive.

Rael snarled through blood, forcing his horn’s glow to surge. Sparks tore through Varian’s grip. “I—SAID—”

He exploded upward, headbutting Varian with his horn.

The monk reeled back a step, the stone under his feet fracturing like paper.

Rael screamed, aura blazing mad, his voice cracking through thunder. “STOP HOLDING ME LIKE A DAMN BUG!”

Lightning burst out in all directions, so violent that Future Rael had to shield his face.

The horn pulsed, stretching longer, sharper, jagged veins glowing across Rael’s skin. His pupils slit, his voice deepening with something not entirely his.

“POWER… IS MINE.”

Future Rael froze. “Oh no. He’s slipping…”

Varian’s mouth curved—barely. A faint smile.

“Yes. Now… it begins.”