Lucian dragged his feet through the forest, the earth stained with his pride—and blood. Bark splintered, leaves scorched. His cape, once regal and blindingly white, was now a ragged reminder of the battle he barely walked away from.
"If I hadn't sent him flying..." he muttered, bitter and breathless, "I would've—no. I am the strongest.. I would still win."
But something felt wrong the moment he reached his castle. The gates stood wide open. The guards who normally saluted at his presence were nowhere in sight.
"Are they slacking off?" he growled, limping up the steps. "I don't remember giving them a break."
The grand hall was eerily quiet.
No footsteps. No echoes of armor. No trembling servants rushing to greet him.
And then his heart stopped for a beat.
Someone was sitting on his throne.
Not a general. Not another Demon King.
A teenager.
Black hoodie. Sneakers with scuffed soles. Messy dark hair, glowing faintly at the tips like it was fading into nothing. He leaned back on the throne like it was a school desk, one leg slung over the armrest. He looked… bored.
"You're late," the boy said, eyes like broken stars. "Took you long enough."
Lucian's voice came out sharp. "Who the hell are you?"
The teen didn't even blink. He raised his hand—and the gilded lion statues beside Lucian's throne disappeared, wiped out of existence like pencil marks rubbed away by an eraser.
"Name's Haruto," he said. "Your throne looked comfy, so I sat on it, got a problem?"
Lucian's chest tightened. That magic—it didn't feel like anything from Mugthos. Not divine. Not demonic.
It was nothingness. A void that chewed through reality.
"Listen kid. I am in a good mood because of a good fight. I will give you a chance to get out."
Haruto smiled faintly. "You? Give me a chance? Sit down and shut up. I'm still deciding if this world needs a Pride Demon King."
Lucian's jaw clenched.
Haruto twirled his fingers lazily—and Lucian's sword vanished in that moment.
Lucian froze.
"You erased my sword?"
"Nah," Haruto said with a shrug. "Just borrowed the idea of it existing."
He leaned forward, eyes narrowing.
"So. Wanna be useful… or be forgotten?"
"Forgotten? Me?"
Suddenly the air's pressure increased. Crushing everything in the castle. Even cracking the throne.
Lucian rose slowly, the weight of his aura spiraling around him like a golden storm barely held back. Blood dripped from his fingertips, but his pride burned brighter than pain.
The floor split beneath his feet. Pillars cracked. The chandeliers above trembled, chains creaking like screams. The throne itself groaned under the pressure.
Haruto's bangs fluttered in the gust of raw magic. But his expression didn't change. Not even a blink.
"Forgotten?" Lucian's voice thundered now. Low, but soaked in divine arrogance. "I am the King of Pride. My name echoes in the nightmares of gods. I do not beg. I do not kneel. And I sure as hell do not get erased by a brat in sneakers."
His aura surged again—golden lightning snaking along the ground, burning runes into the floor. The broken remains of his cape rose behind him like wings of wrath.
Haruto finally stood. Casual. Effortless. As if Lucian's wrath was background noise.
"You talk a lot for someone who already lost his throne."
Lucian vanished in a blink—flash step so fast it split the air—and appeared in front of Haruto with a punch that could crush mountains.
But the moment his fist reached Haruto's chest—
It stopped.
Like reality itself forgot it was supposed to move.
Lucian's eyes widened.
His fist hung there, frozen inches away. Not by force. Not by magic.
By absence.
"I erased the moment you hit me," Haruto said quietly. "That second no longer exists."
At that exact moment there was a sound of a crack. Before Haruto could even think, he was hit with a immense force of the shock of the punch that hadn't even touched him.
"Erase my punch? That's another level of disrespect, brat"
Haruto's body flew back like a meteor, slamming through the castle wall and into the outer courtyard. Debris rained like meteors, the sky cracking with thunder that hadn't been summoned.
Dust and silence settled.
Lucian stood there, breathing heavy. A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth—bloody, furious, proud.
"I don't care what world you crawled out of," he spat. "I made gods kneel just by standing up. Reality bends? So what. Pride doesn't."
The courtyard outside hissed with heat. And then—a ripple.
Time twisted. The dust froze mid-air. The cracks in the wall began to rewind like broken film stitched together.
And Haruto stepped out of nothing.
Not limping. Not hurt.
Eyes colder than the void.
"So you kept the impact even after I erased the moment," he said quietly, brushing stone off his hoodie. "You're stubborn. I'll give you that."
Lucian's grin widened. Blood dripped from his teeth.
"You erased a second. I hit you in the one right after."
"Then I'll erase the interval next time," Haruto said.
And suddenly, the world blurred.
Lucian felt it.
Like the seconds were vanishing beneath his feet. The wind didn't blow. The torches didn't flicker. His heartbeat skipped—
No.
His heartbeat had been erased.
He collapsed to one knee, gasping, hand over his chest. But no pain came.
No rhythm. No pulse.
Just silence where his pride used to roar.
Haruto walked toward him slowly.
"You said you made gods kneel, right?" His voice was calm now. Cruel in its gentleness. "Good. That means you already know how to bow."
Lucian tried to rise.
But his legs had forgotten how to move.
Haruto stood before him now. Staring down.
"This world doesn't need pride, Lucian."
He reached out—not to erase.
But to offer his hand.
"Serve me. Or vanish. I'll rebuild this realm with or without your crown."
"Hey, kid. About the guards–"
"Oh them? I "erased" them. I can't have anyone stand up agai-"
Suddenly, lucain got up with a furious expression. He took on step, then another. They both met their eyes with eachother.
"Oh? Angry now?"
Lucain's hand moved slowly. So slow even a human child could dodge it. Haha. "Could"
…because Haruto didn't–no. He couldn't.
Lucian's hand wrapped around his neck.
Not fast. Not flashy. Just real.
A human motion in a war of gods.
"You talk too much," Lucian muttered, voice hoarse, golden eyes burning dim—but steady. "So here's a reminder..."
His grip tightened.
Haruto gasped—not in pain, but in shock.
Because this was impossible.
There was no moment for Lucian to act in. Haruto had erased it. The gap, the beat, the interval—gone.
And yet—
Lucian was moving.
"How?" Haruto rasped.
Lucian smirked, blood running down his temple like melted gold.
"You erased the seconds. But Pride doesn't live in time."
His aura ignited like wildfire, golden flames coiling up his spine.
"It lives in belief."
A beat passed—and then broke.
Time shattered like glass as Lucian reclaimed it. Runes of sheer will burned across his skin. Reality twisted not because of magic… but because Lucian refused to follow its laws.
"You forgot something, Haruto," he said, dragging the boy closer. "I have fought many opponents. This is merely because of a certain man being strong enough to injure me."
"I have fought one that can control time once. Do you know how he died?"
Lucian's voice grew quieter, heavier, like a requiem dragging its feet through ash and echoes.
"I killed him… outside of time."
Haruto's eyes widened for the first time.
"How—?"
Lucian leaned in, his breath burning like molten gold. "You see the world like a timeline. Neat. Linear. Erasable. But this world isn't a line, boy. It's a weave. Layers. Dimensions stacked like cards. Time is just the fourth one."
He raised a trembling finger to the sky, to the stars spinning above them—some frozen, others flickering like failing memories.
"Above time is possibility. Above that is concept. And above them all..." His eyes locked with Haruto's, savage and divine. "...is will."
Haruto tried to speak, but Lucian cut in, dragging him forward as if anchoring his soul to the floor.
"That man you remind me of—he bent seconds, slowed years, stopped centuries with a thought. But he made one mistake."
Lucian's grin returned, crueler now, crowned with clarity.
"He forgot I don't exist in time. I exist across it."
Haruto struggled, fingers clawing at Lucian's wrist, but the pressure wasn't physical. It was existential. Like the entire world remembered Lucian again—all at once.
"Every timeline… every version of this realm… I exist in all of them. Because Pride doesn't die when you erase a moment. It just waits in the one after."
"Even if a human, a dog, a snail, or even an ant has a single bit of pride. I will continue to exist. That's what I am"
"I am. The demon king of pride. Lucain Vaincrest."
The name dropped like a guillotine.
And the stars blinked—like even they remembered who sat at the top.
Haruto's breath stilled.
His powers—it wasn't that they failed. It's that they were denied.
Lucian stood tall now, golden light tearing from every crack in his body, his cape reweaving itself from threads of memory and myth.
"You thought nothingness could win?" he said, stepping forward, each stride rewriting the floor beneath. "But even void needs space to exist. And that space?"
He pointed to his chest with his left arm as he gripped Haruto's neck even harder.
"That's me."
"W-wait...S-spare. m–"
A crack was to be heard. Not of reality but of a bone. Although lucain would seldom let go of his Opponents if they had just even a little pride.
Lucain was ultimately a 'King'
The king of the Demons.