Kaelthar never truly realized when exactly the small body began to change from a passive vessel into something that could move according to his will.
In the early days after his rebirth, this human body had felt like a heavy object that refused to obey him. He could move his fingers, turn his head, or kick the air without purpose, but all of it felt more like reflex than actions that truly came from him.
But slowly, something began to change.
At first it was small.
Almost unnoticeable.
One warm afternoon, she was placed on a soft carpet in the family room. The carpet was thick, pale cream in color, its fine fibers brushing against her skin like gentle fur. Sunlight poured through the tall windows, spreading across the floor like a pool of warm gold.
Seraphina sat near the window, folding small cloths with relaxed movements. Alaric stood beside a large wooden table, speaking quietly with a servant.
No one paid attention to the baby on the floor.
To them, she was simply Aurelia—lying quietly where she had been placed.
But for Kaelthar, the world was changing.
He stared at the ceiling for a while as usual, letting his calm mind observe the patterns in the wood above him.
Then something happened.
His hand pressed against the floor.
Not because he meant to do it. The small muscle moved without conscious command. Yet that slight pressure caused his body to slide forward just a little.
Kaelthar froze.
His awareness sharpened instantly.
I… moved.
He didn’t completely trust that conclusion, so he tried again.
His hand pressed against the carpet.
His small knees folded.
His body shifted forward a few inches.
The movement was small. For an adult human it might have been almost invisible.
But for Kaelthar, it felt like opening a door in a world that had once been sealed shut.
Possibility.
He tried again.
Left hand.
Right knee.
Push.
His body slid forward again.
The movement was clumsy. His chest nearly collapsed into the carpet, and his face almost struck the floor.
But he didn’t stop.
He tried again.
Each movement felt like solving a small puzzle.
Hand.
Push.
Knee.
Slide.
His body crept forward another few inches.
Seraphina looked up from her work.
She saw something that made her eyebrows rise.
“That’s strange…” she murmured softly.
The baby was moving.
Not just kicking or squirming like infants usually did.
She was actually moving forward.
Seraphina glanced toward her husband.
“Alaric.”
He looked up. “Hm?”
Seraphina pointed toward the floor.
“Look.”
Alaric walked closer.
Kaelthar didn’t notice them.
His entire awareness was locked onto one thing.
Movement.
He tried again.
His hands pressed into the floor.
His knees pushed.
His body moved forward.
A little farther.
And then his eyes caught something across the room.
Fire.
The large fireplace built into the stone wall burned with steady orange flames. The fire moved slowly over the wood, casting warm light that pulsed softly in the air.
Kaelthar froze.
Old memories stirred inside him.
Hellfire.
Fire that stung the skin of demons.
Fire that carried pain that was strangely… satisfying.
Fire that triggered the flow of dark energy through a demon’s body, making muscles tremble with power.
Fire was not a threat to demons.
Fire was sensation.
Fire was experience.
He wanted to know.
Was human fire the same?
His gaze locked onto the fireplace.
Target.
His hand pressed against the floor again.
Hand.
Knee.
Push.
His body moved forward.
Seraphina covered her mouth with her hand.
“Oh… she’s crawling.”
Her voice carried pure amazement.
Alaric crossed his arms and watched calmly.
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“That’s fast.”
But after a few seconds, something strange became clear.
She wasn’t crawling toward her mother.
Not toward her father.
Not toward the wooden toys placed nearby.
She was crawling in a straight line.
Toward the fireplace.
Seraphina frowned.
“Aurelia?” she called gently.
Kaelthar didn’t turn.
He crawled again.
His movements were steadier now.
Each small push carried him closer to the source of heat.
The fireplace grew larger in his vision.
He could feel the warmth now.
Warm.
Licking the air.
Old memories echoed inside him.
Hellfire.
Power.
Pain.
He raised his hand.
Seraphina suddenly stood.
“Aurelia—no!”
But Kaelthar had already reached the edge of the carpet.
His hand touched the cold stone floor.
He paused.
The surface of the stone was hard, different from the carpet.
He squeezed it with his fingers.
A new sensation.
Cold.
Solid.
He noted it briefly, then continued.
The fireplace was only a few small movements away now.
The flames danced directly in front of him.
He lifted his hand.
His tiny fingers opened.
The fire was just about to touch his skin—
Suddenly the world lifted.
His body rose from the floor.
The fire moved away.
Kaelthar froze.
Seraphina held her daughter tightly, her breathing slightly uneven.
“Aurelia, you mustn’t touch fire,” she said gently but firmly.
Kaelthar stared over her shoulder.
The fire was still there.
Still dancing.
Still calling.
But now it was far away again.
For several seconds he only stared.
Then something strange happened inside him.
A sensation he had never known before.
Pressure.
Tension.
Something inside his small chest felt heavy, like air that refused to leave.
He didn’t understand it.
But the human body did.
And this body responded in the simplest way possible.
He whimpered.
A small sound slipped from his throat.
Seraphina rubbed her daughter’s back gently.
“There now… it’s alright.”
But the sound didn’t stop.
Instead it grew stronger.
The pressure inside his chest rose toward his throat.
His eyes burned.
And suddenly—
He cried.
The crying was loud.
Sharp.
Uncontrolled.
Tears spilled from the baby’s eyes, running down her cheeks.
Kaelthar didn’t even try to stop it.
He didn’t know how.
In his previous life as a demon, he had never experienced anything like this.
Demons did not feel sadness.
Demons did not feel frustration.
Demons did not cry.
Demons only consumed emotions.
He had absorbed the sorrow of thousands of humans.
He had drunk despair like bitter wine.
But he had never experienced it himself.
Now the sadness was being born inside him.
And it felt… strange.
His small chest tightened.
His breathing hitched.
Tears continued falling without his control.
He cried without shame.
Seraphina tried to calm her daughter.
“It’s alright, sweetheart… it’s alright…”
Alaric stood near the fireplace, watching quietly.
“She really wanted to reach that fire.”
Kaelthar’s crying grew louder.
Yet even through the tears, his mind continued to think.
This… is sadness?
He remembered something from his old life.
Sadness was one of the most “delicious” human emotions.
Many demons considered it a rich meal.
He had absorbed the grief of humans who lost their families.
The sorrow of soldiers defeated in war.
The despair of frightened children in the night.
It had always felt deep.
Dense.
Warm.
Like dark liquid filling a demon’s body with power.
But demons could never create it themselves.
Many demons tried.
They imitated human sounds.
Whimpers.
Sobs.
Screams.
But the result was always empty.
No flavor.
No emotion.
Only sound.
Now Kaelthar was crying for real.
Tears flowed endlessly.
And he still didn’t understand one thing.
Why couldn’t demons do this before?
Why couldn’t demons cry?
Why didn’t humans consume emotions the way demons did?
His crying continued.
Seraphina rocked her daughter gently.
But for Kaelthar, this crying was not only about the fire that had moved away.
This was a new experience.
Sadness pressed heavily in his chest.
Frustration broke his breathing into uneven pieces.
And although it was uncomfortable…
there was something fascinating within it.
He could feel his own emotions.
Something he had never possessed as a demon.
Strangely, it didn’t taste as rich as the emotions he once consumed.
And that confused him even more.
Why did humans live with emotions like this every day?
Why didn’t they consume them?
Why did they simply feel them?
Kaelthar continued crying in his mother’s arms.
Tears kept falling.
And for the first time in his existence—
the Demon King who once fed upon human sorrow was now feeling that sorrow himself.
________
Aurelia—now living as Kaelthar—sat in the dark corner of her chamber, her large and powerful demon body appearing strangely weary. Her mind was still filled with memories of what had happened in the great hall—of how her body, and the bodies of her siblings, had been forced to absorb the negative emotions unleashed by the Demon King.
It had felt like drinking intoxicating poison.
At that moment, her body had instinctively absorbed the Demon King’s aura of hatred, but the intensity had been overwhelming. For a brief instant, she had almost surrendered to the strange pleasure that came from such immense hatred. Yet her untrained body had nearly burst under the pressure.
Some of her siblings had not been as fortunate.
They had truly been crushed beneath that storm of emotion.
Aurelia drew in a long breath, feeling the lingering warmth of dark energy settling inside her body, leaving behind a faint residue that made her feel strangely unsettled.
“This is wrong,” she murmured.
“Why must this body live from something so destructive?”
The memory continued to haunt her thoughts.
She remembered clearly the moment when the Demon King had approached her. His aura of hatred had been so powerful that the air itself had felt like a heavy poison seeping through her skin.
Her body had been unable to resist.
Instead, this demon body—Kaelthar’s body—had devoured that emotion greedily.
Aurelia had felt herself being pulled into a torrent of hatred, like a dark whirlpool swallowing everything in its path. There had been a strange satisfaction within it, a sensation utterly foreign to her.
Her body had begun to accept the aura like a traveler discovering an oasis in the middle of a desert.
She remembered how the sensation had driven her body to react instinctively. The words of challenge she had thrown at the Demon King had come out before she even realized it.
That had not been her.
It had been this body—Kaelthar’s body—responding to the Demon King’s aura with the instincts of a demon.
And now, sitting alone in her quiet chamber, Aurelia began to understand something deeper.
Demons were not merely consumers of negative emotions.
They were also their creators.
Aurelia closed her eyes, trying to sense the state of her demon body.
No negative emotion emerged.
No hatred.
No anger.
No swirling resentment.
This body should naturally produce such emotions, yet Aurelia’s heart and soul could not awaken them.
She remembered the early days in this body when she had constantly grown weaker.
It was not only because she had refused to absorb the fear of humans.
It was also because her body itself could not produce negative emotions like other demons.
“I’m… too positive,” Aurelia thought, almost laughing bitterly.
But it was not a joke.
This reality was a genuine threat.
The positivity that remained from her life as the Holy Queen—something that had once been her greatest strength—had now become poison to this demon body.
Her thoughts turned to holy magic.
Why were demons so vulnerable to sacred light?
Perhaps the answer lay here.
Positive energy disrupted the balance of a demon, destroying them from within.
And the same principle applied to her.
If she continued trying to survive using only her positive nature, this body would weaken until it eventually died.
She had to find a way to survive.
Aurelia stood and began pacing across the chamber.
Even thinking about what she had to do made her feel sick.
But there was no other choice.
If she wanted to live—if she wanted to protect Anna, to protect anyone who needed her help—she had to learn how to produce negative emotions.
She clenched her fists, trying to summon anger.
She attempted to recall feelings of hatred she might once have felt.
“I have to hate,” she whispered.
But it was difficult.
Aurelia had spent her entire life as the Holy Queen suppressing negative emotions—striving always to forgive, always seeking the path of light.
Now her body demanded hatred.
But her soul rejected it.
“Hatred,” she said again, forcing the word out.
“Resentment. Anger.”
The words sounded hollow.
There was no power behind them.
She thought of the Demon King.
Of how he had destroyed his own children with merciless power.
She thought of her cunning siblings, filled with ambition, ready to overthrow her at any moment.
She thought of how this body—Kaelthar’s body—had forced Anna to lose her soul.
A small spark appeared.
A faint flicker of anger.
But it was still too small to be useful.
“This isn’t enough,” she muttered in frustration.
Aurelia turned toward Anna, who sat quietly in the corner of the room, her empty eyes staring forward like a lifeless doll.
Seeing the woman filled Aurelia with guilt.
But it also strengthened her resolve.
“If I cannot create hatred for myself,” she thought, “then I will do it for her.”
“For those who need my protection.”
She began thinking about everything she had witnessed in this world.
The cruelty of the Demon King.
The deaths of her siblings in the great hall.
Anna’s fear and helplessness.
All of it had been born from uncontrolled hatred and cruelty.
And in that moment, for the first time, Aurelia felt something stronger than frustration.
A deep anger toward this world.
Toward a system where hatred had become the only valuable currency.
The emotion began to grow.
A hatred not directed toward a single individual—but toward the condition of the world itself.
Toward its injustice.
Aurelia inhaled deeply.
And this time, she felt something.
Her body began releasing a faint trace of negative aura.
It was not pure hatred like the kind produced by the Demon King, but it was enough to make the air around her grow slightly heavier.
A small smile appeared on her lips, though it tasted bitter.
“I did it,” she whispered.
“But this is only the beginning.”
She knew she would have to keep training herself to produce more negative emotions if she wanted to survive in this world.
But she also knew she had to do it without losing herself.
Her hatred had to be controlled.
Directed.
Not blinding.
She had to become someone capable of using negative emotions as a weapon without surrendering entirely to darkness.
“I will learn,” she said firmly.
“I will learn to hate… but I will not become a demon.”
With renewed determination, Aurelia began searching for ways to train herself further.
She knew the path ahead would not be easy.
But if she wished to survive—if she wished to protect Anna—she would have to fight this world using its own weapons.
She would become a demon.
But with the heart of a Holy Queen.
And that paradox would become her greatest strength.
