Dragon King: Throne of Demons and Gods-Chapter 184: Act III, Scene VI: The Monologue of the Dead

The city had gone quiet.

But it was rather the chaos being drowned under a bloody blanket. Castella was no longer itself. The buildings leaned in disorder, lights blinked where no torches burned.

A coliseum in fire, a maze in destruction, a street serving as a cemetery, a theater witnessing apocalypse.

A dozen battles raged across the city. People screamed, their voices reaching nowhere, and silence was the answer.

And above it all, the moon watched the greatest show.

And yet, at the city's heart, a place remained still.

The Glass Garden.

It rose calmly, a true sanctuary of silence. The dream moved around it, yet never touched it. Vines had curled around its iron fences. Shards of mirrors formed half-grown flowers. Its doors hung open, as if waiting.

And the special guest was already there.

Bel stepped through them without a word.

He walked slowly. His steps silent, but heavy.

Ahead, beyond the gate, loomed a vast hall of cracked marble and silence. A concert hall of sorts. The place where the chaos began. Now, only ruins remained.

Dozens of rows of crushed chairs. A stage warped by silence. The shattered skeleton of a piano lay in the corner, keys scattered like bones, and several burn marks on the floor.

Bel stepped on ashes and pieces of bones. By nature, higher demons would turn to smoke when they died, so these remains had to be human.

Above, the moon hung still in a cracked sky, its light pouring down through a broken glass ceiling. The beams bathed the ruins in a cold, pale blue light, casting long shadows that refused to budge.

He walked forward, each step echoed faintly. Reaching the center of the room, the ground beneath was covered in broken glass, crushing under his weight.

He passed broken benches, a collapsed chandelier, a cracked mirror that showed no reflection. Every corner felt frozen mid-performance, as if the show had stopped seconds before the climax.

And then he saw it.

Near the center of the great hall, not far from the fractured stage, was a pool of blood, wide enough to stain the entire row beneath it. The color spread like ink across the marble.

And at its center, a body.

Regulus.

The broken body of a young man, his robes torn open, chest collapsed, arms twisted beneath him. His hair matted with blood, his legs lay at an unnatural angle, like they'd been spun wrong.

Bel stood still, silent.

Regulus had been the youngest of the Sacred. A prodigy mage with incredible talents, the kind of man a demon would call a monster.

Now he looked small, spilled, forgotten in this war.

Bel exhaled slowly.

This was the cost of their war. Not just the fall of bodies, but the way death could be as instant as an explosion, but it could also be a twisted work of art, with every cell of a madman used to produce the maximum pain possible.

Bel crouched beside him, lowering his head slightly.

"…What a way to go."

He didn't know what words to give. Regulus had been someone he barely knew. In fact, he didn't know him. He was just someone here when he was talking to the Sacred.

Bel crouched lower, his fingers hesitating just above Regulus's mangled body.

For no reason, his hand hovered above him. Maybe it was the mystery of seeing someone hours ago, then seeing him dead the next moment, or was it a way of acknowledging his death, to not make him forgotten, but Bel felt the need to touch him.

Something about the body was hypnotic.

He reached forward.

Slowly, his fingers brushed against the torn robe.

Then, a flash crossed his mind.

Images of a massacre, screams of people being disintegrated, demons turned to dust, the thunder of magic being unleashed with desperation, Regulus' chilling fate, eyes burning with hope, then folding in pain.

Then silence.

Bel jerked back, startled.

He stared down at the body again. The same blood, the same broken corpse. But now something in it called to him.

What was that?

He frowned. Hesitated. Then, slowly, reached forward again.

Fingers met skin. Another flash, this time stronger.

He saw glimpses of the battle. The jester collapsing, Regulus casting spells, invisible threads flying through the air, a demon in black armor with black wings, Minos, toying with Regulus. Bones breaking, magic igniting, a final scream, then silence.

Bel stayed immobile, eyes narrowed.

Then he looked up. Above the ruin of the stage, the ceiling had collapsed entirely, revealing the sky beyond, where the frozen moon hovered like a single unblinking eye.

Bel stared up at it. For a moment, he said nothing.

Then his breath caught.

"...Yes," he murmured. "That's it. That has to be it. I understand now."

His eyes narrowed. The cracks in the ceiling framed the moon like an eye. He studied it as if seeing through it.

"This is the exit," he whispered.

"Not exactly," a soft voice answered behind him.

Bel's head tilted. He didn't move right away.

"In fact," the voice said, "that's not the exit at all. It's the opposite. It leads to the deepest part of this dream world. To where he is hiding."

Bel turned slowly.

A short shadow stood in the moonlight. It had no real shape, just a silhouette with fading edges, until it began to shift.

Bit by bit, it took on a human outline.

Hair first. Then robes. A slender frame. Bare feet. Eyes full of light.

It was Regulus.

Bel didn't speak immediately.

The youngest Sacred stood before him, not quite solid, not quite shadow, but it was a Regulus, at least in better shape than the corpse on the ground.

Bel simply stared.

"So," he said at last, "you're either dead... or using a last resort technique."

Regulus blinked, as if startled by the lack of reaction.

"You're rather calm about all this. I expected more disbelief."

Bel's gaze didn't change a bit.

"Few things surprise me. This isn't one of them."

He observed him from head to toes, then the invisible feet.

"One thing that surprised me, though, was your body."

He stepped slightly to the side, gesturing faintly to the pool of blood behind him.

Regulus followed the motion but said nothing. The silence between them felt more like an accusation, even in this situation.

"What happened to you?" Bel asked.

Regulus exhaled softly. He didn't look ashamed, just tired and annoyed.

"A mistake," he said. "One I made before the war even began. I slept and I dreamt about him. This made my power ineffective against him and his army."

His voice was lighter, almost sad.

"I failed. I was completely outplayed. I didn't expect the power of your kind to be that elastic. Ah, unlike my body."

He chuckled, a quite intriguing scene. Bel nodded once, more like acknowledgment than sympathy.

"If you have the strength to joke, then I suppose there's no need to feel bad for you," he said.

"More or less. I'm more frustrated anyway, so I'll make sure to not go down alone."

"Bel tilted his head slightly.

"How are you even managing to manifest like this?"

Regulus gave a faint smile.

"It's all thanks to my blessing. I left behind a mark on me... You see, my magic isn't about spells in the usual sense. It's about... sort of curses. For example, if I place a "flame" mark on a tree, everything that is part of that tree,its roots, bark, even the leaves, will burn."

He touched his own chest.

"I couldn't use that power in the fight. My magic was frozen. Every spell was locked out... except that one. The

one I put before the war. A rebirth mark I put into myself as a failsafe that only activates after my death. It brought me back, but just barely, and only for a short while, while my mana lasts."

He looked up, a faint smile twitching on half-solid lips.

"And here I am."

Bel raised an eyebrow.

"So... you got tricked by your enemy's power and got killed. Yet... I don't know why, but I feel like you you planned this situation. Did you anticipated my arrival here?"

"No, it was a miracle. I completely failed and let a powerful demon roam free. Like I said, I was completely cut from this world. But you... something in you resonated with me. It's like you cut the space between the real world and this dream world. That's why I could reach you. And that alone might mean there's hope."

Bel's brow creased. Just slightly.

"Yes. That means something in you might be the key," Regulus continued, his voice sharpening. "I had enough time to analyze the power of our enemy, and I saw the catastrophe coming to us."

Bel said nothing, his eyes widening slightly.

Regulus took a step closer. His tone lost all softness.

"If we don't act quickly, we have no chance to defeat the Slumbering King. Even you won't be able to reach him."