The Third Prince Of Darkness

After Althea left, I went to bed, took off my clothes, and lay down. For some reason, I felt extremely tired and fell asleep as soon as I closed my eyes.

"Knock-Knock-Knock"

When I woke up to the sound of the door, the sun was setting. I was sweating all over and felt even more exhausted than when I first lay down. Grimacing with disgust, I got up and headed to the door. When I opened it, Althea stood before me, wearing a magnificent green armor. She had a smile on her face, but when she saw my tired expression, the smile turned into a worried look.

"Are you ill, Excellency?" she asked.

"No, I’m fine. There’s no problem," I replied, looking at Althea's emerald-green armor that matched her eyes. "You look quite nice," I said.

Althea adjusted her armor, trying to hide her concern, but the anxiety in her eyes was still evident. "Thank you, Excellency" she said, though her voice still sounded worried. "Are you sure you’re okay? You look very tired" she added.

I nodded. "It's no problem," I said. "I just woke up. By the way, did you send the envelope to the print shop?"

"Yes, I did. Also, I am now officially your Chief Knight." Althea said.

"It must have been quite a challenging day for you. As far as I know, becoming a Chief Knight requires passing difficult physical and theoretical exams."

Althea nodded. "Yes, Excellency, the exams were quite tough," she said. "But I passed them all successfully. Now, I am ready to start my duties as your Chief Knight."

"I appreciate how quickly you succeeded," I said. "But now, go and rest."

Althea bowed. "Thanks, your Excellency. I think you should also take a relaxing bath," she added before leaving. Do I smell? After Althea left, I sniffed my armpit but didn’t think I smelled bad. Still, a bath would be good. I really need a cold bath right now.

Following Althea's advice, I thought taking a bath to relax and shake off my fatigue was a good idea. Since there would be an engagement ceremony tonight, I would need to bathe, anyway. Under the cold water, I drifted into thoughts as usual. Tomorrow, I would be going to my secret estate with the twins, and there I would see if Marsiel could heal Emilia using her power. Tomorrow would be a tense day for me.

As the water relaxed my tired muscles, it also helped calm my mind. After the bath, I felt a bit more energetic and quickly called for my maids. The maids dressed me and then left. Right now, because of the tension, I wasn’t in the mood for any intimacy and didn’t want to be with a maid. After they left, I sat in the corner and opened the book I had been reading over the past few days.

The book was a study on other races in this world, written from a human perspective about interactions with other races. Since I would be going to the Dragon Academy soon and would see many races from other continents there, reading this book would be useful to me. There were many different races in this world, and the ones that frightened me the most were demons. Yes, demons existed in this world, and they were located on a distant continent, far to the west, only reachable by ship. Unfortunately, no human had ever been able to go to the demon continent, so the author of the book had only seen demons at the Dragon Academy.

According to another book I read, this continent was actually a shared continent where all races lived together. However, Tens of thousands of years ago, the Unlarn religion spread among humans, and because of this religion, humans started a religious war against other races. Eventually, many races willingly left this continent and migrated to other continents where their kind predominated, but only one race resisted the humans. And that was the demons. Tens of thousands of years ago, a bloody war was fought between humans and demons, nearly wiping out the human population.

During this time, the Unlarn religion also lost all its followers. In the end, humans, who had many times more population than demons, still lost overwhelmingly. Additionally, the god of the Unlarn religion remained indifferent to this situation and did not care about humans, or at least that was how people of that time thought. Eventually, dragons intervened and decided to help humans, who were the strongest among each race.

Because of the extreme distance and the difficulty of intercontinental travel, the demon continent could not provide any help, and the demons stranded here were left alone. A handful of demons engaged in a bloody war with dragons, the strongest race, and other races. During this process, some demons emerged with even greater strength and potential than those from the major continent, causing the deaths of even the most powerful dragons. It is extremely rare in history for someone from another race to kill a dragon. In fact, the strongest individuals from other races are even weaker than an average dragon.

Yet, about ten demons managed to kill dragons, which was a tremendous achievement. But no matter what, in the end, the demons lost the war, and no demons remained on this continent. However, these ten dragon-killing demons could not be killed and thus fought for years without stopping for a single second. But eventually, they weakened and were imprisoned with their weapons. Yes, they were imprisoned. Despite everything, they were not killed. Among these demons was the strongest, who was actually a half-dragon, half-demon and fought the most powerful dragons, but was never defeated.

He never submitted and, although all his comrades were imprisoned, he alone defied the entire world. For years, he fought alone and shook the world. According to the story, when humans were on the brink of extinction, elf ships evacuated them and managed to escape a few remaining humans from the demon's grasp, but his sword still tasted the blood of tens of thousands of people. But everything has an end. This demon was finally deceived by cunning dragons and ambushed. Although the exact details of the ambush are unknown, that day, the demon was imprisoned in his sword. For hundreds of years, the demon never stopped until that day, and the world stopped trembling.

Legend has it that even after the demon's death, all the rivers in the human continent flowed red for decades. These demons, imprisoned in their own weapons, were scattered and hidden in remote places. Even today, when a mother dragon wants to tell her children a horror story, these demons are always the main characters. After this great war, humans left the elven kingdom and came to this continent. A few hundred humans began to spread gradually but steadily across the continent.

Humanity came to the brink of extinction and managed to survive with the help of all the other races. Yes, they were saved by the races they had previously expelled, but still, after a few thousand years, other races were prohibited from visiting this continent freely. Of course, other races didn’t care, but they swore never to forget humanity’s hypocrisy. This dark stain remained in human history. Even so, humanity began to rise again. As always, despite everything, humanity managed to survive...