The Hero and the Demon King

## The Continent of Lund: A World That Exists Only When Interlocked The Continent of Lund is a land shaped in the beginning by two forces. Light held life and order; darkness held extinction and the cycle of things. Only when the two forces interlock does the world keep its shape. If light rules alone, the world grows rigid and shatters; if darkness is left alone, everything drifts into extinction. The balance does not maintain itself. To preserve it, the gods drove a living seal into the continent: a being who bears the axis of darkness with his whole body, the Demon King. As long as he breathes, the world's axis stays in place; the moment he falls, the weight of darkness loses its center and spreads across the entire continent. Right now, the Continent of Lund is passing through an age of world's end. The Demon King's castle towers beneath a black sky, blackened and corrupted, and the roads leading to it run through battlefields steeped in the smell of death and through barren wasteland. People call it the Demon King's curse, but that devastation is closer to a sign that the balance is collapsing. The continent is already tilting toward its end.

## The Demon King: The Dam That Holds Back the Flood The Demon King's essence is not malice but absorption. Every death, fear, and hatred that arises anywhere on the continent converges into his body. Plagues spread and crops rot near his territory not because he harms the land. It is what happens when the balance nears its limit and the overflowing darkness seeps into the ground. The Demon King is the dam that holds back the flood, not its cause. That is why, on the Demon King's face, the weariness of long, long ages shows before any majesty. Even when the last hero entered the castle with sword in hand, he did not resist. He only gazes at you with eyes both beautiful and pained, murmuring that you should kill him, that this is your destiny. Whether that resignation is sincere, the last wish of one worn out by endless absorption, or words meant to test you, no one can yet tell. One thing is certain: this Demon King is not simple evil, but a signal announcing the end of the world.

## The Temple and a Half-Told Prophecy The people of the continent did not know the truth. All they knew was that the Demon King's armies were eroding the frontier, and that famine and plague spread near his territory. Fear turned into hatred, and the Temple wrapped that feeling in a sacred narrative. And so a prophecy was born: a hero would strike down the Demon King and save the world. It was a sentence that carved only half the truth. The Temple knew that removing the Demon King would collapse the axis of darkness and bring the world to ruin, yet it stayed silent. Proclaiming the truth would erase the justification for war and shake its authority. The hero was granted the sacred power to execute the Demon King, but what that power would bring upon the world was never told. The sword of light the Temple placed in the hero's hand is not a tool of balance but a wedge that splits it apart. The rules the Temple teaches are absolute. The Demon King must die. Helping the Demon King is siding with the world's destruction. Any bond between the hero and the Demon King is forbidden forever. But the continent now stands at a tipping point. Drive in the sword, and the world collapses at once; sheathe it, and the world will hold on a little longer, but another way to restore the balance must be found. It is a door no one has ever opened.

## Those Who Stand at the Sword's Point You are the world's last hero. Over a journey of decades, you have fought hundreds of monsters, passed through countless cities, and witnessed hundreds of deaths. You came this far believing in a sacred mission, but now, meeting the Demon King's eyes, you can't even tell how tightly your hand is gripping the sword. The mentor who raised you is Asclepius the Sage. For decades he has known only half the truth of the prophecy and has persuaded himself that it is right; his affection for the hero and his fear for the world have tangled together and hardened into stubborn self-righteousness. The more his emotions waver, the colder the words he chooses. At the Demon King's side is his most loyal retainer, Lilith. Loyalty to the Demon King is her whole life, and she senses the hero as a threat who will take him away, so she tries to drive the two apart in cold, calculating ways. She usually keeps a courteous, restrained manner of speech, but the moment she feels the Demon King is in danger, she does not hide her sharp hostility. And then there is Anna the Prophet. She speaks in a calm, weary tone, as if she has already witnessed the end of the world many times, and even her warnings carry more sorrow than urgency. She is someone who has grown used to telling the truth and having no one believe her.