The rising of the Shield Hero X One piece

The Rising of the Sword Hero part 18

The monster turned out to be a demon Emperor. Unlike other demons a while back this one of the oldest demons that existed in this land, with his age nearly reaching the one hundred milestone. When the Demon Emperor of the world perished from his defeat under the hand of the Queen of the Filolials, his Demon Emperor Core shattered, and one of its fragments found him as its worthy owner. From that day onward, the Demon was marked as one of the Demon Emperor Candidates of the land, with the mission to unite every fragment of the Core to become the new Demon Emperor.

However, unlike the other demon who possessed the Core fragments, The Demon did not care about that "mission".

In his life, he had gone through countless battles, and more enemies had fallen under his blade than he cared to remember. Only the most powerful beings in this land, such as the previous Demon Emperor or the Queen of the Filolials, could have a chance to defeat him. However, the older he got, the more meaningless that power became to him.

Being stronger means having more enemies, and he had experienced in the most painful way possible what that actually means. In the past, he had had a family; a loving wife and a daughter. At that time, he had still been a bloodthirsty megalomaniac obsessed with achieving the ultimate power, to become the strongest being in the land. And in a battle like that to decide who the strongest was, the bastard who had suffered a humiliating defeat under his hand had decided to be a sore loser and murdered his family out of spite. Demons could marry any species; his wife was actually not a demon, but a young and beautiful demi-human who wasn't scared away by his appearance, but instead had given him care and love when he was injured in a deadly battle. And a demi-human, no matter how strong they might be, was no match for a demon. Even though the son of a bitch also paid for what he had done, even a mighty being like him couldn't bring back the dead.

After that, he suddenly realized that he was tired and sick of all the bloody killing he had done. He didn't want to continue fighting anymore. That was why he proclaimed himself the weakest of the Demon Emperors, and retreated to this land to hide himself away from the brutal battles to claim the Demon Emperor Core fragments for themselves. He didn't have any other purposes in life... until he met her.

He still remembered that day clearly, as if everything had just happened the day before.

A pair of demi-humans were running through the forest.

They had been running like this for hours. But no matter how tired they were, they didn't dare to stop. There's no way they could stop; if their legs stopped moving for just one minute, those evil people would surely catch up, and something worse than death would fall on their heads for sure.

There's no way they could let their precious daughter fall into the hands of that supposedly holy sanctuary again... No, not after they managed to escape from the bound of those blasted slave crests...

In the mother's arms, a child no more than seven years old whispered in a trembling voice.

"Mommy... I'm cold..."

The woman patted the little girl's head, her legs still didn't slow down a little bit. "J-just hold on, darling. Only a little bit more..."

Just a few more hours of running, and they're going to be in the country of Zeltoble. They would be safe there...

Suddenly the mother tripped on something. She fell face-first to the ground, and the kid flew out of her embrace and collapsed onto the cold surface of the mountain with a "thud". She screamed out in pain, and immediately, from afar, a voice rose.

There they are! I heard the scream! Over there!"

The father suddenly stopped dead on his track. Looking at his wife, he said in a grim voice. "Nadia. You take Wyndia and go ahead."