Aster stood frozen in place, caught in a war within himself.
Two forces battled for control—his human consciousness, horrified and grief-stricken by what had just occurred, and the demonic darkness that had been awakened inside him, whispering that this was necessary, that this was *right*, that this was who he truly was meant to be.
His father's final words echoed through his mind, repeating over and over like a curse of their own:
*"I will break you to the point where you hate this world."*
Aster looked down at his hands. They were trembling, still wrapped around the hilt of the dark sword—a blade that seemed to be made from his own corrupted blood, manifested from the darkness now flowing through his veins.
The sword was an extension of himself. A physical manifestation of what he'd become.
He released his grip, and the weapon clattered to the corrupted ground before dissolving into black mist, returning to whatever nightmare realm had spawned it.
"What do I do now?" Aster whispered to himself, his voice hollow and lost.
He looked around at the scene surrounding him. His father's body lying on the execution platform, blood pooling beneath it. The baker's corpse a few feet away, his death even more gruesome. And everywhere, those floating cameras—still recording, still transmitting everything to the entire kingdom.
"I can't enter the town," he said, the reality of his situation beginning to sink in. His eyes moved to the cameras hovering around him like mechanical vultures. "Should I destroy them?"
His hand raised instinctively, darkness gathering at his fingertips.
But he stopped himself.
"No. That would make me look even more guilty." He lowered his hand slowly, forcing himself to think through the panic. "And it would confirm my location. Everyone would know exactly where I am."
The cameras continued their silent observation, their magical lenses focused on him, judging him.
"Maybe Silas can help me," Aster said, grasping at the thought like a drowning man reaching for driftwood. "He knows about the Eye. He understands dark magic. He might believe me when I explain what happened."
But even as he spoke, doubt crept in. He looked down at his father's body again—the man who had raised him, taught him, protected him. The man who had also apparently been a conduit for evil, manipulating him from the very beginning.
"But would he believe me?" Aster asked himself. "Would anyone? I just killed my own father on camera. I killed an innocent man."
His chest tightened with the weight of it all.
"Maybe Lily will believe me," he continued, his voice becoming more desperate. "She's my sister. She knows me. She knows I'm not capable of this. She'll—"
He stopped himself again, reality crushing down on him.
Lily had just watched him murder their father. She'd seen the evidence with her own eyes. Why would she believe any explanation he gave? Why should she?
"Maybe I can explain to the people," Aster said, turning to face the nearest camera. "Maybe if I just tell them what happened, show them that I was forced, that my father was—"
He raised his hands toward the cameras, intending to address the kingdom directly, to plead his case.
But he hesitated.
What would he say? That his father was the Altar of Evil? That he'd been possessed or corrupted or controlled? It sounded insane even to his own ears. And trying to explain would only make him look more guilty—the desperate lies of a murderer trying to escape justice.
"No," Aster said, lowering his hands again. "That would make me look worse. More guilty. More dangerous."
The internal debate tore at him, pulling him in different directions. The human part of him wanted to explain, to justify, to make people understand. The demonic part whispered that explanations were weakness, that power was all that mattered.
And in his confusion and grief and rage, the demonic part won.
Darkness erupted from Aster's hands—a beam of pure shadow that lashed out at the cameras. One by one, they exploded into fragments of metal and crystal, their magical cores shattered, their connection to the outside world severed.
Within seconds, all the cameras were destroyed, leaving only silence and the faint smell of ozone in the air.
---
**Outside the Valley Gates**
"Close the gates!" one of the guards shouted, his voice cracking with panic. "There's an evil entity inside! It's the Cursed King's reincarnation!"
The massive iron gates began to swing shut, the ancient mechanisms grinding and screaming as they moved. The guards scrambled to reinforce the wards, pouring additional magical energy into the barriers that kept the valley's corruption contained.
"Lock it down!" the senior guard ordered. "No one goes in or out! Send word to the capital immediately—the situation has escalated beyond our control!"
The gates slammed shut with a boom that echoed across the valley, and magical seals flared to life across their surface—layer upon layer of protective enchantments designed to contain even the strongest dark entities.
Aster was trapped inside.
---
**In the Valley**
Aster stood in the sudden silence that followed the destruction of the cameras.
No one was watching him now. No evidence was being recorded. He was alone with what he'd done.
He looked at his father's body again, then at the baker lying nearby. His eyes lingered on the innocent man—someone who'd been going about his normal day, probably heading to his shop to bake bread, never imagining he'd be torn from his life and used as a pawn in a cosmic game.
"His last words," Aster whispered, remembering the baker's desperate plea. *"Please, I have a family. Children."*
The weight of it crashed down on Aster like a physical blow. "His family must hate me now. His wife. Maybe a daughter and a son. They all hate me now because I did this with my own hands."
He wanted to undo it. Wanted to go back and make different choices. But time didn't work that way.
"I want to bring things back to normal," Aster said, his voice breaking. "I shouldn't have gone to the party that night. If I'd just stayed home, if I'd just—"
He stopped himself. No. Even if he'd avoided the party, his fate wouldn't have changed. His father—or the thing pretending to be his father—had been planning this for years. The party had just been one step in a longer plan. Avoiding it would have delayed things at best, not prevented them.
A new thought occurred to him, and he looked around the valley with fresh understanding.
"Am I the Altar of Evil now?" he asked the empty air. "Since Dad is gone, does that mean I've inherited his role?"
The darkness inside him pulsed in response, almost like an affirmation.
"But I don't want to be," Aster said firmly, even as tears began to stream down his face. "I don't want any of this."
He looked at his father's body one more time, and despite everything—despite the revelation, despite the manipulation, despite the evil—he felt the loss keenly.
"Even though you were evil, what will I do without you?" Aster whispered. "You were still my father. You raised me. And now..."
His mother had died when he was very young—so young that he couldn't remember a single clear memory of her. Just impressions. A smile. A gentle voice singing him to sleep. The faint scent of flowers.
His father had been the constant in his life. His father and the maids and Lily and his friends—though most of those friends were gone now, moved away or grown apart, and Aster had been too scared and awkward to maintain those connections.
Now his father was gone too. And Aster was alone.
"What do I do now?" he asked himself again, the question taking on new urgency.
He forced himself to stand up straighter, to think through the situation logically despite his emotional turmoil.
"If I'm the demon Altar now," he reasoned slowly, "maybe I have some abilities. Powers I haven't discovered yet."
An idea sparked—desperate, probably impossible, but he had to try.
"Maybe I can revive the baker," Aster said, moving toward the man's body. "Maybe I can undo at least one of these deaths."
He knelt beside the corpse and raised his hands over it, channeling his magic. He reached for that darkness inside him, trying to direct it toward healing rather than destruction. Trying to reverse death itself.
Power flowed from his palms, dark energy surrounding the baker's body. For a moment, Aster felt hopeful—the energy was responding, was doing *something*.
But then the body began to decay.
Not slowly, as a natural corpse would over days and weeks, but rapidly. The flesh turned gray, then black. The bones became visible as the tissue dissolved. Within seconds, the baker's body had been reduced to nothing but ash and bone fragments.
Aster jerked his hands back, horrified. "No. No, no, no. I wasn't strong enough. I made it worse."
He stared at his trembling hands, realizing the terrible truth: the Heir of the Altar could only grow stronger by consuming souls. By taking life, not restoring it. Every attempt to use this power for good would only corrupt it further, twist it into something darker.
"But that doesn't mean only human souls," Aster said slowly, a new thought forming. He looked up at the poisoned sky, remembering what he'd seen in his dream. "The whole sky is filled with evil eyes. Countless entities of pure darkness."
Those were souls—twisted, corrupted souls, but souls nonetheless. If he could destroy them, absorb their energy...
"I just need to find a way to expose them," Aster continued, his mind racing. "To prove to the kingdom that they exist. That the real threat isn't me—it's them."
But even as he said it, he realized the futility.