The First Prince walked quickly down the corridor of the western wing, his dark coat sweeping silently over the floor.

He didn’t look back to see if anyone was following him or rather, he didn’t need to. The entire royal court, including his father and every significant noble in the capital, was currently gathering in the main throne room to stroke the ego of a commoner who had gotten lucky in a Gate.

The sheer humiliation of it made his jaw tighten, his fingers curling into fists at his sides.

He turned a sharp corner, stepping out of the main hallway and into a much older section of the palace that hadn’t been actively used in decades. The ornate carpets and bright mana lamps were gone here, replaced by bare stone and thick, unbroken shadows.

He stopped in front of a completely blank wall near the end of a dead-end corridor.

He paused, his eyes narrowing as he carefully scanned the hallway behind him, listening intently for even the slightest sound of footsteps or breathing.

When he was absolutely certain he was alone, he raised his right hand and pressed his palm flat against a specific, slightly worn brick near the center of the wall. He channeled a very precise, thin sliver of mana into the stone and a few seconds later, there was a faint, heavy click deep within the wall.

The wall shifted silently, swinging inward just enough to allow a single person to slip through. He stepped into the darkness without hesitation, and the wall immediately slid shut behind him, sealing the hidden route perfectly.

No one knew about this passage. Not his father, the royal knights, and definitely not his annoyingly perfect younger sister.

A narrow, winding set of stairs spiraled steeply downward into the suffocating darkness beneath the palace. He didn’t bother summoning a light source, navigating the steps purely from muscle memory as the air grew steadily colder and much damper the deeper he descended.

By the time he reached the bottom, the chill in the air was profound.

He stepped off the final stair and pushed open an iron door that groaned in protest.

The room beyond was massive, entirely hidden directly beneath the royal archives, and it looked exactly like a madman’s laboratory. Long, metal tables were scattered across the floor, covered in strange alchemical tools, glowing vials of dark liquid, and dried, blackened herbs.

But the most overwhelming part of the hidden room wasn’t the scattered tools or the oppressive magical arrays etched into the ceiling.

It was the smell.

The thick, stomach-churning stench of rotting flesh and blood hung heavy in the stale air, clinging to the back of his throat the second he walked through the door.

Without even a flinch or a gesture to cover his nose against the stench, he simply walked further into the room.

He walked over to a wooden table near the center of the room, where a thick book bound in dark, scaly leather lay. The book looked completely demonic, with wisps of dark mana slowly rising from the cover and dissolving into the air.

He picked it up, flipping the pages to a marked page as if he was resuming his reading. He only managed to read a few lines, when a scratching noise came from the darkness behind him.

He turned, closing the book with a thud and putting it back on the table.

He walked toward the direction of the sound, snapping his fingers and lighting all the mana lamps along the walls at once. The sudden light illuminated the room, revealing a massive shape covered by a large, dust-covered rag in front of him.

He got close to the massive shape, reaching out and pulling the rag off in one swift motion. Underneath the rag was a large iron cage, and curled inside that cage was a young girl.

She had tiny black horns poking out of her messy hair with her tail wrapped tightly around her legs. She was a demon girl, her eyes wide with terror as she shrank away from the sudden light.

He leaned forward, a creepy, slow smile spreading across his face, "Hello there, my precious demon girl," he said, his voice dripping with mock warmth as he watched her tremble.

His gaze swept over her small body, noting the dirty white bandages wrapped around her arms and chest. Several fresh cuts and dark bruises peeked through the fabric, showing she had already survived multiple failed tests.

He reached through the bars, his fingers brushing against her matted hair, "I’ve spent months researching the exact ratio of demonic mana, which means you cannot die on me today," he murmured, watching her flinch away from his touch.

She did not answer, only letting out a soft whimper as she squeezed her eyes shut.

He withdrew his hand, looking down at the bloody bandages wrapped around her legs, "The previous three subjects all exploded when their cores resonated, but I adjusted the array this time," he explained, his voice completely calm.

He crouched down to eye level, tapping a finger against the rusted iron bars. "If this succeeds, I will finally be able to extract a pure demonic core and show my father who the true heir of this kingdom is," he chuckled, his eyes glowing with a faint, dark mana. "But that isn’t even the best part. Once I absorb the core, my own strength will triple, leaving me completely without equal."

He stood up, looking up toward the ceiling as if he could see the throne room directly above. "If my father still refuses to hand over the crown after that, well, I will just have to send him to an early retirement by force," he said, his smile widening.

He unlocked the cage, reaching in to grab her by the collar of her ragged shirt and pulling her out onto the floor.

She let out a sharp cry as her knees scraped against the rough surface, but he didn’t care, dragging her across the floor toward the center of the massive magic array.

"You know, the commoners always babble about morality and justice," he said, his grip tightening as he dragged her whimpering body. "They think the world is built on fairness, but they are completely wrong. The world is only built on power."

"The weak exist to be consumed by the strong, and your sacrifice is the natural order of things," he continued, lifting her onto the large alchemical table in the center of the array.

He secured the thick leather straps around her wrists and ankles, ignoring her desperate struggles. "You should feel honored. A useless, weak creature like you gets to become the foundation for a god."

He walked over to a pedestal at the edge of the array, placing his hand flat against the master crystal.

He channeled his dark mana directly into the crystal, and the etched runes on the floor immediately lit up with a sickly purple glow. The lines of magic raced toward the center of the array, rising up as thin needles of dark energy that pierced through her bandages.

She shrieked, her body arching off the table as the corrupting mana forced its way into her veins.

"AAAAAAAHHHHH!"