I Have a Military Shop Tab in Fantasy World-Chapter 78: The Demon King & Lords & Lady

Beyond the borders of Eldrath, beyond the deepest mountain ranges and the highest reaches of magic, there existed a place where reality frayed. The sky hung in tatters of swirling crimson and ash, torn open by some ancient calamity. This was the Rift—a land forsaken by the gods, feared by mortals, and sealed off from the world.

At its heart stood a colossal obsidian fortress, its towers crooked like black fangs against the blood-hued sky. The Rift Castle.

Inside its dark halls, a long chamber stretched like the inside of a cathedral. Fire braziers flickered with sickly green flame, casting distorted shadows against stone walls etched with runes too old to be deciphered. At the far end of the hall, a throne sat atop a raised platform. It was a thing of jagged stone and bones—crude yet regal.

Seated there was the Demon King.

He wore no crown, for he needed none. His presence alone was enough to command the full terror of the realm. Clad in black and crimson armor that pulsed with a heartbeat of its own, he leaned forward slightly, fingers clasped under his chin. His face—bare and humanlike—was impossibly handsome, but wrong in all the ways that mattered. Too symmetrical, too perfect, like a mask crafted to deceive.

"Status," he said, his voice deep, silky, and echoing unnaturally through the chamber.

One of the figures standing below the throne stepped forward. A tall man with white, threadlike hair and eyes like swirling galaxies. A cloak of violet shimmered around his shoulders, and his long fingers toyed with a deck of shifting cards that never stopped moving.

"Lord of Fate reporting," he said with a sly smile. "Our agents in the eastern continent whisper of strange disruptions in magical equilibrium. Particularly near the city of Eldrath."

The Demon King tilted his head slightly. "A disruption?"

"Yes," Fate continued, lazily drawing a card from his deck and letting it spin midair. "Anomaly magic. Not of this world. The threads don’t weave around it—they bend, snap, and realign. Someone is tampering with destiny."

From the left, a woman let out a low laugh. She was tall, sleek, and terrifyingly graceful. Her face was veiled behind a mask shaped like a weeping skull, and black feathers crowned her shoulders. Her robe was stitched from funeral silks, and her bare arms were painted in runes of mourning.

"Shall I send a reaping?" she asked. "Test the strength of this anomaly?" She was the Lady of Death—firstborn of the Nighthollow coven.

"No," said another voice, sharp and impatient.

The second general stepped forward—an armored brute with a flaming warhammer slung across his back. His eyes were molten gold, and every step he took cracked the obsidian floor beneath. His armor was scorched and battle-worn, carved with symbols of ancient war gods long extinguished. This was the Lord of Destruction.

"If something dares disturb the order of the Rift, then it should be crushed," he said. "Fate reads signs. Death picks corpses. But I say we test this... anomaly with war."

"Always with war," Fate muttered, not unkindly.

From the shadows, the final general emerged.

She glided more than walked. Her body shimmered with a constantly shifting illusion—sometimes a young girl, sometimes an old crone, sometimes a serpentine beauty with slit pupils. Her laughter echoed from multiple corners of the chamber at once.

"The Lady of Illusion agrees," she said, her voice multiplied and layered. "But not with war. With games. Let us toy with this disruption. Test its will. Find out what it wants."

The Demon King said nothing at first. His red eyes glowed beneath his brow like twin stars.

"Fate," he said at last.

"Yes, my king?"

"Draw me a card."

The Lord of Fate’s lips curled. He raised his deck and pulled a single card—letting it drift lazily down into his palm.

He looked at it.

And his smile faded.

"Well?" asked Destruction, narrowing his eyes.

Fate slowly turned the card so the others could see.

A single, grinning face stared back from the painted surface—a chaotic design with mismatched colors and erratic script. A being of unpredictability and madness. It was not one of the deck’s normal divinations.

"The Joker," he said softly.

A hush fell over the chamber.

Lady Death’s voice turned serious. "That’s... impossible. The Joker was expunged from the Deck after the fall of the Third Seal."

"I know," Fate replied, frowning. "I burned it myself."

"Then what does it mean?" asked Illusion, her many faces flickering rapidly between confusion and glee.

Fate closed his hand over the card. "It means there’s a wild variable in the world. Someone who doesn’t follow prophecy, order, or divine fate. A soul unbound."

The Demon King stood slowly from his throne, his armored boots echoing against the dark stone.

He descended the platform one step at a time, and his generals parted to make way, heads lowered. When he reached the bottom, he walked toward the nearest window—if it could be called that. A jagged rent in the wall, showing the swirling chaos of the Riftstorm beyond.

"An unbound soul," he repeated. "Like I once was."

None of the generals responded.

"Is it a threat?" Destruction finally asked.

The Demon King turned, just slightly. "All things are threats to order. But chaos... chaos is the greatest opportunity."

Lady Illusion chuckled. "Then shall we invite this unbound soul to dance?"

"No," said the Demon King. "We observe. We study. If he is what I suspect, he will come to us on his own."

"And if he doesn’t?" Lady Death inquired, folding her arms.

"Then," the King said, returning to his throne, "we shall show him what it means to defy destiny."

Fate nodded. "I will assign seers to monitor the capital of Eldrath and the surrounding ley lines. If anything warps the threads, we’ll know."

"Good."

The King seated himself again, resting his clawed gauntlet on the armrest of his throne. For a moment, none of them spoke.

Then Destruction broke the silence. "I am restless."

"You are always restless," muttered Illusion.

"I require combat. Let me take the Scourge Legion and test the humans on the borderlands. A minor skirmish. Nothing grand."

The Demon King gave a faint nod. "Take only the first blade of Scourge. Do not provoke the gods. Not yet."

"Understood."

"Death," the King said, looking at the veiled woman. "You are to return to the Shadow Wastes. Something stirs among the barrow lords. I want their loyalty reaffirmed."

She bowed her head. "As you command."

"And Illusion..."

"Yes, my king?"

"I want you to seed dreams across the noble courts. Spread tales of the Rift. Let the mortals remember that their world is still watched."

She laughed—a sound like wind through cracked glass. "Oh, I have just the stories."

Fate flicked his fingers and the card vanished in a puff of stardust. He clutched his deck tightly.

"And what of me?"

"You," said the King, "will remain here. Study the anomaly. And if you learn its name..."

"I’ll let the cards decide his fate."

The Demon King closed his eyes, and for a moment, the air inside the Rift Castle grew still—so still it felt like time had stopped.

Then his voice rumbled again, low and final.

"The age of gods is dying. Mortals pretend they are free. Let them. But when the Veil thins... we will march again."

The generals bowed in unison.

As they each turned to leave—splitting in different directions across the castle—Fate lingered just a moment longer. He glanced once more at the now-empty throne.

Then, slowly, he whispered under his breath.

"Unbound souls... always make the best tragedies."

As the others departed into the gloom—Destruction stomping off toward the lower barracks, Death gliding silently toward the spiral stair, and Illusion vanishing into thin air with a chime of mirrored laughter—only Fate remained beneath the throne.

The green firelight flickered in his eyes as he looked down at his hand. Though the card was gone, he could still feel it. That Joker. That anomaly.

"Always make the best tragedies," he repeated with a quiet smirk, then turned toward the hall’s shadowed exit.

The moment he passed beneath the archway, the chamber dimmed further. The green flames receded into hushed embers. For now, the throne was empty.

But even without its master, the room seemed alive. Whispers echoed faintly across the stone—fragments of a forgotten language, lost to time. Ghosts of the first calamity, bound forever to the Rift.

And then—just for an instant—the wind howled through the broken window, and the torches flared back to life.

Something unseen stirred far above, where the highest tower of the Rift Castle pierced the chaos sky like a needle into the heavens. There, chained in rings of eternal lightning, slept something ancient. Older than the Rift. Older than the gods.

It shifted once, sensing the Joker’s presence, and for the first time in centuries, a single burning eye cracked open—watching, waiting.

The unbound soul had awakened more than fate.

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