Chapter 265: The demon creator was a fallen god

​The System window flickered, a final, heavy message burning into the center of his vision.

> ​[IT IS TOO LATE. YOU ALREADY CAUGHT HIS ATTENTION.]

​Julian felt a cold sweat break out across his back. "He? Who is ’he’?"

> ​[MY CREATOR.]

​The window shattered into a million digital fragments, and the apartment was plunged into a suffocating, absolute darkness.

The familiar scent of his shampoo was replaced by the smell of frozen earth.

​From the void, a voice spoke—not through the system, and not through the air, but directly into the center of Julian’s mind. It was a voice that sounded like a thousand whispers layered over a single, terrifying heartbeat.

​"So... this is the little flame that reached out to the stars."

​Julian felt a phantom hand brush against his cheek—a touch that felt like liquid ice.

​"A scholar who wants to save the world. How very... exhausting. But your light is delicious, Kim Jowoon. It tastes of something I haven’t felt in an eternity."

​"Who... Who are you?" Julian choked out, unable to move his limbs in the blackness.

​"I am the one who wrote the rules you think you can break. And the reason you are in this world in the first place."

Julian gasped.

"You... the Creator of the system?" he asked, and the voice snickered.

"Bingo. Now, pop quiz, what do you think I am?"

Julian fell silent, but his heart was racing. If it was not a human, and it was not a god, then just like his previous assumption... a demon?

"Bingo again. You’re so fun to play with, Kim Jowoon." The voice laughed, and Julian felt his spine prickle. He could read his thoughts? "We’re in my space, so of course I can read your thoughts."

This made Julian very aware of his own thoughts. So it was a demon after all. Then, the demons that surged next to the holy Empire...

Julian felt his breath hitch as an invisible hand tightened around his neck. The weight of the ’Creator’s’ presence felt like it was crushing his very ribs.

​"Ah, you’re thinking of that?" the demon mused, its voice echoing from inside Julian’s own skull. "The surge at the gates next to that White City, right? They were just the appetizer, Jowoon. A little nudge to see if you’d finally stop hiding behind your books and show me what you’re made of. And you didn’t disappoint. That light you used... it wasn’t a gift from the heavens. You tore it right out of the fabric of this world’s soul. My world’s soul."

​Julian’s heart hammered against his chest like a trapped bird. "Your world? You’re... you’re a demon. How does the world belong to you?"

Wasn’t it the gods that owned the world? And as for bringing him to this world, was it just to play with him?

​"Bingo, bingo, bingo again. Gosh, you’re really so smart and fun to play with, Kim Jowoon," the voice laughed, and Julian felt his spine prickle as the darkness grew colder. "While yes, it is the gods who create worlds, there was no saying that a god couldn’t become a demon, right?"

Julian’s eyes widened. A god becoming a demon?

"Ah, shall we use the fallen angel preference from your world? I am what you call a fallen god, but I still exert just as much influence as I did when I was still a god presiding over this world I had created. That was before that selfish god took my place,"

Julian felt the grip on his neck tighten, sensing the aggressive nature of the demon as he spoke of the god that took his place.

"Anyway, every line of code, every birth, every drop of blood... I authored it all. I brought you to this world to be a witness, a bit of data to watch the collapse."

"But... but why?" Julian asked, struggling to breathe with the pressure on his neck. "Didn’t you say you created this world?"

"Ah, I did. But it’s been taken from me. What I can’t have, I’d rather destroy. And it was all going well until you decided to move past the level of a spectator. You decided to rewrite the script. You saved people who were meant to die and pushed back my miasma with that disgusting pure light of yours." He sounded annoyed again, and the pressure pressing on Julian increased once again.

​Julian struggled to move, his mind racing with a terror he hadn’t felt even when facing the Emperor. This was the real deal.

A demon that held the strings of his reality.

"I just... wanted to save them." He struggled to say.

​"Well, since you like playing the savior so much," the demon said, the whispers layering into a roar that made Julian’s ears ring, "I think I’ll give you something more to save. Much, much more. Let’s see how long that little flame of yours lasts when the shadow starts to eat it from the inside."

​"No—wait!" Julian choked out, but the darkness surged forward, swallowing him whole.

​Julian’s eyes snapped open with a sharp, gasping intake of breath.

​He wasn’t in the blackness anymore. He was lying on a bed so soft it felt like it was swallowing him. The ceiling above was a blur of silver and white, carved with the heavy, oppressive symbols of the Sanctum.

​"Master!"

​The cry was shrill and desperate. Julian turned his head, his neck feeling stiff and rusty. Lucius was there, his face tear-streaked and pale, clutching Julian’s hand so tightly his small knuckles were white.

​"Lucius..." Julian rasped. His throat felt like he’d swallowed hot coals.

​"You’re awake! You’re finally awake!" Lucius sobbed, burying his face in Julian’s arm.

​"Two days," a cold, familiar voice said from the shadows.

​Julian looked over. Elian was standing by the window, his arms crossed. The Purifier didn’t look triumphant or even relieved. He looked deeply disturbed.

​"You’ve been in a coma since the southern pass," Elian continued, stepping toward the bed. "The Pope has been here personally. The Council is in an uproar. No one has ever seen a Saint exert that much power and survive without their hair bleaching white or their eyes turning to silver."