# Chapter 20:
**THE DEMON'S GIFT**
"**ENOUGH.**"
Myraelle's voice cut through Fred's screaming, through the chaos, through the very fabric of the moment itself. The demons paused mid-torment. The flames dimmed—still burning, but quieter, reduced to background agony instead of center-stage suffering.
Fred's screams continued but faded to desperate whimpering, the sound of someone who'd learned that begging accomplished nothing but wasted breath.
"**THE GUILTY HAVE BEEN JUDGED. THE INNOCENT HAVE WITNESSED. NOW HEAR THE REST.**"
She gestured. The sky shifted again, the impossible clouds reforming into new patterns. New images appeared above the plaza—not the Ancients this time, but different shapes. Human-sized. Normal. Unremarkable except for one critical detail.
Each figure bore a mark on their right hand. A glowing symbol that pulsed with inner light. A six-pointed star.
A hexagram.
"**SIX HEROES. ONE FROM EACH RACE. EACH SHALL BEAR THE MARK. EACH SHALL WIELD AN ELEMENT. EACH SHALL HAVE TWO COMPANIONS. TOGETHER, THEY MUST SEAL THE ANCIENTS. ONE BY ONE. BEFORE ALL SIX RISE.**"
She pointed to each figure in turn, her voice resonating with the weight of destiny being carved into reality:
"**LIGHT—THE HUMAN. WIELDER OF RADIANCE. HEALER AND DESTROYER.**"
"**VOID—THE DWARF. MASTER OF DARKNESS AND CREATION.**"
"**WIND—THE ELF. DANCER OF STORMS.**"
"**EARTH—THE TAUREN. FOUNDATION UNSHAKABLE.**"
"**WATER—THE CENTAUR. FLOW ETERNAL.**"
"**FIRE—THE TITAN. FLAME INCARNATE.**"
"**THESE ARE YOUR CHAMPIONS. YOUR HOPE. YOUR LAST CHANCE AGAINST ANNIHILATION.**"
Her gaze swept across the crowd like a searchlight, then fixed on one person with the inevitability of gravity.
Hexia.
"**AND THE FIRST HERO? THE WIELDER OF LIGHT? THE ONE WHO SHALL LEAD?**"
Her hand extended. Pointing directly at him with a finger that seemed to pin him to the moment like a butterfly to board.
"**HEXIA. SON OF JERKIN. SON OF MARIE. REINCARNATED SOUL. BROKEN BLADE. EMPTY VESSEL.**"
Hexia stared at her. His face went pale, all color draining like water from a cracked vessel. "No."
"**YES.**"
"I didn't ask for this. I don't want this. I just want to be left alone. I want—"
"**YOU WANT TO DIE.**"
The words fell like stones into still water, ripples spreading outward in waves of shocked understanding.
Everyone was staring at Hexia now. The crowd. The guards. Lord Cruxxe. Sirenia and Lhoralaine still kneeling beside him. All of them processing what the angel had just revealed—the truth he'd hidden beneath emptiness and cold efficiency, the secret he'd carried like a wound that wouldn't close.
"**YOU HAVE WANTED TO DIE SINCE YOUR FIRST LIFE. SINCE YOU THREW YOURSELF FROM THAT BUILDING. SINCE YOU WERE REBORN AGAINST YOUR WILL. YOU HAVE BEEN DYING SLOWLY FOR YEARS. CHOOSING EMPTINESS OVER PAIN. CHOOSING ISOLATION OVER RISK.**"
Hexia's jaw clenched. His fists tightened until knuckles went white. "You don't get to—"
"**I GET TO SPEAK TRUTH. THAT IS MY FUNCTION. AND THE TRUTH IS: YOU ARE TIRED. YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN TIRED. AND PART OF YOU HOPES THIS—THIS IMPOSSIBLE TASK, THIS CERTAIN DOOM—WILL BE YOUR EXCUSE TO FINALLY STOP.**"
The crowd was silent. Witnessing something intimate. Something raw. The breaking of a soul in public, the exposure of wounds that had festered in darkness for years.
Sirenia's hand found his, gripping tight. "Hexia—"
"**BUT YOU CANNOT STOP. NOT ANYMORE. NOT EVER.**"
Then the lead demon—who'd been watching this exchange with growing delight—suddenly laughed. Loud. Obnoxious. Delighted in the way only something truly malevolent could be.
"Oh! OH! Before we go! One more thing!" He sauntered over to Hexia, his grin stretching impossibly wide, showing teeth arranged in patterns that suggested he had opinions about Euclidean geometry and they were all negative.
"So! You're the hero, huh? The chosen one? The guy who's gonna save the world?" His tone was the verbal equivalent of air quotes.
"Apparently," Hexia said, exhausted beyond measure, his voice flat as week-old beer.
"And you were isekai'd, right? Reincarnated from another world? Killed yourself and got a second chance?" The demon's eyes sparkled with malicious glee.
"Yes."
"Classic! You know what that makes you?"
"What?"
"**A FUCKING CLICHÉ!**" The demon cackled, doubling over with laughter that sounded like breaking glass and children crying. "The suicidal protagonist who gets reincarnated and becomes the chosen one?! It's like every bad light novel ever! It's like someone threw a dart at a board of tired tropes and decided 'Yes! All of these subverted!'"
"Are you done?"
"Oh, I'm never done! But here's the best part—you wanna know the best part?" He leaned in close, voice conspiratorial, eyes gleaming with the joy of someone about to ruin someone else's entire existence.
"Not particularly."
"You don't get to die!" The demon's grin somehow widened further, achieving angles that geometry professors would have nightmares about. "We put a protection spell on you! Divine and infernal! Combined! A collaboration between heaven and hell! You should feel honored—we don't usually work together. But for you? For someone this *special*?"
He straightened up, spreading his arms theatrically.
"You can't die by suicide! You can't die by accident! You can't die by natural causes! You can't even die by getting really, really sad and willing your heart to stop! You can only die by fulfilling your destiny or by the Ancients killing you!"
Hexia's face went from pale to ashen. "You're joking."
"Nope! You're stuck! You're trapped! You're forced to exist whether you like it or not!" The demon was practically dancing now, delighted by his own cruelty. "Isn't that *hilarious*?! The guy who wants to die most can't die at all! It's poetry! It's justice! It's—"
Before Hexia could respond, before he could process the full horror of what had just been revealed—
Myraelle grabbed him.
Lifted him with one hand like he weighed nothing, like he was made of paper and regret.
And slammed him into the ground.
**THE DEMONSTRATION**
The impact shook Briarkeep.
Not metaphorically. Literally. The plaza cracked like an egg. Fissures spread from the impact point like a spiderweb made of despair. Stone dust rose in clouds thick enough to choke on. People screamed and scrambled backward, sure they were about to be swallowed by the earth.
When the dust cleared, there was a crater. Fifteen feet across. Five feet deep. Perfectly circular, as if carved by divine geometry.
And in the center—Hexia.
Embedded in stone. His body bent at angles that should have been impossible. Every bone should have been powder. Every organ should have been pulp. His spine should have been jelly. His skull should have been fragments.
But he was alive.
In agony—gasping, shaking, eyes wide with shock and pain that transcended physical damage and touched something deeper. But alive.
Breathing. Heart beating. Consciousness intact despite physics demanding otherwise.
"What... the... actual... *fuck*..." Each word was agony to speak.
Myraelle hovered above, her voice cheerful in the way that natural disasters are cheerful when they're not the ones being destroyed. "**DEMONSTRATION! YOU CANNOT DIE! ISN'T THAT WONDERFUL?**"
Hexia crawled out of the crater, every movement agony incarnate. His body healed as he moved—bones knitting, organs reforming, pain receding but never quite leaving. The protection spell working, forcing him to survive, to continue, to *exist*.
"This is torture! This is—this is cruel! This is—"
The demon interrupted, cackling like he'd been told the universe's best joke. "Exactly what you deserve! You wanted to die? Too bad! Now you get to live! And suffer! And save people! And experience *responsibility*!"
"I hate you!" Hexia's voice rose, cracking with emotion he'd suppressed for years. "I hate you both! I hate this world! I hate existence! I hate—"
"**YES, YES. WE KNOW. BUT HERE'S THE THING, HEXIA.**"
Myraelle descended, her feet touching the ground with weight that cracked stone. She knelt, looked him directly in the eyes with gaze that saw through flesh and bone to the wounded soul beneath.
"**YOU WERE NEVER A FAILURE. IN YOUR FIRST LIFE. IN THIS LIFE. YOU ONLY FAILED TO TRY AGAIN. YOU GAVE UP. YOU CHOSE DEATH OVER EFFORT. OVER GROWTH. OVER PAIN.**"
"**PAIN IS HOW YOU GROW. SUFFERING IS HOW YOU LEARN. STRUGGLE IS HOW YOU BECOME MORE THAN YOU WERE.**"
"I don't want to grow! I just want to *rest*!" The word came out as a wail, years of exhaustion compressed into a single syllable.
"**THEN REST WHEN YOU'RE DONE. REST WHEN THE WORLD IS SAVED. REST WHEN YOU'VE EARNED IT.**"
She stood, her wings spreading wide enough to cast shadows across half the plaza.
"**BUT NOT BEFORE.**"
The demon sidled up beside her, grinning. "Also, quick question—does it hurt? The not-dying thing? Because it looks like it hurts."
"*Yes it hurts!*"
"Good! That's working as intended!" He gave a thumbs up that somehow conveyed maximum sarcasm. "See, the thing is, we needed to make sure you'd actually *try* to save the world instead of just finding creative ways to get yourself killed. So the spell? It makes dying *really hard*. But not impossible! Just... really, really, *really* inconvenient!"
"I'm going to find a way to kill you specifically," Hexia said with absolute sincerity.
"Get in line! It's surprisingly long! There's a waiting list and everything!" The demon patted him on the head like a misbehaving pet. "But seriously—good luck with that whole 'saving the world' thing. We'll be watching! With popcorn! And probably taking bets on how long you last!"
And with that—the angels ascended. Back to their realm of perfect light and absolute judgment. Wings beating in perfect synchronization, rising through the broken sky like prayers made manifest.
The demons descended. Dragging Fred and his accomplices with them, chains of black flame binding them for eternity. Back to their torment. Back to punishment that would never end, never ease, never offer even the comfort of oblivion.
Fred's last words echoed through the plaza, desperate and broken:
"Please! Someone! Hexia! Lhoralaine! Anyone! Save me! Don't let them—I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'll change! I'll—"
Then he was gone. Pulled into the earth through fissures that closed behind him with finality. The black flames disappearing like nightmares at dawn. The screaming cut off mid-syllable, leaving only memory and the stench of sulfur.
The fissures sealed. The impossible sky began to lighten, returning to normal noon-time blue as if nothing had happened. As if the world hadn't just been told it was ending. As if reality itself hadn't been violated by divine and infernal intervention.
Silence.
Absolute. Total. The silence of thousands of people processing apocalypse and prophecy and revelation all at once, their minds struggling to contain the magnitude of what they'd witnessed.
Then chaos erupted.
**THE AFTERMATH**
People were screaming. Crying. Praying to gods who'd just demonstrated they existed and were terrifying. Running—some toward Hexia, some away, all trying to process the apocalypse they'd just been promised with six years' notice.
Parents clutched children. Lovers held each other. Strangers embraced, united in terror. Guards stood frozen, their training worthless against cosmic horror. Merchants calculated how to profit from panic. Priests started composing sermons about signs and wonders.
Hexia sat in his crater, looking shell-shocked. His face was blank—not empty like before, but overloaded. Too much information. Too much emotion. Too much *everything*. System crash. Blue screen of death for the soul.
His right hand caught his attention. He lifted it slowly, staring at the mark that now glowed there with inner radiance.
A hexagram. Six points. Six paths. Six elements. Six years until doom.
The mark pulsed in time with his heartbeat, a constant reminder that he was chosen, that he was trapped, that he was *stuck*.
Sirenia and Lhoralaine rushed to him. Helped him stand on legs that trembled with shock and recent healing. Led him out of the crater with the care usually reserved for trauma victims—which, technically, he was.
"Hexia! Are you—are you okay?!" Sirenia's voice was high with panic barely contained.
He laughed—but it was broken laughter. Hysterical edges. The sound of sanity taking a vacation and not leaving a forwarding address. "Okay? Okay?! I just got conscripted into saving the world! I got a protection spell that prevents me from dying! I got literally slammed into the ground by an angel to demonstrate my immortality! And you're asking if I'm *okay*?!"
"We're... we're here. We'll help. We'll—"
"You'll be my companions, apparently." He looked at them, his crimson eyes focusing with effort. "Because that's what the prophecy says. Two companions per hero. And I get..." He gestured vaguely at both of them. "...you two."
"Is that... a problem?" Lhoralaine's voice was small, uncertain.
Hexia's hysterical laughter faded. He looked at them—really looked. At Sirenia's fierce determination, the way she stood ready to fight the world for him. At Lhoralaine's desperate hope, the way she'd been broken and was trying to rebuild. At two women who'd been willing to fight each other for the right to stand beside him.
"No. No, it's... actually perfect." His voice steadied, finding ground in the midst of chaos. "Because if I'm going to be forced to save the world, at least I won't be alone."
He paused, looking between them with something like clarity cutting through the shock.
"But we need to establish something. Right now. Before this goes any further. Before we pretend this is normal or manageable or anything other than completely insane."
They both nodded, waiting with breath held.
"I can't... I can't choose between you. Not right now. Not like this. Not when the world is ending in installments." He took a breath. "Because I care about you both. Differently. But I care. And I don't know how to navigate that. I don't know how to be the person you need when I can barely be a person at all."
Silence stretched between them like wire pulled taut.
Sirenia spoke first, her voice steady despite everything. "Are you saying..."
"I'm saying if you both want to be part of my life—if you both want to be my companions in this insane quest that we're apparently stuck with—then... then you both are. But you need to work together. You need to stop fighting each other. Because we have bigger problems than romantic drama."
"Like the six Ancients that are going to destroy the world?" Lhoralaine's voice carried dark humor.
"Exactly like that." Hexia's lips twitched in something that wasn't quite a smile but wasn't not a smile either. "Plus whatever else the universe decides to throw at us because apparently my life wasn't complicated enough."
Sirenia looked at Lhoralaine. "Can you... can you do that? Can you work with me? Without trying to eliminate me as competition?"
Lhoralaine was quiet for a long moment, her black eyes distant. Then: "I can try. For him. For the world. For... closure. And maybe, eventually, for us. If that's possible. If I haven't burned that bridge beyond repair."
They looked at each other. And slowly—very slowly—extended hands.
Shook.
Warrior's grip. Equal pressure. No dominance. Just agreement.
It wasn't friendship. Not yet. Friendship took time and trust and shared experience that didn't involve competing for the same person. But it was agreement. Cooperation. A truce forged in the face of apocalypse because apocalypse had a way of putting petty conflicts in perspective.
Lord Cruxxe—who'd been standing frozen through this entire divine intervention, his authority meaningless before cosmic powers—finally found his voice.
"I... all charges are dropped. Obviously." His voice cracked slightly. "You're the hero. You're... you're going to save us all."
"Or die trying. Don't forget that part." Hexia's tone was dry as desert bones.
"Right. Or die trying. Except you can't die. So... suffer trying?"
"That's more accurate, yes."
Lord Cruxxe paused, looking at his daughter, at Lhoralaine, at the man who'd just been chosen by heaven and hell simultaneously. "My home is yours. Rest. Recover. Prepare. Because in six years..."
"The first Ancient rises. I know. I was there for the apocalyptic announcement." Hexia's voice carried exhaustion that went bone-deep. "Kind of hard to miss when angels and demons show up to your trial."
"We all were." Lord Cruxxe looked at the crowd—thousands of people still processing, still afraid, still trying to understand. "We all were."
He raised his voice, projecting across the plaza with the authority of someone who'd ruled for decades. "People of Briarkeep! Citizens and visitors! What we have witnessed today changes everything!"
The crowd slowly quieted, turning toward him.
"The trial is concluded! Hexia is innocent! More than innocent—he is chosen! He is our champion! Our hope!" His voice rose. "And we will support him! We will aid him! We will give him everything he needs to prepare for what's coming!"
He looked at Hexia directly. "Starting with getting you out of that crater and into a proper bed. You look like death warmed over."
"I feel like death warmed over. Repeatedly. Then slammed into the ground for emphasis."
"Guards! Escort our hero and his companions to the guest wing. Make them comfortable. Get them food, water, whatever they need." Lord Cruxxe's commands came rapid-fire, his mind already working through logistics. "And someone send word to Korn Village—his parents will want to know he's alive."
"And immortal!" Someone in the crowd shouted. "Don't forget immortal!"
"I'm trying to," Hexia muttered.
Sirenia and Lhoralaine helped him toward the estate, one on each side, supporting weight he could barely hold himself. The crowd parted for them like water around stone, everyone wanting to look, to touch, to be near the chosen one but also terrified of what he represented.
Behind them, Lord Cruxxe began issuing more orders—damage control, crowd management, sending messengers to other cities and kingdoms. Because this news couldn't be contained. Wouldn't be contained.
Within days, all of Hexagonia would know: The Ancients were waking. The heroes were being chosen. The world had six years.
And the countdown had begun.
---
**THE GUEST WING - EVENING**
Hexia sat in a chair by the window, staring out at Briarkeep as the sun set. The city looked normal from here. People going about their lives. Lights beginning to glow in windows. The ordinary march of existence continuing despite cosmic revelation.
Sirenia and Lhoralaine had given him space—but not too much space. They sat nearby, silent, present. Anchors against the storm of thoughts threatening to drown him.
Finally, Hexia spoke. "In my first life, I jumped from a building because I was tired. Tired of failing. Tired of being mocked. Tired of existing in a world that didn't want me."
Neither woman interrupted. Just listened.
"And now here I am. Different body. Different world. Same problem." He laughed without humor. "Except now I can't even die properly. I'm trapped. Forced to exist. Forced to fight. Forced to save a world I never asked to be part of."
"Hexia—" Sirenia started.
"But you know what the worst part is?" He turned to look at them, his crimson eyes reflecting the dying light. "The prophecy is right. The angel is right. Part of me *was* hoping this would be my excuse. That the Ancients would kill me. That I'd die a hero's death and finally get the rest I've been craving for lifetimes."
"And now?"
"Now I'm stuck." He lifted his marked hand, watching the hexagram pulse. "Stuck existing. Stuck fighting. Stuck being... whatever this is. A hero? A weapon? A cosmic joke that heaven and hell collaborated on?"
Lhoralaine moved closer, careful not to crowd him. "For what it's worth... I'm glad you're stuck. I know that's selfish. I know you're suffering. But I'm glad you're here. That you're alive. Even if you don't want to be."
"Me too," Sirenia added quietly. "I know it's not fair to you. I know you didn't choose this. But... the world needs you. *We* need you. And maybe... maybe that's enough reason to keep going?"
Hexia was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Maybe. Or maybe I'm just too tired to argue with literal angels and demons."
"That's valid too."
He stood, his body still aching from divine assault despite the healing. Walked to where they sat. Looked down at them—these two women who'd somehow become his anchors in the storm.
"Six years," he said quietly. "That's how long we have to prepare. To find the other heroes. To train. To figure out how to seal an Ancient that can burn oceans."
"So we'd better get started," Sirenia said with determination that could cut steel.
"Tomorrow," Hexia said. "Tonight, I just want to... exist. Without purpose. Without destiny. Just... be."
"We can do that," Lhoralaine agreed.
And so they sat together as darkness fell over Briarkeep. Three people bound by prophecy and circumstance and something that might eventually become friendship if they survived long enough.
Outside, the world continued. People prayed. People panicked. People planned.
But in that room, for that moment, three people just existed. Together.
And for Hexia—who'd spent years choosing emptiness over connection—that was almost enough.
Almost.
---
**TO BE CONTINUED...**
*The trial ended with revelation. The hero was chosen. The mark was given. The countdown began.*
*Six years until fire walks.*
*Six heroes to find.*
*Six elements to master.*
*And one broken soul forced to lead them all.*
*But first—they must learn to survive each other.*
*Because saving the world starts with not killing your companions.*
*Even when they're infuriating.*
*Especially then.*