The Demon Lord and his Hero

The mers that had laughed at him, scorned him, and watched him die were now bowing before him like the servile puppets to power that they were. Syryn should have felt something - victorious, satisfied, but all he felt was empty. Where was the joy he had expected to feel? Was his return to Silisia for nothing? Maybe he would have enjoyed it more seeing them suffer viscerally, he thought. Syryn entertained the idea of pitting the mers in a fight to the death against each other. The losers would be fed to Levia, if they survived the fight, and the winners would live another day. 

"Drevin, Why don't we host a competition for the nobles?" Syryn said it loud enough for the mers to hear. 

The silver mer enquiringly looked at him. All the nobles lifted their curious eyes to Syryn. 

"I want each family to bring before me the chosen heir of your family. I don't care how old or what gender they are. It'll be a fight to the death so pick carefully. There will only be one winner." 

A sudden uproar began to spread.

"Syryn," Drevin said to him in a concerned tone. "You cannot be serious." 

The mage looked back at him apathetically. 

"I'll spare your family from death because your father has already paid the price." 

The looks of terror and fear on the mers faces was what Syryn had longed to see. They were afraid of him and couldn't raise their voices directly at Syryn. 

"Please, your majesty," one of the mers, an older creature, summoned his courage and spoke deferentially to the mage. "Please have mercy. We were wrong to have taken part in what was a murder plot against you by the old king. We had to comply with his orders, your majesty. Please do not take your anger out on our children." 

Syryn quietly listened to the old mer speak. He had thin yellow hair and scales that were dulled by age. His tongue though was still clever. The old mer was trying to pin everything on Silisia's previous king. 

"You may not have planned it but you were all accomplices," Syryn declared in a menacingly sweet tone. "You will all suffer as I did. I was an innocent man condemned to death after being kidnapped and framed. Do you think I'll let this go without exacting vengeance from every one of you?" 

The mers began crying out for mercy. One by one they curled their tails and bowed their heads before the tyrant that held the lives of their children in his hands. 

"Syryn, please," Drevin begged him. "Take my life if you must but don't do this." 

The mage didn't even look at him. He wanted to let the silver-blue mer know that his mind was made up and there was no changing it. 

"The blood tournament will begin in five hours so assemble here with your chosen heirs. And if you try to deceive me by bringing a fake heir, I will have your entire family, little babes to the old and grey, fed to my pet. I am an alchemist and have ways to check the truth of kin through your blood. So I leave it you to choose between the two evils of losing one child or the entire family."

Weeping sounds were heard from the crowd. The mothers held their children to their bosoms and the fathers thought of ways they could help their children escape the claws of death. They'd all heard about the Leviathan being Syryn's pet. There was nothing to do but try and run away or sacrifice their children. 

"Why the children?" Drevin asked, looking at Syryn like the man was a monster. "They are innocent." 

"So was I," Syryn replied. "This is the price I have chosen to exact." The mage's eyes were devoid of pity. Drevin only saw cold hard determination in them and it chilled him to his bones. Silisia was doomed. The Syryn he used to know had been replaced by a terrible creature who had taken on the nature of his pet. 

"Let your people know that no matter which corner of the ocean they run to, I will have Levia hunt them down and have them watch as I feed their children to her. Drevin, I know you hate me now but I honestly don't care. Just let them know what I intend to do if they think of leaving the kingdom." 

Syryn left the silver-blue mer behind him and walked away. Rowan was waiting for him a few feet away. Syryn headed once more to the dungeon where Levia was probably already done with her meal. 

"Ryn, what are you really planning?" Rowan asked the mage quietly. 

"I'm going to make them suffer, Rowan. They were so happy to kill me. Now they'll know what it felt like when I was at their mercy. They showed me none, and I shall do the same." 

Syryn sounded cold and detached. It was still his Syryn, and not the sage. That much Rowan could tell. 

"Are you sure you want to do this?" 

The anti mage was getting flashbacks of the demon lord he had met so many years ago. He had almost forgotten how cruel Syryn could be, almost. He had believed that Syryn wasn't inherently evil and that his cruel actions were all a product of the upbringing that had moulded him. Rowan had believed that the mage could be rehabilitated, but now a thread of doubt was beginning to creep inside his heart. Had he been wrong? Rowan understood the reason why Syryn was bent on revenge but this was just pushing it too far. To pit children against each other in a fight to the death was too cruel. 

"Do you wish to stop me?" Syryn asked him. "You can put an end to my plans Rowan. All you have to do is overpower me and whisk me away from Silisia." The mage looked at Rowan like he wanted the man to forcefully put an end to the madness that Syryn had started.

Blue eyes filled with worry, the anti mage silently regarded Syryn's stubborn face. The mage was serious, he realised. Words spoken in the past came to his memory. 

"Rowan Windwalker, a fruit that is rotten inside may look pleasant on the outside but you can't remove the rot from it. You'll have to cut it out from the inside and destroy it if you want the rottenness to never find its way to the surface. Do you really think that a demon can change its ways?"