FROST -
Chapter 111: Yami: The Demon of Sorrow
Chapter 111: Yami: The Demon of Sorrow
Seravine gasped as the cavern trembled beneath her feet, a low rumble echoing through the underground chamber like the growl of some ancient beast stirring in its slumber. The force of it sent loose gravel tumbling from the ledges, and fine dust rained down like ash.
She shot to her feet, her eyes darting toward the far end of the cavern—toward where she’d last seen Caspian.
Her fingers clutched the edge of his cloak tighter around her, the fabric suddenly feeling too thin, too fragile against the violence unfolding in the shadows. Behind her, Mathias rose slowly, brushing dirt from his trousers with deliberate calm. A crooked smile played on his lips.
"And so the game begins," he murmured, almost to himself. His tone was amused.
A thunderous crack split the air as a section of the cavern ceiling fractured. Shards of stone rained down in a brutal cascade, and for a heartbeat, everything disappeared in a cloud of smoke and debris. A jagged silence followed—thick, heavy, unnatural.
Caspian stood in the clearing dust, unmoving. His sword arm was still extended from the last blow, his gaze fixed like a hawk’s toward the chaos he’d driven his enemy into.
Then came the movement.
From within the plume of dust and rubble, something stirred and then slowly, Yami emerged, crouched impossibly on the vertical stone wall of the cavern ceiling, as if gravity had simply ceased to matter. Cracks branched out beneath his feet from the impact of where he’d landed—no, where he’d been hurled—but his posture was relaxed, predatory.
He grinned down at Caspian with the smugness of a demon who had tasted death and found it wanting.
Blood trailed from the corner of Yami’s mouth, but he licked it away with the tip of his tongue, his eyes gleaming with cruel, crimson delight. Despite the sheer force of Caspian’s earlier strike—enough to drive him into solid rock like a cannonball—Yami looked... unbothered.
As if Caspian’s power had been nothing more than a warm-up.
Yami gave a breathless, childlike giggle.
"That was a good shot, Your Highness..." he said, voice lilting with amusement. "But is that all you’ve got?"
Caspian didn’t dignify him with a response.
Instead, he shifted into an attack stance—blade raised beside his cheek, eyes narrowed with cold intent. In the next heartbeat, he launched himself upward, a blur of silver and fury, closing the distance between them in a blink.
Yami’s expression twisted with delight as he leaned sideways and twisted away midair, narrowly avoiding the strike. He propelled himself on his right, gliding toward a jutting stone wall like a shadow slipping between cracks of light.
But before his feet could even brush the surface, Caspian was already there.
Yami’s eyes widened a fraction—too slow.
A brutal punch of steel met his gut, not with finesse, but with raw, unforgiving strength. The force of the blow bent his body like a snapped reed and drove him down like a meteor.
He crashed back-first into the cavern floor with a deafening crack, a spiderweb of fractures exploding beneath him. Dust and shards erupted outward, and for a moment, Yami lay sprawled in the rubble, limbs splayed, eyes flickering.
Yami’s eyes snapped toward Caspian—now descending like a god, unbothered, unstoppable. Each step echoed with authority, dust curling around his boots as if even the earth responded to his presence. His hair fluttered, lifted by the sheer pressure of his mana, a silent storm cloaking his figure in brilliance.
He didn’t even use magic with those strikes, Yami thought, gritting his teeth as he wiped blood from the corner of his mouth. His body ached, not from the impact alone—but from the weight of that truth.
And yet in a blur, Yami pushed himself off the rubble, rising so swiftly it almost looked like he vanished and reappeared on his feet. His robe snapped behind him, his breathing sharp and quick.
He watched Caspian draw closer with steady, unhurried steps—no fear, no haste. Just absolute, terrifying confidence.
Yami’s brow twitched. He knew how strong Caspian was. Knew exactly what kind of monster he was facing. And yet Caspian had the gall—the audacity—to take every one of his attacks head-on without so much as conjuring a single shield or ward.
"If you want me to use my magic..." Caspian said, voice calm, almost bored, as he halted just a few paces away. The tip of his sword dipped slightly, a subtle invitation.
"Then fight me with everything you’ve got."
Yami didn’t respond—not with words.
He exhaled slowly, as though shedding the last of his patience, and his expression flattened into something colder... hungrier. His grin faded, replaced by a stillness that felt far more dangerous.
Then the air shifted.
A low hum reverberated across the cavern floor. The shadows that clung to the edges of the broken stone began to stretch unnaturally, slithering toward him like loyal beasts answering a silent command. The walls trembled, the ceiling creaked. Seravine flinched from afar, the air too thick, too wrong.
Caspian narrowed his eyes.
From behind Yami, runes flickered to life—dark, ancient, written in blood-magic and sealed intent. A crown of horns shimmered faintly above his head, the illusion of it teasing a glimpse of the form he was slowly becoming.
He wasn’t rushing this fight anymore.
Because Yami didn’t need to win. He only needed to push Caspian hard enough. Crack open the unstable, royal magic buried deep within him and let the demon realm feel it. Let it recognize its natural enemy. Let it react.
Let it fall apart.
"I wasn’t going to show you this just yet," Yami said, voice low, words laced with a quiet madness. "But since you insist, Your Highness..."
The air screamed as the barriers that kept the demonic plane in check shimmered, trembled... weakened.
"I hope you’re ready to bleed beautifully."
And then he vanished, reappearing above Caspian in a blink—no teleportation, just raw acceleration—and brought his hand down like a divine hammer, the magic within it distorting reality itself.
Caspian didn’t flinch.
Yami’s blow descended like a black comet, thick with corrupted mana and the weight of ancient curses—but Caspian simply raised a hand.
One hand.
And caught it.
The cavern shuddered under the pressure, the force of Yami’s strike splintering the stone beneath Caspian’s boots. Dust exploded outward in a vicious ring, wind howling between the cracks of broken stone—and yet Caspian stood there, unmoved, his eyes a calm, glacial blue and lavender. His grip on Yami’s wrist didn’t tremble.
He slowly raised his gaze, meeting Yami’s manic expression with something cold. Not anger. Not fury.
Disappointment.
"You’re not listening," Caspian said, voice low and even, almost bored. His fingers tightened. The sound of cracking bone echoed faintly between them.
Yami’s face twitched.
Caspian shoved the demon’s arm aside, stepped forward—and his movements blurred into something inhuman. Not speed. Presence.
A ripple of sheer pressure unfolded from him, slow and wide, like a tide rising against the world’s will. His mana hadn’t even begun to spiral, but the weight of his raw being pressed down on Yami like a mountain.
Then Caspian moved again.
A clean, almost gentle motion—he struck Yami in the ribs with the hilt of his blade.
The force sent Yami skidding back midair, body twisting, blood arcing like ink across the broken air. He landed hard, tumbling across the jagged earth before he caught himself with a snarl.
But Caspian wasn’t chasing him. He didn’t need to.
He stood tall, sword still resting in one hand, hair drifting softly in the currents of displaced energy—his sheer existence displacing the balance of the cavern itself. The temperature dropped. The lights dimmed.
He looked like a god caught between stillness and wrath.
"I told you," Caspian said, quietly. "If you want me to use magic... fight me with everything you have."
Caspian didn’t stop.
After the first blow, he pressed forward—relentless, unyielding. Each strike was swift and precise, carving through the air with devastating weight. He wasn’t using magic. He didn’t need to. His sheer physical might was overwhelming, and Yami—laughing, sneering, bleeding—took the punishment head-on.
The demon’s body slammed against the walls, cracked through stone, bounced off jagged ground. But he kept rising. Again and again.
Until he didn’t.
Until, finally, Yami crashed down in a mangled heap, blood pooling beneath him, limbs twisted unnaturally. His breathing was shallow. His smirk had faded. One eye flickered, unfocused.
Caspian slowly descended, his boots touching the broken ground with divine grace. His blade hung at his side, still untouched by blood. His eyes were fixed on Yami’s collapsed form. His breath, calm.
He approached.
Step by step.
The silence that followed was deafening—only the distant drip of water from the cavern roof, and the low, unsteady rattle of Yami’s dying breath.
Caspian stopped a few paces from the demon’s broken form.
He lowered his sword. Tilted his head—and then his breath caught.
Yami’s eyes were open. Hollow. Void of light, of malice, of self. Empty—as though there had never been a soul in there at all.
Caspian’s brows furrowed, taking a step back in realization.
"Ah ahhh~"
The voice echoed behind him. Light and mocking. Familiar. Caspian turned—slowly, warily—and froze.
There, seated on the ancient stone throne at the far end of the chamber, lounged Yami. Just as he had been when Caspian first entered—one arm draped over the armrest, chin propped on a hand, eyes glimmering with lazy amusement.
Not a scratch on him. He moved only to look at his hand and flexed his fingers lazily. his grin returned like a crack in the world.
"So that’s the power of your raw physical strength? Excellent!" he said, voice soft but sharp as glass. "I just wasn’t sure what more to expect though as my clone couldn’t take much more of the beatings."
Caspian’s eyes wobbled. Just like back in the cavern, he never sensed him even a single thread of mana from him. His presence is well to hidden.
Behind him, the bloodied Yami’s body shimmered, then collapsed into thick black smoke—curling tendrils of illusion vanishing into the air like fading dreams.
The weight of realization crashed down on Caspian. The true Yami rose slowly from his throne, his eyes glowing in hues of red—not with rage, but with something worse.
"And now," he whispered, descending the steps, "shall we see what your magic looks like... when I force it out of you?"
Caspian didn’t answer. His grip tightened on his sword, every muscle coiled. His heart pounded. Yami stepped down from the throne with the elegance of a king and the madness of a beast.
The cavern responded.
The stones trembled, groaned—as though recognizing the presence of something ancient, something never meant to be freed.
"You see, I didn’t want to rush things," Yami said, his voice echoing too loud for its volume. "But you’re stubborn, Your Highness. I was hoping you’d break a little more easily so we both could save time, but here we are."
The ground beneath Caspian suddenly cracked.
A pulse surged out from Yami’s feet—silent, invisible—and yet the effect was immediate. The atmosphere thickened like tar. Mana warped. Reality bent.
And then it hit.
A blinding flash—black and crimson—burst beneath Caspian. Glyphs, jagged and demonic, spiraled outward like wildfire, ancient runes clawing their way up from the ground, latching onto his boots, his limbs, his chest.
Caspian shot backward to resist the sudden pull but the magic wasn’t after his body.
It was after his core.
A cruel chant whispered from Yami’s lips, each syllable laced with rot and command. "Reveal. Unbind. Submit."
Caspian roared and swung his blade, slashing the air—only to find his swing devoured mid-arc by a shadowy mouth with no face, no form, only gnashing teeth made of magic. His blade passed through—but the mana rippled, strained.
Yami raised his hand.
Dozens of chains—alive, writhing—shot out from his palm. Some struck the ground. Some clattered on stone. But three pierced Caspian’s body.
Not flesh.
His magic.
They latched onto his core like spears stabbing a buried heart. Caspian screamed in both pain and resistance. His form shimmered. Silver-midnight blue light sparked at his fingertips raw and uncontrolled.
His unstable divine magic began to leak.
And that’s what Yami wanted.
"Yes," Yami breathed, drunk on it. "That’s it... Tear the barrier. Wake the realms. Let them all feel your divinity cracking in a demon’s den. Let’s start the war, Your Highness!"
Caspian’s feet hit the ground with a thunderous crash, eyes wide, blood trailing from his lips—but around him, the air changed.
Mana surged outward like a wave, purple and lavender light spiraling against red glyphs. The cavern roof cracked.
The realm felt it.
Yami stepped forward, unaffected by the divine pushback. Shadows crawled from his spine, coiling like sentient tendrils around the columns.
"You feel that?" he whispered. "That’s sorrow. Taste it before everyone else does."
A tremor split the chamber. One of the outer barriers wavered—thinned.
Yami’s grin widened, showing too many teeth. "Just a little more, Your Highness. Give me more of that beautiful, fractured power. Feed me—"
He froze.
Something—someone—touched his hand.
His eyes flicked down.
A child’s hand rested on his wrist.
Small. Pale. Silent.
And standing there, impossibly calm in the eye of chaos, was the boy—unassuming, barefoot, and looking up at him with unreadable, glass-like eyes. Eyes too still for someone so young. Too ancient.
"What..." Yami muttered.
But he couldn’t move.
The shadowy tendrils around him halted mid-air, caught in a moment of hesitation, like serpents frozen mid-strike. The air thickened—not with power, but absence. As if something vast and unknowable had turned its gaze, and for once, Yami wasn’t the one holding the strings.
"W-What did you do?" Yami hissed, trying to jerk his hand away.
The boy didn’t answer. He simply held his gaze. Then, quietly, soft enough that it shouldn’t have been heard over the rumble of shifting magic, the boy said:
"Don’t hurt my father..."
Yami’s pupils shrank.
A pulse of force—not magic, not divine nor demonic, but something else entirely—flared from the boy’s fingers, crawling up Yami’s arm like frost.
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