3 - She can’t be the Hero, but she can be the Demon King

All that remained of the Harvest Festival were the bloodied remains of the victims, the splatters, and the pools of blood seeping into the earth.

Merle’s face was covered with blood, her clothes were soaked in it, her hands were sticky. The metallic scent floods her nose as it cools and coagulates on her skin. But even with the sea of dead bodies and blood before her, Merle felt unsatisfied, felt not a drop of regret nor anxiety.

“NOT ENOUGH.”

“Huh?” Merle asked.

The voice echoed in her head once more.

“MORE BLOOD, MORE POWER, MORE CHAOS.”

“Who?”

“I WILL BECOME THE DEMON KING’S SWORD.”

“Demon King?” Merle asked. “You’re not a legendary swordsman’s weapon?”

This legendary enchanted sword was not a weapon for Justice. Upon realizing its true nature, Merle cried:

“Woohoo! You’re not that kind of sword!”

She didn’t want to become an ally of Justice. You needed good reasons to do anything as a Hero, but Villains could do as much as they pleased—not for anyone’s sake, just for themselves and their desires.

Dark, ominous energy erupts from the sword, wraps around Merle’s body, sweeping away the debris around her. Like a typhoon, it rages, she in its eye watching the black energy, the flying debris, and the blood swirl around her, inhaling the metallic scent of death.

“There it is!” someone cried. “The enchanted sword has been pulled out!”

Soldiers in guild uniforms charged into the plaza. “Get the sword out of her hands even if you have to kill her!” one of them yelled.

“Even if you have to kill her,” Merle thought.

For a moment, she was frightened. She had killed scores of people with the enchanted sword in her hands, now the guild soldiers did not see her as a girl but a murderer. Anxiety, fear, and sorrow swirled inside her, her skin began to pale.

The soldiers pulled out their swords and readied them.

“POWER, BLOOD.”

Merle clutched her head as the voice echoed in her head once more. “… Power… blood,” she whispers,

Her vision blurs. She grows cold.

“What the hell are you saying?!” one of the soldiers yells. “Are you a demon?!”

“I–“

“I–”

“–WILL BECOME THE DEMON KING’S SWORD.”

“–will become the Demon King.”

The haze in her eyes lifted, the world suddenly came into focus. A sword came swinging down on her, she blocked it with her bare hand, kicked the soldier down.

She swung her sword down on the ground. With a quick turn of her wrists, she cut upwards and sliced a different soldier in half. The bisected corpse falls apart in two directions, the arms uselessly batting at the sword.

In an instant, more corpses fell, the bloodied church plaza turns runs even thicker with it.

Cut, slash, kill, or be killed.

As she held the sword in her hands and cut down her foes, Merle felt her heart beating in excitement.

“ How many soldiers did I kill?” Merle thought as she sat atop a mountain of bodies.

The bloodthirsty sword spared one of the soldiers from the massacre. He clings to the ground and weeps, clutching his sword hand.

“BLOOD, POWER.”

“There is a voice in my head,” Merle said. “It says this sword is not the weapon of a legendary swordsman.”

Her eyes turn to the distant sky but her sword is pointed at the sole survivor.

“This sword is the Demon King’s sword. It is not a weapon of justice. It is a weapon of chaos.”

A dry wind blows, carrying with it the scent of blood, Merle’s hair gently flutters in the breeze. She would look like any other village girl if it were not for the countless bodies beneath her and all the blood covering her, from the top of her head to the tip of her toes.

“I will become the Demon King.”