Ewan stood up abruptly, so focused that he didn’t even notice his water glass toppling over. Water spilled across the floor, soaking the hem of his robe.
His expression turned subtle as he stared at Droville’s face which the man was intentionally angling to show off—and belatedly sensed a distinct whiff of boasting.
What is there to show off! It’s just a blob of a child’s doodle where you can’t even see the original shape.
A surge of inexplicable competitiveness welled up in Ewan’s heart. He shuffled two steps over to Nolan’s side and, as if performing a magic trick, produced a pen. Before Nolan could even react, Ewan deftly drew a small dog on his face.
This dog had three heads squeezed together like a bunch of grapes.
It was none other than the superstar of the Demon Realm—the Cerberus.
Having finished his masterpiece, Ewan turned Nolan’s head toward Droville and shouted at the “blob,” “Look! Isn’t this also a doodle? Isn’t this also cute? Tell me, are you jealous now?”
Droville didn’t really want to speak. He stared at Ewan with a look usually reserved for idiots, glanced for a moment at the crude work that was on par with Celoa’s artistic skills, and let out a faint, mocking scoff.
“What do I have to be jealous of? Jealous of this clumsy, childish art style?”
“Childish.”
By the time Droville finished his business for the day, it was late. Calculating that he had some free time, he intended to check on Celoa in his small room.
But before he could even get close, bursts of lighthearted singing drifted into his ears.
“A red, red moon, a big, big bed, at the door is the scary, bad Demon King…”
Truly a delightful lullaby.
Droville’s brow twitched. He gritted his teeth and knocked on the door. The singing inside cut off abruptly. After a long pause, the tightly shut door opened just a tiny crack.
That familiar clockwork bird poked its head out with a fawning expression and greeted him enthusiastically: “Good evening, Lord Demon King! Whatever brings you here at this hour? It would be quite a shame to disturb your rest.”
Droville stared at it coldly, seemingly contemplating how to dismantle it. He let out a scoff at its words, pushed the door open, and walked in. “Celine, this clone of yours… I don’t see much point in its existence anymore. I don’t know who it learned from, but it’s getting quite glib.”
The clockwork bird seemed to be triggered by a keyword. A sharp light flashed in its eyes, and it immediately reverted to Celine’s actual voice, mingled with the intermittent sound of artillery fire in the background. Celine sounded like she was losing her mind: “Droville! Don’t force me to come back just to hit you! I told you long ago you could destroy that thing. Stop calling it by my name! Are you doing this on purpose?”
She really did not want to know how that clone was embarrassing her.
Droville’s lips quirked up. The nightlight placed in the room emitted a soft glow, allowing him to reach Celoa’s bedside quite easily.
Celoa was sleeping soundly, his small hands balled into fists resting near his cheek. His face was flushed red, looking like a fragrant little cake that made one want to take a bite.
Curled up on the pillow next to him was a black cat. Sensing Droville’s presence, the previously lazy cat opened its eyes. Its violet pupils were somewhat vacant at first; then, it slowly stood up, leaped lightly to the floor, circled Droville’s calf once, and vanished into the shadows beside him.
The clockwork bird landed on Droville’s shoulder. Celine complained: “You’re too late, Droville. You have no idea how long I sang lullabies to get him to sleep. He’s still too young; he’s not used to sleeping alone.”
Droville remained noncommittal. He tucked Celoa in again and said, “He has to learn to live alone, otherwise he won’t be able to stay.”
But just as the words left his mouth, the soundly sleeping Celoa suddenly fell into a nightmare. His face turned pale, cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and he began muttering something while his hands moved unconsciously, as if trying to grab onto something.
Droville frowned. Before he could even think, his hand reached out and allowed Celoa to seize it. A large surge of demonic power flowed from his fingers into Celoa’s body, filling his meridians.
Wrapped in a familiar aura, Celoa felt warm all over. His eyelashes flickered slightly as if he were about to wake, but he soon drifted back into a deep sleep.
Celine said worriedly, “Droville, this can’t go on. Celoa’s constitution isn’t suited for the Demon Realm. If we don’t solve this problem, we’ll have to send him back to the Human Realm.”
A flicker appeared in Droville’s eyes. A faint sense of reluctance spread through his heart. He stared hesitantly at his fingers being held so tightly; he could feel the damp sweat in the child’s palm. It was too tight, and too warm—it made one hesitate, unable to make the decision to abandon him.
He thought for a long time, or perhaps it was only a few minutes.
“I will take him to the High Wizard for treatment. Clearing the demonic miasma for him is not a major issue.”
Celine fell silent. Witch doctors in the Demon Realm were notoriously temperamental, and the High Wizard was the worst of them all—he gave face to no one. Droville going there would likely be an unpleasant ordeal. It seemed Celoa really was special in his heart.
Thinking of this, Celine suddenly asked, “Then in what capacity will he stay? You know most people in the Demon Realm are xenophobic, and Celoa’s meridians are far too pure. I’m afraid his family belongs to the side that is very close to the Heavenly Realm.”
Droville withdrew his hand. Hearing this, he waved it dismissively and replied carelessly, “His family is his family. I am raising Celoa now, so Celoa is mine. It’s not for others to gossip about.” He paused, then added:
“I am considering making him my godson.”
This sentence was like a bomb that left Celine dazed. She couldn’t help but flap her wings and fly up, circling Droville anxiously several times, her tone filled with disbelief.
“Are you sure? If you take him as your godson, everyone else who expects you to take—”
“I do not tell lies.”
Droville didn’t let her finish. He turned and left the room, leaving only one final instruction.
“I’m coming to pick up Celoa to set out tomorrow morning. Remember to wake him.”
Celine folded her wings and landed by Celoa’s pillow, gently pecking his face. For some reason, she had a premonition: Celoa’s arrival really would completely change Droville.
Early the next morning, Celoa was plucked from his blankets to pack his luggage. He yawned sleepily, feeling sluggish and wishing he could go back for a nap, yet his eyes were full of expectation.
He asked, “Where is Dro taking me?”
Droville was leaning against the door. Hearing his name, he raised his eyes slightly and smiled. “For a walk. And to take care of your health while we’re at it.”
That sounds like bad news.
Celoa unconsciously touched his cheek, his expression turning bitter. He keenly sensed that “taking care of health” definitely involved drinking bitter medicine. Thus, before they had even set out, he began to feel miserable in advance.
Droville glanced at the child, who had suddenly withered like a sun-dried radish, and a flash of triumph from a successful prank crossed his eyes.
He waved his hand, and the items packed by the bed were transferred into a spatial bag. Celoa sat on the edge of the bed, swinging his legs, and obediently reached out both arms toward him. His voice was soft and sweet as he called out like a spoiled child, “Dro, huggy.”
Droville stepped forward and scooped Celoa up, letting him sit on his arm. He warned, “Hold on tight. If you get tossed out, I won’t save you.”
Hearing this, Celoa immediately tightened his arms, circling Droville’s neck in a death grip and burying his face hard into the man’s shoulder, as if trying to burrow into his chest.
Droville nearly lost his breath. He patted Celoa’s back with a mix of helplessness and regret, sighing, “No need to be that tight. I’m going to be strangled to death by you.”
Only then did Celoa slowly loosen his grip a little.
Droville didn’t bring anyone else on this trip, so he hadn’t prepared any other flying tools. Generally, he used magic to teleport or used the magic arrays between cities.
However, Celoa’s body was even weaker than he thought. After a few magic array transfers, the boy was already dizzy and looking pale. He slumped weakly on Droville’s shoulder, his voice faint. “Dro, when can we stop? I feel like I’m going to throw up…” Before he could finish, he covered his mouth and dry-heaved twice, his eyes filled with physiological tears.
Droville gently patted his back, feeling guilty. He hadn’t considered things thoroughly enough. Fortunately, they weren’t far from their destination. After thinking for a moment, he gave up on the final magic array transfer and coaxed, “We won’t use the arrays anymore. We’ll just wander around; we’ll arrive by the afternoon anyway.”
Celoa’s eyes finally regained some life. He looked left and right, his eyes full of wonder. He had never been to such a lively place—the bustling crowds, the shouting street vendors, the delicious-smelling food, and the beautiful clothes. Everything was a scene Celoa couldn’t have even imagined in his dreams.
Droville rubbed his head and didn’t restrict his movements. After casting a protective spell on him, he set him down and gave him some money.
He looked at a shop nearby and said warmly, “Play here by yourself for a bit. Don’t run far. I have some business to attend to in that shop. If you need me, go to that place. Do you understand?”
Celoa looked up and listened intently. Once he understood how to handle emergencies, he couldn’t wait to explore the novelties around him.
But he didn’t notice that a group of people had already set their sights on him from a distance.
In front of a mask stall, several demon youths were pushing and shoving. Their fingers slid over the masks as if they were picking one out, but their gazes were actually fixed on Celoa.
“Golden hair, skin so white… definitely an outsider.”
“Boss, should we scare him? He’s so cute; it would look great to see him cry from being bullied.”
“Are you sick? Since when did your tastes get so twisted? If you want to bully someone, go look for those punks at the end of the street.”
“That person who didn’t show his face looks like a big shot. I feel like this cutie’s end might be a bit tragic. You don’t think he was caught to be eaten, do you?”
“Probably not. We don’t have that many extremists here. But still, someone like him shouldn’t appear in the Demon Realm. How about we do something to scare him so he doesn’t come back? It is quite dangerous, after all.”
The stall owner had long since lost his patience. These kids were crowding the stall and driving away other customers without buying anything. He pounded the table hard, revealing sharp fangs, and spoke fiercely: “Hey! You brats! If you aren’t buying, get out of the way! You’re ruining my business.”
The youths glanced at each other, picked out the most hideous and terrifying masks, paid, and hurried into a nearby alley.
Celoa was wandering the streets alone. He was curious about everything and wanted to try everything, but he was ultimately a bit timid by himself. In the end, he just looked. His stomach started growling at some point, and he licked his lips, silently encouraging himself to be brave and buy something to eat.
Thus, when he saw a man passing by with a straw pole stuck with countless red fruits, he jogged over and grabbed the man’s hem.
“Mister, I want to buy a stick of fruit.”
The man stopped and looked down. Seeing a cute child, a gentle smile instinctively appeared on his face. He half-squatted and asked softly, “Little one, there are three flavors here. Which kind do you want to buy?”
Celoa blinked. Looking at the different fruits, he was clearly conflicted and couldn’t make a choice. The man, however, was unusually patient, constantly rotating the pole so Celoa could observe each kind closely.
“I want this red one. It looks very sweet.” Celoa took the fruit offered to him, then held up his coin purse, pulled it open, and spread it before the man. His eyes were bright and trusting. “Mister, take the money yourself.”
The smile in the man’s eyes deepened. He took a coin with the smallest value, then helped Celoa zip up the purse and tucked the hanging bag inside his clothes. After doing all this, he didn’t leave immediately. Instead, he looked around with concern and asked, “Little one, where are your parents? How can they let you run around here alone? They aren’t being very attentive.”
Celoa had a round fruit stuffed in his mouth, making his speech muffled. He looked confused at the man’s question. He pointed to the shop just a few meters away and answered obediently, “In there.”
The man looked at the shop’s name and let out a sigh of relief. He stood up but didn’t forget to warn: “Don’t go running off everywhere. Just stay here, otherwise you might run into bad people.”
Celoa was very obedient. He could sense this person wasn’t a bad guy, so he squatted in a corner to eat his red fruit, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the shop, waiting quietly for Droville to return.
But even if he didn’t look for trouble, trouble found him.
He felt a sudden grip on his stomach, his vision went black, and in the blink of an eye, he was in a different place.
His face was pressed against a wall. The rough surface rubbed uncomfortably, though it wasn’t enough to break the skin. His arms were pinned behind his back. Celoa was a bit dazed. He tried to struggle and heard a man’s gruff voice.
“Don’t move! Do you know where this is? You dare to come here?”
Celoa was even more at a loss. He blinked, his head spinning, and answered weakly, “This is the Demon Realm…”
“?” The voice suddenly went up an octave in shock. “You knew that and still followed someone here? This place doesn’t welcome kids like you! You’ll be eaten if you come here, don’t you know that?!”
Celoa let out an “Ah.” He didn’t understand what the person meant. His hands were released, and he was spun around. He squinted and looked cautiously at his captors. His heart was in his throat, but what met his eyes were a series of faces that were uglier than ugly—one couldn’t even call them human.
He froze on the spot, his expression going blank for a second.
The youths holding Celoa were clearly dissatisfied with his reaction. They leaned their faces closer until their giant eyeballs were almost touching Celoa’s face. They threatened in low voices: “You aren’t allowed to come back here, got it? Otherwise, the end for you is being eaten by people like us. Once you’re eaten, you’ll never be able to go home again, you hear?” Having said that, they collectively pulled a mechanism under their masks, and several thick, long red tongues dropped out, swaying as they moved—extraordinarily ugly.
Celoa’s lip trembled. He was already scared to death, and now with a bunch of ugly monsters surrounding him, he couldn’t hold it in anymore. He blinked, and mist immediately clouded his eyes. Then, under the nervous and confused gazes of the group, he burst out crying with a loud “Waaaaa!”
The youths, who were alert and ready to deal with a child’s attack, were stunned. This was not what they imagined. According to the normal process, the kid should have hit them. Why was he crying from fear?
“I say, stop crying! Be a bit tougher!” The youth holding Celoa spoke in a panicked tone. He didn’t know where to put his hands—he wanted to wipe away the tears but also wanted to hug and comfort him. He was losing his mind over the crying. He forgot to lower his voice, exposing his youth. “You should have just punched us! I wasn’t even using much force; you could have broken free easily. Why are you crying? Are people from the outside all this cowardly?”
The other youths were already on the verge of running away, their scalps tingling with nervousness.
“Boss, did you use too much force? When you broke the bones of those punks at the street corner, they didn’t cry this hard.”
“Boss, you’re the one who did it, so you’re the one who comforts him! The idea was just to scare him a little, but you made him cry—that’s over the top.”
The youth holding Celoa had unconsciously let go. His head ached, and he even started to doubt himself, staring at his hands and muttering, “Am I really that strong now? But I didn’t even use one percent of my strength…”
He was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice Celoa’s hand sneaking forward. Celoa grabbed the mask. The youth instinctively leaned back to break free, but in the next second, the mask was pulled straight off. He turned his head away somewhat awkwardly, but his entire face was exposed to Celoa’s eyes.
It was actually a very clean, handsome face.
Celoa’s eyes widened. The fear from being scared evaporated, and he even wanted to reach out and touch the boy’s face. The youth, however, immediately set him down and covered his face, saying muffledly:
“Don’t look at my face. Watch out or I’ll hit you.”
Celoa stared at him and accused slowly, “But you were the one who was mean to me first. You caught me, you pinned me to the wall—my face hurts from being pressed—and you scared me. You haven’t even apologized.”
“And you saw my face, so why won’t you let me see yours? It’s not fair at all.”
The youth shielded his face and argued righteously, “That was to scare you, to let you know this place is dangerous for you! Don’t you know you can’t just come here whenever you want?”
Celoa’s eyes darted. His lip curled again, and he made a move as if to cry, covering his eyes and accusing: “Waaaaa! You’re bullying me! I’m going to tell my Papa! He’ll definitely help me teach you a lesson!”
the youths’ expressions froze. It wasn’t that they were afraid of this “Papa”—at worst they could just run away—but they really couldn’t handle a child’s crying. They glanced at each other and finally resigned themselves to comforting him.
“Stop crying! I’ll let you see, okay? How can you cry this much?”
But before the words even landed, they saw Celoa let go of his eyes. Those eyes were flashing with mischief; there wasn’t a trace of a tear. The little rascal was fake-crying.
Celoa plopped down on the ground, resting his chin on his hands as he observed them. He asked curiously, “Why did you want to scare me?”
The lead youth rubbed his nose awkwardly, his gaze wandering as if he were too embarrassed to say. But seeing Celoa’s sincere and pure gaze, his heart ultimately softened. He couldn’t bear to let him fall into danger again.
“Because you aren’t a demon. You clearly have a bloodline that leans toward the Light. Demons hate people like you. If you aren’t strong enough, you might be caught and killed and eaten by bad people. And in the Demon Realm, that’s not even a crime. If you get caught, you die for nothing.”
Celoa puffed out his cheeks unhappily, defending Droville and the others indignantly: “Don’t talk nonsense! Clearly… clearly there’s nothing like that over at the Demon Capital. Everyone is very nice to people like me.”
The youth looked at Celoa with pity. “That’s because the Capital has Lord Droville. He’s a neutralist; he’s not close to other races, but he doesn’t exclude them either. Outsiders like you can only have a decent life there. This area is managed by another Lord. He and several other Lords are extremists. As long as you’re here, outsiders are just prey to be killed at will.”
“So don’t come here again.”
Celoa’s eyes were dazed. He wanted to ask more, but the youths seemed to see something. After a hurried goodbye, they ran off. He didn’t even have a chance to call them back. He could only stand there dazed, holding his fruit, his face scrunched up from the various confusions in his mind.
A pair of hands suddenly reached out from behind and pinched his waist. Celoa instinctively leaned back into the person. Before he could react, he was being held by Droville. He tilted his head and leaned dependently against the man’s chest.
Droville gently brushed back his hair and asked, “What’s wrong? You’re covered in sweat. Did you run into anything interesting?”
Celoa thought about the people he had just met but decided not to tell Droville about these troubling matters. He just pressed his cheek affectionately against Droville’s and held up the red fruit, offering it generously. “The red fruit is very tasty. Dro, you try one too.”
Droville lowered his eyelashes, staring at the stick of red fruit—the most common and ordinary thing in the Demon Realm. He lightly bit off one and took it into his mouth. To his surprise, it tasted incredibly sweet, better than any food he had ever eaten.
Celoa’s eyes lit up. He snuggled into Droville’s arms and pressed the fruit back to his lips.
“Dro can eat them all. I’ve had enough.”
Droville laughed softly and turned his head away, leaving the rest for Celoa. Watching Celoa chew vigorously with puffed cheeks, his heart felt warm again. He thought: I will definitely keep Celoa. It was just a simple physical issue, and he had plenty of ways to solve it. But this person… once missed, would never be found again.
Celoa didn’t know what Droville was thinking. He silently ate his fruit, his eyes curved into smiles from the sweet taste. Droville’s embrace was very warm, shielding him from the wind. Leaning against him, he felt that everything here wasn’t so scary after all.
He looked at the bustling market, thinking of the kind man and the well-meaning youths. the worry that had just risen was wiped away. He felt that, even in the Demon Realm, there were still more good people.
And he firmly believed that no matter what he encountered, Dro would protect him. He wouldn’t be harmed.
Still, a small seed of doubt was planted in Celoa’s heart. Why exactly do demons hate outsiders to this extent? And what about Droville? What would he think of my true identity?
He felt both uneasy and expectant about the day he would tell Droville who he really was.