Nemo stared at the figure standing not far away with a shocked expression.
It had devoured him whole just now! With his signature ability!
Yet, there he was. Not a scratch on his noble coat. Not a hair out of place.
"Y-You..." Nemo stammered, his massive violet eyes widening. "How are you still alive?"
The figure, Prince Bane, smiled faintly. It was a pitying smile, the kind a teacher gives to a slow student.
"You still haven’t figured out the reason?" Bane asked, brushing a speck of imaginary dust from his sleeve. "I thought I already gave you enough hints."
"What are you talking about?!" Nemo roared, his voice shaking. "Y-You should have been devoured by my attack just now! I saw it! I felt it crush you!"
Nemo was in denial.
He refused to believe it. He had paid a heavy price to kill this insect. He had shrunk his domain. He had expended his essence. He had even lowered himself to cooperate with that other insect to create an opening.
And yet, the result was nothing.
"Sigh."
Bane let out a long breath.
"It seems you have been in this world too long. You have forgotten your origins," Bane muttered. He took a slow step forward. "Then... what if I do this?"
He closed his eyes briefly.
When they snapped open, the human facade was gone.
The whites of his eyes had vanished. His irises had turned into abyssal pools of pitch black, swirling with an ancient, cold energy.
Zzzzt.
A strange, jagged black symbol surfaced on his forehead, burning with a dark light.
Fwoosh.
The shadows behind him exploded outward. Two magnificent wings, crafted from pure, solidified darkness, unfurled from his back. They were vast and terrifying, blotting out the light of the Core.
"Gah?!"
Nemo trembled all over.
A strange, horrifying sensation washed over his body and soul.
However, it wasn’t fear of death.
It was the instinct of a servant facing their king.
He felt an overwhelming urge to lower his head. To submit. To kneel before this being and offer his loyalty.
’N-No!’
Nemo fought the urge, his mind screaming in protest.
’This shouldn’t be possible! I am an Overlord! I am a ruler of this domain! He is just a human! An insect!’
However, as Nemo looked closer at the figure, at the black wings, at the symbol on the forehead, something clicked.
Throb.
Fragments of memories, buried deep within his consciousness since the moment of his creation, began to resurface. His mind throbbed with excruciating pain as the mental blocks shattered.
He saw a throne of shadows. He saw an endless void. He saw a lineage that predated this world.
Then, slowly, the realization washed over Nemo like a bucket of ice water.
"Y-You are..." Nemo whispered, his voice trembling with absolute terror. "You are..."
Bane smiled, a devilishly charming expression that seemed to darken the world around them. He raised a finger and pressed it gently against his own lips.
"Shh."
The gesture effectively choked back whatever name Nemo was about to scream.
"B-But how?" Nemo whispered, his voice trembling as he stared at the symbol burning on Bane’s forehead. "This... this shouldn’t be possible. That bloodline... here?"
"Nothing is impossible," Bane chuckled. A strange, chaotic glint passed through his pitch-black eyes. "Now that you know who I am... what do you think about being my subordinate?"
He extended a hand.
"Serve me, and I will grant you a path back to true power."
Nemo stared at the hand. The terror in his violet eyes seemed to slowly morph into resignation. He lowered his massive head, his body shrinking until he was the size of a large panther, a submissive posture.
"O-Of course!" Nemo lowered his gaze. "I am willing to be your servant... my Prince!"
"Good," Bane nodded, satisfied. "Let’s form the Soul Contract then."
Nemo slowly walked forward. He stopped right in front of Bane and leaned in, pressing his forehead against the burning black symbol on Bane’s skin.
The air hummed with ancient magic.
The pact was initiated.
However, just as Bane began to weave the threads of the contract, a sharp, splitting pain exploded in his skull.
"ARGH!"
Bane gritted his teeth, his eyes widening.
"Gyahahahaha!"
A maniacal, distorted laugh erupted right in his face.
"Dumbass!" Nemo roared, his voice dripping with venom. "Did you really think I would become your slave just because of some fancy bloodline?! There is no way in hell!"
BOOM!
A massive shockwave of violet mental energy blasted outward from Nemo’s forehead.
It slammed into Bane with the force of a battering ram. Before he could even react or stabilize his soul, the connection was violently severed.
Bane’s figure flickered and shattered like glass. He was forcibly expelled from the space.
...
Silence returned to the void.
Nemo stood alone, panting heavily. His teeth gritted together, making strange, grinding noises that echoed in the emptiness. His eyes had lost their clarity, turning a mad, chaotic violet.
"Does that brat think he can own me?" Nemo hissed, clawing at the ground. "Does he think I am still that pathetic worm from back then?"
Hmph!
Memories, darker and colder than this void, flooded his mind.
He recalled how he had arrived in this world centuries ago.
He wasn’t an Overlord then.
He wasn’t even a Greater Beast.
He was just a common Nightmare Beast.
He now remembered the day the rift opened.
He remembered the sneering faces of the High Nobles, creatures bearing that exact same cursed mark on their foreheads.
They hadn’t deployed him here. They had discarded him.
He was thrown into the vortex like a piece of refuse, intended solely to soak up human spells and die so the ’true’ warriors could step over his corpse without soiling their boots.
"Don’t look down on me!"
Nemo roared, his claws tearing deep rifts in the fabric of the space.
He had been weak. He had been hunted. He had spent his first years in this world scurrying through the mud, surviving on scraps, narrowly escaping death a thousand times.
But he had survived.
He had hidden. He had devoured the weak. He had clawed his way up from the bottom of the food chain, evolving through sheer spite until he became the nightmare of this entire region.
He had built his own kingdom to bury that humiliating past.
And now...
Nemo looked at the spot where the boy had disappeared, his killing intent boiling over like lava.
"And now you come here... with that arrogant face... reminding me of them ?"
He bared his fangs, his violet eyes burning with madness.
"I will tear you to pieces, ’Prince’. I will show you that here... I am the King. "