2 A complicated past. [I]

Now let me take the liberty to explain how I got into this situation in the first place. Commence the flashback!

It was a stormy night. Yes, that sounds sappy, but stick with me.

It was a sap- stormy night and my castle had been invaded by some unwelcome visitors. The visitors were akin to those annoying relatives who tell you the day before their arrival and then come barging in. Unwelcome yet expected.

A male mage, a female mage and a female warrior. The two mages were wearing matching skimpy armour and had their faces out for the world to see, while the warrior was wearing appropriately thick armour with a helmet hiding her face. She definitely put some work into her look, or rather, she was the only one appropriately dressed for a battle.

"YOU FILTHY DEMON LORD, WE'VE COME TO STOP YOU AND SAVE THE WORLD!" Yelled the mage man. See? Cliched as heck.

"Bwahahahaha! You vermin actually think you can hold up to me- the great demon lord?! How impudent!"

Okay, I admit, that speech was a lapse of judgment on my part during my dark and somewhat delusional (if you can even call it that) era. I was rather flamboyant. Too flamboyant. But I have been reflecting on it ever since.

I apologize.

"AAAARRRRGHHH!" He wailed and his voice cracked like some pubescent boy.

'Heh... that's sorta embarrassing.'

I realised that the male mage was in fact a magic swordsman as he rushed towards my throne with a fabricated broad sword in hand. The female warrior ran right behind him. But she cast an invisibility spell on herself almost immediately and masked all her presence.

While I was preoccupied with finding the warrior's location (let's call her W for warrior), the magic swordsman, (let's call him S since he's a swordsman) came in with a horizontal slash.

A strong attack, but one that was extremely predictable. I simply stepped back and let the gap between us negate any chance that he had at damaging me. Of course, that was a little conceited of me, because the next second, spikes of ice emerged from his blade and attempted to pierce me.

Too bad for him, there was a gap between us yet again. Not a gap caused by me stepping back this time, rather a gap formed by my innate ability, space manipulation. Basically... I used a portal to send the spikes behind me.

Using this opportunity I kicked the man's torso and sent him flying behind. By behind, I meant the other side of my gargantuan throne room.

He went a little further than I expected and blasted through the door too.

Yikes!

"HORRRAAA!!" The mage woman (I'll call her M, for mage) shouted and ran towards the door.

'What's wrong with those two? How could they leave a fight just like that? I mean have some sense of occasion.'

"YIINA! STAY THERE! I'M FINE!" His voice came from outside.

'Hoh? He's a lot tougher than I expected.'

But also dumber than I expected. Why would he call something out like that? It was the perfect opportunity to launch a secret attack. That dumb ass.

'Speaking of secrets, where the heck is the female wa-'

"WOAH!" I exclaimed as a sword brushed right past my helmet. W appeared out of thin air. The Hero, W, had the ability to manipulate time. Had I not known that I would've taken a hit straight to my face.

I decided to not go that easy on her or else the battle would've been too one-sided. Even if my goal wasn't necessarily to win... I had an image to uphold.

I grabbed her blade with my arm and attempted to snatch it away, but it was a little too sharp and my thumb got cut off. I should have learned my lesson with sharp things when I dismembered my leg playing with my scythe a couple of years ago. It took two whole weeks to regenerate.

Before I could centre my attention back on the issue in hand, a blizzard originated from outside and engulfed the entire throne room.

Damn it! S was fighting off from a distance. He released blades of ice into the throne room that impaled everyone inside including his companions. The healer mage woman healed everyone instantaneously. Everyone except me of course.

Even I took a few wounds from his attack. There were a few too many crystals to portal away.

Without giving me a second to rest, earthly structures started growing from the ground and started spouting molten rock. Explosions spread all around the throne room, and the roof got blown off clean.

'Volcanoes? Seriously?

Who did this?' I looked around the room frantically until I found the culprit.

It was M. Apparently she was a powerful mage too. As soon as she finished healing those two, she released a tectonic spell.

They really were going all out.

I only had a single strategy remaining out of the two that I made. The insufficient one was waiting for them to self destruct and the one remaining was, divide and destroy.

'If the healer is gone I would only need to take the others out once.'

I erected a protective barrier and stepped back.

"You vermin have pissed me off to an unfathomable extent. I shall now show you the wrath of the demon lord!" In terms of power, the first tier- Demon lord's Wrath ranked pretty low. I was more peeved than worried for my safety.

I displayed a lot more miasmic pressure when I was discussing politics with the demon kings than I did now. It was harder to keep them in check than it was to fight against this bunch.

Anyhow, the wings on my back detached themselves and I took flight. The sky was now open for me. As I climbed higher and higher the scale of the fight suddenly became clear.

A large radius around the castle was bubbling with magma and the magma was rapidly getting cooled down by the blizzard. As soon as I got up in the place where I wanted-

'A siren? Wings so white that they glowed under the dark sky ascended from the remnants of my throne room.'

W came flying at me.

From the other side, a huge iceberg structure ascended from the molten rocks. The falling rain froze entirely and the cloud came crashing down. It was S' deed.

M was still on the ground but she created a geyser aimed right at me.

They really showed me what five whole years of preparation and dedication for a single murder looked like. But I'd be damned if it actually went just how they planned.

I drew their attention to the sky, now it was their turn to be astonished.

One step forward, and I was on the ground next to the healer mage. Teleportation was another use for space manipulation.

I could feel M's sudden terror and the confusion from those two after seeing my disappearance.

Usually, and logically, I should've killed her on the spot since she was there to take my life and all. But I had my own demon lord fantasies to fulfil.

What fantasies you ask? I really wanted to torture her. Maybe fill her room with three active mosquitos, or give her the same food to eat every day, or maybe have someone tickle her for an hour while I laugh at her laughing. Incredibly devious, I know,

Anyways, the first step would be to render her unconscious.

"Drain." I cast as I grabbed her neck and lifted her up. Her pool of mana was large. Large enough to repair all the damage to my body.

As soon as she got knocked out, a slide of ice swirled around the throne room as a man rode across it and straight at me. "YOU BASTARRRRRDDDD!!"

He shouted assuming that I put a full-stop on her life.

HAH! What a retar- I mean what a mentally incapable being!

One step and I teleported right behind him. I pulled out my scythe from the space storage and chopped his legs off.

"YOU LITTLE-!" He turned around immediately with his inhumane reflexes while sliding off his calves and used his last attempt to attack me.

Too bad for him, I had my scythe right there for him to walk into. And he did. My scythe pierced his abdomen.

I lifted him up and threw him next to M. Now S and M laid sprawled across the ground.

Now let me remind you… they were the ones who came here to kill me. I was just living peacefully here. And I still didn't kill both of them. I just incapacitated both of them with the least amount of damage I needed to do to them. It was a coincidence that S required a more brutal method than M.

But then again, one tried to turn me into a spiky Popsicle and the other tried to melt me alive. So I can't tell if you'd call treatable dismemberment brutal or not.

"Now where's the third one? Did she run away?" I looked around for her but she wasn't anywhere my excellent senses could reach. I could still sense her when she tried to mask herself completely but my senses really couldn't pick up anything related to her. She really did run away.

The throne room was desolate and smoke was rising from the rapidly cooled ground. And far away, there was my throne chopped up.

This would be an absolute chore to clean.

Well, better start now-

"Guess I'll just go back then…" Feigning ignorance, I started to walk towards my throne after storing my scythe away and deleting all the mess those two created. "I didn't peg her for the type to run away, though. And I really needed her powers too. What a loser, a shame to humanity. Only if she got pissed off and tried to kill me again. I might just kill these two for good you know?~" I taunted.

All of a sudden the world turned black and white and a sudden pain permeated throughout my body.

One blink.

Right in front of me was a woman clad in thick armour, and a sword that had pierced through my heart.

'Time manipulation can be used as teleportation too huh?'

"Who said anything about running away?" Those were her first words to me.