Royal Bastard’s Bloodstained Regression Chapter 44 44: Baptized in Bloodless Waters IV

The throne room rattled with each strike.

The Skeleton King's blows were brutal — a storm wrapped in iron.

Daemon's blade, scavenged from the dead, cracked with each parry. His arms trembled, bones humming from the force. One more clean hit, and his weapon would snap.

The king's voice, hollow and cold, cut through the air.

"Is that all? You can't even scratch , boy."

Daemon wiped blood from his lips, spitting it onto the stone.

"Tch...Shut up, old bones."

His mind raced.

The king wasn't moving like so rotted corpse. His swings had weight — precision — as if he hadn't forgotten what it ant to be alive. That wasn't normal.

Daemon narrowed his eyes, scanning the creature between parries.

A core. He has one. But not an Astra Core.

His breath steadied as he dodged the next vicious cleave.

Monsters didn't cultivate like humans. Their strength ca from sothing else — sothing primal.

He could feel it, faint but undeniable:

A Spiritual Core. The size. The density. The raw power.

Feral Rank? No. Predator Rank. Maybe even Overlord.

Daemon's teeth grit as he leapt back, barely dodging the arc of another swing.

A Predator-Rank monster, trapped in a king's corpse.

"So that's it. You've been stuck here so long, even death got bored waiting for you."

The king let out a low, dry laugh.

"You talk too much for soone already halfway to the grave."

His bony fingers lifted — eleven thin, glowing blades of light unfurled behind him like spectral wings.

"Eleven Blades of Gold."

They shot forward.

Daemon threw himself aside, but two slashed past, cutting deep into his side and shoulder. He skidded across the cold floor, blood saring behind him.

The king advanced, slower now, savoring the mont.

And then, the final shift.

A fresh wave of power wrapped around the skeleton like molten iron — his battered armor creaked as it expanded slightly, his aura thickening to a crushing weight.

"Judgnt Steel."

His final form.

Daemon's heart slamd against his ribs.

The gap was massive now. The difference between life and death had narrowed to a single thread.

"You can't take it, boy," the king rumbled.

"Leave the sword, and I'll give you a clean death."

Daemon staggered upright, hand pressed to his bleeding side. His vision blurred.

The cold stone floor pressed against his knees as his strength wavered. Blood oozed down his ribs, his breath ragged, his bones screaming from every failed clash.

This was bad.

For the first ti in years, a single thought pressed against his mind:

Am I going to die here?

All the pride. All the sches. All the hatred.

Was it worth it? Chasing the shadow of Gabriel — the perfect prince — for a lifeti of revenge?

He clenched his jaw as his core dimd. His mind whispered things it hadn't dared in years.

Maybe I was just arrogant. Maybe I was never strong enough to begin with.

The skeleton king's voice broke through his spiral.

"What is it, young man? Are you giving up?"

Daemon raised his head, lips splitting into a humorless grin.

"Giving up?" he echoed, voice dry and sharp. "Not yet."

The king's laugh echoed like bones rattling in a tomb.

"You poor fool. You should've stayed away from this place. Taken another path. Maybe even beco a hero... like ."

That damn word.

Hero.

Daemon blinked, stunned by the king's words.

A hero? This skeleton ,this butcher of his own people?

His voice ca out flat, cutting through the weight of the silence.

"Hero?" he repeated. "I don't know what kind of story you've told yourself... but the world doesn't rember you as a hero."

He stepped forward, voice colder now.

"You're just a bedti story. A warning for children. 'Obey, or the king who sold his soul will co for you in the dark.' That's the only legacy you left."

The skeleton king staggered back as if struck.

"What...?"

The old warrior's voice dropped, hoarse and brittle.

"You an... after the Great War,after everything I did Michael... took the glory?"

Daemon's expression stayed still, unreadable.

"Precisely."

"He's the one they called hero. After all he's the one who defeated the demon king."

For a long mont, the only sound was the faint drip of water from the stone ceiling.

The king stood frozen, sword slack in his gauntlet, and though his skull could show no expression — Daemon felt the shift. Felt the weight of it. The kind of hollow sadness that didn't belong to the dead, but to the betrayed.

A broken voice drifted from the empty helm.

"All those lives... all those faces I swore to protect."

"I watched them die. I let them die. I sacrificed my crown, my flesh, even my own na... all for the world. All for that sword."

The voice cracked.

"And in the end... the world forgot ."

Daemon stood there, still and quiet, for once not with mockery but with sothing deeper. Sothing like understanding.

Because the truth cut closer than he expected.

He had spent an entire lifeti trying to be the hero too.

Trying to earn the love of a kingdom that had already chosen his brother.

Trying to carve his na into history, only to be labeled a monster.

And here stood a king who had walked the sa road.

A soft, bitter smile tugged at Daemon's mouth.

"So even in the end... we were both used."

"And we both lost to the sa man."

The irony was suffocating.

The sa angel who shattered the Demon King's life — the sa na that stole Daemon's future.

Michael. Gabriel.

Two faces. One soul.