-Seventy Years Later-

I lived my life alone from there on. My home was isolated, out in the wilderness and far from anyone Damien could hurt. At first I kept in contact via falcon letters, but after all I received was tragic news I stopped sending them. I buried Eileen's remains in the backyard, but they grave was dug up in the night and her body dragged off into the forest. I didn't bother trying to get it back; Damien was getting creative in his torments, and I didn't want to see what he would do with my beloved's corpse.
Nightmares occurred every night, illusion and shadows tormenting me with the faces of people I had failed.

Damien would appear now and again. The question was always the same. So was the answer.

Now I lay there on my deathbed, just as alone as always. Seventy years of torment and restlessness had taken their toll, even on my divinely enhanced body.

I let out a slow breath. Damien was already there.

"Please," He growled. "Kill me already. One last act of kindness, please Alione."

I didn't dignify him with a response.

"Alione." His voice was now warning. "Don't do this."

I looked him dead in the eye, those hollow pits. I closed my eyes, ignoring his howling roar of fury, and breathed my last.

-Damien-

I watched my last chance at freedom die.

I watched as his very soul drifted from his carcass, pulled upward to the heavens to join his friends.

The feeling welling within me transcended simple anger. It was beyond emotion and words.

Alione thought he could die before doing what he owed me? Not a chance.

My form broke apart, and a single beak of shadowy wings sent me beyond the sky and into the beyond. Around me, the eddies and whorls of the River of Souls spun around me. I gazed without eyes, searching for that spark of primal light.
There.

Like a shadow across the wall, I swept over Alione's soul, snatching it from the River and realigned with the mortal world.

The Primordial Light burned, but I ignored it. He thought I would let him leave, let him trap me like this until the end of time? No.

I sailed across the sky, looking for my target. Finally, one caught my eye. A small farming community, humble and pedestrian, just like Alione's own home. It would do now, and every incarnation hence. A farmer's wife was giving birth, a new soul being brought into the world.

With a hawk's swiftness, I passed through the delivery room, releasing Alione's spirit into the body of the babe. He wouldn't remember a thing, but the Light would return, the Hero reincarnated. My final words to him were simple.

A Curse.

"Never will you know release, until I do. Again and Again, you may slay me, again and again you may die, but eternal shall we struggle. Only in my true death, the Death of my Dark, will this cycle of misery and ruin end. This is my curse, Hero, my Spite. So long as I am allowed to live, I shall bring about pain and horror upon this world, and you will always return to stop me. Until I have my peace, you will never know yours."

I fled just as swiftly, without anyone the wiser.

I returned to that accursed place. The Well of Sorrows beckoned, having run dry so long ago.

It needed me, and I would need it moving forward.

Down there, monsters anew would be born, and raise havoc and death to the world.

The Hero would rise to this challenge, naturally. They would grow strong, empowered by the Light. Maybe strong enough to truly kill me, probably not. But they would always have to try, and I pray one will succeed.

My sacrifice brought an age of peace, however brief. Now, my life shall bring about an age of war.

I breathed in deep the brackish fumes of the Well, even as new monstrous life stirred in the silt underfoot. So is my decree, not as Damien, but as the Daemon Lord.