Maō.

The Demon King, Arcadius Aurelius Vermont...

Just when had the world started to call him that?

Was it when he was a starving orphan at the age of eleven, enduring cruelty and neglect in a coastal city? When the food given to him was so unbearably salty it drove him into a rage, one that erupted into an uncontrollable inferno of Mana, reducing the entire city and its inhabitants to nothing but ash?

Perhaps the title began there, with the anguished cries of thousands echoing into history, all because a single boy lashed out at the world's indifference.

Or perhaps it was when, at the age of twelve, Arcadius destabilized an entire nation with surgical precision, not out of vengeance or necessity, but curiosity.

He sought to understand power, what it meant to wield it, and how easily it could be taken from others.