Earth's Saviour is the Heavenly Demon

The room was steeped in silence, broken only by the faint hum of a flickering fluorescent light above. The body on the floor, lifeless and still mere moments ago, suddenly began to change. 

A soft glow emerged from its core, faint at first, but growing rapidly in intensity. The dimly lit room was bathed in a blinding radiance, the brilliance so fierce that it blurred the details of the cluttered space—spilled plastic wrappers, stacks of dusty manga, and forgotten plates seemed to disappear in the glow.

The body didn't merely illuminate; it began to rise. Inch by inch, it defied gravity, the battered form of Eren Vance hovering a foot above the ground. The once broken and bruised figure seemed weightless, suspended in an almost divine stillness. 

But this was no act of salvation—there was something ominous in the air. The light flickered like an unstable flame, its brilliance accompanied by an unnatural crackling sound that echoed ominously through the room.

And then, just as suddenly as it began, the light vanished.

The room was plunged into silence once more, the faint hum of the light bulb returning like a distant echo. Eren's body dropped unceremoniously to the ground with a dull, sickening thud. 

The impact sent a shudder through the quiet apartment, stirring the piles of books and trash as if the room itself recoiled from what had just occurred.

For a moment, there was nothing but stillness. Then, the faintest twitch of a finger.

---

A low groan escaped the figure on the floor, breaking the suffocating silence.

"Aah..."

It was more a breath than a sound, strained and pained, as though dragged out of a throat unused to speech. The fingers moved again, curling slightly, followed by a faint tremor running through the arms and legs.

The figure stirred, its chest heaving as the first signs of life took root in the broken body. The man's eyes fluttered open, unfocused and glassy, as though they struggled to adjust to the dim light. His gaze rolled across the room, unfocused and sluggish, settling finally on the stained ceiling above him.

"Where... am I?"

The voice was hoarse, barely audible, a rasp born of desperation and confusion.

The figure attempted to rise, only to be met with a sharp, searing pain that shot through his body like fire. His limbs felt like lead, his skin stretched taut over his bones, every inch of him a battlefield of bruises and cuts. Yet amidst the haze of pain, one sensation dominated all others: thirst.

It was an overwhelming, consuming need, an ache that clawed at his throat like sandpaper. His lips parted as he croaked a single word, barely more than a whisper: "Water..."

---

He tried to move, dragging his battered frame across the cold, littered floor. His hands trembled as they found purchase on the ground, pushing against the debris of his neglected apartment. The pain was excruciating—every joint screamed in protest, every muscle strained under the weight of his frailty.

"Water... water..." The word became a chant, a desperate mantra that drove him forward.

The cracked tiles beneath his palms were slick with something cool, and he froze, blinking down at the small puddle of water that had spilled from a forgotten glass. 

His reflection wavered in the shallow pool, distorted and alien—a gaunt face with hollow eyes stared back at him, its bruises and cuts forming a grotesque tapestry of suffering.

Without thought, he lowered his face to the floor. His body moved on instinct, his mouth pressing against the cool liquid like a parched animal at a stream. 

The water was tainted with dirt and grime, but to him, it was ambrosia. He lapped at it greedily, his pride long forgotten in the haze of his desperation.

For a moment, the room was filled with the faint sound of slurping, a pitiful noise that echoed his helplessness.

---

As the last drops disappeared, his body trembled anew. The simple act of drinking had ignited a fire within him, a searing pain that coursed through his limbs and spine. A sound, halfway between a gasp and a scream, tore from his throat as his bones cracked and shifted audibly.

"Agh...!"

His hands clawed at the floor as the pain spread, each breath shallow and ragged. His body writhed uncontrollably, muscles spasming beneath his bruised skin. 

Sweat poured once again from his body, soaking through his tattered shirt and pooling on the ground beneath him. His teeth clenched, grinding against each other as his consciousness flickered on the edge of collapse.

It was only when the worst of it subsided that his mind began to clear, if only slightly. He sat back on his haunches, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his face contorted in confusion and agony.

"What... is this?" he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.

Memories began to surface, fragments of a life that wasn't his. A battlefield of ash and fire. The sound of clashing steel. A voice—his own voice, yet not his—shouting commands amidst the chaos.

"Wasn't I battling a transcendance in Xianyu Plains?" The thought came unbidden, his lips forming the words before he even realized he had spoken them aloud.

And then, more memories came, flooding his mind in a relentless tide. The betrayal. The pain. The blinding flash of a blade stabbing into his back.

"Mfker... who stabbed me?"

The realization struck him like a thunderclap. This wasn't his body. This wasn't his world. He remembered his final moments—the desperate fight against a celestial being, the betrayal that had cost him everything. 

He remembered the searing pain of the blade that had ended his life, the darkness that had swallowed him whole.

And yet here he was, alive. Or something close to it.

---

The man—no, the demon lord—sat in stunned silence, his breaths ragged and uneven. His body felt foreign, weak and frail in ways he couldn't comprehend. He could feel the scars of its past life, the bruises and cuts that adorned it like a grotesque canvas.

But it wasn't just the physical pain that tormented him. There was something deeper, something wrong.

The emotions of this body, the memories buried within it, gnawed at his mind like a parasite. Fear. Anguish. Despair. They weren't his emotions, yet they bled into his consciousness, threatening to overwhelm him.

His hand moved instinctively to his chest, clutching at the faint thrum of his heart. It was weak, barely strong enough to sustain him, but it beat nonetheless.

"This body..." he muttered, his voice laced with equal parts confusion and disgust. "What... have I inherited?"

As he sat there, the dim light casting long shadows across the room, the silence returned. But it wasn't the peaceful silence of before. It was heavy, oppressive, filled with the weight of unspoken truths and unanswered questions.

And in that silence, the demon lord began to piece together the fragments of his new reality, unaware of the storm that awaited him.