A demon kills a man's girlfriend to harvest his grief into a powerful demon slaying sword. How does he make the demon pay?

It was a typical Tuesday evening when it happened. Malcolm had just finished a late night shift at work and was walking home, a bottle of wine clutched in one hand and his girlfriend, Lacy, in his arms, when the demon attacked. <br><br>The demon was an old one, and it had heard of the infamous ‘Sword of Regret’. It was said that a man could harvest his deepest and most painful regrets, then forge them into a sword that could slay any demon, no matter how old and powerful.<br><br>The demon had no intention of becoming the sword’s material, but Lacy had the misfortune of being the nearest thing to ‘deepest and most painful regret’ the demon could find. Malcolm had been a virgin when they first met, but she had shown him the ways of love and helped him break his curse. It was a story he used to tell and laugh about, but the demon did not care for such things.<br><br>With a wave of its hand, Lacy was gone. Malcolm didn’t even know he was attacked, because he was so caught up in his own thoughts. He never once considered the possibility of the demon stealing her soul, he thought that maybe she had simply grown tired of his presence and had left, that maybe he wasn’t good enough. <br><br>The demon left him alone, but only because it knew that grief and regret would come soon enough. It was right. Malcolm found himself alone in his apartment, the front door open, a trail of broken glass leading out the back door, and a faint hum filling his ears.<br><br>When he came to, he was in a field of green grass and the sky was black with clouds. He couldn’t remember how he got there, and for a moment, he panicked. Was he hallucinating? Was he going crazy? Was Lacy still alive? <br><br>He ran, he ran as fast as he could, but the further he went, the more tired he got. He stumbled, he fell, he cried. He couldn’t remember ever crying so hard. He called out to Lacy, but there was no response. He screamed and he begged the universe to bring her back.<br><br>And then, he remembered. The demon had taken her. It was the only logical explanation he could come up with. <br><br>He returned to his town, but he could not bring himself to go to their apartment. He stayed at his friend’s house, and his friend asked what had happened. Malcolm could not bring himself to tell the truth, so he simply said that she had left him, that she had grown tired of him and left.<br><br>The demon visited him in his dreams that night, it laughed at him for not understanding the purpose of its visit. Malcolm woke up crying, knowing that something was wrong, knowing that he could not just live his life anymore.<br><br>And so he forged the sword of regret, out of his grief and his pain and his regret. He made the sword, and then he set out to make the demon pay.