Saintess
Saintess
Disgust.
What the demon felt was an emotion it hadn't experienced in the past several hundred years.
It wasn't the disgust that came from an act of violence, but the disgust he felt toward an opponent who repeatedly and without a shred of hesitation interfered with his every move—a feeling he had only ever inflicted on others his entire life; he could never have been the one to suffer it.
And yet, that impossible thing was happening right then.
He was annoyed, slightly angry. But regardless, the human's fist just stubbornly kept interfering with the formation of a proper body.
To wield his full strength, he needed to use human blood as a medium to compose Magic Power and manifest a body in reality, yet suddenly he couldn't even get started.
It wasn't particularly painful at the moment. It was just unbearably annoying, irritating, and infuriating.
[Enough... stop it!]
"You cut it out and just disappear!"
The mouth, barely formed again, managed to spit out a single word before bursting from the punch.
The demon was starting to grow impatient.
No matter how much he had incapacitated Epaga's followers at first, they were Demonfolk, and they were already healing themselves and coolly sizing up the situation.
As if that weren't enough, even those who had killed his followers were heading this way.
Even if his body were perfectly manifested, it was a situation where victory would be hard to be certain of; if he ended up fighting them all in this state, this incarnation—a rare success—would come to a futile end.
The demon made up his mind and triggered another explosion.
The blood that shot up like thorns before bursting was of a level where even a glancing touch would be a major threat.
It would have been even better if the human who had been tenaciously sticking to him had gotten caught in it, but that sly human noticed it like a ghost and put distance between them.
It was clear he was someone skilled in the aura that humans supposedly used.
In that case, if he only dealt with the Demonfolk, he could kill him in the blink of an eye.
[You will pay the price for making me use my power while unstable...!]
The process of converting human blood into Magic Power began to occur at an abnormally rapid pace.
Because efficiency was ignored and only speed was prioritized, he felt less than half the power that should have been felt normally.
The demon suppressed the urge to click his tongue and, using the Magic Power he had so rapidly gathered, used his power on the Demonfolk.
[Go have a nice chat with your god!]
The exchange between a god and their followers occurred under much more concrete and precise conditions than humans imagined.
It was commonly thought that a god's whim or favor caused it to occasionally descend, but in reality, it simply depended on whether the 'path' linking the dimension where gods dwell to the world's boundary met specific conditions and grew sturdier, or not.
Since artificially using the 'path' with a god's power risked collapsing the boundary and throwing Balance into disarray, they guided their followers by seizing the occasional opportunities that arose with the world's flow.
Humans called that a revelation or an oracle.
But not just anyone could receive one. That was exactly what the demon sought to exploit.
The reason gods picked and chose whom to have such conversations with was simple.
If one lacked ability, far from receiving a revelation, they couldn't handle the divinity and would lose consciousness.
There were those who, as they lived, raised their own stature and could endure the burden of communication postnatally, but they were at best a minority, so even they had no choice but to carefully pick people.
In other words... if one knew which god they believed in, knew the 'path' that god used for communication, and could forcibly push a person's consciousness through it.
Then one could forcibly make someone who could not withstand divinity lose consciousness.
Originally, it was a method used to impersonate a god and fake a revelation, but the demon, who had displayed quick wits in a crisis, decided to use it to incapacitate the enemy.
Although that one Demonfolk woman who radiated the power of a Saintess would return intact after meeting her god... even she could not possibly return quickly.
During a revelation or oracle, the target became extremely vulnerable for a long while.
That was why humans protected saints under heavy guard. There was a reason for it all.
"What? Why are they all suddenly dropping like flies?"
Thus, the demon felt satisfaction as he watched the Demonfolk incapacitated according to his plan and the human looking around at them.
If he could just eliminate the Demonfolk's support, that human would pose no threat at all. If he were strong enough to be a threat, he would already have suffered enough damage to be flung outside the dimension. Looking forward to the pleasure that the one-sided violence he would inflict on the being who had given him disgust, the demon smiled wickedly through a proper body, no longer a lump of blood.
◈
Revelations and oracles were always accompanied by omens. Deoni thought of this as the god's consideration toward them.
While receiving a god's call, their consciousness departed from the body.
Even if there was an external shock during that process, they could not return at will.
If someone stabbed them, even if it was a fatal blow, they would die just like that.
That was why Deoni understood at once that the sensation of revelation she was feeling now was an artificial result of the demon's sorcery.
It was an unimaginable miscalculation.
There were many records describing demons, but a demon capable of this was by no means common.
Regardless of strength, it was clearly a being that had lived for an immensely long time and had experience traversing dimensions.
A situation where they might pay for failing to anticipate danger with their lives.
More than worrying about her own safety, Deoni worried about her brethren who had accompanied her and the human who was fighting alongside her, and she prayed to the god.
Fortunately, the god answered her prayer, telling her not to worry.
Because the communication wasn't through voice or language, Deoni could fully sense the Demon God Epaga's intent.
It was something already foreseen. Rather, it was something the god had aimed for.
Understanding that it was the god's will to have clear communication with her through this series of events, Deoni felt a strong question.
She didn't want to question the god's arrangement, but couldn't help but think. Why did the god have to go this far?
What came back was intense regret.
It was a situation where communication would have been difficult without such expedients, and even using them, time was short.
Therefore, rather than resolving her doubts, Demon God Epaga had no choice but to continue the conversation by giving answers she could not yet understand.
Even those answers would only raise new questions for Deoni, but Demon God Epaga had no time.
◈
[Ah, it's a sensation I haven't felt in a very long time.]
Though it was a sensation far short of what he'd expected, he still felt power enough to easily crush a mortal.
Just having completed the body's formation put him in a good mood, to the point he briefly considered toying with the human he'd wanted to tear to pieces before killing him painlessly.
Of course, that thought only lasted a moment.
The demon, who had truly been plagued by the unpleasant sensation of being obstructed for the first time in ages, resolved to tear apart the human who was staring at the fallen Demonfolk with a puzzled look.
First, planning to instill terror by tearing off an arm without anyone noticing, the demon lunged at the human.
As the face that still showed no understanding of what had happened drew closer, the demon couldn't contain his rising anticipation and had to struggle to not just split the human's torso in two right then.
Just imagining that clueless face filling with despair, agony, and fear after losing part of its body made this forced incarnation begin to feel satisfying.
While indulging in such happy fantasies, the demon lunged, got punched in the face, and without a moment to perceive the situation, tumbled in a direction contrary to his will and slammed into a wall.
[...Huh?]
He was too late to understand what had happened, and too late to realize that the sensation on his face was pain.
Because of that, the demon, despite half his face having been hideously distorted by the blow, looked at the human with a very awkward expression, still wearing a wicked smile.
"And... what did you do that I'm suddenly sensing Magic Power from you?"
It was impossible.
Something had gone wrong.
No matter how insufficient his power, being hit like this by a human from whom he felt nothing was impossible.
A human should normally have felt intimidated, crushed by his Magic Power without even understanding why.
But for some reason, the human not only clearly perceived his Magic Power but, far from being frightened, was actually grinning evilly and glaring at him.
As if... he'd just gotten caught...
"I'll show you a fun magic trick where your head gets ripped off in the blink of an eye."
Suddenly, he felt the sensation of his entire body's Magic Power being forcibly connected to something external.
It wasn't a matter of how long it had been since he'd felt something like this—he had never felt it at all. Faced with an unknown sensation for the first time in his entire existence, the demon's smile rapidly vanished.
What on earth was this ominous sensation?
"Maybe it's because you're completely made of Magic Power? It's extremely easy."
Before the demon could properly understand what he was saying.
A sword was drawn from its scabbard.