The Demon Lord and the Grim Reaper (1)
The Demon Lord is also referred to as the Demon God. Though she maintains her physical form in the mortal realm, her authority is so immense that she may rightly be called a god. For this reason, even true deities hesitate to treat her lightly or make an enemy of her, depending on the extent of her power.
The Demon Lord commands Ruina, the mana of destruction, and her very existence scatters ruin across the world. Should she will it, the land would fill with toxic miasma, causing all living things to wither and die while the very shape of matter collapses. The stronger her power grows, the more pronounced this phenomenon becomes—yet it never spreads unless she desires it. Conversely, when a Demon Lord perishes, the world overflows with Vitana, the mana of life, bringing abundance, fertility, and health to all things. But where there is life, there must also be death; the Demon Lord is no exception to this natural law. Even after dying, she will resurrect after a hundred years.
A Demon Lord can only be truly and permanently slain if she is defeated by another demonian and stripped of her title, or if she willingly relinquishes the throne and passes it to another. Thus, even if the one called Demon Lord vanishes, another will always take her place. The title itself never disappears from the world.
A wicked Demon Lord floods her domain with unchecked power to expand her rule, while a benevolent one limits the release of Ruina so that only enough land remains for her followers to inhabit. Such is the cycle of life and destruction, written by Louis Henderson.
A city of eternal night where the sun never rises. The realm of the dead, where souls that reached neither heaven nor hell reside. A vast graveyard lying beyond the dimensional wall that no living being may cross. Yet the streets are lined with beautiful lanterns of every color, brimming with life and charm. Rotting corpses and weathered bones walk arm in arm, while beautiful banshees sing in the plazas to the music of ghostly pianos that play themselves. This is the world of the dead, where the pitch-black night lasts forever—the Underworld.
“You lot! Stop your nonsense and get lost!”
A flock of bats bearing the hideous, hooked-nosed faces of imps scattered with cackles as the guard at the Grim Reaper’s castle entrance drove them away. The guard, halberd in hand, spat in disgust—though nothing came out. The zombie guard beside him snorted.
“What spit do you think you’ve got left, you half-rotted skeleton?”
“Those damned Unseelie Court bastards are up to something again, I can feel it! They love their nasty pranks. Last time they filled the wine casks in the castle with filth and nearly got the head chef’s head chopped off!”
“He’s a Dullahan. His head’s already off.”
“No, that’s not—well, he is a Dullahan, so if his head comes off… I mean… Ah, forget it. Never mind.”
The skeleton guard gave up trying to explain his own joke and pressed a hand to his forehead. The zombie guard tilted his head in confusion, only for it to nearly fall off because his spine was too decayed. He frantically grabbed his head and tried to reattach it.
“Whoa, almost became a Dullahan there!”
“Heh heh heh, you’re better at jokes than I thought. Anyway, whenever trouble happens in the castle, we’re the ones who get blamed. You don’t want another pay cut for that spine surgery, do you?”
“Don’t even say it! That’s bad luck! The powerful ones never rot even if they’re zombies, but nobodies like me have to keep our bodies together with iron nails…”
While twisting his half-broken neck to realign it, the zombie guard spotted someone approaching. He cut off his grumbling, seized his halberd with one hand, and raised it warily. The motion made his loosely attached head tilt again, and in his attempt to fix it he accidentally swung the halberd and knocked the skeleton guard’s skull clean off. It rolled across the ground and splashed into the moat.
“W-who goes there?! Halt and state your identity!!!”
Clutching his own wobbling head with one hand, the zombie guard shouted at the intruder. The now-headless skeleton guard scrambled about on all fours, groping for his lost skull. The stranger ignored the warning and strode forward until she stood directly before them.
She carried herself with such regal poise that even the castle guards seemed beneath her notice. Her long, jet-black hair gleamed as it cascaded to her waist. A pair of horns, like those of a Giant Field Bison, swept forward from her brow, lending a fierce, combative air to her otherwise breathtaking beauty. Long lashes and crimson lips gave her the innocence of a maiden, yet her glowing red eyes, confident smile, and sharp fangs radiated the overwhelming presence of a conqueror. Her breasts were so full and supple they evoked the maternal grace of the goddess Astar, while the narrow, elegant waist beneath them was accentuated by the form-fitting dress she wore. Diamond-shaped cutouts along the fabric revealed the smooth plane of her abdomen, and her equally firm, rounded hips only heightened her seductive allure.
“You new here?”
“W-what did you just say?!”
“You don’t look like a fresh recruit. Don’t you recognize me?”
The woman addressed the zombie guard with complete familiarity and authority. Flustered, he nevertheless kept his weapon raised, remembering his colleague’s warning that any incident at the castle would fall on their heads.
“I was just transferred from the outer wall a few days ago! I may not know who you are, but I do know the rules! No one enters the castle without stating their identity and providing proof!! Identify yourself at once!!!”
He thought he sounded stern and proper, but to anyone else his delivery came across as clumsy and awkward. The woman showed not the slightest tension. She merely frowned and stared at him.
Her calm was not solely due to his ineptitude. Still fixing him with that gaze, she extended a hand toward the moat. The skeleton guard’s skull rose from the water and flew straight into her palm.
“Hey, Jeremy.”
“Y-yes! Yes!!”
“You didn’t explain who I am to this one?”
“Ah, he’s only been here four days and he’s a bit slow on the uptake, my lady! I’ll make sure he understands right away!”
The woman gently placed Jeremy’s skull back onto his body and gave his shoulder a couple of firm pats before walking past them. Jeremy’s collarbone creaked under the force, but he was too moved by the fact that she had personally retrieved his head to care.
The zombie guard, stunned by the familiar exchange and the woman’s blatant disregard for castle protocol, could only stare after her.
“W-who the hell was that?”
“Shh! You have to know when to bend the rules! That’s the honored guest and personal friend of the Grim Reaper herself! What were you thinking, trying to stop her?!”
“You should have told me something that important right away!!!”
“I was going to, if you hadn’t swung that halberd around and knocked my head into the moat!”
Jeremy let out a long sigh of relief. The zombie guard, knowing he was at fault, had no retort and simply watched the woman disappear through the castle gates.
“Feels like my nonexistent hair is standing on end.”
“So who is she, really?!”
Jeremy clapped a bony hand over the zombie’s mouth. The blue flames in his empty eye sockets burned with sudden chill. He was warning his dim-witted colleague with unmistakable pressure.
“Watch your mouth unless you want your jaw ripped off. That is the Demon Lord of Terraris, the one the Grim Reaper of the Underworld has sworn to treat as an equal. Neromeltia di Isis.”
The sudden coldness in his usually friendly colleague’s voice made the zombie guard swallow hard.
A thousand years had passed since the death of Demon Lord Neromeltia di Isis. She was currently residing in the Underworld.