In the Abyss, the Sword Wields the Man (1)
Originally, direct clashes between the kin of the Abyss were rare, even if they served different demons. The material world was such a vast pie that it could feed them all without shortage, no matter how it was divided.
Of course, that alone wasn't enough to prevent collisions between the abyssal forces. If one pillar of reason was that they could have plenty of food without fighting, the other was the catastrophe that strife would bring. One of the powers capable of completely banishing the Abyss from the material world was another Abyss. Attacking the kin of a rival Abyss risked one's own expulsion from the material plane.
And Kriel was the exception to all of it. He served no demon, had no interest in corrupting the material world, but he was very interested in smashing abyssal kin.
Even when Satranyak invoked the name of the demon he served, Kriel showed no reaction. Temptations of all the corruption seeds he'd gathered so far fell on deaf ears too.
'Where the hell did this monstrosity even come from?!'
Every desire that abyssal kin should naturally possess seemed meaningless to this one. The knight's approach in consistent silence was overwhelmingly intimidating.
Satranyak racked his brains to turn the tide.
'Illusion magic has no effect. A more direct attack spell? He already sliced through no-chant spells like fireballs with a single sword.'
Abandoning the speed of no-chant magic for a proper incantation? The knight's attack would hit first. To buy time, he had to keep attacking.
Satranyak's eyes hurriedly scanned the depths of the pit. He spotted a sword taking on a complete form.
'If magic won't work!'
Satranyak unleashed a few more attack spells. Not to wound, but to briefly blind and disrupt.
Amid the flashing red lightning and the roar of scattering ash, Satranyak charged.
Using the instincts granted to demonkin, he sensed Kriel's movements. The fool didn't seem to grasp his target, mechanically destroying the spells just like before.
Finally, Satranyak gripped the sword's hilt. The blade, gaunt as a withered skeleton's spine, had regained its full form.
The blade slipped silently from the heart. The already mummified corpse lost its last spark of life the instant the sword was drawn, crumbling into a handful of ash.
Satranyak felt the surging fullness of power in his body. A fully charged one of the Seven Great Demonic Weapons could spawn hundreds of shards.
He didn't want to waste this infinite potential on a single fight, but...
Whoosh—
The knight swung his greatsword. The flashes and illusions scattered, leaving only the knight and himself.
The greatsword's sharp tip aimed at Satranyak once more. If he skimped on power here to conserve it, his head would bid farewell to his body.
Satranyak spat his frustration in a murmur.
"What a pity."
The knight didn't stop.
"A lunatic like you has warped the great demon's magnificent plan. This sword shall feast on your flesh and be tempered in your blood!"
A piercing blue light flashed from the sword Satranyak raised. A chill like the northern snowfields—or perhaps even the primordial frost, fiercer still. That icy glow struck Satranyak's flesh.
"Huh."
I couldn't help but be dumbfounded.
The first charge gave me a rough read. This demonkin was specialized in schemes, not proper combat. Head-on, he'd die ninety-nine out of a hundred times; the last one would barely escape.
So I'd chosen to minimize movement and conserve blood qi. The more violently and aggressively I moved, the more blood qi I'd burn—and the worse the side effects in intensity and duration.
No place to run in the pit's depths anyway, so my plan was to wait until his dark magic ran dry, then slowly lop off his head.
But suddenly the bastard dashes to a corner, yanks out a sword, gets wrapped in ominous light, and...
Drops dead.
"What the...?"
I couldn't describe the absurdity any other way.
The signature blue light enveloped the demonkin, and he let out something like "Oh... ooooh...!" in awe, trying to attack. But he couldn't.
Starting from the hand gripping the sword, his whole body began to freeze solid.
He desperately tried to halt the ice's erosion with magic, even setting his own body ablaze. That frantic effort stopped the freeze, but his ordeal wasn't over.
Under the transparent ice coating his arms, they visibly withered away.
"No, no! This can't be!" he cried in cliché fashion, before shriveling into a proper mummy.
His twitching body spasmed a few more times, then stilled. It was so ridiculous I waited a while, suspecting a fake-out ambush.
But the demonkin didn't rise again.
Even the horse-head thought it was pathetic.
"Harsh."
Orishin poured out his abyssal grudge. The Abyss deserved the hate—it was useless to the world anyway.
"But... how do I even move that thing...?"
The demonkin grabbed it wrong and ascended on the spot. As a fellow abyssal something-or-other, no guarantee picking it up wouldn't have me rolling on the ground screaming "Aaaargh! Save me, Morgina!"
"Guess that's the only way. Might as well head the other way and help smash the core."
The moment I turned...
Scraaaape—cloth dragging on the floor.
I whipped around instantly. The demonkin was rising.
Life force drained from its entire body, flesh compressed to the limit, clinging to bone. Every slight movement creaked unpleasantly.
The biggest difference from before: its eyes. A blue glow identical to the sword's eerie radiance poured from them.
The right hand clutching the sword kept creaking. From fingertips to shoulder, the joints pulsed like waves.
Strange as it sounded, it felt like watching an instrument being tuned before a performance.
Witnessing that grotesque sight, I...
—charged straight at the demonkin corpse.
I've always been the type to want to smack the boss one extra time instead of watching cutscenes!
The corpse's creaking tuning hadn't stopped. I raised my greatsword overhead.
The Dark Knight charged, leaving a red trail. Even the ethereal Orishin briefly lost sight of Kriel in the blistering acceleration.
Kriel's red trajectory soon arced overhead. Vivid blood qi clung to the blade.
The greatsword, hoisted to the ceiling, plummeted toward the demonkin. At the strike, the condensed blood qi left a red pillar-like afterimage in its swift descent.
The onslaught wouldn't settle for decapitation—it aimed to bisect the demonkin's entire body.
Clang—!
But the greatsword never touched flesh. The demonkin—or rather, its corpse's right hand—swung its own blade.
Kriel marveled at the speed. It wasn't just blocking. His attack was vertical, top-down.
Typically, you'd counter a vertical slash with horizontal force to twist the trajectory. But Kriel trusted his blade wouldn't waver easily, and he could adjust even if it did.
The corpse countered differently. It stepped back in a stance. Kriel moved to press the attack.
But the corpse moved first. Its right hand slashed skyward—a vertical cut mirroring Kriel's.
The difference: it targeted not flesh, but weapon. The downward slash overlapped the greatsword's blade.
Kriel's immense strength plus the corpse's eerie power shattered the pit floor as the greatsword embedded in flesh.
Instantly, the corpse's left hand formed a mudra for dark magic. The pit floor contracted, clamping the greatsword like teeth.
'Pulling it out now's gonna be tough.'
Like with that horse-head spirit last time, he just couldn't use the greatsword right.
Kriel drew his horn dagger.