8. Curse Plague (24)
8. Curse Plague (24)
The chill of the Abyss swept through the fluttering black curtains.
A cold wind that froze the soul itself.
A massive demon emerged from within, each step deliberate and unhurried.
The black gossamer cloth draped from its back rippled like wings.
Reaper, Nua-Zakanuba.
He surveyed the humans surrounding him.
Those who met his gaze felt as though an icy awl had pierced their lungs.
Even the circus troupe members, who knew nothing of demons, recognized it at a glance.
This creature was on an entirely different level from the demons that had appeared before.
"Sh-shouldn't we be running?"
"I want to, but... m-my feet are frozen solid..."
Frost had already crept over their boots, coating them in white.
A little ice like that could be shattered with a bit of effort — that wasn't the problem.
The problem was that their bodies had locked up just as rigidly.
Like prey animals facing a predator, every muscle had seized. They couldn't so much as twitch.
The cold intensified with every step the demon took toward them.
Blood-red eye-glow seeped through the gaps in its skull-like helm, scanning each face in turn.
Then its gaze settled on the two who stood burning with open hostility.
It looked at them and spoke.
What came out of its mouth was — surprisingly — fluent human speech.
"It has been quite some time since anyone climbed this high."
The troupe members reacted with shock, but the two exorcists remained composed.
They already knew high-ranking demons could speak.
It was simply a fact they had desperately hoped never to confirm.
High-ranking demons were feared even by veteran exorcists.
You prayed you would go your whole life without meeting one.
Nua-Zakanuba was so powerful it had earned the epithet Reaper.
To handle a creature of this caliber, at least four of the six members of the pursuit squad needed to be assembled.
Right now, there were only two of them — and Valentina had already overextended her Holy Power. Her body was far from its normal condition.
If it came to a fight, their defeat was certain.
"An intriguing combination. An Demon God's Apostle, working alongside a priestess of light?"
The demon's manner and tone were impeccably courteous.
Its voice was soft and fine, almost feminine.
The outward appearance was the same as those slaughtering Zakanubas, yet the aura it projected was utterly different.
Against their better judgment, the troupe members felt a flicker of hope.
"It... it doesn't seem like a bad demon..."
"Maybe it'll let us live?"
"Yeah. We shouldn't judge by appearances. That's what we of all people should know..."
Ella listened to their naive murmuring and let out an inward sigh.
She wanted to ask them if this was honestly the first time they had ever seen a demon who acted friendly.
"What are you here for?"
The Reaper's answer to Vayer's question was exactly what Ella had dreaded.
"Did our children who went ahead not demonstrate? It has been so long... since we have tasted human flesh and blood. We thought we might indulge ourselves, just a little."
Hearing such words delivered in that gentle voice, without the slightest hesitation, sent a chill deep into the troupe members' bones.
Ella muttered to herself: There it is.
"Look here. Can't you cut us some slack? Out of respect for an Apostle's face and all... in the broad view, aren't we on the same side?"
Vayer's bluff, strained as it was, drew a soft laugh from the demon.
"The same side... a rather ill-fitting description. The Demon Gods and we merely share the same living space. If I must make an analogy — the Demon Gods are the residents who own houses in the neighborhood, and we are the wild beasts who roam that same neighborhood. We mostly wander the alleys and fields, though we do occasionally slip into the houses to live for a time... Do you follow?"
"Amusing. Then what are we?"
"Madosa... you are the livestock those residents keep. That is why we generally try not to touch you. When a wild beast harms someone's livestock and the owner comes out swinging a club, it makes life troublesome for us as well."
"Quite the folksy analogy. You make the Abyss sound like some idyllic little village."
"It is idyllic enough. After all, is that not the very word you humans attach to a hell where tens of thousands of cattle and pigs are slaughtered every day?"
Vayer swore under his breath.
This thing wasn't just mimicking human speech.
It crafted analogies from a human perspective and even took the time to mock human attitudes.
It knew humans intimately.
That was deeply unwelcome news from the standpoint of anyone who had to fight it.
And Nua-Zakanuba demonstrated it had seen through the purpose behind his talking by adding:
"Have you stalled long enough? Dawn is still two hours away. Do you think you can hold out until then?"
It took the weapon from its shoulder into its grip.
A blade of dull, dark hue was socketed in a crescent shape at the end of a wooden haft — layers of black sinew wrapped around the shaft like twisted stems.
The Reaper's Scythe.
Its mere presence radiated a suffocating melancholy into everyone nearby.
"Be careful. Get stabbed by the Reaper's Scythe and it'll suck your happy memories right out."
"A delicacy."
The Reaper swung the scythe.
Centered on the arc its weapon traced through the air, three crescent shockwaves rippled outward in quick succession.
The waves were solid.
Slashing crescents of darkness, thin as paper.
They tore across the empty space, flying straight at them.
Vayer used his Authority to turn the first slash from something that existed into something that did not.
Valentina fired a Sacred Stake and obliterated the second.
The third sheared off one of Umon's horns and skimmed past by a hair's breadth.
It flew on past the village palisade — and cleaved clean through the three-story building from which a Zakanuba had leaped earlier.
An entire floor of the severed structure slid down the building's face and collapsed.
Boom.
A cloud of dust bloomed upward.
The thunderous noise didn't stop there — it rolled on in a chain. The slash that had cut through the building appeared to have cut through every building behind it as well.
"Aaaagh!"
Umon, his horn severed, lunged forward.
It wasn't courage or rage driving him.
It was closer to a convulsion born of sheer terror.
Clutched in his hand was the bloodstained cleaver — the same blade that had crushed a Zakanuba's skull.
"Hey, kid!"
Vayer understood immediately what was happening.
A person struck by the Reaper's Scythe was forced to relive their most horrific memories while their happy ones were drained away.
He hadn't been stabbed directly, so his memories hadn't been absorbed — but even a grazing hit from that slashwave was clearly tormenting him with nightmares.
The Reaper watched Umon's wild charge with something approaching fond amusement.
Then it caught the cleaver — swung with full force — barehanded.
With two fingers.
"Strength Show-off?"
"Grrrhhh!"
Umon strained with everything he had, trying to wrench the blade free from between those fingers.
It didn't budge.
The troupe members stared in disbelief.
This was Umon — the same Umon who had overpowered that savage Zakanuba in a direct contest of strength.
And his power was being toyed with so effortlessly?
Umon's face, scarlet as he struggled against the Reaper, slowly drained to a deathly pallor.
The bone-deep cold radiating from the Reaper. The oppressive negativity pouring off the scythe. The crushing terror of an overwhelming gap in strength. He was sinking into despair right where he stood.
Had Vayer and Valentina not intervened at the critical moment, Umon might well have died on the spot, and it wouldn't have been surprising.
"Don't throw your life away for nothing!"
"You must not flee!"
The earth heaved and overturned. A spear of light split the darkness.
While the two of them bought time, the troupe members dragged the unconscious Umon back using Yurakne's Magic Lasso.
"It's over... this is really the end..."
"What do we do, Deputy Leader?"
"First... we fall back. This isn't our fight."
The Reaper, however, had no intention of letting them escape. It swept the two exorcists aside with the black cloth rippling behind it, then swung its scythe in a wide arc once more.
It was the same technique as before.
But the dark crescent that traced the weapon's path was nothing like the first.
A colossal slashwave took shape — dozens of meters across.
The Reaper looked upon their horrified faces and reassured them in that same kindly tone:
"Heh heh! Expanding the range simply reduces the intensity. You will have a brief nightmare, and then you will wake."
The black blade swept across the field before the village.
An attack with a radius that was utterly impossible to evade.
Everyone it struck came face-to-face with the worst memory they possessed.
Yurakne saw the day her husband died. The other troupe members saw the days their deformities had scarred their hearts. Vayer saw the day he killed his own father. Valentina saw the day she and the other child monks had stolen the village dog, roasted it, and been beaten by the elder monks.
Everyone except the two exorcists collapsed to the ground, writhing.
The Reaper stood panting, watching the exorcists who still glared at him, and chuckled.
"Impressive. Shall we work up a sweat, then?"
Just hold on until dawn.
The two threw themselves at the Reaper with everything they had left.
The fight was decided in ten minutes.
Valentina, having exhausted every last drop of her Holy Power, was struck by the Reaper's Scythe and lost consciousness. Vayer, slashed open by the Reaper's claws, collapsed to the ground covered in blood.
The Authority of Reversal he had used at the last moment had turned the scythe from something the Reaper could hold into something it could not. The demon left the weapon lying on the ground and straightened up.
Nua-Zakanuba surveyed the scene and admired its spoils.
Its particular gastronomic pleasure was to stab and stab with the scythe until every happy memory had been drained, then devour the hollowed-out humans whose minds had been stained black by the dark.
It knew the Word Spirit of Demon God Kiaral would not hold much longer.
The exorcist's Authority was not infinite.
The moment it could lift its scythe again, it would feast on every human here.
Its gaze, roaming across the field, fixed on one spot.
It sensed a presence behind a wagon.
"Oh-ho. You were pretending to be unconscious earlier."
A cold sweat broke out on Ella's back as she crouched behind the wagon.
In pure physical skill, she was the finest among everyone present. The instant the Reaper launched its slashwave, she had read the trajectory, twisted her body, and barely slipped past the attack.
Then, while the battle raged, she had crept behind the wagon and hidden.
She had thought her ruse had worked — but the Reaper's keen senses had caught her after all.
Despite its enormous frame, its steps were eerily light as it approached the wagon.
"It was faint at first — difficult to detect. But I understand it now. An energy that seems almost like an Apostle's, and yet not quite."
The Reaper stopped in front of the wagon where Ella hid.
She fumbled in her pocket for the Ghost's Mask — but it was gone. She must have dropped it while dodging the slashwave earlier.
The demon continued speaking, indifferent to whether she replied or not.
"I have heard the rumors. The story of a mad scientist who collected the cells of Demon Gods and created fake Apostles. I was told several were produced..."
Ella had no idea what it was talking about.
The Reaper's crimson eyes bored into the space behind the wagon.
It sensed the presence on the other side.
"And you are one of them, are you not?"
The Reaper swept its claws through the air.
It did not intend to kill. It calibrated its strength — just enough to sever her at the waist, halfway through.
Ella tried to dodge, but her body refused to obey.
The chill radiating from the demon had frozen her limbs rigid.
She saw the glint of claws before her eyes and squeezed them shut.