The Recurring Nightmare of Elion Forest (2)
At Edgar's word, we all made our preparations and set out toward the village that had vanished without a trace.
The moment we arrived, what struck us first was the overwhelming stench of rotting corpses.
The number of attacked villages came to roughly five.
And not one of them had been a tiny hamlet, either. These were substantial settlements — the kind that could dispatch their own knights — yet every single one had fallen without so much as a struggle.
"The condition of the bodies is strange."
Hwa Yeon pinned Mowglay, sheathed at her hip, with one hand and walked forward.
Just as she said, the corpses that appeared to be villagers had skin turned pitch black, their bodies shriveled to the point that bone pressed against flesh.
They look like mummies.
As though something had been stolen from them, the people hadn't even managed to resist — some lay where they fell, while others had died standing exactly where they stood.
But there was one thing all the bodies had in common: every last one of them was male.
Not a single woman's corpse remained, and that held true for all five villages.
That immediately brought to my mind Asmodeus, ranked 32nd in the hierarchy.
And yet the damage was far too extensive for him to have caused.
The first incident I'd witnessed upon arriving in this world had been Asmodeus's attack.
Back then, he had used his abilities to make Elion Forest his base, abducting and violating women to turn them into his thralls.
But even then, his rampage had been confined to a single village — he had barely overrun one settlement before his strength gave out, leaving that village utterly devastated and nothing more.
At this scale...?
With that, we began our investigation. We mobilized the knights and even common soldiers, combing the ruins for evidence — but not a single clue turned up, not even the most commonplace trace.
The situation was dire enough that Ellie summoned the five retainers sworn to her back to Cumul Territory, and before long, every one of them had gathered in the lord's meeting chamber.
The difference from last time was that Hwa Yeon and I were both present at the meeting.
Hwa Yeon had insisted on joining, arguing that her considerable martial strength would be of use — and that she intended to repay the debt she owed me for Mowglay.
She had been the direct disciple of a Sword Master, after all, and in pure fighting power she wasn't even in the same league as the heads of household. Not one of the retainers present was foolish enough to exclude her — if anything, her help was welcome.
"Is everyone here?"
At Ellie's single sentence, all the attendees lifted their heads and fixed their eyes on her.
Having awakened a new power called White Flame, Ellie's gaze was sharper and stronger than before as she opened the meeting.
"Following the Haizi Territory, five villages — including ones within Cumul itself — have come under attack as of late. Every victim was found dead, their bodies desiccated to skin and bone."
"Furthermore, only male corpses were discovered in the villages. Not one woman's body was found. I do not believe this to be the work of alchemy, as it was with Lord Moss."
Almost as if anticipating her words, the retainer Cloud picked up where she left off.
"You suspect a demon's doing, then."
At Cloud's words, Ellie exhaled lightly and nodded.
"The method feels dreadfully familiar."
Her words froze the room solid — as well they might.
Rosie raised her hand, claimed the floor, and spoke.
"If the culprit of this incident is Asmodeus, then a disaster of this scale simply doesn't add up...!"
"Besides, his power was such that it was hard to believe he was only ranked 32nd, wasn't it?"
That was true.
Asmodeus had been weak enough to stagger from a single strike from me — my first time ever drawing on my power as a Successor.
What he'd been hiding at the time, I couldn't say.
When I asked Ellie about it, she said Asmodeus had kept concealing something, too desperate merely to evade her blade to do anything else.
He couldn't have held his own against Dantalion or Andromalius, who sat at the very bottom of the hierarchy.
But it was true that he had been remarkably feeble for the rank he occupied.
Still — women vanishing, and men dead as mummies with their vital essence drained dry?
By and large, this kind of phenomenon is what demons of Lust — one of the Seven Deadly Sins — commit before they make their appearance.
Among the seventy-two ranked demons, astonishingly, only two draw their power from the sin of lust.
One was Asmodeus of the 32nd rank, whom we knew all too well.
The other was a monster in an entirely different class from Asmodeus — Gamygyn, one of the Seven Deadly Sins themselves.
Truly, if the culprit behind this atrocity were Gamygyn, the devastation wouldn't end at one village.
If it were her, at least three small cities would have already been razed to the ground.
But the damage hadn't extended to any cities, so this plainly wasn't her work.
Follow the process of elimination, and only one demon remains.
Asmodeus.
But how could the demon who had barely managed to devour a single village last time reduce five of them to ashes in the blink of an eye?
Don't tell me... a Usurpation War...?
There was something we had overlooked.
Weak demons cannot live well in the Demon Realm, the land that is their home.
It is truly a land of survival of the fittest — lose there, and you are devoured.
But if fortune favors a demon — if it devours one stronger than itself, or receives power from someone —
It evolves into a being of tremendous strength.
Take, for instance, the High-tier demon Minotaur. When one fights its own kind and wins repeatedly, it earns the right to dispose of the loser's corpse as it pleases.
Repeat that slaughter again and again, and eventually the Minotaur sheds its red skin and grows a black one.
That creature is the Supreme-class demon known as Creta's Nightmare.
Demons can be reborn into higher beings by filling themselves with power in that manner —
But ranked demons can also amplify their strength through a special battle called a Usurpation War.
However, unlike the Successor Contest wielded by the Successors of the Four Divine Beasts, a demon's Usurpation War is only recognized when the challenger kills their opponent outright. And when a demon kills its rival, that power does not return to the divine beast that was its master —
It becomes the property of the demon who did the killing.
In other words, if Asmodeus had fought other demons in Usurpation Wars and seized greater power for himself, every piece of the puzzle fell neatly into place.
I raised my hand and claimed the floor from Ellie.
Every gaze in the room converged on me.
Cloud turned his eyes to me and asked,
"Do you have some plan in mind, Lord Successor?"
I shook my head at his words even as I continued.
"Not a plan — but I do know who committed this atrocity."
At my words, the retainers — Hwa Yeon included — all wore expressions of alarm.
The retainers, however, unlike Hwa Yeon, let none of that shock show on their faces.
Well, they are the people Ellie keeps at her side, after all...
I told them the prime culprit behind this incident.
"The one responsible appears to be Asmodeus."
At my words, the expressions of Ellie and everyone present hardened into ice.
It was only natural.
Cumul Territory had lost so much because of Asmodeus.
Ellie had lost her father to him.
The retainers had lost the people of the territory who had trusted and followed them.
And the people themselves were losing their very faith that Cumul Territory was still safe.
So I understood the expressions they wore now.
And yet Ellie was looking at me — not with the warm eyes of my lover, but with the cold eyes of a lord.
"Can you take responsibility for that statement, Successor?"
Her eyes demanded: can you truly answer for it?
If the culprit could be definitively identified, we could build our countermeasures accordingly.
But if the culprit turned out to be someone else entirely, every measure we'd spent long hours devising would collapse into bubbles on the water — and the damage inflicted by the demon would fall squarely on Cumul Territory.
Still, I was confident.
"Yes. I'll take responsibility."
I sent Ellie a whisper telling her not to worry, then began my explanation.
"Allow me to explain why I believe the culprit is Asmodeus."
"First — Asmodeus knows the geography of Cumul Territory inside and out."
Though he failed, he had once driven Cumul halfway into a corner.
He would have known the terrain, the key landmarks, which small cities might send reinforcements and by what routes — and it was highly likely he had planned this attack around all of it.
At that, the retainer Leo raised his hand and spoke.
"Is the possibility of another demon's involvement so low, then? If it had allied itself with Asmodeus, that seems entirely plausible..."
I shook my head.
"As the bodies tell us, every man was found dead — desiccated to skin and bone, their skin blackened and dead."
"And not a single woman's corpse remained behind. This phenomenon means that a demon of Lust has appeared."
At my explanation, Rosie seemed to catch on.
"So the women were taken captive. The men were overpowered on the spot and killed."
I nodded to Rosie, who had come within a hair's breadth of the truth, and continued.
"The fact that no trace of the women's bodies was left behind tells us they didn't die. Though I imagine they are suffering enough to wish they had."
"As for why the men were dead in such a horrific state — most likely because their vital essence, their life force, was drained from them."
Siphoning life force and vital essence is the signature atrocity most commonly committed by demons who bear the sin of Lust.
One need only look at Gamygyn or Asmodeus — or even consider how the High-tier Succubi treat soldiers and knights — for it to be self-evident.
And of course, from my own experience facing such demons, they all know this fact as well.
They know that when they attack, life force is stolen — and that their victims die watching it drained from their own bodies with their own two eyes.
But whether Asmodeus's power had risen dramatically or not, the victims' remains had been sucked so utterly dry that even distinguishing the method was impossible — which likely made it difficult for the retainers to judge carelessly.
When a Succubus drains vital essence, if you kill the Succubus quickly and pour a healer's magic into the victim, there is a good chance of saving them.
By contrast, judging by what Asmodeus had drained, his victims almost certainly never had the chance to resist at all.
Nothing short of my Authority of Purification or my Authority of Life could have saved them.
And the rate of draining seemed to have been extraordinary.
One thing was clear from all of this:
Asmodeus's theft of vital essence now involved martial force as well.
"We must send out an investigation at once. If it truly is Asmodeus, as you say, Lord Successor, then not another moment can be wasted."
Leo, retainer of House Drizel, swiftly raised his hand and pressed his opinion.
I agreed with it wholeheartedly.
Give him any more time, and if Asmodeus should use the essence he'd gathered to raise his own power, this would spiral entirely beyond our control.
And so it was decided: an investigation force would be dispatched into Elion Forest.
The first team: Hwa Yeon and Leo.
Ellie, as the lord, was our last line of defense — if Asmodeus shifted his route of attack and struck a city or village instead, she would need to rush to its aid immediately, so she had to remain behind.
A woman who had ascended to the ranks of the Sword Master might not be able to kill Asmodeus, but she could certainly hold him off until we arrived with reinforcements.
Just in case, I had breathed a spell of my own into the ring I'd given her.
I have to trust her.
The second team: Rosie and me.
With Asmodeus's current strength so difficult to gauge, if he had climbed into the top ten of the hierarchy —
I couldn't guarantee either of their survival.
At the very least, it would take swordplay on the level of Hwa Yeon's Flower-Plucking Art to hold one's own.
She would endure. She had to.
I had no choice but to believe it.
Time was of the essence now.
Weave personal feelings into this, and there'd be no end to it.
The investigation teams would depart in roughly two hours.
Since the majority favored moving quickly, we completed every preparation we could and set out for Elion Forest.
Two hours later, while Hwa Yeon and I appeared in light armament —
The retainers arrived clad in armor considerably heavier than ours.
Not the full plate of medieval knights, but light armor reinforced with additional defensive plating.
To prepare for emergencies, each of us would carry one communication magic tool and one capable of launching a signal skyward.
Team One would be led by Hwa Yeon, Team Two by Lord Rosie.
As I swung up into the saddle, Ellie's eyes found me.
The look she gave me as she sent me off was nothing like the anxiety-filled gaze from that Tide of Corruption — the first battle we'd faced as lovers.
No, this time it carried only trust — a look in which I could almost hear the voice of her heart: Come back to me alive.
I told Ellie I'd be back, then gripped the reins with force.
Our destination was the fourth village to fall — the one nearest the lair Asmodeus had established on the edge of Elion Forest.
By the time we reached the village, the soldiers and knights had long since cleared the corpses away for burial, and not a body remained in sight.
It was five in the afternoon.
If we pressed into the forest now, we risked losing our way — and nightfall was precisely the hour demons favored for ambush. So we made camp with all haste.
Perhaps because we were surrounded by forest, the sun sank with startling speed, and darkness closed in just as fast.
We hadn't been idling in the meantime, either — we had unhitched the horses to graze freely on the village grass.
But the clever creatures never strayed far, standing dozing in the pale light, keeping barely any distance from us at all.
We huddled around the campfire, our eyes slowly adjusting to the dark —
And when the hour finally crossed nine, truly night at last —
Something reached my ears from deep within the forest.
Was I the only one who heard it? Everyone was chatting quietly with one another, their vigilance relaxed but not abandoned.
I sharpened my senses and focused on the unidentified sound.
Something... is flying at us!
In a single motion I drew the Sword of the Azure Sky from my hip and cleaved the incoming projectile in two.
A deep hum — a sharp crack of impact!
The thrown axe had been aimed at Lord Rosie.
The crude axe of wood and stone shattered against the Sword of the Azure Sky and fell apart into worthless fragments.
But as though that had been the signal, demons began to emerge from the forest, red eyes blazing.
"Humans. Hand over the woman. The. King. Wants the red-haired. Woman."
"Your king, is it...? Then take this message back to him, word for word."
A rustle of movement — a High-tier demon, a High-Orc.
"Don't treat humans as your playthings. Well — not that you'll live long enough to deliver the message anyway."
He had come to seize Hwa Yeon and deliver her to Asmodeus. But alas, he would carry out no orders —
A pitiful wretch, doomed to die without ever passing my final words to his master.
The bulk of the horde assaulting us ranged from High-tier to Supreme-class demons.
And if you thought their numbers small — wrong again.
More than a hundred, the two teams' foes combined.
You bastard... you came back far, far stronger than I imagined...
In the last attack, his entire force of Supreme-class demons had amounted to a single Black Serpent.
Even the demon who had aided his escape had only been High-tier — which made it plain just how much power he had amassed since then.
"Well, I haven't exactly been twiddling my thumbs either."
A gale whipped up around our company.
The wind that wrapped around my companions condensed, one by one, into the shapes of wolves.
"Gather."
At my single word, ten wind spirits materialized in an instant.
"Form groups of three and support the attacks and defense of Hwa Yeon, Lord Rosie, and Lord Leo."
As commanded, the wolves of wind took up positions around each of them and obeyed my every word.
Spirits — I'm counting on you.
I gave Jeongryeong's head a single stroke, then honed the wind along my blade's edge.
At last, the hundred demons began their assault upon us.
Every one of my companions was a veteran who had held the front lines with nothing but a blade, earning their place defending this territory.
So I stopped worrying about them, and put myself first.
Left side.
A keening whistle of wind —
I turned my head just enough to dodge the axe hurtling in from my left, and Jeongryeong caught the crude stone axe in its jaws —
Then whipped its head violently and hurled it right back.
A shriek of pain —
The High-tier demon's head went flying, severed by a stone axe thrown by its own comrade.
It had been hurled with the power of wind behind it, so its speed and momentum belonged to another dimension entirely. Of course it ended that way.
"Die!"
Beside me, a demon swung some unidentifiable weapon, tangling and binding my own.
Asmodeus, you bastard. Just how strong have you gotten?
"Show proper respect to our King!"
The weapon binding mine was a Serpent Sword.
Even humans struggle to master it — a weapon blending the qualities of both whip and blade.
And the same held true for demons.
Yet this demon wielded it with total freedom, slithering like a serpent, hunting for every gap in my guard.
"Hah... now even a Great Demon shows up?"
The demon wielding the Serpent Sword against me was called the Sword Fiend.
A demon formed from the lingering souls of those who died clutching their blades, fused into a single entity.
To them, killing a man with a sword in hand is the one purpose above all others.
Each Sword Fiend differs, but most possess superb swordsmanship and a barrage of unpredictable, irregular attacks — hence their classification as Great Demons. However...
In my current state, I could take on five Great Demons at once.
Naturally, one was trivial.
Jeongryeong — cut it.
The Serpent Sword flung out to bind my blade — instead, I yanked it taut so its owner could not flee,
Then used Jeongryeong's wind to sever it clean through.
"You wretch!!"
For beings who had lived and died by the sword alone, no tragedy could be greater —
"What do I care? The fact that you tried to kill me hasn't changed."
"Once our King has his hands on you—!"
"That king? I already tenderized him once. Doing it twice won't be hard."
A flicker of movement —
A strangled, wet choke —
The Sword Fiend's weakness, ironically, was the very sword it clutched.
Snap its blade or shatter it to pieces, and it loses all sense of direction — helpless, it dies without resistance.
Just like this one.
Its upper torso hemorrhaging catastrophically, the Sword Fiend collapsed into the grass, its body slowly beginning to dissolve.
A truly miserable end, unworthy of the title of Great Demon —
But no one would witness it.
From the moment of its dissolution until its very last instant, the Sword Fiend would fade away without a single glance from anyone.
And I, too, never spared it so much as a look — I was already moving on to deal with the other demons.
Thus began the counterstroke of the humans standing against the demon horde.
But not a soul could have known.
That from among them, someone would return from this night wounded — gravely, terribly wounded — no one could have imagined it.