Demon Subjugation (2)

Riding behind Edgar, who drove his horse at a breakneck pace, I had already covered enough ground to bring the entrance of Elion Forest within sight.

"There's the stench of blood."

Edgar remarked as he dismounted at the forest's edge. Well, of course — he was hardly a mere butler, but the Vice Commander of the Azure Scale Knights and the acting head of the household in times of crisis. His senses would not fail him here.

Just as I had predicted, she would have pushed toward the center of the forest, been ambushed by an overwhelming number of demons, and been forced to fall back a single step.

Which meant the place I needed to go was not the center of the forest.

"Edgar, mount up. Our destination isn't here. Follow where I lead and drive the horses hard."

"As you command."

Just as I'd asked, Edgar swung back into the saddle and steered the horses along the course I set. If I knew her at all, she would try to shoulder every last responsibility herself — the fate of the order resting on her head as it did.

Foolish woman.

The higher one climbs, the more one must think before acting — and it wasn't as though Alice lacked experience commanding troops in battle.

As we galloped toward our destination, the scent of blood ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠grew thick enough even for me to detect, and soon we began passing knights lying fallen in the woods — their armor torn open, their bodies ravaged by the demons.

Lower demons frolicked across the corpses as though they were toys, leaping and capering over the dead.

Yes. This is what demons are.

Creatures incapable of feeling anything, moving only as their desires dictate — monsters of want, through and through.

Glancing at my status window, I saw my Strength had jumped from 10 to 20 and my Agility from 12 to 20 — roughly double and one-and-a-half-fold increases respectively.

Drawing the short sword from my waist, I closed in on them. I moved fast and struck at their backs.

= Kiek...? =

They seemed to notice my approach — but it was already too late.

Swhack!

One imp's head went spinning from its shoulders.

= KYAAAH!! =

Watching their kin be slaughtered while they played with corpses, two imps shrieked with fury and lunged at me together.

The phantom shape of a blue dragon coiled visibly around my blade, and using my right foot as the pivot, I swept them up in a whirlwind slash and ground both imps to ribbons.

While I carved through three imps and held the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠line, Edgar was busily cutting down imps and Dark Templars of her own. If she could handle anything short of a high-tier demon, we could push straight for our objective.

"Edgar! We're heading for the Valley of the Sky!"

"Yes, my lord! I shall follow. I will clear your path."

Edgar hewed through every demon that barred my way, carving open the road ahead of me. I had to conserve every ounce of my strength for the valley itself — I could not afford to spend it on these wretches. If my guess held, he had made his camp there.

And so, when Edgar and I arrived at the Valley of the Sky, the Azure Scale Knights' encampment came into view just as I'd expected. Ordinary knights and common soldiers aside, the presence of Cloud and Rosie — who had joined as vice-commanders — suggested that Alice had most likely already gone into the cavern to draw the Sword of the Azure Sky.

"Where has the Head of the House gone?!"

I sprinted toward the retainers with my question, and the woman called Rosie Benedit tilted her head and fired one right back at me.

"And who might you be?"

The moment she threw the question back at me, I felt heat surge straight to the crown of my head. Every second counted — and Alice might already be drawing the sword and spiraling into madness!

"Edgar! Handle everything out here!"

I broke into an even faster sprint toward the cavern. Rank-and-file knights moved to restrain me at its mouth, but—

With their stolen strength and my sharpened Agility, I slipped past them and plunged into the cavern.

Inside, it was not dark at all. The presence of the Sword of the Azure Sky suffused the cave with light despite its walls of stone. But that was no concern of mine.

Soon I reached the heart of the cavern — and there she was, the familiar blonde woman. Her hand drifted closer and closer to the sword's hilt.

"STOP!!!"

Startled by my shout, Alice whirled and leveled the blade at me — but the instant she recognized who had cried out, the sword dropped.

"How did you... why are you even here?! I ordered you to stay at the manor!"

And I was furious with her. Charging headlong onto a battlefield without weighing anything was exactly how people lost — and if she truly cared for her territory, she should never have made this choice.

"What do you think you're doing? You're the Head of House Cumul, aren't you? Then you're supposed to make the wise judgment and punch through this trap! Alice! I understand you're the head of your house and no one wants to protect this land more than you do — but if the lord of Cumul Territory disappears, do you honestly believe that territory survives? The woman I've watched all this time was never someone who made such a foolish choice!"

Perhaps I had no right to rage at Alice. But at the very least, I could not bear for her to spend the rest of her life in anguish over nothing more than having once held the Sword of the Azure Sky.

"I know the truth as well as anyone — take up the Sword of the Azure Sky and madness takes you. So listen to me. Without you, there is no territory. All the more so when you've been a lord the people revere, one who has governed with a good heart."

The reason the Sword of the Azure Sky sat untouched on its stone pedestal in so convenient a place as the Valley of the Sky was precisely that madness — the moment anyone gripped it, the frenzy seized them. After the incidents where rumor-chasing villagers and visitors alike went for the sword and were all driven mad, neither residents nor travelers would so much as lay a finger on it. And a family that served the Azure Dragon would surely know what the Dragon itself had said: that the Sword of the Azure Sky could be wielded only by the Azure Dragon's Successor.

"Be the wise, prudent lord you've shown yourself to be across this whole territory. I'm begging you."

As I rebuked her, she stared at me, utterly taken aback. And when I reached for the Sword of the Azure Sky, the tables turned — now it was Alice who moved to stop me.

"Wait — you were the one who stopped me from grabbing it a minute ago! Why on earth are you trying to take the sword?!"

The shock had evidently been great enough to strip away her commanding airs; she had reverted to her ordinary voice.

"Because I can. I am, in fact, the only person alive who can hold that sword."

"What?"

Her bafflement curdled into sheer disbelief. Looked at from her side, of course, it must have been absurd — a guest she had sheltered now defying her orders of confinement, racing all the way to the cavern, shouting her down for trying to seize the sword as a last resort... and then reaching for it himself.

"Listen carefully, my lady. My first trait is The One Watched by the Heavens. It marks me as a Successor of the Four Divine Beasts — but don't call me 'Successor.' Call me by my name, just as you have been."

She gave a slow nod, signaling that she understood what I meant. Then she stepped aside to let me draw the sword.

The moment my hand touched the Sword of the Azure Sky, my status window sent me a notification.

A heartbeat after the notification appeared, a blue portal yawned open before me.

"You'll be all right... won't you?"

she asked, worry plain on her face.

"Don't worry. I'll be fine. And please — hold the cavern against the demons coming in, and against Asmodeus. That demon... it's after you, my lady. Be careful not to be taken unawares."

She nodded, showing me she would heed my words. After I'd finished my warnings, I stepped through the blue portal — and the status window chimed once more.

"Has it lost its mind?"

The difficulty was staggering. In the game, it had never been like this...

They say the greatest pain a human can feel is searing, scorching agony — and they'd made that the trial. Of course people went mad. Who wouldn't? And it was the flames of the Red Dragon Blaze, no less.

With even a sub-quest flashing before my eyes, there was clearly no lowering the difficulty now. And so, to clear this trial — written "legacy," read "torture" — I summoned forth the flames of Blaze.

A monstrous heat surged toward me. The instant the fire touched my skin, my body convulsed in rebellion, screaming at me to get out, get out now — but I steeled myself, ignored it utterly, and walked into the flames.

"GAAAAAAH!!!"

The agony was beyond reckoning. My eyes refused to stay open, and an overwhelming blaze and scorching heat swallowed my whole body. Thank the heavens that at least during the trial itself I could not lose consciousness or go mad.

"Nnnnghh..!!!!!"

The searing pain hunted down every last corner of my body, deliberate and unrelenting. The agony was such that opening my eyes wasn't even a thought — I couldn't see the timer, and all I could do was wait for those five minutes to end.

After what ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠felt like an eternity of enduring within the fire, at last every last flame guttered out — and the burns that had cooked my flesh, along with the phantom pain they carried, were being healed as the trial's reward.

Hmm...? Ah. So you have finally come, Successor of the Azure Dragon.

A voice began to echo inside my head.

"You're... the Red Dragon Blaze?"

I am. The first guardian dragon of the Azure Dragon — the Red Dragon. I have watched you since the moment you entered my trial. You endured remarkably well. Even against my own flames.

"You could've dialed the intensity down a little."

Were I to temper my flames, this would cease to be a legacy or a trial at all, would it not? Truthfully, I am simply astonished that you withstood my fire in a mortal body at all.

"So now I can leave, right?"

Not before you seal the pact of guardianship with me. You would suffer the torture for nothing if you finished the trial and then refused your reward, no?

Who was it that designed this sadistic trial in the first place... I grumbled inwardly, even as I made the pact of guardianship with Blaze.

I, Red Dragon Blaze, shall become the guardian dragon of Lee Hyeon, Successor of the Seventh Azure Dragon, and by the command of the First Azure Dragon, I pledge my utmost to drive out evil and establish peace.

"I, Lee Hyeon, Successor of the Azure Dragon, pledge my utmost — with the aid of Blaze, left upon this earth by the First Azure Dragon before her ascension — to drive out evil and establish peace."

Enough. Now you can wield my authority as well. Go. I hear the situation outside has grown rather desperate.

"Got it. Let's go."

And so, as he watched Hyeon emerge from the trial, Blaze smiled to himself. In all the long line of the Azure Dragon's Successors, not one had willingly endured his personally chosen five minutes.

...Perhaps, just perhaps, this one might change the world.

It was barely moments after Hyeon had entered the Sword of the Azure Sky.

Alice stood dumbfounded. That the guest she had taken for a mere boy was in truth the Successor of the Azure Dragon struck her like a thunderbolt — but she gathered herself, drew her sword, and turned to face the demons that had pursued her troops.

When she emerged from the cavern blade in hand, an immense demonic host stood assembled in flawless ranks. The strange thing was that they did not attack. Despite outnumbering her forces several times over, they made no move at all — they simply watched.

In place of the song of steel on steel, what filled the battlefield was sheer, suffocating tension.

And then, cutting through that tension, one demon revealed itself: a creature with the upper torso of a man and the hind legs of a goat.

= Hmm? Why haven't the madness taken you? =

The demon asked itself as though something genuinely puzzled it.

"So it was all in the palm of your hand."

= It was. Every last bit of it, my design. A plan to make you my plaything. =

"What did you say?"

She asked again as though she must have misheard — but the demon repeated itself, as if it would say it as many times as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she liked.

= The others, I couldn't say. But you know. You know exactly how your father died. =

"What...?!"

Alice's father had given his life in the great battle against the demons.

"How do you know of our father?"

= Naturally. I was the one who ended his life. And when I read his memories, I learned he had a very lovely daughter. That would be you. =

Hearing the demon's words, Alice felt a rage past all bearing. Her father's killer stood before her very eyes, after all.

Whether or not it knew she was swallowing down that surging fury, the demon couldn't have cared less — it simply let its thoughts spill from its mouth.

= I expected you'd have grown into quite the beauty by now, but you've surpassed my imagination. And that figure... magnificent. =

The demon toyed with her as if it were nothing at all — and yet Alice, who had endured such taunts many times before, held her fury in check even now. The words that boy, Hyeon, had spoken kept echoing through her mind.

"Without you, there is no territory — why can't you understand that!"

Alice thought it through. If she lost control of her rage and lunged at him here, she would be facing that enormous demonic host head-on — and that, she realized, would once again put the entire knightly order in jeopardy.

"Silence, demon. I do not fall for the wagging of your tongue."

= Oh, but I do love a woman who plays hard to get... don't you? My loins are already aching — I keep picturing you flat on your back beneath me! =

As the demon jeered and her rage crept toward its breaking point —

a familiar voice rang out from within the cavern.

"You a pig in heat or something? Keep the sexual harassment coming, why don't you."

The one who emerged from the cavern gripped a short sword of deep azure I had never seen before in one hand, and the short sword I had received as a gift in the other.

"And my lady? Thank you for hearing me out earlier. If you survive this, this territory will endure in good hands. Understood?"

At his easy, unprompted counsel, Alice found herself nodding. And at the sight of it, the demon — Asmodeus — flew into a rage of his own.

= Oi. Move aside. I've no use for the boy — but I've gone to such trouble over that woman... now I'll simply have to kill every last one of you, won't I..? =

"You were going to kill us all anyway. Don't sit there acting like you'd spare anyone. Fine then. Let's start with a beating."

With his words, the aura of a blue dragon poured into the Sword of the Azure Sky. Then I swung hard toward the front — and the dragon's phantom shape took wing, flying straight for Asmodeus.

BOOM!

The dragon's sword-aura he unleashed was more than enough to announce the opening of the second exchange.

As the champions of both sides charged at one another, the true war between demon and man had, at last, begun.