Demon Hunt (4)
Can a human fly through the sky with nothing but their own body?
Without relying on any magical means, can a person truly free themselves from the shackles of gravity and become free?
To that question, one black mage offers an answer.
With a Sword Master's power, it is possible.
KWAAAAAANG!
Having finished his brief flight, Zarkan slammed into the ground with a thunderous crash. Through the back of his skull and the crown of his head he achieved a textbook landing—except the textbook landing went crack, crunch, BOOM, grrrrnd—and Zarkan convulsed with half his head buried in the dirt.
Buildings caught in the violent impact groaned and collapsed with heavy thuds. Najin stood frozen mid-swing, blinking. What the hell did I just see?
"Ghhhuu… huh?"
He wasn't the only one. The black mage whose collar Najin had been gripping—who had been screaming his lungs out—also stopped mid-shriek and stared at the impaled Zarkan with a face that clearly said, What the hell did I just see?
"Haaah—Lord Zarkan?!"
The man finally realized the figure embedded in the earth was his own boss and his eyes flew wide. Even with his collar still in Najin's fist, he fretted over his superior first. Najin was almost touched by the loyalty.
Still, work is work.
Crack. Najin snapped the black mage's neck, tossed the limp body aside, and eyed the twitching Zarkan. Was that thing even still alive?
His neck is bent at a right angle. Is he seriously alive?
-Well… it's suspicious, but he's moving, so probably?
If his neck is bent like that and he's still alive, that means he's not human, right?
Half-joke, half-serious. Najin hadn't meant it as a diagnosis, but his words turned out to be dead on.
Glug.
Black fluid oozed from Zarkan's convulsing body. The liquid seeped into the right-angled neck, and with a series of wet, grinding snaps—crack, crick-crick-crack—the neck righted itself.
Yep. Definitely not human.
Najin clicked his tongue.
The black filth dripping from the body was what people called miasma—the exclusive domain of demons. So the man in front of him was the black mage who had summoned the demon.
But why was the ringleader of the black mages standing right in front of him?
Najin lifted his gaze. Following the direction Zarkan had come flying from, the topmost floor of Baldernos Castle entered his view. Distance made the figure hazy, yet at the very peak of the fortress a woman was waving at him. Snow-white hair. Yuel Razian.
-That woman is completely insane…
Merlin muttered in disbelief. Najin let out a short, incredulous laugh. She had thrown a grown man from there all the way here. Monstrous physical power.
"Cough—hack. Ptoo."
Zarkan rose, brushing dirt from his clothes. He spat the blood that had pooled in his throat and wiped his mouth. Despite slamming into the ground from that height at that speed, not a single wound remained on his body. More precisely: there had been wounds, and then there weren't.
Looking at that pathetic spectacle made it hard to believe, yet Zarkan was a formidable black mage.
In a society that classified eight-circle and above as archmages, Zarkan had reached the sixth circle. That strength was nothing to scoff at. If one were to subjugate him on his home ground like this, it would take at least a squad of Experts plus two Sword Seeker-level fighters.
Add a demon into the mix? Without specialized demon hunters or inquisitors, taking Zarkan down became extremely difficult. Demon contractors were walking bags of variables; dealing with them was never simple.
So Zarkan was, without question, a powerhouse.
He should be, anyway.
Najin's eyes narrowed to slits. Even for someone as perpetually serious as him, staying on guard after that humiliating landing was no easy task.
"This fucking—"
Zarkan spat a curse and scowled. A casual wave of his hand cleared the dust. Face twisted, he swept the surroundings. Corpses of his subordinates lay scattered everywhere; at the center stood a single youth.
"You do all this? Who the hell are you?"
Zarkan snarled at Najin. Miasma rolled off his body and a savage pressure crushed the area—an attempt to intimidate. It bounced off Najin like water off oil.
Shiiing.
Najin answered by raising his sword. Yes, I did it. And to the second question—who are you?—he kindly supplied an answer of his own.
"Najin."
Constellations bloomed above the lifted blade.
"Dawn Star."
Dawn Star—the star that announces the end of night.
Two stars shone in the night sky.
Demon contractor. A being who forges a pact with a demon and borrows its power or authority. Najin had crossed blades with one such existence—once.
The demon knight Bernhaigen.
The opponent Najin had slain with Excalibur.
Bernhaigen, once a mere Sword Expert, had contracted a demon and leaped to Sword Seeker strength. When he deployed his barrier and began wielding demonic authority, he had ranked among the upper tier even of Seekers.
-It doesn't usually make someone that dramatically stronger. The demon he contracted with just happened to be high-grade.
The ancient demon Arcand.
Merlin had explained that Bernhaigen's explosive growth had been possible only because the demon he bound was exceptionally powerful. At the time, Najin had thought:
Victory over Bernhaigen had not come from his own strength. He had won solely because he possessed a near-cheat called Excalibur.
So how strong would he need to become to beat that man without Excalibur? Even after ascending to Sword Seeker, Najin had often wondered. The Bernhaigen he had faced inside that barrier had been overwhelming.
And now the chance to answer that question had arrived.
Merlin.
-Yeah?
How strong is this black mage Zarkan? Compared to Bernhaigen back then.
-About the same? Maybe a little stronger. The contracted demon hasn't shown itself yet so I can't be sure, but from the miasma I'd say it doesn't go past mid-tier.
Stronger than the barrier-using Bernhaigen.
The answer made Najin smile in satisfaction. This was the chance to prove his growth. Roughly half a year since the demon knight's subjugation. He wanted to test just how far he had come in those six months.
The smile vanished from Najin's face.
Still oblivious to the change, the black mage Zarkan continued snarling at him. Najin dragged his sword low. He dropped his stance, drew his arm back, and swallowed a short breath.
One breath.
The moment the held air left his lungs—
Zarkan's pupils lost Najin's movement. Yet Najin had not disappeared from his sight. The opposite: Najin alone filled Zarkan's vision. Closing the distance in a single instant, Najin swung.
KWAAAAAAANG!
The instant Zarkan's miasma collided with Najin's sword aura, an explosion of sound erupted. Far too loud for a mere sword swing. Amid the roar, both of Zarkan's feet left the ground. The miasma had withstood the rebound of the aura; Zarkan's flesh had not.
Same principle as smashing a hammer onto a helmet: the helmet dents a little, but the head inside is concussed or shattered.
"Ghk!"
The surprise blow forced the breath from Zarkan's lungs. That was all. He had no intention of letting Najin press the attack. Zarkan swung his arm. He was a mage of the Force Field school who specialized in intangible shockwaves, and even after turning to black magic the spells he favored remained the same.
Wrapping a force field around his arm, he smashed it into Najin's blade. With a sharp clang, Zarkan was driven backward.
"…"
Zarkan glanced at his own arm. Even with force field and miasma layered on it, the bone had snapped. Black sludge immediately rose and reset the fracture, yet he could not hide his shock.
He had felt a thick chunk of both miasma and mana simply… sheared away.
A demon's power is not infinite. Even if the demons dwelling in the Outer Land possess boundless strength, the portion Zarkan can borrow is finite. The moment that miasma runs dry, he reverts to an ordinary human.
That cannot be allowed.
Zarkan stared at Najin.
Najin merely leveled his trailing sword aura and made no move to charge. That leisurely composure irritated Zarkan.
What was the point of fighting this brat?
Even if he killed the kid, no path to survival remained. Had the brat been weak, Zarkan might have finished him quickly and tried to flee—but the opponent was no pushover.
Fucking hell.
Zarkan's face twisted. He was about to ignore Najin entirely and look for an escape route when a voice rang in his ear.
-Ah, I forgot to mention one thing.
Zarkan's eyes trembled.
The voice belonged to Yuel Razian—perfectly flat, without rise or fall. How, across that distance? The technique known as voice-transmission, possible only through a Sword Master's transcendent mana control.
The voice carried on mana continued.
-If you defeat that boy, I will spare your life.
-There are noble souls who give their all even before certain death, but you are not one of them, are you? You will need a proper reward before you fight with everything you have.
Yuel's voice trembled—only slightly, and not from fear. From exhilaration.
-I swear it upon my name.
-Please, do give it your all.
Completely insane woman. Yet Zarkan could not refuse the offer. Dead either way; better to believe her words.
The Church's Executioner is a lunatic and a capricious bitch. But she does not lie. I have no choice but to trust her.
Zarkan locked eyes with Najin and opened his mouth. The deliberation was brief; the decision swift.
"O great Marphos."
Power. The instant Zarkan whispered the name, the flesh of his back split open. From the riven spine, three arms—each bearing seven fingers—erupted.
Mid-tier demon, Marphos.
The demon of seven arms and seven fingers each.
Concept under its dominion: Refraction.
Having received three of Marphos's arms through the contract, Zarkan's lips curled. The sense of omnipotence that came from linking with a higher being flooded him with ecstasy. He felt certain he could now wield even seventh-circle magic.
Two human arms. Three demonic arms.
Ten fingers and twenty-one fingers.
For Force Field mages who shaped their barriers through their fingers, each additional finger and arm held enormous meaning. And if those arms belonged to a demon, so much the better.
There was a reason the Force Field school produced the most demon contractors after the Blood school. Force Field and demons simply meshed well.
"————Ha!"
Laughing, Zarkan swung his arms. The demonic limbs that had torn free of his back moved as if they had always been his own, answering his will.
One force field per finger. To the original ten barriers he now added twenty-one more.
Kagagagagagagak!
Force fields shredded the ground in every direction and crashed toward Najin. Having "waited" for the entire transformation, Najin narrowed his eyes and asked his guide a question.
Is that his full power?
-Yep. He called the contracted demon. Mid-tier Marphos, concept of Refraction. Looking at him, Force Field school for s—
That's enough.
-What?
Najin spun his sword once in a lazy circle.
If you keep explaining, it won't be training, will it? If it looks truly dangerous, tell me then. Until that moment I want to test myself.
-Test what?
How far I can go.
How far this body can move.
After claiming stars and slaying a dragon for its blood, Najin had never yet fought at full power. He had never driven this body to its absolute limit.
He needed to know.
Before he left for the Outer Land, he had to grasp exactly how far this body could go. At that answer Merlin blinked, then burst out laughing.
-Suit yourself.
Invisible shockwaves surged forward. Transparent force fields cannot be seen by the naked eye. Yet by the faintest shimmer and the flow of air, Najin read their positions.
And then—
Tap.
Faced with the oncoming barrage, the method Najin chose was a frontal breakthrough. His sword aura tore one force field apart. Amid the burst of light, Najin leapt forward.
Perched on the castle's highest spire, Yuel looked down. Reflected in her crimson eyes was Najin colliding with Zarkan.
Fragments scattering where blade met shockwave.
The pleasantly ringing clang! of steel, the spray of blood. Dust rose; force fields shoved it aside; sword aura cut through it; the battle continued. Yuel took every motion into her pupils.
"Hhh…"
A laugh slipped between tightly pressed lips.
Eyes glazed with rapture glittered red. Yuel loved blood and murder, yet she loved combat just as fiercely.
What she loved most of all was the moment at the end of a bloody close-quarters clash when victory hung by a single hair's breadth. The border between life and death. When she carved open the body of the one who had driven her to the edge of death, and her own existence tipped from death back into life—
Only then did Yuel feel that she was truly alive.
The fiercer the fight, the nearer death, the more intense the life she seized at the end. That intensity alone was her pleasure and the reason she lived.
And such a woman now felt interest in the boy radiating fierce light below.
After killing countless people, countless living things, one sometimes senses a peculiar vitality. How seriously do they take life? How desperately do they cling to it? How precious do they hold their own existence?
Some call it the soul.
Yuel called it vitality.
Both left the body at the moment of death, so the names were interchangeable.
Most people, facing death, willingly bow. To survive they discard even their original form. To them no value surpasses life itself.
Yet a rare few knights—
Even when death looms, a noble knight's vitality may grow faint, but it never bends. It burns red to the last. To them life holds no greater worth than their convictions.
To constellations, their own achievements.
To demons, their concepts.
To witches and dragons, their Mysteries.
Occasionally there exist those who hold something more important than their own lives. The vitality of such people shines—beautifully, without equal. Recalling the countless souls and vitalities she had witnessed, Yuel looked at Najin once more.
This was a first.
A light of a kind she had never seen.
Unknown, therefore interesting. Interesting, therefore she wished to understand it. She wanted both to extinguish that light right now by killing the boy, and to wait until the light grew large enough. Murderous intent surged dozens of times each second; the corner of Yuel's mouth twitched. Laughter slipped past her lips.
Hurry and reach the realm of Sword Master.
Hurry and challenge me to a duel.
Stand as my equal and give me a true clash.
And at the end, meet death at my hand.
Or kill me instead.
Contradictory emotions collided inside her. Even the torment and stimulation born of that collision, Yuel felt as pleasure. Life requires stimulation. A life without it is worse than death.
Yuel focused every nerve on Najin.
Should the black mage somehow kill him, she would intervene. She had not the slightest intention of letting anyone snatch away the prey she was saving.
"…"
Fingering the hilt of her sword, Yuel narrowed her eyes. It looked as though she might have to step in after all. Had the boy not said he had faced a demon only once? He was clearly struggling against the authority the demon wielded.
A shame. I wanted to watch longer.
Thinking thus, she resolved to intervene. The instant she began to draw her blade—
"…Ah?"
Yuel's eyes went wide.
She tilted her head.
The movement Najin showed in that single moment overturned the entire tide of battle. The boy who had been pressed back suddenly sliced through one of the black mage's arms and slid past.
-That's one.
A smile spread across Najin's murmuring lips.
Replaying every motion in her mind, Yuel could not help but laugh out loud.
She had no choice.
It was a movement that had slipped even beyond a Sword Master's prediction.