So That I Won't Kill You
"This is..."
Somewhere in a forest bathed in falling blue light, Arne had been quietly contemplating the countless 'eyes' spreading across the world with her eyes closed—until she snapped them open and rose from her seat.
The spirits. The spirits are in danger.
"Naphras!"
"...I see it, contractor."
The Wind Spirit King Naphras, who had sensed the disturbance even before Arne did, soared high into the sky.
Sharing her vision with Naphras, Arne's brow furrowed deeply.
"...So they've finally gone and done it."
"I can feel mana. And a familiar aura within it, at that..."
Naphras quickly flew toward the source of the disturbance, rage burning in her wake. Deeply bound to the spirit king as she was, Arne felt an equally searing fury—but then again, Arne had been furious long before this moment.
The one who betrayed a friend and abandoned what was right.
Arne had loved and cherished the spirits even before contracting with Naphras. And Karia had used those very spirits of hers as experimental subjects.
Worse, Karia had done it brazenly, even cursing Arne for it.
'You'll never understand. You were lucky enough to be born with everything, so you have no idea how the ones beneath you live—no idea at all.'
"...What nonsense."
Who was the one born with everything, if not Karia herself?
Karia Machelpid had already been a count's daughter before the Empire was even founded. The story of how her family earned distinction in the war and rose to a dukedom, becoming one of the Empire's pillars, was common knowledge by now.
And Arne, by contrast...
"...Enough."
Karia had committed something irredeemable, which meant Arne now had ample justification to intervene in this affair.
Not even Duke Hwangyeol could stand between them now, no matter how he might try.
As she flew after Naphras, a thought suddenly struck Arne.
'...But why now? Why would they act at a moment like this?'
This was surely not the time for it.
KUUUUGUGUGUNG...!
"Huh?!"
"Whoa—!"
"What the hell is that..."
Inside the battered Utra Castle of the Angel Guild, the archangels—already covered in wounds as they blocked wave after wave of attacks—turned their gaze toward a pillar of black light that had abruptly erupted in the distance.
Even from that far away, the pillar rose so high it was impossible to miss, and the mere sight of it radiated such malevolent energy that the archangels couldn't stop themselves from shuddering.
"That's... damn it!"
Duke of Battle Blood Kasar, still catching his breath with burn marks seared across him, felt the same way.
Whether he recognized what the black pillar was or not, he moved to sprint straight toward it—then, after a moment, glanced back over his shoulder.
The 'Angels,' reputed to be the strongest of all the outsider gatherings. He had dismissed them as mere outsiders all the same, but their strength had proven far beyond his expectations.
Strong enough to force him to draw out more than thirty percent of his true power.
'If they keep growing, will they become like Leo or the Sword God?'
Kasar was confident he could beat any one of them—but three, four of them at once? He couldn't quite summon the same certainty.
PAAAAH...
And above all, there was that pure white light that descended every time one of those archangels was wounded.
As long as that light kept healing allies across entire kingdoms, there was no easy way to finish them off.
'I want to kill them before they can grow... but they're immortals. Can't even put them down for good.'
Cursing the undying anew, Kasar turned his back on them.
"Consider yourselves lucky."
"Like hell we will..."
"Hey—over there!"
PA-BA-BAK!
Three arrows of light streaked toward Kasar, but none of them found their mark.
"Whew... blocked it—AAAAAAAAH..."
Because by then, he was already gone.
An exhausted Uriel collapsed flat onto the ground. Beside her, Sandalphon sprawled like a limp piece of seaweed, and Raguel—the least battered among them thanks to her ranged position—trembled as she activated her All-Seeing Eye.
Somehow, checking on the source of Kasar's sudden disappearance felt more urgent than resting.
"...A demon?"
"Holy shit, that's insane... what is that?"
"The pillar of light. The black pillar of light."
Raguel's hand pointed toward it.
"There's something like a demon in the center of it. And right now, the pillar is—"
"...Fuck. It's one damn thing after another."
The pillar of light had begun to run wild.
The Sword God, once he returned, was fairly strong—but he never managed to beat me.
His skill and abilities were leagues above Leo's, yet none of it ever landed as a fatal threat against me.
"Ngh..."
His 'weapon,' though—that much had been genuinely worth guarding against. Except its power was steadily draining away.
'Is it because the Grand Demon Duke isn't in a normal state? He's weakened a lot.'
At this point, he was only a little stronger than Leo going all-out.
Granted, if Leo and the Sword God actually fought, the Sword God would win nine times out of ten. But the Sword God as he was now would lose all ten against me.
'Even if he burned every last drop of that power, the outcome wouldn't change.'
I'd made a rough assessment and was just about to wrap things up when—
"Hm?"
"...?!"
[?]
[A pillar of light?]
[It's black though?]
[what is that]
[OOF]
[????????]
Not far from where we stood, a pillar of black light had erupted skyward.
A mass of mana that pierced the clouds in an instant and announced its presence to the world. Thick malice churned between the sheets of light, and from within them emerged the figure of someone bearing two horns and vast black wings.
A man who looked every bit the part of a 'demon.'
But of course, he was no demon.
'A spirit of darkness.'
A spirit that had lost its original form entirely to mana and been remade into something else altogether.
The spirit of darkness gazed out at the world through violet eyes and let out a howl of laughter.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
'Khh... it hurts!'
'Sylphid.'
Sylphid, the wind spirit I'd received from Yena, shuddered in agony.
The dense malice was seeping into the spirit's pure energy, dissolving both mind and spiritual body.
Swish...
'Hurts... kuuh...'
"Go to sleep."
Having blocked out the mana with divinity, I lulled Sylphid to sleep, drew the bracelet off my wrist, and tucked it away into my subspace.
That would keep her safe for a while, at least.
[??????]
[why is a demon just popping up out of nowhere?? aren't those supposed to come after the Great Cataclysm?]
[what the fuck]
[DEMON ENTERS THE CHAT lmaoooooooo]
[holy shit]
[the age of man is over]
[we're so cooked]
[weren't they talking about the Grand Demon Duke and some experiment? bet that's it]
[holy crap LOLLLLLL]
[what do we get for killing that thing]
[WOW! A DEMON! You know your stuff!]
[they MADE something like that in an experiment??]
Vmmm.
After exhaling a wave of mana, the spirit of darkness examined its tattered clothing—which promptly reshaped itself into something out of a vampire film. Satisfied with the look, the spirit raised a hand whose black claws had grown long and sharp, and declared:
"Spirits. Humans."
KWAJIK.
"Die. All of you."
PUWAAAAAK!!!
The black pillar of light burst apart, and mana scattered across the world.
If left alone, that mana would seep into the entire continent—turning anyone and everyone into one of the Fallen, or melting flesh and soul alike into nothing.
I flew up to stop it—then stopped myself mid-air.
"Nord."
A wind—the greatest wind in existence—rose to bar his path.
The emerald gale wrapped itself around the pillar of light like a serpent, its swirling currents scrambling the mana's escape routes and cutting off its spread.
The dark spirit tilted his head slightly as he regarded the wind.
"You... Naphras. The Wind Spirit King, Naphras."
"Yes. So you do recognize me."
"Of course."
[Spirit King?]
[A SPIRIT KING ENTERS THE CHAT LOLLLLLL]
[absolute legend]
[Lily just broke 1.6 million viewers whoa]
[do they know each other??]
[WOW what a lineup]
[popcorn time]
The dark spirit called Nord sank briefly into reminiscence, as if recalling memories long buried—then slowly opened the eyes he had kept shut until now.
"Nord... now there's a name I haven't heard in ages. Has it been thousands of years?"
"It has. The same for me. We could not die, so we lived on—but in the end, we survived."
Twitch.
Nord's brow creased.
"Survived? You clung to existence in that grotesque form and drove every last one of them to their deaths—and you call that surviving?"
"...There was no other choice. Besides, it was the demonkin who killed us. Don't mistake the object of your hatred."
They stared each other down.
Two beings who had once, out of necessity, made the same choice—but whose outcomes could not have been more different.
When Naphras awoke, she had met Arne, a girl who loved spirits, and by becoming her contractor she had preserved her true self.
Nord, on the other hand, had awakened with everything already mortgaged away. For three hundred years he endured Karia's experiments, suffering unspeakable days until he lost his original form entirely.
All because, at the moment of their awakening, they had met different people.
One was granted a reasonably happy life.
The other was dragged through hell itself.
He gave a faint smile.
"The object of my hatred... Yes, I suppose that madwoman does qualify. The woman who sealed me inside a glass tube for three hundred years. From what I've gathered, she's already dead."
"Then there's no reason to commit any further—"
"But it was spirits and humans who made me into this."
PAJIJIK...
The mana pierced through the wind.
The gale convulsed under the strain, and the fury-laden mana split cracks into the serpent of wind coiled around the pillar of light.
"Nord...!"
"While we suffered like this, what did spirits and humans ever do? The spirits abandoned the ones who blessed and raised them, too busy living their own lives. And the humans borrowed the spirits' power without ever sparing a single thought for this suffering!"
CRACK...!
"Your contractor is no different! 'The spirits are being experimented on, so you must have revenge against that madwoman'—is that it? And what did she do during those three hundred years? She made excuse after excuse, postponing it a hundred years, then a hundred more, and a hundred more still! If that human down there hadn't appeared, she never would have lifted a finger. Not ever."
"......"
"...Ah, hahaha... Hahahaha..."
It was collapsing.
The serpent of wind around the pillar of light—and with it, the ego that had kept Nord's sanity intact.
Nord's hand drew a slow diagonal line through the air.
KWAGAGAGAGANG!!!
The serpent of wind shattered completely.
"Nord, please—"
"And one more thing."
PUK.
"Keugh...!"
"I am not Nord. I am Sephid."
Another spirit born of evil—a spirit of darkness, the Darkness Spirit King Sephid.
"That is my name."
Sephid's black claws ran Naphras through, and she plummeted from the sky.
I caught her falling body and looked up at Sephid.
"...Please stop."
"I owe you a personal debt, you know. You're the one who set me free. For that reason alone, I'll spare your life—"
"That's not what I'm asking."
Don't.
"Don't sin any further. This is not a request."
So that I won't have to kill you.