I Told You to Sit Down
The First Demon Heavenly King's blades came surging up.
The arc of those blades was thick with demonic energy, spraying razor-sharp miasma along every trajectory — but it didn't matter in the least.
"Heavenly Demon Descent Step."
Kuuung!
The instant my foot slammed down again, the blades shattered, and the giant-bodied Demon Heavenly King dropped to one knee.
The First Demon Heavenly King had been a giant-type demon bristling with weapons — a far cry in both physique and raw ability from the magic-specialized demons. Weapon arts were a specialty of the Heavenly Race, and this thing was... well, at least it was clearly different from an ordinary demon.
"But the First Demon Heavenly King will be different…"
"Yeah, yeah. He's definitely in the castle, right?"
"…He is."
Unlike the Third Demon Heavenly King, my fight with the First had been decided in two or three exchanges. Part of it was that his Life Vessel was back inside his own castle, but honestly, his stats were a complete mess to begin with.
You're a giant — either attack with your body, or swing a weapon with that impressive frame of yours.
Why was he firing his weapons off like some artillery mage? Because he was a demon who used magic? Sure, except he'd clearly pumped his physical abilities to the max.
It made no sense to me, but I let it go. Demons came in far too many bizarre varieties, and trying to understand each one was only going to give me a headache.
With every other Demon Heavenly King dead or subdued, only one remained — the First. The one Lorelies had warned was on an entirely different tier from the rest.
Carrying a faint thread of tension, I set off toward the First Demon Heavenly King's castle.
As I drew near, the crimson banners were the first thing to catch my eye. The fortress proudly boasted a size several times greater than the castles of the Demon Heavenly Kings before it, and at every point along its walls stood elite soldiers radiating considerable power.
The moment I set foot in the castle, I could feel it. The Third Demon Heavenly King's Life Vessel was definitely here — and the First Demon Heavenly King himself…
"Whoa."
Strong. He was strong.
Manus — the weapon that had once belonged to Lorelies — had been powerful, but the aura I was sensing now dwarfed it completely. And if this aura was anything to go by, then he was surely…
Clunk!
"?"
I crossed the opened gate without hesitation and entered the castle. Elite soldiers brimming with hostility glared at me from every side — eyes so desperate to kill that it was almost comical.
Do not touch her.
Yet at a single word from the castle's master, they all backed off.
Following the crimson presence I could feel, I descended into the depths of the fortress. Red tapestries everywhere, and the elite soldiers growing redder the deeper I went. Even the staves they carried were crimson — and the more I looked at them…
"Ah, good."
"?"
By the time I'd come this far, I was certain of what he was. All my tension melted away in an instant. If anything, I actually felt relaxed.
At last a carpet stained with blood welcomed me, and as the inner hall's doors swung open, a long, antique table came into view. An assortment of lavish delicacies, and along the far wall, ghostly servants with no legs, arranged to assist with the meal. And at the table's far end, the castle's master awaited me — wine glass in hand, filled with a red liquid…
"Welcome, angel."
"Knew it."
He was a vampire.
The progenitor of all vampires is Rasty — a human girl who endured thousands of years of experimentation at the hands of a highest-tier demon, in a place where the flow of time crawled at a glacial pace. Her name was Lasty Ervenus, and through the torment of having her soul split apart, she gained the authority to command blood and a curse known as semi-immortality. Thus was born the world's first vampire — the Progenitor of all bloodsuckers.
She lost everything to the demons and went mad, spawning other vampires in her brokenness, but that part isn't important here. What matters is this: no creature in existence is closer to being a corpse than a vampire.
The heart that beats in every living thing does not beat in them. Their blood does not circulate. Their bodies run cold as ice, and they can live forever without food or water. It may look like eternal life, but it is a flawed, half-finished eternity.
Which was why I'd always thought it absurd that Corfus, the Demon of Corpses, could have avoided creating vampires — one of the most iconic corpse-species in existence. He'd made liches, ghouls, giants… and no vampires? So I'd expected to find one among the Six Demon Heavenly Kings. I just never imagined he'd put it at the very top.
"Sit. One should savor a last supper before drifting into eternal sleep, no?"
"Fair enough."
I took the seat across from him. The moment I sat, the legless servants glided over and laid out my portion of the meal. This was a severed world — where on earth had he gotten food like this?
As if answering my unspoken question, the demon smiled and sipped at his red liquid — blood.
"Magic can accomplish anything. For instance…"
Sreuk.
In the blink of an eye, the feast before me transformed into raw meat soaked through with blood. And not just any blood — blood infused with the authority of a vampire.
"Something like this is possible too."
"You're asking me to eat this?"
"I'd be delighted if you did."
The blood of a Blood Noble. If an ordinary living creature consumed it, they would lose all control over their own blood and end up one of two ways: robbed of command over their body and turned into a vampire's puppet…
…or transformed into a vampire outright.
"I don't see any reason to eat it."
"No greed to grow stronger?"
"I'm strong enough already. Besides, I doubt it'd even be efficient."
I'd run my own experiments on the matter, after all. The First Demon Heavenly King gave a flick of his hand as if he'd expected exactly that, and the servants sprang back into motion.
"I'll have a fresh meal brought. Wait a moment. …What are you doing?"
"What does it look like?"
You're the one who told me to eat.
I sliced into the blood-soaked meat with my knife and popped it into my mouth. "Mm." I'd expected it to be gamey, but it was more palatable than I'd thought — like raw beef dressed in a secret sauce. The blood didn't taste like blood at all, just pleasantly mild. Actually rather good.
Saaaaaa…
The meat melted. The blood melted. "Huh?" The blood seeping into my body began to take it over. In an instant, all the strength drained from my limbs.
"You're a crazy bitch, aren't you!"
Clunk! The First Demon Heavenly King shot to his feet and leveled a finger at me. Judging by the blood gathering at his fingertip, he was about to issue a command.
"I thought you had a head on your shoulders — how utterly dense you are!"
"Nyam."
"Kneel at once, you lowly wretch!"
"Tasty. You should have some too."
"Fool! You don't even understand the position you're in!"
Do I not?
When I tilted my head, he must have taken it as resistance, because this time he pressed down on my body with his entire hand instead of just a finger.
Fwoooosh!
The Demon Heavenly King's blood dwelling in my body coiled around me, and the knife slipped from my grip. "Ah." And I was enjoying that, too.
"Struggle all you like. The moment you swallowed my blood, you were bound to move as I will."
"Waiter? Could I get a new knife, please?"
"You insolent…!"
KWAAAAAH!
This time he used both hands. The fork fell too.
"Ah. The fork as well, please."
"…?!"
I left the First Demon Heavenly King seething in place, took a fresh knife and fork from a servant, and carried on with my meal. His blood kept piling up inside my body — and still he could not control me. It wasn't that I was burning his blood away with divinity either. Quite the opposite: I was actively shielding his blood from my divinity, keeping it intact within me.
Cold sweat beaded down the First Demon Heavenly King's forehead.
"You… what are you?"
"Not going to finish your meal?"
"……"
"If you won't."
My hand moved. The instant the Progenitor's blood stirred in my heart, the First Demon Heavenly King's body slammed down into his chair.
His eyes bulged wide enough to tear.
"…! What have you DONE!"
"I told you to sit down."
"Why is my body moving on its own—!"
Clatter. I twirled my knife. Poook. A cube of meat lifted on the fork, blood dribbling down in fat drops. With every drop that fell, the demon's throat bobbed faster.
"The power in your blood is decent enough… but your rank is lower than I imagined. An imitation, most likely?"
"Wh-what did you say?"
"Well — you can't resist the Progenitor's authority. So I doubt you're a True Blood Vampire."
The Progenitor's blood — True Blood — the blood Rasty had sealed within me long ago when she made me its vessel. Blood that could stand against even my divinity; I had implanted it in my heart, kept ready to draw upon at any moment. True, it would have been useless once my connection to Rasty was severed — but recently I had summoned her back, and as the link grew close again, I could now wield a portion of her authority.
"You. Rasty didn't make you, did she?"
"…If you speak of the Queen of Blood Nobles — no. I am Corfus's masterpiece."
Brrrrrrk…!
The First Demon Heavenly King strained with everything he had to break free of my control. It was still nowhere near enough. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
"Defeated… by some second-rate experiment… Unacceptable!!"
"Yeah, definitely a knock-off."
After the birth of vampires, when Rasty's influence spread through the mortal realm, certain demons had continued experimenting in hopes of creating vampires of their own. While the original creator — the highest-tier demon — still lived, such a thing had naturally been impossible; with him dead, the seal on imitation had lifted as a matter of course. Corfus, the Demon of Corpses, was no exception: he'd captured a handful of real vampires and, working from them, produced something that looked convincingly like the genuine article.
The problem was the captured part. The originals were already Rasty's subordinate species — meaning if Rasty ever lifted a finger, they could never escape her control. Ideally, he'd have wanted to surpass even Rasty's dominion, to create something greater than the source itself, but…
A highest-tier demon isn't highest-tier for nothing.
Nothing short of the Six Demon Kings could have transcended his vast intellect and thousands of years of experimentation.
"Hkk… hhhh…!"
"You should give up."
From the moment I learned he was a vampire, he'd posed less of a threat to me than the Six Demon Heavenly Kings — less, honestly, than ordinary corpses. In the end, he capitulated.
"First Demon Heavenly King."
"…Yes…"
"The lich's — I mean, the Third Demon Heavenly King's Life Vessel. Go fetch it."
"…As you command."
For some reason, the sight of the demon trudging away was oddly poignant.
─ …What is your relationship with the Queen of Blood Nobles?
"Rasty?"
Lorelies, silent until now, spoke up. My relationship with her, huh…
"We're close, like sisters. We've got similar sob stories."
─ A Heavenly Race, befriending her?
"I'm not Heavenly Race. That's exactly why I can be friends with a half-demon… and besides."
Clank.
"I hate the Heavenly Race more than I hate demons. So quit poking at that."
─ And yet you slaughter demons more zealously than anyone.
"If the situation were reversed, I'd do the same."
Say the client had been Corfus instead — say he'd offered payment to destroy the Heavenly Race and Lorelies' Sanctuary. I would have killed them and razed it all without a second word. If anything, I'd have done it all the more gladly.
─ ………
"I've brought it!"
"Good."
Well then — time to go see that insufferable lich's face.