Aren't You Supposed to Kill It?
"You're going to kill it?"
The Third Demon Heavenly King's Life Vessel was an orb made of blood. Inside it, a purple, opaque cloud of gas slumbered—still unable to break free of the Silver Purifier's binding.
"Looks like it's asleep. Shall I wake it?"
"Yes."
"As you command."
Ilmacheonwang injected his own blood into the orb. The blood-crafted orb churned violently, and the stunned Third Demon Heavenly King snapped awake at once, eyes flying open.
"Hwaak! You cursed thing!"
"He's up."
"...You? Lord Ilmacheonwang?"
The Third Demon Heavenly King, housed within the orb, looked back and forth between me and Ilmacheonwang, then chuckled and reformed his lich body on the spot. The lich took its place at Ilmacheonwang's side.
"So foolishly you've become Lord Ilmacheonwang's puppet! I knew it would come to this!"
"Hm?"
"Deny it all you like, fool. It's pointless. The blood of Lord Ilmacheonwang steeped in your body betrays you completely."
"No, Third Demon Heavenly King, that's not—"
"Lord Ilmacheonwang. Truly, you are worthy of the throne of One. To reduce this monstrous woman to a puppet in a single stroke."
"......"
"A lich such as I could never even dream of such a feat! I am in awe of you."
"Hahaha..."
Ilmacheonwang kept darting glances my way, sweat beading on his face. Utterly oblivious to all of it, the lich pressed on.
"How did this happen? Two years of power—a monstrous force. How did you subdue it?"
"...Enough."
"Was it magic? Or did Lord Ilmacheonwang's blood bind you completely? Considering so little time has passed, not even five exchanges—"
"Silence!"
KWAZIZIK!!
The lich's bones shattered under the pressure of blood. Panicked, the lich used the Life Vessel to regenerate its body once more.
"L-Lord Ilmacheonwang?"
"...Friend of the Blood Vampire Queen. I beg you, release your righteous anger. This witless lich knows nothing."
"Is that so?"
"It is."
"What? Friend? Anger?"
The lich shot Ilmacheonwang a sideways glare—the reaction of a man who had seen something he was never meant to see.
"No, Lord Ilmacheonwang. What in the world does that mean?"
"Exactly what it says. This one is the friend of the Blood Vampire Queen. I cannot oppose her."
"You'd become one of the Demon race and bow your head to the Heavenly Race?"
"She isn't of the Heavenly Race."
Why does everyone keep getting it wrong?
─Whatever way one looks, thou art surely of the Heavenly Race.
"Be quiet."
─......
Ilmacheonwang shook his head.
"It is not bowing to the Heavenly Race. I bow to the very source of my being."
"The Blood Vampire Queen? You'd kneel before some insect of an experiment?"
"That insect inherited the power of a great one."
The first vampire ever born—created by the hand of a highest-rank demon, and progenitor of the entire bloodline.
"Lord Corfus's intellect never reached her. Therefore, I cannot stand against her. That is my conclusion."
"You've gone mad. Power and greatness you have received—and yet you would serve a mongrel?"
"Lord Corfus is already dead. We must each fend for ourselves now."
"Mind your words, Blood Vassal."
KUOOOOOH!!
The lich's demonic energy boiled over. A power capable of instantly corrupting Ilmacheonwang's crimson aura spread across the land.
He's drawing on the power of his soul.
"Whom do you insult just now?"
"You are the one who knows not your place."
Crack... The red orb in Ilmacheonwang's hand trembled. The Life Vessel—the Third Demon Heavenly King's very life and reason for existence—rested in Ilmacheonwang's grip.
In other words, the Third Demon Heavenly King's survival or annihilation was decided entirely at Ilmacheonwang's whim. In an instant, the lich's power died away and its body crumbled where it stood.
"Have you forgotten whose hand your life hangs by?"
"......"
"Defying a Demon Heavenly King of the First Seat alone would merit eternal annihilation—but I am obliged to honor the wishes of this friend, and so I spare you. Be grateful."
"Kkuk... So the one who calls himself head of the Demon Heavenly Kings has become a dog in so short a span..."
"Silence!"
CRAAK!!
"...!!"
"That's enough."
"Yes, my lady."
I stopped Ilmacheonwang just before the orb shattered completely. The lich, having narrowly saved its life, did not revive its body and did not emerge from the Life Vessel.
Had it decided that bringing its body back out would accomplish nothing?
"I have a few questions."
"Ask whatever you wish."
"Is this everything your faction has?"
"It is. If the friend slew all the rest, sparing only us, then I imagine so."
Which meant Lorelies's mission was all but complete. At this level, the trial had been cleared without any real difficulty.
I looked at the orb. Shaken by Ilmacheonwang's attack, still not quite recovered—but the enemy's spirit remained unbroken.
"Why did the lich oppose you?"
Ilmacheonwang held the lich's life in his grasp. It was, if anything, a more complete control than my own binding of him through the Blood Vassal.
With the Blood Vassal, I can't command him to destroy himself, after all.
Naturally, the lich should have bowed its head like Ilmacheonwang did, or at least fallen in line. Instead, it had shown no such submission and had outright rebelled, as if intent on killing him.
Ilmacheonwang answered as though it were obvious.
"No doubt it is because of Lord Corfus."
"Corfus?"
"Long ago, Lord Corfus created us, and then died at the hands of our own kind—the demons. From that point on, severed from the world, we were trapped in this place."
A span of at least several thousand years. Like Lorelies's underlings, the lesser corpses and soldiers had never felt that flow of time at all—but the Demon Heavenly Kings were different.
"We felt the passage of time with our own bodies. Over those long years, our faith in Lord Corfus grew clouded as well."
Ilmacheonwang had believed in and followed Corfus just as the lich had. No—rather, he had worshipped Corfus with even more fanatic devotion. He had praised his deeds daily and proclaimed his greatness throughout the world.
Had proclaimed.
"But the Third Demon Heavenly King alone kept his faith unshaken."
That someday Corfus would return. Leading hundreds of thousands of corpses, and with their shrouds he would fill the world with a death that never dies.
"Such was his belief. A hollow faith, of course."
"......"
"Well, regardless—this fool is nothing. Beyond his summoning ability, he's utterly useless."
"You do realize I have to kill you, right?"
It wouldn't matter even if Ilmacheonwang had already accepted his defeat. I had been promised the reward of a Masterpiece enhancement, and I had to cut off Ilmacheonwang's head.
I could have negotiated with Lorelies instead, but there was no particular reason to accommodate her—above all, the trial of the Multicolored Successor was still in progress. The system hadn't spelled it out precisely, but Lorelies had said it herself with her own mouth: keep the promise, and a reward would surely follow. That was exactly why I'd spoken without bothering to please her, just as I normally would.
Ilmacheonwang nodded, as if he'd expected it all along.
"As it happens, I have a favor to ask regarding that."
"A favor?"
Swish. Ilmacheonwang's other hand held out another orb. Not the Life Vessel housing the lich—a second Life Vessel entirely. A red soul flickered within it.
"Take me to the Blood Vampire Queen. That is my request."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
This place was a realm severed from the Demon Realm by a contract. No creature here could leave by any means, forced to live out its existence within these bounds alone.
But there is always an exception. If the contract with the Demon Realm forbade exit, then one need only borrow the help of a being who could move freely through the crack between worlds.
"You want me to carry you out?"
"I know full well that you, friend of the Queen, came to this place through a special power from the outside. If that power can be harnessed, then as a 'tool,' I may yet be able to leave."
In short, he was asking me to use the System—to smuggle him out as a reward?
This was a mental world, so I wasn't sure it would even work—but I found myself thinking of the Red Horse of Circulation. Despite being the world boss at the heart of a dungeon, I had placed it inside my Void Space for the sake of making a friend, and then let it out again. If I put this vampire into the Void Space as well, it wouldn't be a hopeless proposition.
"Hmm..."
"I am strong. Of course, measured against the Blood Vampire Queen's caliber I fall far short—but my power itself would doubtless prove useful."
─It cannot be. Such was never within our accord.
Lorelies cut in swiftly. The composed manner and lofty tone from before were gone; she was grave to her core.
"Why not?"
─What I beseeched of thee was the utter annihilation of every fiend of this realm. Yon vampire before us is no exception.
"Aren't you supposed to kill it?"
─Thou wouldst slay the flesh alone, no more.
"Killing is killing, either way."
─Thou knowest this as well as I. The flesh is mere husk. The true body is, self-evidently, the soul. What use is it if he seals his soul within a Life Vessel and carries it off?
"Why do you think it would be useless?"
Lorelies's request had been to deal with the fiends that kept pouring into her sanctuary. I had swept them all away at her behest, and killed their leader besides; my plan was to finish up and head back.
"Not a single fiend remains in this realm. And I'll be taking the soul with me, so you won't suffer any harm from it."
─Even so, annihilation must—
"Which is your actual goal—protecting the sanctuary, or the fiends' eternal extinction?"
─......
Lorelies fell silent.
Clearing the trial required, unavoidably, pleasing Lorelies—but she herself was deeply bound by the System. She held the authority to decide whether a trial was passed, yet she could not bend the trial's contents this way and that on a whim.
If she could have, those arrogant fiends would never have let anyone pass their trials in the first place.
"If it's the latter, then I suppose we could settle it by raising the price. On the condition that you enhance every single Masterpiece to Transcendent grade."
─...Is that not extortion of the highest order?
"If you don't like it, do as you originally intended."
I had nothing to lose either way. Lorelies agonized for a long moment, and then at last conveyed her answer to me.
─...Three.