Stalling for Time
The location Stanashila Aljen had provided was home to a foul, abhorrent coven of warlocks.
Altars were caked in dried blood and rotting flesh, mounds of corpses reeked of decay, black-red magic circles pulsed with malevolence, and shadowy figures radiated a grotesque, ominous aura.
"Wh-What?! A Sword Master...!"
"How did the Duke find this place?!"
Without uttering a single syllable to the panicking cultists, Urtega swung his sword.
They put up the best resistance they could muster—raising barriers of dark mana, summoning familiars, and triggering every trap and offensive mechanism laid within their makeshift workshop. Yet all their desperate struggles came to naught. A single, dazzling flash extinguished everything in absolute silence.
"...Hmph."
Dozens of cultists, their traps, their magical arrays, and every trace of dark mana had vanished without leaving a scrap of debris. Exhaling a short breath into the suddenly vacant chamber, Urtega looked down at his blade, looking somewhat dissatisfied.
The heirloom blade—wielded only by the patriarch of the ducal house—carved a flawless trajectory through the air. Part sword dance, part idle flick of the wrist, the exquisite arc ended with his brow furrowing deeper as he sheathed the weapon.
"...Still beyond me, it seems."
A sigh laden with lingering regret escaped his lips. Deep within his consciousness stood a colossal wall that only he could perceive.
It was a barrier he had long since given up on breaching, despite the transcendent intuition and genius he was renowned for. Yet now, that wall had been halved in height and ground down to half its thickness. The realization and awakening sparked by the words of the ducal house's third son, Stanashila Aljen, had made that possible. Even so, the insight remained incomplete; the next realm was still tantalizingly out of reach.
Still, his blood ran hotter than it ever had before. Just like in his headstrong youth—when he had burned through everything in a reckless pursuit of martial supremacy—a blind ambition and hunger for strength boiled uncontrollably within his chest, almost painfully fierce. Having once abandoned that path, the rekindled fire burned all the brighter. The fact that half of Cambello's curse still lingered inside him only served to fan those flames.
Urtega took a deep, steadying breath.
Though every fiber of his being screamed to cast everything aside and pursue that incomplete enlightenment, his reason was cold and unyielding. First, he had to deliver his territory from peril. He understood better than anyone that this was his duty, his right, and his burden, and so he forcibly suppressed the raging fire within.
"Magnificent. Even for mere mortals, they were somewhat useful... I hardly expected you to obliterate them in a single breath."
Accompanied by a soft clapping sound, an aberrant figure emerged as if carved directly from the shadows.
Though its silhouette vaguely mimicked a human form, stepping into the dim light revealed how profoundly alien it truly was. A single spiral horn jutted from its head, flanked by membranous wings, a reptilian tail, and emerald-green hair framing beastly green eyes.
The moment their gazes locked, Urtega's body went taut. An alien static and visceral dread, entirely foreign to his own mind, took root within his consciousness. Even as a superhuman who had reached the continent's pinnacle, he could not entirely shake it.
Urtega exhaled slowly. He knew this dread did not stem from the curse placed upon him. It was as though the creature's very existence was so immeasurably superior that its mere presence exerted an inexplicable pressure on body and soul.
And yet, the pressure was noticeably weaker than during their first encounter.
Was it because his own realm had climbed slightly? Instinct told him that wasn't it. This difference had nothing to do with personal strength or tier; it stemmed from something far more fundamental.
...Has he grown weaker? Why?
It didn't take him long to realize that the 'something' was the Fragment of the Evil God. The creator and ruler of all demonic beasts and demons. The divine antithesis to the Goddess. The divine fragment that Cambello harbored was, for some reason, faint and diminished.
Grinning as if savoring Urtega's reaction, the demon spread his arms in an exaggerated gesture.
"Now then... why strike down these servants of mine? Am I to interpret this as a rejection of my proposal?"
Urtega stared silently at the demon, measuring the distance out of sheer habit. Curiously, the creature felt as faint as mist and as distant as the horizon—an uncanny sensation that even a Sword Master had never experienced before. But his razor-sharp intuition swiftly unraveled the puzzle: this was not the demon's true body, but an avatar.
An avatar painstakingly forged to mirror the original down to the finest detail. Because cleaving it would not extinguish the demon's true life, his blade-sense registered it as distant and hazy.
Cunning and cautious to a fault... just as said.
Suppressing his anger, Urtega kept his mouth firmly shut, pondering his next move.
Come to think of it, hadn't that unfilial rascal told him to put on a bit of a performance?
"My, my? What seems to be the matter? You are uncharacteristically quiet."
The demon slithered closer, a serpentine grin splitting his face as a forked tongue flicked between his lips. He circled Urtega lazily.
"Hehehe. I see you are still torn. Naturally. The temptation is far too sweet, isn't it? Nearly impossible to resist. The yearning for power... the desperation to touch a higher plane... Ah, what a relief. It seems you are still thoroughly ensnared by my curse."
Urtega had done nothing that could even remotely be called acting. Yet seeing the creature jump to its own conclusions, he decided staying silent was the best course of action.
"To tell you the truth, I was quite astonished. For a mere human to purge half of my curse... just how did you manage it? That is hardly a curse one can overcome through sheer willpower."
Urtega offered no response.
"Ah, I suppose speaking to you is pointless now. By this point, reason and raw desire must be violently clashing within you, scrambling your thoughts and muddying your intellect... Hehehe."
Reaching into his robes, the demon drew out a hideously contorted skull. As his claw caressed its crown, an ominous, chilling light flared within its abyss-like eye sockets. His Soul Gears, the Soul Pit, was stirring the grudges and captive souls bound within it.
"Come now, cease your suffering and accept my offer. Allow me to help you."
An instant later, a bloodcurdling wail—as though tens of thousands were screaming in unison—bore into Urtega's soul.
The light faded from Urtega's eyes, forgetting the very fact that he had heard such shrieks. The newly layered curse thoroughly seeped into his flesh, mind, and spirit.
"Hehehe... Hahahahaha! At last! At long last, you are mine! That was quite a harrowing gamble!"
Beneath his composed demeanor, Cambello had actually been rife with anxiety. Several of his schemes, which should have been nurtured with far more care, had run aground one after another as if anticipated by someone in advance. Consequently, a shortage of sacrifices had weakened his curse, pushing him to the brink of utter failure.
"Whew... Stanasila Urtega! Here is your first command! Tear down the ducal house with your own hands!"
Lifeless eyes fixed upon Cambello.
In the next heartbeat, Cambello found his throat caught in an iron grip as he was hurled brutally into the stone wall.
The impact shook the chamber with a thunderous boom. Cambello kicked in panic, yet his clawed feet dangled uselessly above the floor.
"Krk?! H-Gah...?!"
Unable to track Urtega's movements in the slightest, his jaws dropped in sheer disbelief.
"Wh-What...? The curse... clearly took hold...!"
"...The price."
"What...?"
"...The price."
The demand was repeated in a flat, hollow tone. Scrambling to piece the situation together, Cambello managed to squeeze out a ragged breath.
"O-Of course you will have it! Power far beyond human limits! Vast authority never meant for mortal grasp! A glorious Fragment of the Evil God! Without a single falsehood, it shall reside within you!"
"...Very well."
Muttering softly, Urtega released the demon's throat and grasped the hilt of his blade.
"Haa... haa...!"
"Since we... have made a deal... I shall overlook... your insolence... this once."
"...What?"
Even through an avatar, the visceral, unmistakable image of death seared itself into Cambello's consciousness.
"Next time... come in your true form."
With his body cleaved into dozens of ribbons, Cambello's severed head rolled across the stone floor. Through a dizzying, spinning field of vision, the low, resonant voice echoed one last time before his avatar's consciousness was snuffed out entirely.
Well, we're properly screwed.
Looking down dumbly at the creature that had cleaved straight through the fortress wall and its barrier in a single blow, I let out a long sigh.
It was quite a distance away, and the bastard had an inherently faint presence, so identifying him was tricky. But his features were far too distinctive to mistake. A wispy, ghostly presence, a motion that hovered somewhere between walking and gliding, and a tall, angular body resembling a withered tree trunk.
"High Demon Deacon..."
"Aljen. Do you know who that demon is?"
"Well enough. More importantly... sigh... Father? Can you hear me? We've got an emergency on our hands."
No matter how long I waited, the communication artifact remained dead silent.
That left only two possibilities: he was either in the middle of putting on a dramatic act, or he had genuinely fallen to the curse. I could only pray it was the former.
"...I'll speak assuming you can hear this. Another high demon has appeared before the Duke's Castle. Please keep that in mind as you act."
Cutting off the channel, I glared down at Deacon with an overwhelming urge to throw my hands up and quit.
"Right then... now we have to buy time. Hmm..."
Is that even possible? And how?
I ran some quick numbers in my head.
"Yep. Completely screwed."
Maybe if we threw the entire knight order, the mage corps, and every single hand from the Holy Church at him, we might just bring Deacon down. Though it was vastly more likely we'd be wiped out instead.
Even if we did manage that, how the hell were we supposed to handle the remaining twenty thousand undead? Thanks to the Mana Wave Blockers, their dark mana-infused army would be significantly weakened, but holding off that many corpses without knights was pure fantasy.
In other words, if we were going to stall for time, it had to be done without violence—and without casualties.
I dug through the wealth of lore and game knowledge stored in my head, pulling up everything related to Deacon.
"...This might actually work. Mother."
"Y-Yes? What is it, dear?"
Staring out the window with an anxious expression, she jumped slightly at my call, drawing her shoulders in. She still seemed awkward around me after what happened earlier.
Offering a wry smile, I gestured toward Deacon with a nod.
"Can you cast voice amplification magic? So that thing down there can hear me."
"That isn't too difficult. I can do it. I have plenty of mana left."
"Great. Cast it right away."
"Do you have a plan?"
"Well... we have to give it a shot. It's not like we have any other options."
Watching Deacon stand motionless before the breached wall like a petrified tree, I turned over words in my mind, searching for the exact trigger that would seize his attention.
A desolate, suffocating silence hung near the main gates of the Duke's Castle, resembling the aftermath of a catastrophe. While fear and panic contributed, the primary culprit was the grotesque presence radiating from the aberrant entity before them.
"...Bring forth... the one called the Sword Master."
His halting, disjointed voice was not particularly loud, yet every syllable hammered into the ears of all present.
"Ugh, uuugh..."
"Wh-What in the world is that thing...?!"
"O-O Goddess... protect us with your light...!"
Merely by standing there, his alien presence ruthlessly trampled their fighting spirit and scattered their courage to the wind. Just looking upon him, just hearing his voice, brought waves of nausea and filled their heads with an inexplicable, screeching static.
Instinct screamed at the top of its lungs: that thing had no right to exist in this world. It was an absolute, superior entity beyond comprehension. If they wished to live, they had to throw themselves to the dirt and beg for mercy.
"H-Hrk...!"
Just as someone, pushed past the brink of endurance, turned pale and prepared to sink to their knees, a voice thundered through the sky above the Duke's Castle.
Deacon flinched.
Having stood like a block of wood, doing nothing but repeating his demand for the Sword Master, the demon reacted violently for the first time. His sunken eyes snapped upward, locking onto Aljen—who was leaning casually on the window frame, thoroughly drunk and wearing a brazen, irreverent smirk.