The Oasis Runs Red
A massive protest filled the square.
"The Heavenly Demon Cult will surrender its monopoly on the oasis!!"
"The oasis belongs to everyone! We have the right to drink!"
"Give us water!!!"
They had to know I was back, and still the crowd screamed toward the palace, voices raw with something that almost felt like madness.
Kasha told me we'd been giving the oasis water away for free.
Ordinarily the water would have been a fortune. But Reltia was still reeling from rebellion, and the Heavenly Demon Cult had opened the wells without charge to quiet the citizens' anger.
Greed, then. And someone stirring them up from behind the scenes.
I stepped into the plaza. The protestors, who had been facing the palace, gradually turned toward me.
"The Heavenly Demon!"
"The Heavenly Demon is here!"
"Open the oasis, Heavenly Demon!"
"Lower the taxes!"
"The northern road is filthy! Repave it!"
They shouted their demands straight into my face. I swallowed a hollow laugh. Had the whole lot of them lost their minds?
No. They hadn't. The protest felt like frenzy, but strip it down piece by piece and there was nothing frenzied about it at all.
What let them stand so boldly in front of me was simple faith in numbers.
More than five thousand of them.
Buried in a corner of every heart was the belief that I would never slaughter five thousand people.
I'll shatter that belief.
I circulated the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
With every breath I exhaled, black demonic qi mixed into the air and rose from my body. The people who had been bellowing their demands fell silent at the sudden change in atmosphere. Terror spread in every direction at once.
"H-Heavenly Demon, sir! It wasn't me! I—!"
"I-I must have gone crazy for a second!"
"I took money from Burpa! He said he'd pay anyone who joined the protest!"
"P-please spare me!"
Far too late for begging.
The black demonic qi became a wind that coiled around my body. I opened my palm, and the black wind gathered at its center, compressing under my control, then spinning. I flicked a glance at my companions. Sharp-eyed Amad herded the others well back.
The black wind is released — a whisper at first, then a storm of vacuum blades.
I let the wind go.
At first the breeze that left me was so faint it was barely felt. It raced through empty air, growing larger by the second. Black wind collided with black wind. In the gaps between those collisions, razor-sharp blades of vacuum took shape and fell upon the crowd.
The demonic wind drank blood.
Blood mixed into the wind.
In the middle of that chaos, the place where I stood remained quiet. I was the eye of the storm.
The people's horrific screams were buried under the roar of the wind.
Thirty seconds, maybe.
The black wind that had scoured the plaza vanished without a sound. What remained was a pool of finely shredded flesh and a vast lake of blood.
"Now I just need to dig out the vermin still hiding in the city and kill them…"
A chill ran down my spine.
A massive wave of power surged from behind me. My face hardened as I turned.
Kasha and the others were there. Startled by the surge, they scattered in every direction — all except one. Ersia alone stood at the center of that power.
Ersia was not herself. Her red eyes had gone slack like a drug addict's, her mouth hung open, long fangs visible. Pink saliva ran freely from her lips.
She can't even swallow. Has she lost consciousness? Why all of a sudden? Was she attacked?
While the questions still formed, Yonggil Gongju stepped up beside me.
"What are you standing around for? Your daughter is rampaging as we speak. Go stop her."
"Rampaging?"
"Ersia is more sensitive to blood than any vampire. Likely because of her unique trait — the Blood Demon Physique. She was already unwell from the moment she saw that much blood at the gate… and now this mess. Left alone, she'll rampage herself to death."
The blood pool covering the plaza floor began to churn, boiling like water at a rolling boil. I swallowed dryly. A powerful force radiated from the blood. The life force of five thousand people still lingering in it was pouring into Ersia.
"How do I stop the rampage?"
"Knock her unconscious."
"…You want me to knock out a girl who's already out cold?"
"She is not unconscious. She has simply been swept away by instinct. Some scrap of awareness will still remain."
"……"
The blood pool whirled up and wrapped around Ersia. I had maybe twenty percent of my demonic qi left. Walking up to her like this would get me killed for certain. And I couldn't dump the job on anyone else. Kasha and Amad would never hold out.
"The easiest method is for you to kill her. Well? What will you choose? Will you kill your own daughter?"
Yonggil Gongju's eyes glittered with interest. She was thoroughly looking forward to my decision.
Gods really were all the same. I clicked my tongue.
"Yonggil Gongju. Keep that tongue loose."
"…Loose?"
"You'll need it to lick my ass."
"You insane little—!"
I left the fuming goddess behind and walked toward Ersia.
The instant my foot came down, the blood pool surged up to bar my way. Every drop that touched my body was heavy.
…Is it targeting me because I'm the strongest?
I ignored the blood and pressed forward.
Crack. Crrrrack!
The sound of the ground being gouged open reached my ears. Three whirlwinds of blood tore across the plaza floor as they closed on me, growing larger by the second.
The power's getting stronger. No time to conserve.
A true step that seizes space itself.
I stamped a true step and seized the space around me. The air shuddered. The whirlwinds lost their balance and vanished. I took another Heavenly Demon Dominion Step.
I meant to leap through space and appear directly in front of Ersia, but the mass of energy gathered around her disrupted my hold on the space.
I'll have to close the distance head-on.
One step. Another. I walked.
The easiest option in this situation was a long-range strike. If I went all out, killing Ersia would not be difficult.
I am not killing my daughter over something this small.
It wasn't even that hard.
Crrrack.
A sudden impact of blood slammed into my left shoulder. The sound of the arm breaking was crisp and clear.
Tch. It punched straight through my protective qi. Terrifying. Is blood magic really this monstrous a skill?
No. It was simply that the lives and blood of five thousand people here were absurd. Put bluntly, it was no different from offering five thousand people as sacrifices. It would have been strange if it weren't powerful.
Ahead of me, a colossal spear of blood took shape. Its tip was aimed at my heart.
Heavenly Demon Qi floods the uninjured right hand.
I concentrated Heavenly Demon Qi into my intact right hand. The blood spear flew. I caught its tip with my right hand and knocked it aside. The spear drove into the ground and exploded. Blood water sheeted over my body and began to bubble and boil. I shook myself, but the blood would not come off.
Gritting my teeth against the pain of my skin being cooked, I activated Heavenly Mind.
Heavenly Mind
Duration: 1 minute
The blood fell away in heavy drops.
The pooled blood on the ground tried to seize my body again, but for the full minute Heavenly Mind was active, nothing could hinder me.
Five meters.
That was the distance between Ersia and me.
Even I could not casually ignore the vast energy pressing down. It felt as if a single breath would crush me flat. Without Heavenly Mind, my legs would already have given out.
She's rampaging, and she can still handle this much power? Trait and skill influence or not… without extraordinary talent, this would be nothing. Ersia is a genius.
Someday, when that talent fully bloomed, she would rank among the strongest in the world. The premonition settled in my bones.
One more step.
Close enough to reach out and touch her.
The powerful energy invaded my body and began wrecking me from the inside. Without the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, I would never have endured it.
"I was far too careless. Ersia — I didn't know nearly enough about you. Next time, I'll be careful."
I took her head in my hand. Careful with the force, I moved my Heavenly Demon Qi.
"Daughter. You're a hundred years too early to kill me and become the Heavenly Demon."
Crack!
I drove a shock into her skull and forced her unconscious. It was the kind of blow that would kill an adult man outright, but given Ersia's stats, it was exactly the right amount.
The moment I took my hand away, her eyes rolled up to show white. I caught her collapsing body with my right arm.
The savage energy crushing the surroundings vanished as well. Some of it seemed to have been absorbed into Ersia.
A fortuitous encounter for her, then.
My shattered left arm and the wreckage inside my torso hurt like hell. I was about to use Full Recovery when Yonggil Gongju came up beside me.
"Unexpected. I truly thought you would kill her."
"Over something this small?"
I pushed Ersia toward Yonggil Gongju. The goddess gathered her gently into her arms. Watching that, I got the sense that Yonggil Gongju regarded Ersia as something special in her own way.
I turned toward the palace.
Full Recovery
"Heavenly Demon! I always believed you would return! Welcome home!"
A beauty with ash-grey hair and blue eyes dropped to her knees before me and cried out. The black clothes she wore were decorated with every kind of bone.
Enas.
Shaman of the Heavenly Demon Cult.
She was voluptuous. Her chest was an H-cup that hung heavy, and there was soft flesh at her sides and thighs.
Those eyes looking up at me were almost those of a fanatic.
She definitely wasn't like this before… What happened while I was gone?
"Heh heh…. Now that the Heavenly Demon has returned, every last rebel is as good as dead!"
"Enas. Issue orders to every cultist in the palace. Seal the gates so those swine can't flee Reltia, and watch the outskirts of the city."
"Yes, Heavenly Demon!"
"And from this moment on — water lockdown."
"…Pardon?"
"Drinking-water control. From now on, the swine of Reltia do not touch a drop without my permission."
"Ahh…! I'll carry it out at once! I can already hear those pigs wailing!"
Enas laughed like a madwoman.
Apparently managing Reltia in my absence had worn her down quite a bit.