Blood Battle
"Camilla!"
"I know!"
Faced with a mage superior to herself, Camilla's lips moved as she poured her mana into her staff.
"Winter's Gale!"
The damp, sweltering sewers went bone-dry in an instant. And that was only the beginning. A howling wind tore through the passage, and the temperature plummeted.
The water dragon that had been about to swallow Sloan and the rest of us behind her froze solid mid-roar, jaws still gaping wide — an ice sculpture suspended in midair. Freezing something that massive was impressive enough, but landing the spell with such precision that none of us took a scratch was even more remarkable.
"Magnificent. Magic like that— gah?!"
"Tsk."
Elisa, who had been holding her breath in the darkness until that moment, loosed a killing shot at the Lich. It was so fast that even I couldn't track it.
But that lethal ambush slammed into a barrier the Lich had prepared in advance. Still, the thing seemed startled — it took a half-step back and flung out a hand.
"You cunning little knife-eared bastard!"
The Lich blasted out a psychic wave that warped the trajectory of a second arrow arriving a beat later. The force was so violent that even Sloan, who had just lunged forward, staggered.
"Flames of the Netherworld! Come to me!"
"That thing— it knows Netherworld magic too?!"
"Lylie!"
"Y-Yes!"
The dark sewers lit up in a single flash. Fwoooom! It felt as though someone had crammed a sun into the tunnel.
I staggered and looked ahead at the light pouring toward us. Fire. An overwhelming wall of flame vast enough to scour the entire passage clean.
But only the light seared our eyes — no heat touched us. That was Lylie's doing.
"O Lord, protect this young lamb who praises Your name."
A priestess on both knees, begging her Goddess for power, could raise a barrier of an entirely different caliber from Camilla's mana shields. The thickness of it was on another level.
"S-Sloan—?"
"Don't worry about her! Good — mana's fully charged… Air Purge!"
Like snuffing a candle wick, the flames that had threatened to devour the sewers vanished in an instant, leaving only smoke. With my vision finally restored, I could see what had become of Sloan.
She was still on her feet, sword planted in the ground for support. Deep burns scored her skin — but even those couldn't hide that distinctive beauty of hers.
"You wretched woman! Are you some kind of hatchling?!"
"Cough! Cough!"
Instead of answering, Sloan spat black smoke from her mouth, took one step forward, and swung her blade at the Lich's neck.
That crushing stroke carved empty air. The Lich had teleported backward again.
Still no sign of using its innate magic?
At this point you'd think it would. Don't tell me raw power is all it's got for an innate ability.
No choice, then. If this keeps up, that Lich is going to kill Sloan.
That was absolutely unacceptable. If her corpse fell into Lichtes's hands, it would be a catastrophe all its own. Weak Demon Kings like me might even get purged.
Lich. Can you hear me?
Ah — yes, I hear you, O Great One!
From now on, attack me as well. That's an order.
Bound by the laws of hierarchy, the Lich seemed almost delighted by the command. Of course it was — wanting to kill a superior weaker than yourself is pure monster instinct.
O Great One, I am sorry, but…
Doesn't matter. Counterattack if you can.
Understood.
Now that it was truly in the fight, the Lich seemed to get serious. It began drawing up mana with genuine intent to kill me.
Before it could, I cloaked myself in stealth and moved forward. The moment I vanished from Lylie's side, the Lich bellowed as if it had expected exactly that.
"You little rat of a thief!"
Sloan heard that and spun around — and in that same instant her body went flying backward with a heavy thud. Some kind of invisible magic.
"Watch out! That's an Air Gun!"
"Air magic, then?"
Compressed air fired like a projectile. How many spells did this thing even know? Still stealthed, I threw myself into the water channel that was just beginning to rise again.
A scalding heat wrapped around my body. Ugh — boiling water. But even as weak as I was, I could endure this much.
Lichtes, you built one hell of a monster. This thing is way too strong for something meant to take a single city!
He'd gone and dispatched a thoroughly competent subordinate. Building it must have cost a fortune in materials. At this level, it was easily the equal of a Four Heavenly Kings' lieutenant.
True to form, the Lich didn't disappoint — it switched to another spell.
"Freeze."
The flames vanished in a sweep, and a killing chill flooded the entire sewer. Even the scalding water I was submerged in went ice-cold.
I had no choice but to surface — and the next attack came the moment I did. What a nuisance.
"I'll put a hole through that skull of yours."
Fwaaat—! Elisa's arrow tore through the air again. The Lich raised a hand and cast a stop spell, but the arrow's speed didn't drop by so much as a fraction.
"Still with these irritating little tricks!"
In the end the Lich had to use a different spell to deflect it — twisting the trajectory with another air blast, by the look of it.
The way a recovered Sloan went tumbling again confirmed it.
"You first, then. My loyal servants! Come forth!"
—Screeeeech!
Apparently deciding Elisa was the most troublesome opponent, the Lich used necromancy to summon skeletal warriors — right behind us, no less.
With no muscle at all, they had almost no strength. But there were a lot of them. Camilla could handle that sort of thing, except—
"Mage! Where do you think you're looking?!"
The Lich immediately spun up several spells to pin Camilla down, splitting its attention just enough to keep Sloan from closing in as well.
Looking at the battlefield alone, that thing has the advantage.
It kept producing the right spell at the right moment. It ignored Lylie entirely — she had no offensive options — and focused on containing Sloan and Camilla.
I threw a dagger at the back of its skull, but it reacted before the blade arrived, blocked it with magic, and even counterattacked.
I was about to fall back and rethink my approach when a bone-chilling laugh rang out.
"Kheheheheheheh!"
Sloan's condition after being roasted was catastrophic. Consecutive spells had crumpled her armor, and blood poured freely from her head.
Anyone could see she was critically wounded. And yet she hoisted her holy sword in one hand and shouted:
"Camilla! Do that thing I asked for!"
"Huh? Oh—! Heavy Sword!"
Ziiiiing—! White light flooded over the holy blade. Was that— increasing the sword's weight?
She was already barely keeping up with speed, and now she was adding mass? What was she thinking?
Suddenly Sloan advanced — slowly, this time.
"That's far enough."
Thud! Sloan's charge stopped cold. Focused entirely on her attack, she had failed to notice the magic coalescing in the Lich's hand.
It formed a cluster of ice spikes and punched holes through Sloan's body. Thud! She twisted at the last second, sparing herself a fatal wound — but still.
Her side is pierced. Thigh's run clean through. Leave her like that and her guts will start spilling out. And those are areas dense with major blood vessels…
An ordinary person would have been thrashing on the floor in agony. And then dead. Even for Sloan, those injuries were severe.
Worse, ice was spreading outward from the open wounds. Ice Parasite? That was one of Lichtes's creations — a grotesque spell that fed on the target's blood and flesh to grow.
"Fall back! Valli needs to buy us time!"
Ridiculous. The look on Sloan's face wasn't despair or pain — it was pure enjoyment. That woman was savoring this.
"This is the best. So this is what dying feels like… My guts keep trying to fall out. My thigh's going cold."
"…You've lost too much blood. Your mind's gone. This time I'll freeze your brain solid."
"Just a little more…!"
Sloan's holy sword blazed even brighter. It no longer felt like a weapon so much as a concept given form. Its full power hadn't shown itself yet — but by every instinct I possessed, that thing was apocalypse shaped like a blade.
Every survival instinct I'd honed over a lifetime was screaming the same warning. That was dangerous.
It's a demon sword in all but name.
This fight was over. The Lich should have taken her head off with that last attack. Whether it even could have was another question.
"I'll start by twisting that arm of yours."
Crrraaack—! The Lich's skeletal hand clenched, and Sloan's left arm twisted with a grotesque crunch, the parasitic ice chaining the spell through her flesh.
"Ahah!"
Every bone in the arm, joints included, had been mangled — and the Hero didn't so much as whimper. She only laughed.
Sloan staggered forward and drove her sword in a straight thrust. The Lich sneered at the sight and, unlike before, did not teleport away.
Idiot. Sloan buried the blade without hesitation. The Lich poured magic into her, but it made no difference.
"You're half-dead and still trying to stab me?!"
…Misjudgment. If that thing had teleported, Sloan would have lost. Completely.
"With your power, you could never— Gyaaah?! Aaaargh! Why—?!"
It must have layered mana barriers over its body — several of them. But the holy sword punched straight between the Lich's ribs. For a skeleton with no muscle, a thrusting attack was normally inefficient, but—
"Hhhk…?"
That only applied to the weak. The blade shattered the Lich's ribcage and split the vertebrae between its spine.
With no nerves, the Lich had no concept of physical pain — and yet its body convulsed. The sacred light pouring from the holy sword itself was delivering a spiritual agony.
"I'm not finished! I—!"
"Aha. So when I stab you with this sword… even things like you feel pain. Learned something new."
"Y-You bitch…"
"Well then. Time to go. That was fun. I don't think I'll ever find another toy quite like you."
The Hero's next strike wasn't with the sword. She drove her forehead hard into the Lich's skull. Its eye sockets caved in. The Lich shuddered, flailing its bare bone hands through empty air — a trivial, meaningless resistance.
"Still not dead?"
Crunch…! The Hero's teeth sank into the thing's cervical vertebrae. The Lich clacked its jaws and thrashed, and then the light in its eyes went out. Dead.
Anticlimactic. For something that strong to die from a moment of carelessness. Then again, Sloan really had looked like she was about to die. Maybe if I struck now—
No. Camilla would catch me and kill me.
I should have fought alongside the Lich and waited for an opening. But I'd been too busy just keeping myself alive. Damn it all!
Forgive… me. I failed…
Its final thoughts flowed into me. Its soul would be burning in real time. A holy sword granted the wicked not even the mercy of reincarnation.
No — you did well. You lost stupidly to carelessness, but rest now. I'll tell your master you were brave.
An… an… an… honor… it is…
Yeah.
The Lich never finished speaking. It died without ever understanding why it had lost.
That should be enough. The Hero had taken another step forward. Put another way — the blade pointed at us had grown that much sharper.
"That was fun."
The Hero, one arm hanging in tatters, looked at me and laughed with the pure delight of a child.
"Does this make me an official adventurer now? That goblin earlier seemed like it just got caught in the crossfire, though."
She had a point. Sloan was now a Bronze-rank adventurer — the lowest grade on the board.
The Adventurers' Guild was in an uproar. They'd sent a party to clear out a goblin detachment, and the party had come back having slain a powerful undead instead.
"This thing is… Highrihin, isn't it? The wicked mage who destroyed the ancient empire a thousand years ago."
"Hmm. Certainly looks that way. This staff is a symbol of the imperial mages. Though I've never heard that he became a Lich."
Murmurs filled the room. The guild officers traded opinions, hashing over the situation.
"There has to be a reason a Lich came here. If we're talking about a Demon King who commands the undead… the twenty-first, Gulum, seems the most likely."
"We can't rule out the forty-fourth, Haran, either. That one alone has already destroyed six cities."
These fools still had no idea who they were dealing with. Was it the long war? Information had been so thoroughly cut off that they were flinging around every theory under the sun — and every single one of them was wrong.
"In any case, we understand that a Demon King has its sights on this city. This is quite the crisis. Hah…"
"Hmm!"
They were fretting themselves into a panic. I couldn't help but smile. Call it the satisfaction of watching my own kind make waves.
"Ahem!"
Sloan planted her hands on her hips with total confidence and drew every eye in the room. That ample chest of hers swayed with the motion.
She had already shrugged off that mountain of wounds and gotten back on her feet. Even with Lylie's exceptional healing, she should have needed days of recovery — but the moment they arrived she'd packed away several kilos of meat and healed herself right up.
"This body right here is the one that took it down!"
"And your name is…?"
"Sloan. Sloan. Well, I'm sure you've all heard of me! I'm something of a famous Hero these days, you know?"
"Ah. Is that so."
Hmm? Why didn't any of them recognize Sloan? Their expressions had just shifted into something faintly odd — the look you give a lunatic.
Something was off. Sloan's name itself wasn't widely known. I, a Demon King, knew more about her than these people did.
Even with information cut off, word of mouth should have carried her reputation somewhere.
You humans…
They were clearly up to something. The moment they heard Sloan's name, their faces had changed completely.
Well then. Let's find out why.
Why the Hero who was supposed to become my sword was being ignored. I was sick of watching bandits throw their lives at us every time we traveled.
Pull a few fingernails and the answers should come out easy enough.
I found myself looking forward to nightfall.