Chapter 97
Translator: uly
Chapter: 97
Chapter Title: Valley
"That person isn't some kind of immortal! I'll go meet her myself!"
Chasap Hay reassured the other night gremlins and hurried along the conduits to the landing platform. Of course, the red and vicious aura he'd just seen frightened him too, but the Elis he'd met was surely a being who could become a great asset to the demons.
Perhaps one day, he might even boast about how he'd gone to meet her now, the woman who would later become a Hero of the demons.
"Ah, the circuits."
Worried there might not be enough chill in Elis's circuits, Chasap Hay folded his wings and unlocked the latch on one of the mechanisms in the landing platform. This way, Elis could recharge her chill as soon as she arrived. Feeling proud of himself, Chasap Hay flew back up to the ceiling.
"Elis Hope! Descendant of Sin! I..."
Bursting through the fiercely whipping blizzard, Chasap Hay reached the swarm he thought was Elis-only to freeze in place.
The one in the center was definitely Elis, but the black thing she rode, and the multi-armed things beside her-they were all utterly monstrous horrors.
They were clad head to toe in sleek black armor, yet not a single one had a normal body.
Their forms were unbalanced and twisted, devoid of any consciousness. They simply gripped spears and swords wreathed in purple energy, shields at the ready, poised to tear apart every enemy in sight. Elis controlled them as she spoke.
"Recharge the circuits in all of them. And fill them with chill."
The furious-no, vengeful-knights bowed their heads to Chasap Hay, perhaps in response to Elis's words. Overcome by instinctive fear, Chasap Hay wrapped his wings around himself and crouched low.
"E-Elis Hope?"
The boy asked in a trembling voice. Elis-or whatever she'd become, fused with those things-approached him atop a mount where arms and legs blurred together, appendages sprouting from her head in ways that defied naming.
"That's right. I'm going back to the human city. Please help me, little night gremlin."
Twisted. Her voice clearly held hope, yet Chasap Hay could only sense the same incomprehensibility in this Elis as when he'd glimpsed the Demon King's will through the Queen's map. How could a mere lifeform presume to grasp her intent, her causality, her resolve?
"I... I..."
Unable to understand, fear made his voice shake. He felt like a worthless insect compared to the researcher he'd been, the one who'd studied the descendants of sin all his life.
Did I dare try to comprehend that?
Those eyes?
No, perhaps I dared to aid that war passed down from the gods themselves?
His brain overloaded, a searing pain like boiling brains overtaking him.
"Help me."
"Ah."
Only then did Elis's voice snap him back to his senses.
"Help me."
Elis gave a frail smile. That strained expression recast her from a higher being back into someone with a heart like his own. Finally, in this frozen snow mountain, Chasap Hay rose gripping the ice, dry-heaving and drooling as he managed to say,
"F-Follow me. I've prepared it."
Elis followed without even nodding, her face blank but her rage burning fierce.
The boy flew back to the landing platform, but Elis and her horde lacked wings, so they plummeted to the ground like falling debris, forcibly mending shattered bones and ruptured flesh to reform their shapes. Blood pools formed in their wake.
"W-What do you plan to do now?"
Chasap Hay didn't ask out of curiosity about Elis's thoughts; he asked because he still feared her presence. Elis gave no answer even as the boy serviced the circuits. Chasap Hay grimaced at the nauseating fishy stench as he buried his hands in the horrifically smooth flesh, inscribing circuits amid the gore, and spoke again.
"We are demons! We've lost our god, and now we must have vengeance! Against the Empire! Against that princess! We need your strength, Elis! Hrk."
"I'm just going down there, and I'll kill anything that gets in my way. That must be the will of the god who revived me."
"That's why the Empire's god, the princess's god-they're all fakes!"
Not even knowing what he was saying himself, the night gremlin boy kept shouting, convinced he could never say this otherwise. Blood filled his mouth too.
"I don't know much about myths or anything! Gahk, urk."
It must have been from harboring madness too long. From descending so blindly through repeated deaths. From killing and dying endlessly until he'd transcended life itself, on the verge of truly becoming a descendant of sin. He'd lost his heart. That's why her eyes held that sorrowful joy, feeling nothing yet sensing everything.
So he had to tell her.
"But there must be a reason you were reborn! Please fight for what's right!"
The boy's small comfort touched something that transcended life and death. Something invisible yet sparkling. Something he'd once had inside him too-the direction he'd followed silently, even without purpose.
If the one who saved me is that thing called fate, that god, then for him, I...
"Yes, for that, I'd even kill a god."
Elis felt the pus-filled abscess in her head clear away. The circuits brimmed with chill, and the boy who'd helped lay exhausted in a pool of blood, freezing over.
"Thank you."
With that, Elis took to the night skies with her chill-infused knights. She kicked off the ice amid flurries of snow, and as she leaped the valley, she sensed another madness calling to her.
"You've come."
It was just before dawn.
What the giants and knights faced was...
"I know you helped with the job well. And I've heard you're still doing great even now. But even so, my Harpia didn't come back to me after dying by your hand."
It was Kirumin Jay, the night gremlin queen, standing amid five golems blocking the immortals like a wall, cradling something crushed in her arms, tears streaming down her face.
"My madness lingers here."
"You mean something like those things behind you? 'Descendants of sin'-it's been rotten since that demon said it. Just too horrific. Ugly and pitiful, just like you."
"I'm just going down to reclaim my madness. To the human city. Even if I have to kill a god."
Kirumin Jay rose, tears freezing on her cheeks, and continued with a sinister smile.
"You're insane. Your mind's gone mad. Look at yourself-no need for a mirror of ice. Just look at the byproducts of sin around you. You've forgotten all that talk of the past, the Demon King, the Hero, haven't you? How much of the you that you remember is even left? Like I said, do you still crave freedom? Do you want to go back to being human?"
Even in the face of her cruel words, Elis remained coldly silent. Enraged by the sight, Kirumin Jay slammed the Harpia remnant to the ground and ignited flames to burn it all away.
All night gremlins stored chill in their circuits, but the queen held flames, making this possible. Left as is, beasts or immortals might scent it, or a golem blocking it might scatter the remains.
So she burned it. Erasing every trace, every memory-the queen's final mercy. That was the night gremlin funeral rite.
She strode toward Elis.
"You went mad, and that's how you ended up like this. Me too. This world wrapping around us, this story-we ignore it all and act as we please. So mad we have no choice. You'll keep descending like you're the abyss itself. I thought it good for us demons, used it-even ignored the cost. You know it all too, but shove it aside anyway. I want to kill that you."
The two women knew. They understood even each other's hearts.
"I'll have my revenge on you."
No fear between them, like Chasap Hay's.
"Even though you yourself are revenge."
They were mere vessels flowing with the story's roles. But this moment of their meeting defied the narrative's current, leaving only madness. Acting freely. Insane. Mad enough to kill each other.
"Here, this is the life you wanted, that I spoke of."
Perhaps because they understood each other most, resembled each other most.
"Come to think of it, your revenge power-or rather, the power of your vengeance-is 'returning it,' right?"
Kirumin Jay moved her hand, igniting a dark blue glow in the golems. The madness she'd flown on had descended and served its purpose, but apparently, after infusing it into the golems, she herself could control them now.
Horns spewing dark red light, she continued.
"The power I received through these horns is reflection."
Elis responded in kind, summoning her vengeance's dark red glow to form a sword.
"I am the Demon King's knight, and I alone am his knight order."
Kirumin Jay replied with a sinister grin.
"Knight order? Fine then, let your knight order dance with my legion!"
Boom!
Madness swirled as the two vengeances clashed.