Chapter 34
Iaimed upward, and with Sanguine Slash, I sent several rippling waves of blood into the howling maelstrom of evil above us.
I managed to catch a few of the fragments floating in the air, but it was only a few amongst hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of the Demon Lord’s soul swirling into the tornado above with the lives he had just harvested.
"There must be something we can do," Almeria said, turning to me with fierce determination in her eyes.
"If you want to take a few shots while you can, I'm sure you can get a few of them," I said, nodding at the fragments still gathering from farther away, deeper in the Amazon, as more floated up. I could only shudder at the sheer number of deaths they all represented.
The tribes were already lost.
A deep chuckle began in the cloud high above. "Behold! You humans hold the great honor of witnessing my rebirth."
The Demon Lord's voice filled the sky. The tornado sped up its descent until the very tip touched the ground, and it all collapsed in on itself to that single point, revealing a handsome man with pale skin and glowing red eyes that betrayed any attempt to look like a human.
He stood with his arms out, as if expecting a round of applause to accompany his arrival.
Though something was wrong. His skin glowed like there were cracks underneath it.
"I have come! Those who kneel quickly will be rewarded!" his voice boomed unnaturally, as if it would always fill the space around him.
The Mul Branova and the nuns stood far back from the display.
"What are you waiting for?" someone yelled and rushed forward, only for one of my Mul Branova to let loose a blast of fire that turned the traitor to humanity into a smoldering corpse where he stood.
"That will be the fate of anyone who submits to the Demon Lord," I announced, and several other people who looked as if they'd been considering running forward found their feet glued to the floor.
"Oh," the Demon Lord said, pulling his arms down as black armor crept across his body like blood flowing backward.
"It seems I have problems in my midst," he said, turning his attention towards me with a small narrowing of his eyes in recognition.
"Bran. How wonderful to see you. If I had known you were going to show, I would have prepared something more appropriate. "
I chuckled. "I wouldn't want to put you out, Camden," I said, using the name he had gone by while hiding in his sect rather than any deferential title.
"I like 'Demon Lord' better. If you're here to try and spoil another plan, you are too late." He stepped back and lifted into the air. "The region is worthless to me now. I suppose, given your presence, you had some hand in orchestrating recent affairs."
I shrugged. "And if I did, would that make a difference?"
"I suppose not," he mused, beginning to drift back and away. "I'm a little too busy to entertain you, but I'm certain others are far freer."
I noticed some in the crowd around us began to shift forward.
Those left after he'd absorbed all the souls were only of two natures: either they were demons or they were the rare few his people hadn't managed to capture and corrupt.
My guess was the majority of those starting to move towards me were demons.
"Those who accept a demon into their hearts will be granted the power to survive in this new world!
" the Demon Lord shouted, his little recruiting pitch working far better than I'd like to admit.
I found myself surrounded by enemies, many of the demons shedding their human forms as the Demon Lord's aura surrounded them and filled them with strength.
I turned to the closest demon, my Bloodiron Blade bleeding out of me before I swung it with enough force that Venthra's hair blew to the side as I struck the demon and scattered them into little more than crimson dust. My teeth ground together.
"Mul Branova, with me! Kill every demon you see!" I shouted and led by example, my blade swinging out and blowing two more demons away. I moved by instinct while the shock of what had happened sank in. My mind was still reeling.
Without much thought, I simply exercised my strength with a few heavy swings that cleared the area of immediate demons. The Mul Branova pulled their own weight, with varied weapons and spells attacking the demons as the nuns remained standing still, unsure what to do next.
I turned to the closest nun. "A powerful being known as the Demon Lord just mass-harvested the people of your city in order to increase his own strength.
" I needed them to snap out of it and start to act.
"I hate to take your options away from you, but they are simply fight or die. There really is no middle ground."
The nun looked at me as if it were my fault. "How do we save those who've fallen ill?"
I shook my head. "They aren't ill. They are dead.
" I swung my blade again at a demon that had tried to come up on me while I was having this brief conversation.
A Crimson Barrier caught their first strike before I dismissed it and swung again, destroying the demon and turning back to the conversation.
"We will talk later," she said with certainty.
"No, we won't. You're pretty much worthless at this point." I shook my head.
Her eyes popped wide at my words. "Excuse me?"
"Demons have just killed a massive portion of your city's population. They've drawn strength from the human bodies, and I have other problems to worry about than babysitting a group as weak as yours who let this happen. Now, survive!" I snapped at her.
The nun's face fell into a deep scowl. "Listen here—" she began, but I strode past her and began obliterating demons with each sweep of my blade, shredding anyone who stood behind them in the quickly forming battle line, even as the Demon Lord had seemed to vanish.
I doubted he would have run from me if he was confident he could remove me from the game board.
I needed to figure out where he'd gone and catch up to him before he got whatever it was he still wanted out of the region.
I didn't believe for a second that he actually had more important work to do than deal with me here.
Those of my Mul Branova who were high-leveled enough summoned blood simulacra of me that began to stomp and storm through the area, swinging heavy blades of blood that diced through demons.
I spun, catching the blade of a demon who appeared out of thin air, their blade mere inches from my neck, grabbed them by the wrist, pulled them to the side, and allowed one of the simulacra to finish them off.
The moment of respite that gave me to think brought me a strange sense of clarity.
"Merlin!" I shouted across the battlefield. "We need to get back to the First Garden! Now!"
Shadows consumed her as she appeared at my side. "Who's us?" she asked.
"You, me, Venthra, and Almeria. If you know where Nyx is, we should drag her along, too."
"I'll bring her with us. Are we just going to leave the city to its fate?" she asked, and I shook my head.
"The Mul Branova can handle this fight. I'm sure after they're done here, the nuns won't stand a chance. The Mul Branova now rule the area," I told her.
Merlin gave a slow, steady nod before the shadows engulfed me and spat me back out into the familiar scenery of the First Garden.
I was surrounded by large marble columns with vines and broad-leaf plants growing off of them in every direction.
The only difference from past visits was that the space was eerily quiet.
The second the Demon Lord had begun reaping the area, I had glanced in the direction of the First Garden. Not a single speck came from it. Like Eve had known and prevented the Demon Lord from infecting her sect, but if that were the case…
I walked through the sect, a knowing knot twisting in my gut as I stepped into Eve's palace.
"Oh, welcome back, Bran," her voice carried through. She seemed entirely unconcerned about the state of her sect.
"Eve, how could you?" I roared, stepping through the palace to where I had first found her lounging in the hot spring. This time, however, she nibbled on an apple and turned to me with a smirk.
"There are so many things I have done lately, Bran. Which one might bother you the most?" Glowing green lines, seemingly vines buried underneath her skin, illuminated her where she sat in the hot spring. Her eyes had shifted to the same eerie green of the lines, covering her from head to toe.
I saw it for what it was, but I also knew yelling at her would do absolutely nothing. Smug satisfaction rested on her face.
"You've killed them all," I said. My fury turned into smoldering coals. There was no urgency because there was no one left to save. Just a monster to remove.
She rolled to the side, taking a long, loud crunch of her apple. "I'm afraid you're going to have to explain a few things to me. Mainly"—crunch—"why, in any way, shape, or form, do you get a say in what happens to those of my sect?"
"I did not come here to help you slaughter your entire sect," I told her.
"Right. That." She chuckled.
"Yes. Though I suppose you couldn't be bothered about it!" I snapped.
She waffled her head back and forth. "It's not that I couldn't be bothered…” She trailed off.
“It's that you’d been made an offer that served you better!" I snapped at the very end of my patience.
"Before you arrived," she clarified with a dismissive wave of her hand. "In fact, before the Rapture."
"Before the Rapture," I said slowly. "The Demon Lord came to you?"
"Yes. The Demon Lord came to me. He recognized my value and offered me a very simple exchange.
He would give me an ability I could use to grow my strength, and in turn, I would ignore the fact that he was using the very same ability on much of the region.
He told me the world would fall into chaos and that power would become simply everything.
While I understand you dislike his methods, Bran, it was a good bargain.
" As she spoke, the eerie glow of her eyes made it perfectly clear that she'd given up her mortality for this power.
I couldn't help but let a disgusted sneer find its way onto my face.
Humanity at times was only as strong as its weakest link.
Time and time again, the greed of a single individual in a group was their downfall.
There was an unsaid contract amongst humans, whether it was in a sect, clan, a group of survivors, or anyone working together.
There was a bare minimum of trust that, once present, made humans become so much better as a whole.
But it was also far too often that the trust was betrayed, and the whole group suffered.
"Do you realize what you've done? What he's done?" I asked, my voice coming out rough and jagged like a serrated blade held high over her.
"In a world where might makes right, I could say I've simply become more correct in every argument I might make." She smirked.
"Bran," Merlin said softly, and I nodded, not needing the reminder.
"Of course," I whispered. "I made a mistake. I had a blind spot."
I understood how it happened. In my past life, Eve had been in a very different situation.
She fought adamantly against the demons.
She certainly hadn't been tempted by the Demon Lord so early on in the fight. But I realized now it wasn’t some core principle of hers that stopped her from joining hands with the Demon Lord; there must have either been friction or the strength of the surrounding group prevented her from taking the demonic side.
Because of the experience in my prior life, I’d given her the benefit of the doubt; I hadn't expected that she would be in league with the Demon Lord in this life.
I had expected some part of her that had fought against the demons in my past life would still be present.
But the Demon Lord knew her nature and had gotten to her early.
She’d taken the deal without looking back or even considering the harm she had wrought upon the world.
I hadn't expected it, and I had been played.
She brought me here not to kill the demons, but as a distraction for the Demon Lord.
"What will you do now?" Eve asked, leaning back and lacing her fingers. She was clearly unconcerned about what I might do. And oh, I wanted desperately to strangle her for what she'd done. But I couldn't. Not just yet. She still had one last thing to give me.