The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 104: Interlude - Battle of the Second Stratum - Part 1

Chapter 104: Interlude - Battle of the Second Stratum - Part 1

"Well now... What do we have here?"

After more than a subjective week of pursuit, Kordia was ready to snap.

"You know exactly why we’re here. Where’s Kir?" she demanded.

"Do we, in fact, know why you’re here?" the Knight Commander Dun continued. "Because from what I’m seeing, you three have impeded our investigation, caused a dungeon collapse, and disobeyed the orders of a city official. All serious crimes for such promising young students."

His condescending tone made Kordia’s hackles rise.

Rain took a step forward. "Give up," he said. "We know you’re an agent of the Duke of Pride," he declared. "Surrender and you will be treated mercifully."

Lugh stared gape-mouthed at Rainier, and even Kordia had trouble believing that her boyfriend had seriously offered these fiends a surrender.

The knight commander sneered, "All lies," he said, looking to Lugh. "I expected better of you, boy. It seems you really are your father’s son."

Lugh ground his teeth, his hands clenching and unclenching. "So speaks the minion of Pride."

"I am no one’s minion," Dun spat. "And when I’m done with you three, you’ll beg for death."

From above, a bolt of lightning suddenly crashed down, its source the hands of Professor Fayren where he floated.

"Took you long enough!" Commander Dun shouted up as he called forth an axe in each hand.

"Silent casting is not my specialty," the Professor sneered back. "They’ve got a shield up already... fast bastards."

"You should have collapsed the portal while they were inside. Now we’re going to have to fight," Dun growled.

The opening of the battle was practically traditional. A mage’s duel. Offense against defense. But if there was one thing Kordia had learned since she evolved, it was that traditions could be broken.

By the time the lightning finally stopped, Kordia was ready.

"Thanks for the shield," she said to Rain. Behind her floated three silvery condensed orbs of flaming mana, fed by the steady mana of the dungeon. Her clan’s technique, the Burning Katra, gave her almost thrice her normally available mana. "My turn," she said to Professor Fayren.

Drawing on the first of her three flames, Kordia started with a simple spell.

Kordia did not particularly enjoy offensive magic. What she loved about magic was its ability to heal. To defend and protect life. Of course she learned some offensive magic, but it was Kir who’d expanded her mind to the potential of what she could do with defensive spells.

She put a shield over Professor Fayren.

A non-porous, latticed shield designed to block both arcane and physical attacks, and inverted.

As she held it in place, growling a little from the effort as Professor Fayren realized he’d been trapped and tried to flare his mana to escape.

When that failed, he tried to make lightning in his hands, punching at the shield.

Against that level of effort, Kordia guessed she could hold him for -

"Three minutes!" she called out to Rainier.

"I’ve got this," he said, drawing his claymore. "Guard Kordia," he said to Lugh.

Lugh nodded resolutely.

Commander Dun finished looking up, scoffing at his detained accomplice. "Guess I’ll do this myself," he said, charging toward Rainier.

After a single step, both of them blurred, enhancing their strength and speed beyond the ability of unenhanced eyes to see.

Rainier was faster and stronger, but Dun had the advantage of experience. As their blades flashed and clashed, it wasn’t long until Dun lured Rain in with a feint before landing a blow through Rain’s breastplate, one of his two blades slicing through the steel like it was made of cloth.

Rain looked down to see a line of red past the sundered steel. An instant later he realized what had happened. Dun had held off until the last possible moment, activating enchantments on his blades that increased their sharpness for the fraction of a second Rain was open.

Combined with magic circles for toughness and durability, the technique was elegant and efficient, and it allowed the Commander to use his swords for both offense and defense.

"I’ve seen you around, mage. You’re no match for me," he said with contempt.

"I was about to say the same thing," Rainier said.

They closed again. This time, Rain pushed himself to the limit. He ignored every feint, electing to simply maintain a string of battering, overpowering strikes until Dun’s arms began to quiver with each shock.

Then, with a sudden reversal, Rain knocked away Dun’s arms with an upswing before slamming his claymore back down, dead center on the man’s forehead.

It should have worked.

Blood seeped around the blade from the point left on the claymore as the top half broke off just above Dun’s eyes. The broken half landed on the ground behind him with a dull thud.

Rain leapt back two steps, continuing to hold the remains of his sword at the ready as Dun rolled his neck with a series of cracks and pops.

"Ahh," the Commander exhaled. "I haven’t felt pain like that in a long time." On his forehead, the wound began to close quickly, leaving only a spot of blood over fresh skin. For a moment, Rain swore he saw metal underneath the flesh.

"You’re about to feel a lot more!" Rain raised a hand, a ball of light forming as he channeled his mana into the creation of blades.

Before the first line of blades could form, Dun closed, his swords breaking the four mana blades as they began to swirl.

"Too slow," Dun sneered as he began to cut toward Rain. With only half a claymore, Rain barely blocked one blow before the other stabbed unimpeded towards his head. "It’s over!"

A sudden, dark blur slammed into Dun just as the blade began to bite, leaving Rain with a cut across his brow. Lugh had bodied Dun away from Rain at the last possible moment, his field knife lodged in the Commander’s gut where, as soon as he landed, he pulled the blade out and proceeded to stab him rapidly, forcing the knife through the man’s gambeson as he screamed wordlessly.

"You little shit!" Dun backhanded Lugh hard, casting the man aside, before standing and pulling the knife out.

Another blur signaled the arrival of Rain, who had used Lugh’s distraction to create his Manifest Arms.

Dun had a scant moment to throw Lugh’s knife, which sailed past Rain’s head, before Rain slashed down with his broken claymore, right as four blades of mana light stabbed from equal directions into Dun’s torso, sundering through his breastplate. "You missed," Rain snarled.

"Did I?" Dun chuckled, before coughing out a massive wad of blood.

Rain’s eyes widened, and he turned...

Kordia was standing, slumped forward with Lugh’s knife in her shoulder. The pain on her face and the breaking light above her signaled that she’d lost control of the shield restricting Professor Fayren.

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