The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 110: Of Heresy

Chapter 110: Of Heresy

Once more, Kir found himself frozen.

"Explain yourself! You said you were of no House!" Amarena demanded.

"I said it and I meant it. I am Kir Gale, son of Bridget and Darlae of Darlbridge," Kir said.

"Then why was your name on Maledict’s lips when he tried to tempt me into his house? Do you deny he is your father?"

"What?!" Kir said, his surprise absolute. "My only relation to Maledict is by blood, and because he contracted me to find my birth mother for him. I just want him to leave me and my family alone."

"You mean to say you didn’t know? Your father sought to win me to his side before he cast me down here. He proposed we wed."

Kir went slack-jawed.

"Fuck that!" he declared, one eye twitching. "Look, I don’t know what Maledict said to you, but I want nothing to do with his schemes."

"I find it an impossible coincidence that we should meet at random, Son of Heresy."

"Look, I’ve been trapped in a dungeon for who knows how long, but it was summer when I went in. I’ve fought my way through abominations, monsters, and creatures bigger than you and I combined to survive to this point. I’m telling you the truth because I have no desire to fight demons on behalf of others."

He paused for breath. "I have people who care about me on Ayther who I need to let know that I’m alive and that elf" he pointed as best he could without raising his arm "is who I need so I can try to get a message to them. You, and whatever relationship you have with Maledict, are not my concern." Kir raised his arms just enough that the flats of the blades contacted his biceps. "So can we just put the swords away? My group will be here any minute."

It was almost painful, watching the slow calculus of her trust drain away as the tension rose in her face.

"I will not be made a fool by Heresy again. For what it’s worth; I’m sorry, heretic’s son."

"I’m sorry too," Kir said, wincing in pain as he flexed his magic enough to pull both blades into the dimensional storage tattoos on his biceps.

The instant he did so, she stared in surprise at her suddenly disarmed state.

"There, can we talk-"

She kicked him in the groin, hard. Had he not been circulating his mana defensively, she might have cleft his hips in twain.

It hurt, but clearly not as much as she would have liked. "What the f-"

Kir reached forward and grabbed her arm. As she responded with an attempt at punching him with her free hand, he pulled her in and bent, rolling her over his shoulder until her back contacted the ground. From there he turned and twisted, forcing her arm down as her front was pushed against the gravel.

"Gaah! You dickless cheat! Unhand me!" She tried to thrash free but Kir held firm. He had the leverage here.

"While you’re right about the first part, I wouldn’t consider anything cheating when death is on the line," Kir wrenched her arm a bit more to make her hold still.

Amarena gasped out in pain, but then a moment later she started to laugh. "All’s fair, you say?" she continued to laugh.

Before Kir could answer, he suddenly found himself thrown sideways as she torqued her arm, which had grown massive in the span of a blink.

He hit the edge of the bridge’s other half, forcing out his breath before he landed

Looking up, he saw Amarena’s form growing, becoming taller and more feminine as new bony growths armored her, her hands growing into massive, clawed appendages and her tail gaining barbs.

She had a war form...

But so did he.

Entering his war form took a bit longer than hers, but as soon as he started to shift, her eyes widened in surprise. That surprise was the only thing that let him finish his transformation before she recovered enough to attack him.

He barely caught her wrist in time to keep her clawed nails from his eyes.

"So you have a war form. That makes you rare but not exceptional," she growled as she tried to force her claw into his eye across the last few centimeters. When that failed, she tried to gut him with her other claw but Kir caught that wrist too.

"I thought we could do this peacefully. You saved that elf for a reason," Kir argued, refusing to press his advantage for the moment.

"She amused me, trying to fight that monster to the end. I felt it a shame to let her die after she almost slew it. So I finished the beast for her and tried to heal her on a whim. That is all," Amarena growled, kicking at Kir’s groin again.

This time, he was tall enough that a slight push was all it took to keep her kick from connecting. He also seemed to have at least twice her mass in his war form, so when he twisted his body to throw her on her side, mounting her and pinning her by the hips took as much effort as sitting down.

Once he had her back to the ground, he planted a knee on her left hand and moved his right hand to her throat.

"Kir!" Stella’s voice suddenly rang out from above as his familiar landed a few meters away, shifting to her normal form. The rest of the Black Sheep were a ways behind her, running to catch up. "Who’s this bitch?" she asked as soon as she took in the sight of them on the ground.

"Stella, this is Amarena, Daughter of Wrath," Kir said.

Stella looked blank-faced. "Huh?"

"Leave my name out of your mouth, Heresy-son!" Amarena spat, thrashing ineffectively at Kir from below.

Kir felt a mote of gratitude that Amarena was not the best at hand-to-hand, because had she simply bucked her hips the right way, he would have no choice but to roll off her, even with his advantages.

"Uhhh, Kir, I don’t know if you know this, but she’s, like, half cubi, same as you," Stella tilted her head as if inspecting Amarena as the Wrathian demon continued to struggle.

"No, I’m not aware, and I don’t care what she is. This is just-"

"Kir! We’re here! Need us to help?" Noir interrupted Kir as he arrived with the rest of the Black Sheep. He was running with his knife drawn.

"No! This is just a misunderstanding!" Kir said as Sam practically appeared from nowhere next to Amarena’s head. "Vatima is alive. She’s under the bridge, sick. This demon was helping her."

"What? I don’t understand," Noir replied.

"It was a monster attack, not Amarena’s fault," Kir hoped he was right and Amarena wasn’t lying, because now that she had a war form’s claws it could have been just as likely that she’d done the deed. But she had favored her sword up until that was taken from her. "Take Vatima and run. We can find out the truth from her once she’s healed."

Noir looked like he wanted to say more, but instead, he nodded. A moment later, the Black Sheep went under the bridge, emerging with Vatima suspended with the furs as a makeshift stretcher.

"We’ll see you back at the camp," Noir said in passing.

"Count on it," Kir replied.

Their departure left Kir and Stella alone with Amarena.

"So, the half-kin has a pet demon. What’s the matter, too ashamed of your own kind to live in Hell?" she taunted Stella. "What even are you?"

"You know, I’ve been wondering that myself," Stella said, "Half-succubus, half... whatever. But thanks to Kir I decided I’m just me." She raised her middle finger. "So fuck you."

Kir had never felt more proud of Stella since their first heart-to-heart.

Unexpectedly, her words seemed to take the fight out of Amarena. The demon beneath Kir stopped struggling, and remained passive even when he softened the pressure on her throat.

"I no longer feel like fighting," Amarena said. "And I’ve already lost... so... make it quick."

Kir pulled back his hand from her throat. She could have struggled then, maybe gouged his arm with her horns like he’d feared, but she didn’t. Reaching into his dimensional storage, he pulled out her hell-wrought blade and struck it into the ground mere centimeters from where she was looking.

"I told you I didn’t want to fight. And I don’t want to kill you. When I make a promise I keep it, and that means this is where we part ways." He shifted his body, rising to stand and stepping backward. "Thank you for returning my sword to me. One of the camp leaders is planning to hunt you in the winter. I suggest you leave before then."

Internally sighing at what he would have to do to return to normal, he looked around. He noticed then that his shirt and blouse, which he’d been wearing during his transformation, had been torn to shreds as they were cast aside by his expansion. Pieces had washed away in the stream.

Instead of trying to come back together, his shirt lay inert. His jacket had only put itself together enough for both sleeves to be joined at the collar with a bit of ragged cloth underneath. Picking the latter up with a hooked claw, he stored it dimensionally.

Behind him, Amarena sat up. "This leader, is she the Valrian Warmancer?"

"Yes," Kir answered. "She was more concerned about getting her warrior back, or learning her fate, than hunting you. For that she has my respect, even if her opinion of demons is prejudiced."

"Then there is something I need her for then," Amarena replied as she rose, taking up her blade. "I know it is not something I should ask of you... but when Vatima was lucid, she told me many truths about her people. Truths that are heretical in my mother’s lands. She promised me that when she was better she would talk to her Warmancer... convince her... but now that she is sick, I cannot be certain she will survive to do so."

Kir sensed what she wanted just before she spoke.

"I wish to become a Valrian."

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