The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 125: The Battle of Darlbridge - Part 2

Chapter 125: The Battle of Darlbridge - Part 2

As Kir rose, the angel he’d been fighting rose to intercept him.

Kir had the advantage in speed and an earlier start, but almost as soon as he swung Kangetsu toward the healer, the blade deflected off a barrier half a meter away from her.

The hexagonal flare pattern told Kir that the barrier was fully latticed.

Before the other angel could close with him, Kir flapped away.

At first he thought his attack had done nothing, but then below he saw Amarena crush the skull of the lead Executionar with a double-fisted strike that sent blood and brainmatter scattering in a cone.

"Gouveio!" the healer called out, her eyes filling with shock at the sudden death of her companion. For a few seconds she simply hovered, shock overtaking her.

The second angel closed with Kir, leading with his shield. He struck out, and Kir blocked before counterstriking, only to end up blocked as the angel turned his head, "Lendelel, focus on the battle!" he shouted in Common.

Part of Kir wished he hadn’t said her name.

"En," she replied in Angelic, before raising her hands toward her companion.

The angel struck again, and this time when Kir blocked he felt a shock travelling up his arm.

She was enhancing him, Kir realized, and moments later he paid for his closeness with several cuts as the angel anticipated his blocks.

Kir was enhancing himself, but even surging his mana into his speed and strength only let him stay barely ahead of the angel.

Back and forth they fought, the angel managing to stay between Kir and the healer, and the healer following them a safe distance away.

The angel scored another cut along Kir’s shoulder, and as Kir went for a strike the shield of the angel suddenly seemed to flash away before batting Kangetsu away along the flat.

Kir was completely open, and the angel’s sword was homing in on his heart-

FWOOM-

From below, a sharpened log suddenly passed between them.

Kir and the angel parted from each other, both looking down and seeing Amarena throwing logs like spears.

"You missed, demon!" the Executioner taunted as a second log passed well over his head.

"Did I?" Amarena taunted back.

A moment later Lendelel cried out as a log slammed into her shield, falling ballistically onto her from above. It was the first log. The second one almost struck but she moved at the last moment.

By then, Amarena had sent three more into the air, but with such distance between them and the ground, all she managed to do was distract them after the first strike.

It was what Kir needed.

By the time the Executioner shifted his attention back to Kir, Kir had entered his war form.

"Fiano watch out!" the Lendelel shouted as Kir closed. The Executioner raised his shield just in time to intercept an overhead punch from Kir.

This time, with four times his original mass on his side, Kir’s punch dented the Executioner’s shield and sent him flying backward toward the ground.

Tossing aside his shield, the angel rotated and spared himself the impact with a hard flap of his wings, traversing in a wide arc as he looped upward and came around, both hands on his sword as he screamed with a murderous fury.

The healer’s light surrounded Fiano, and the look on her face told Kir that she had, for the moment, forgotten him in her drive to save her companion.

Kir took his flight in a path that brought her between him and the angel, counting on using her shield-

As Kir moved, a log from below suddenly broke against the barrier of Lendelel’s shield, a direct hit that sent the pieces of the log splintering away.

She turned toward Amarena...

And Kir grabbed her, right as Fiano finished his dive.

The wet sound of metal through flesh hit Kir’s ears as Fiano slammed into her, momentum taking him away from Kir at an angle.

Kir felt a sharp pain in his palm from where the sword had cut, but it had been Lendelel’s body that had taken the strike.

There was another pain, a pain in his chest from his oath. Instinct had told him to pull the angel out of the way, but his oath had intercepted even that...

The angel did not run as Kir landed, instead cradling the body of Lendelel, sobbing as he shook her and called out her name.

Kir noticed the fool had pulled his sword free, and dark, arterial blood flowed freely from her wound, just below her chest and through her spine.

Amarena approached from the other side, but it was Kir’s slow, studding steps that drew the Executioner’s attention.

"Demon!" he spat, reaching for both his halo and Lendelel’s. "You honorless filth! If it’s the last thing I do I’ll-"

Before he could draw the two halos together, Kir surged forward and slashed Kangetsu between them, severing the angel’s head and the arm that had seized his halo.

Both Amarena and Kir surged backward a moment later, waiting to see if they would explode, but nothing happened.

Instead, they simply began to fade until nothing but golden bands etched with flowing patterns and Angelic script remained.

"I had wondered if you had the strength to finish the job," Amarena said, heedless of the gore on her knuckles. "I am glad I need not have worried... but I must ask, what are you?"

Her eyes traveled up and down his wings, and he self-consciously stored them.

"Something else," Kir said, approaching the bodies. "I’ll tell you more later."

Bending, he plucked the halos off the ground. Their golden shine was unmarred by blood, despite Kir’s execution of the angel having sent up a spray. He wondered if they were coated with something hydrophobic or if that might be a property of how they were made... In any case, the gold was an attractive color.

Turning them about, he noted that these seemed far more complex than Rainier’s halo. And on the inside the inscribed patterns seemed almost... circuit-like. "A camera?"

Does Heaven possess modern technology? Kir wondered this to himself. He needed to study these more. It would only help him if he knew what to expect. The Executioners had possessed only swords and magic for weapons, so he wondered what the purpose for this device was. He needed to study it. He hoped it wasn’t for-

His suspicions were only confirmed when he rotated one of the halos, spotting the small lens on the front-

"Shit!" The halos had started to accumulate mana. Kir crushed both cameras and threw them as far as possible. A moment later they detonated into black light, and Kir was left staring, wondering just what the nature of the halos had been.

Were they recording devices or transmitters? The only things he’d gleaned were that they stored mana and could be used as a weapon... but how much would heaven have learned if-

"What did you do that for?" Amarena asked.

"There were recording devices on the halos," Kir explained quickly, about what he suspected. Amarena laughed a moment later.

"Let them know our faces! Let them know who to fear! When I have mastered my art, there will be no angel who can stand against me... though maybe I cannot say the same for you," she slapped Kir on the arm.

In his war form, he was only about twice her bulk and a half meter taller in size. Where his spikes were long and slender, hers were short and jagged.

The smell of smoke wafted over them, unnoticed during the battle but growing thicker.

"The village!" Kir said.

"Leave them, the slavers won’t kill anyone they don’t have to," Amarena shrugged.

"I cannot," Kir said, hoping he was imagining the slight pain from the oath mark on his chest. "Tell the others where I’m going!" He turned and ran for Darlbridge, stowing his wings.

"Leave some warriors for me, Heresy-Son!" she shouted after him.

Kir accelerated himself with mana, covering the distance to the village quickly.

On the outskirts, it became more obvious that the village hall was on fire, and thick, roiling smoke rose from the burning of the grand oak that sat in the yard.

The villagers had all been gathered in the center of the square, with those strong enough to perform labor in one crowd. The slavers were forcing them into carts, and Kir recognized Brooker standing with his arm in a sling as he had an assistant writing down information.

Those who couldn’t, the old, infirm, and babies, were penned in by slavers with swords, who had gathered them all in the church.

Kir’s sprint drew the eyes of the nearest guards - one of them clearly an adventurer - and they both drew their weapons as they shouted an alarm.

With a burst of speed, Kir passed between them, his arms spread wide enough to take off both of their heads as he extended his claws with one hand and lashed out with Kangetsu in the other.

Then the screams began.