The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 158: Three To Be Freed

Chapter 158: Three To Be Freed

Kir took a long route toward the docks as behind him the shouts of alarm and subsequent signals sent up into the air with magic began to draw attention to the scene of the fight.

The whole attack had lasted perhaps two minutes, but Kir was used to far worse from his brawls with Amarena. In body, he was still completely fresh. Magic-wise, he could definitely keep going.

But in his mind...

The pull of his oath silenced the reasoning thoughts that acknowledged he did not know what he would face at the docks. He knew where there were slavers, and so that was where he had to go.

At the very least, it would take some pressure off...

No. Kir pushed back against the influence of his oath to Noir. He would not make this part of the fight about him. He’d sworn it because he believed it was right, and he would go through with it because it was right.

The fact that he was being compelled was certainly a factor, and perhaps with driving the Syndicate out of Norneau, he would be able to figure out some smarter way to go about his oath, but for now, he just had to focus on making this first strike decisive while the guards were distracted.

It didn’t help that he could smell the dwarf’s blood on the cloak he’d taken, but Kir found some satisfaction in taking control of his situation for once.

Skirting along the city’s second wall, he arrived at the docks to find it was just as abandoned as Moshui’s part of the city had been. If there had been guards, it seemed they he’d either caught a gap in their patrols or they’d been drawn away.

Standing at the north end of the low-ring dock, he could see the lights of dozens of spells breaking upon the city barrier. In places where a strong enough spell broke through, counter-magic spells rose up to mitigate the damage and allow the shield to heal.

Out in the harbor, several picket ships watched after the city’s east flank, with battle mages working in squads to support the walls by launching spells at the sieging demons from just outside the city shield.

Kir thought about how he was going to settle his score with the Syndicate.

Going into the water to find the ship was one option, as was flying, but it was a big risk given the moving ships and their compliments of battle mages. If he was spotted - which was very likely given how calm the waters were - he’d have to contend with who knows how many spells, and his wings weren’t very waterproof.

So he crossed out that idea.

The alleys were an option, but he didn’t want to get potentially ambushed in close quarters twice in one night.

That left the rooftops.

From what he could see, there weren’t any guards or the like on the warehouse roofs, but that didn’t preclude hidden or more distant watchers.

The night was deep and relatively dark, but Heaven was waxing a green gibbous, while Hell was on the other side of the planet at the moment. He’d have to go slow... and he’d need to take the alleys far enough away from the inner wall to avoid the guards above...

Nodding to himself as he decided on his plan, Kir slipped into the darkness, keeping an eye out for guards or anyone else.

A couple of blocks away he found what seemed to be an office between two warehouses. After checking that neither warehouse bore signs of affiliation with the Syndicate, and preparing some magical strength, he leaped to the top of the office house and looked around.

All clear... he breathed out a sigh of relief. The inner wall was far enough that he would be no more than a shadow amongst shadows, as long as he stuck to features that kept him out of the open.

That was when Kir learned that, magical world or not, a warehouse was a warehouse. The rooftops were only as slanted as they needed to be to avoid accumulating water, and were devoid of convenient hiding spots except for where other towers added shadows to their otherwise bare surfaces.

The biggest difference he could identify from its Earth counterparts was that - thanks to the wonders of magical construction - many of the warehouses were seamless stone-walled structures of a larger size than a similar era on Earth would have suggested a need for.

Norneau was a city that thrived on magic and trade, and while the former kept the Syndicate presence low due to readily available magic alternatives, it did not eliminate slavery in the city completely. If it had, he wouldn’t have run into Syndicate bounty hunters.

Hopefully, after tonight, he wouldn’t encounter anything having to do with them for a long, long time...

*

The Sovereign of Sugar floated in the harbor, one of only a handful of ships in the docks and the largest of them all.

Just across from it, the warehouse marked proudly with the sigil of the Syndicate was quiet.

Those on board the ship could not have known that a silent killer had broken into the warehouse, moving through after dispatching the guards at the back of the structure.

There was no reason to expect an attack specifically against them, even with the siege ongoing and the sky intermittently lit by the spells of two clashing forces.

Inside the warehouse, a random assortment of valuables and crates had occupied most of the floor. Kir had the advantage of better sight than most of the guards, and after clearing the two at the door, he found that the guards inside were pretty spread out, wandering the massive rectangle of space if not idly sitting and chatting.

As soon as Kir entered through the back, he saw them.

The slaves taken by the Syndicate were stored in cages. They’d each been stripped down to their underthings or were wearing ragged tunics, and most had the defeated look of people at the lowest point of their lives.

One, a hyena-like beastfolk, seemed to smell Kir as he quietly clicked the door closed. She looked up at him with dark eyes, twinkling with something like hope until she saw his demonic appearance.

She began to look around nervously, a slight whine in her throat until Kir raised one hand, shushing her as he looked around warily. "Please keep quiet, I’m not an enemy," he tried to assure her.

"Are you here to free us?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. He considered using Kangetsu to cut the lock, but he didn’t know the positions of the rest of the guards. "Do you know where the key is?"

"One of the guards is a fire maven. I think she’s amritani. She has all the keys," her ears flicked and she held her arm, where a burn scar broke the fur horrendously. "Are you with the Breakers?"

Kir vaguely knew of the kingdom centered around the world tree Amrita, but he didn’t know how to identify someone with that information alone. And he had no idea who the Breakers were.

As the beastkin woman spoke with Kir, more slaves took notice. They started talking all at once, desperation rising in their voices.

"Please, please keep it down! I’ll be back soon!" Kir said, right as a set of clanking footsteps began to close in on their position.

Ducking back amongst some crates, Kir crouched into the shadows as a pair of bored and agitated guards approached.

"The fuck’s going on here?" the one in the lead asked. "We told you lot to keep quiet."

"Nothing," the hyena-woman spoke up, her voice quivering with fear. She couldn’t help it as her eyes twitched to the spot where Kir had disappeared. "Nothing’s going on, Mister... Guard... Sir..."

The other guard started looking to where Kir was hiding, and as he opened his mouth, Kir struck out with Kangetsu, a burst of speed letting him pass the sword from left to right, cutting through the taller second guard’s neck before angling down to take the first before the man could turn.

Someone in the cage had not been prepared for the sudden violence. A woman’s scream rose into the air as both bodies fell, slumping into each other.

Kir swore and slashed Kangetsu through the air at his side, clearing the blood before he sheathed her.

He ignored the panic of the slaves as they tried to calm down the screamer. Hurrying, he grabbed the two bodies, producing a hole into his storage where he dumped them - joining them with the two guards who had been at the back of the warehouse.

The weight on Kir’s mana more than doubled, holding that much mass, but he still had some room for enhancement magic.

He was just a moment ahead of the arrival of four more guards, ducking back into the shadows he’d used before as his heart hammered in his chest.

The guards looked around in confusion, more angry than concerned as they spotted nothing immediately wrong in the area. As long as the slaves didn’t tell them where he was hiding, Kir might still have the element of surprise...

Suddenly Kir sensed magic behind and above him. A woman rocketed in, borne aloft on blue flames beneath her bare feet before landing in front of the cage. She left ashy burns with each step, and Kir saw that her aura was a strong yellow color, with a slight green at the inner edge.

"You again puppy?" she spoke to the beastkin woman in a haughty, teasing voice as she approached the cage. "Was it you that screamed? Did you have a little nightmare?" the raven-haired human woman smiled sadistically. "Did you miss my fire that much?"