The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 162: Magic By The Numbers

Chapter 162: Magic By The Numbers

What the hell?!

It was all Kir could do to stop himself from saying something as he heard the voice again.

Who are you?

The voice didn’t answer.

Kir held his head with one hand. Was he going crazy? He felt tense all the way down to his tail...

"Kir? Are you okay?"

"Twenty-eight is a magic number..." he repeated.

"What?" Kordia’s ears and tails twitched in confusion.

"It’s... consistent numbers arising from fractional calculus for tendencies of orbital stabilities in atomic physics..." half the words he said had no analogue in Common, and so to her, it must have sounded like he spoke jibberish with the mix of Japanese and English needed to make that sentence.

"Stabilities..." Kordia pondered. "You mean like casting circles? But stabilities for those are only two, eight, and twenty..."

Kir knew about casting circles. The groupings of mages needed for higher-level enchanting. The numbers represented stable formations of magic sources, and it was mostly used in crafts or the maintenance of large-scale spells. Twenty was the theoretical limit, and testing was dangerous enough that institutions had been satisfied with knowing that.

Kir had it amusing that some tried to use them to argue for rearrangements of the four and sixteen elemental model to fit with it. Like going from "phlogiston" to "ether," he considered it a dead end until evidence proved otherwise. And gathering enough mages to do that kind of testing was considered the ultimate test of one’s ability to herd cats...

But since each stability offered a multiplication of spell effects... if Maledict knew of higher numbers, he could pour more magic into a spell. Magic, however, was an exercise in will... and if the students weren’t willing...

"Kordia... do casting circles need to have willing participants?"

Almost immediately, Kordia paled as she realized what he was implying. "No... but that sort of magic is forbidden... It’s blood-magic, Kir..."

Kir nodded. "And Maledict is the Duke of Heresy... I think whatever he has planned, he’s going to use a lot of magic for it. And he needs a big enough distraction to-"

Suddenly, a massive pulse of unknown sensation burst from the direction opposite the battle raging outside the city.

"-keep anyone from stopping his spell..."

Whereas before it felt like someone had sucked all the magic from the air, this felt more like a nova pushing magic as far from itself as possible.

The spell held up by Mercy shattered, and as Kir blinked away the sensation, he saw that the world appeared absolutely normal except for the auras of the people around him.

"What the fuck was that?" Stella asked, standing to alert.

Kordia looked up and to the northeast, and Kir knew what direction she was staring in. "Something is happening at the Academy."

*

All around the city, people stopped in place, confused as the magic that had powered even the most mundane things in their lives ceased.

Every air carriage in the sky fell within moments, and

For a few moments longer, the city barriers withstood the absence of power, but then each of them flickered, shattered, and died - tier by tier - except for the barrier surrounding the Academy, which glowed with a sickly red hue as it took on a new form, latticing itself as it denied entry and exit.

Once the spell had set itself into the sky like a glowing red warning, magic began to return to the city, weakly at first and then all at once.

For the defenders at the wall, the confusion grew into fear and then near-panic as the spells of their enemies started to pass into the city uninhibited by the magic that had protected them for centuries.

Then the demons charged.

*

Minutes after the pulse from the Academy, it was chaos in the city as Kir and the rest of his group ran uphill.

Sam had wanted to come with the group, but they were pregnant and Noir had made them see reason and stay in the shop.

"Don’t go... Noir..." they’d struggled to say as they choked back tears.

"I... I can’t do nothing," Noir had said. "Kir’s one of us..."

"Black Sheep... stick together..." Sam hugged Noir hard.

"I’ll bring him back," Kir assured them.

Now, they were making their way to the entrance of the city dungeon, anticipating that the gates would be too crowded.

The tunnel for adventurers would get them at least to the middle city.

"Whoah-whoah! Badges or no entry!" shouted the guard as Kir and his group hurried toward the entrance.

Kir and Kordia drew their badges.

"Mages... they need everyone at the gates!" The guard said.

"We’re with the Academy," Kordia said quickly. "We need to get back and figure out what’s happening."

"You, demk-" the guard pointed at Kir. "All Black Mages have definitely been assigned to the wall. I’ll need you to go back or submit to arrest..."

Kir saw fear in the man’s face. These were just guards, not adventurers, and his aura was barely white.

Drawing himself up to his full height, Kir towered over the man. "Do you really think you can get in our way?" he asked.

"I-I’ll report you for desertion!" the guard stammered.

"Let. Us. Through," Kir growled, fully aware of how the spell and firelight now everywhere in the city made his face look even more demonic.

The guard’s will broke. He backed away, and his fellow guard got out of the way on the other side of the passage.

Amarena was the most amused by the display as they charged up the tunnel, against the flow of adventurers who were heading down to help with the defense.

"I think I’m starting to enjoy this. Maybe I will get to punch your father in his smug face," she said with a murderous smile under her hood.

The tunnel let them out into the upper ring of the city.

From there, it was a shorter distance to the gate that would lead to the highest tier, just before the Academy, but as they neared the inner gate, they began to see more and more people.

A crowd had gathered, desperate nobles and their servants crowding to try to get through the gate that had been closed to them, its portcullis lowered.

They seemed to think that the Academy would be the safest place to be, now that demons were flying overhead dropping dangerous spells about.

Kir noticed that the enchantments in this part of the city seemed far more dense than the outer wall. While it hosted fewer guards, Kir could see clearly that there was at least one with a red magical density for every four mundane guards.

"How are we going to get through?" Kir wondered out loud.

Amarena started cracking her knuckles. "I have a solution."

Kir was about to protest, given his guess that her solution would involve much violence. "Don’t kill anyone," Kir warned.

Amarena rolled her eyes. "Spoilsport."

Seconds later, Amarena let out a massive roar as she grew into her warform, charging the gate faster than anyone there was prepared for.

It was actually a bit amusing to watch the nobles of the city leaping out of the way and crying out as she completed her charge, slamming the guards away from the gate with her arms before grabbing the portcullis and lifting it single-handedly.

"Come on!" she roared.

Having started running as soon as she charged, Kir and the others quickly passed her, and she stepped past the line and let the portcullis down, providing cover with her body as the rest of them ran the remaining distance to the Academy, and the Arcane Knights’ school below it.

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