The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 166: The Battle of Norneau - Part 1 - Hard Carry

Chapter 166: The Battle of Norneau - Part 1 - Hard Carry

As Kir disappeared, Amarena flexed and relaxed.

These demons, she could tell they were at least a cut above the ones who had been in Sreev’s camp, and she was looking forward to testing herself against them.

Staring across at the two demons in their war forms, she could tell that both had been bulking up on food more than she did. They’d make excellent dance partners for her war form. Maybe not as good as Kir, but-

"Hey!" one of the aytherians behind her suddenly shouted. Even the demons shifted to watch as Stella - in the form of a large-ish raptor, jumped out the window with Noir riding her back. A moment later she spread her wings and flew upward.

Now that all the cubi-blooded were gone, Amarena felt she could finally think more clearly. She’d been getting slowly better at dealing with the constant arousal that Kir and Stella brought with their presence, the blood of lust pulling upon its own, but now she could really put her all into a fight.

Shifting into her warform, she ignored the startled sounds coming from the aytherians as she came to stand beside Kordia.

"Oh, so is there to be a fight?" one of the demon captains chuckled, speaking in demonic. "Come now, make the first move."

Kordia whispered low. "How many do you think you can take?"

"I claim the captains. You can have the rest," Amarena smirked, not bothering to lower her voice as she stared the demon in gauntlets down.

"In that puny war form?" The captain with an axe guffawed. "You have to be the weakest wrathian I have ever seen."

A moment later, the world went gray as Amarena reached within, touching on the source of her magic. A maven was not like a mage. They embodied a single concept and understanding, broadening it out through training and meditation.

What felt like another lifetime ago, Amarena remembered who had trained her. The woman who could float away from strikes before they even neared her. Who, with swords or chakrams, turned every fight she’d had in the arena into a glorious dance.

"Are you strong because you are graceful?" Amarena had asked back then, clutching her father’s hand as she stared up at the human.

She’d giggled, "I am safe because I am graceful. That is my mavenry." She held out one of her chakrams. "What do you see?"

"Umm... a weapon?"

"An edge," the human tapped the very tip of the circular blade. "It does not take strength for the edge to cut."

"But I’m not allowed to use weapons... just these," Amarena had held up her tiny claws.

The human crouched, taking Amarena’s hands after trading a brief, querying look with her father. "I’m going to tell you a secret, little girl. Strength can be many things. It’s foolish to pick one thing alone when there are so many ways to be strong... And my strength-"

In the present, Amarena laughed at the demon who’d called her weak.

"I am not like any wrathian you have ever seen." Amarena brandished her sword, using one of the overhead stances she’d faced when sparring with Kir. "My wrath is cold."

The demon drew his axe.

A moment later, he was forced to block as Amarena struck, appearing before him and feinting a chop with her blade as she kicked him hard in the knee with her left, buckling him. Planting it a moment later, she kicked aside his arm as he tried to bring up his axe.

Then she raised her sword above his head.

"My strength is speed."

*

Kordia watched in surprise as Amarena dispatched the large demon with the axe, cutting his head from his neck before dodging as the gauntleted demon began his attack.

She parried as the demon proved to be fast enough warrant defense, smiling as if this were some sort of game.

All at once, the room erupted into chaos as students and cadets charged the demons.

Spells flew and blades clashed.

Kordia raised her personal shields, casting part of it outward to block a demon that had managed to get at Amarena’s back.

Caneban reached behind his back and drew out a pair of long vines, growing them with wicked thorns as he parried a trio of demons seeking to end him.

Everywhere she looked, there was fighting. Four demons closed with her, and she bubbled them in shields before casting them to the side of the room. Once they hit the walls, the bubbles burst one by one as they started to strike at the spell, while Kordia’s flow of mana into them stopped.

It bought her enough time for Caneban to circle her way, vines whipping out fast enough to crack sound as another demon moved to fill in the gap left by the four previous ones. That allowed Kordia to bubble a mage, pulling the elf back and away from the main body of the demons before a blade could split her in half.

Despite most of the present mages being special students, most of them were new to it. Only Kordia, Lapins, and Caneban seemed capable of holding their own in the melee, while all of the Arcane Knight cadets were fighting at parity with the demons.

It brought to mind something Kir had once said, about refusing to "carry" Rain on group projects... only the group project here was survival.

"We can’t keep fighting like this," Kordia said. "We need to get the Knights up front."

"I was-" Caneban poked a vine into one demon that had appeared in a flash above Kordia’s head, sending them flying out the window. "-just about to mention that," he said.

Lapins, meanwhile, was casting spells left and right as Mercy provided cover. Parrying with her knives and metal-edged boots that definitely did not seem like acceptable school footwear.

The spells Mercy cast were subtle, even to Kordia’s manasight, works of air that guided her blades to their targets whenever she cast them out, or pulled the knives back to her hand when she caught a moment to retrieve them.

Then a trio of demons came at Mercy from the side, and while she parried two away, the third engaged Lapins, who drew a rapier out of her storage at the last moment, parrying before she imitated Kordia, drawing up a wall of force and then pushing the demon through the glass of a window.

"I’ve got an idea!" Kordia shouted to Caneban. "Hold them off!"

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