The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 175: Interlude - Maledict - Deus Ex Nihilo

Chapter 175: Interlude - Maledict - Deus Ex Nihilo

Maledict exhaled loudly. It had been so long since he’d heard his original name, that he wondered for a moment who he should be to the boy crying over his dead friend.

But no... he was Maledict. He had a duty to demonkind. One that necessitated having contingencies, even for his own son... Hence the mercenary, Lucifer. Janice’s old lover had proved his usefulness... He would have to do something about the man’s lost arm.

"I’ve made up my mind, Son... Kir." The Duke of Heresy approached his son, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. "You are coming home."

When no answer came, Maledict stepped lightly around his son.

Kir’s eyes were closed. In manasight, something was happening. Something to do with the trio of etched discs that had accumulated on his forehead...

He was unconscious.

Maledict reached, aiming to scrape one with his claw "What is-"

In a flash of mana-enhanced speed, Kir’s hand shot up and grabbed Maledict by the wrist, twisting until Maledict’s body was forced to follow. A moment later, Maledict found himself colliding back-first with a pillar as Kir began to stand, lowering his arm from the punch he’d delivered...

"How?" Maledict gasped. "The Forbidding..."

Kir’s stance was completely different. It was slightly slouchier, and the way he held himself was not like the young demon who’d walked into Maledict’s plans.

"Guess that means I ain’t your boy, pops." Kir said, his voice pattern changing.

In manasight, Maledict saw the cause. Some sort of strange mana reaching into Kir’s mind from the discs on his forehead.

"Who are you?"

"Call me Kiryu," the person wearing Kir’s body said as he stepped over to pick up the sword on the ground, which had a cyan coloration to it now that Maledict noticed. He paused for a moment to contemplate the blood that had soaked into the cloth along its handle, turning most of the grip black.

But more importantly, beyond the cyan color of the blade, a reddish... pulse of mana lay behind the metal and within it. It was more than a blade... Maledict looked at the corpse of the sheepkin stranger...

No...

Kiryu followed Maledict’s eyes. "That man you killed... He was Kir’s lover. One of them, at any rate." He flowed the sword through the air as he got a feel for it.

He walked over to where the sheath had fallen and picked it up, sliding it along the edge until the sword was encased.

Maledict watched as Kiryu then stowed the blade dimensionally, before doing the same for his wings.

"Still not used to these things... Plus, I gotta give you a handicap, right?"

Wordlessly, Maledict tried to bind Kiryu with a shielding spell, only to watch as the spell unwove itself in the air as Kiryu sent out a precise counter of anti-magic.

"Now, I know killing you is off-limits. Even in his broken little heart, Kir doesn’t want to see you dead... Though your merc is fair game."

Suddenly Kiryu went from standing a few measures away to appearing right in Maledict’s face.

"But fucking up your plan here is right up my alley." He punched Maledict in the face.

Maledict swiped, but his hands met empty air. Looking down, he saw a portal as Kir fell into it, landing a few measures away at a strange bit of stone that looked like one big mass of sapphires. Then the portal closed.

Kiryu bent and picked up the stone. "You know, it never fails to astonish me how lacking people can be in their imagination..."

"And who are you to be astonished by such?" Maledict asked, still wary.

"I’m Kiryu. Just... well... Nobody important. Not in this world. And for the last, oh, eighteen years or so... I’ve been hitching a ride in your son’s head. More of a hostage situation than anything I had control over... You can thank Aidaeb for that..."

"You talk of that god as if you know her."

"Them, actually. Well, I’m not sure. Maybe they picked a gender while I was gone... Not much lucidity to being dead after all..." He swirled a finger around his own head. "But oh, how good it feels to move around!" He bounced a little. Rotated his arms. Stretched, stumbling a little. "Not used to the tail either," he chuckled.

Maledict thought quickly. He was thrown off by the message from the past... a past he knew and recognized because it was the night... The night Aelaes told him she was pregnant. He actually felt tempted to stand down... but he couldn’t.

He wouldn’t because his plans required the capacity for mana that the Academy’s core held. The core was an artifact of the deepest dungeon, the Duat, which held depths even Maledict could not reach, tempered though he had been...

That was why he’d gone through the trouble of kidnapping so many, to raise the power within the core to a level that would allow the Academy to rise into the portal he’d burrowed through Perdition...

Knowing he wouldn’t be killed, and with nothing else to lose, Maledict decided to try what he was good at.

"So, Kiryu. Shall we make a bargain? One where you do not have to, ah, fuck with my plans?"

Kiryu burst out laughing. "And Kir thought you had no sense of humor. Oh, the angst in that kid... All edge and no point... Well, he’s got a few points now."

"Just tell me what you want," Maledict growled.

"Hmm... for starters, give me Stella’s contract."

"Done." Maledict snapped his fingers and the contract fell into his hands.

"Good. Now end the Forbidding on Kir." Kiryu stored the contract.

"What?" Maledict was shocked. Sure, he could do it, but it would take hours, maybe even days, at least.

"You heard me. Lift it. The only way Kir gets to really keep you from fucking around in his life is if he can kill you. Oh, but leave the Forbidding on the moms. Can’t have you going back on your word, after all."

Maledict snarled. "That spell is complex. Bound into our oath. I can’t just remove it..."

Kiryu shrugged and tilted his head. "It was worth a shot..."

In a sudden spin, Kiryu threw the crystal at the core.

Instead of bouncing off, the crystal stuck as the core began to absorb its mana. That was when Maledict realized that the amount of mana stored in that one small chunk of crystal had been stable to the point of invisibility in manasight. But without proper refinement, the mana wouldn’t be entirely compatible... Given the stress of moving the Academy-

A crack started.

"If you hurry, I think you can save the bit you got. Otherwise, I’m almost certain this place is coming down fast."

Maledict rolled a finger through the air. It took more mana to cut through the portal’s interference, but the spell held.

"Drop the portal, cut away the school," he ordered, watching as the crack grew higher and deeper.

"But sir, we’re almost-"

"CUT IT NOW!" Maledict threw everything he had into the compulsion. The rest of the gnossinians at the top of the tower must have heard and acted fast, because just as the crack started reaching the portal, it disappeared, leaving nothing but empty air above...

For a moment, everything was still, except for the falling bodies of the drained students, now released from the traps Maledict had converted.

A moment later, Kiryu pushed into the empty air with both his hands, towards the bottom quarter of the core, which had cracked deeply and was emitting an ominous light. It flew away, out over the lake, and sank.

A white light, reminiscent of the destruction of Tzal, blinded Maledict for just a moment.

The core had exploded, vaporizing a cloud of water that rose rapidly like a mighty tree, a ring blown into the clouds around its epicenter.

"Well, I guess that’s my time," Kiryu sighed. "Your wife is a real piece of work." He looked at the growing tree-cloud. "By the way. You should probably stop all this from falling."

Not one second later, he fainted. The metal discs falling from Kir’s forehead with gentle clinks.

Then the Academy began to fall.

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