The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 236: Interlude - Ferro - Part 1

Chapter 236: Interlude - Ferro - Part 1

Lanoch’s departure for the Duat was a grand affair.

Surrounded by guards, Ferro was made to walk behind his owner, dressed in far flimsier clothes than what he wore in the harem.

Hifta basked in the attention but Ferro was far more demure, concentrating on reading his book as the palanquin bearing his "dungeon brides" was carried.

The mysterious commentator had some surprisingly witty things to say about subjects other than magic sometimes, and one of them was a quote that had been cycling through Ferro’s mind a lot lately.

Revolutions don’t happen with white gloves.

Perhaps the commentator had meant something else by it, but Ferro took it as encouragement. Encouragement to keep working, knowing that every little experiment and progression would build up to something greater.

Ferro’s pool of mana was still woefully inadequate compared to even a novice mage, but he recognized he had something few did, the capacity to completely "recharge" - as the commenter put it - within a matter of minutes instead of the hours or even days that most would take.

In fact, when he concentrated just right, Ferro could almost recharge in under a minute. What it meant was that while he couldn’t cast big spells, he could keep up a good stream of small ones, and the smaller the spell, the longer he could keep it up.

His usual method of training, thus, was to simply see how long he could accumulate water, and he’d gotten good enough with modifying the compression to gather a small but drinkable stream. And unlike magical water, it didn’t just dissipate as soon as the mana ran out, leaving one thirstier than when one began.

He was wondering how to conceptualize the high pressures that the commenter indicated could cut through even metal when a shadow passed overhead.

A dragon flew along the path of the parade, alighting at the entrance to the main tunnel that led below the Grand Colliseum, to the mouth of the Duat.

The spectacle was increased as the dragon reared its head and roared, before its handler had it rest as the Tower Lord himself descended, his advising angel and demon behind him.

He started giving a speech, which was full of airs about how Lanoch was the strongest, the bravest, and all sorts of things about the man’s legend.

Nothing in that speech spoke to the harem people that Lanoch had battered, broken, and scarred. People like Ferro were less than nothing to most; pretty whores who had no place to be but someone’s bed. And yet Ferro had seem more bravery as a whore than most of the people lining the streets could even conceive of.

The bravery to face a jealous and wrathful warrior, night after night. The bravery to cover for one’s injured comrades. To keep going when one wrong move meant disfigurement and dismissal. Against the promise of, if not death, then ruination. A slower death on the street...

After languishing through the quarter-hour-long speech, and Lanoch’s brief response, they entered the tunnel.

It was perhaps a half-great measure distance from the entrance to the dungeon hold - which double as a place from which dungeon monsters could be deployed into the arena. The underground structure eventually widened to include several of the smaller entrances, including one through which hundreds of demonkin slaves walked, their faces downcast and their bodies marked by their labors.

Ferro knew little of demons. He knew that they could somehow live on mana alone, but just like too much food would sicken someone, too much mana would do the same to them if not properly handled. And the same went for demonkin. They could tolerate higher-mana environments longer than most, but inevitably mana poisoning would set in.

The ways that mana poisoning and corruption displayed themselves varied. Victims who were merely poisoned sometimes had an unhealthy glow or an appearance that was on the verge of unsettling. Those with full-on corruption sometimes had distended limbs, overgrowths of horn, or even glowing cracks that appeared in their flesh.

The latter were inevitably slated for the arena, and Ferro had witnessed Lanoch killing a few of the poor demonkin. Demons and their kin were the one type of being Lanoch wouldn’t have in his harem.

Yet as they passed the crowd of demons waiting for the elevator down, a familiar voice drew Ferro’s attention.

He cast about for it, and discovered a woman shrouded in bandages, on which were written lines of text impossible to read at his distance. She wore a ragged cloak and a wooden mask with only eyeslits, and a pair of horns spouted from the hood of her cloak.

It was impossible to determine the color of her skin but her eyes, her intense, red-glowing eyes told him that she had to be a demonkin.

She spoke.

"And when the world is bent by tyranny, and each of you is weighed upon to save what was, what words will you speak?"

"Nay, not us." the crowd of demonkin and slaves of all species gathered around the woman intoned grimly.

"For it is the end of the old that comes. It is the end of the Heavenswars. The end of lies. The end of kings and queens! And the beginning of a world shared by all!

The crowd stared up, enraptured.

"And who shall save you? I tell you it is the one who brings the end! His voice will be as the sky! His power shall break asunder the Duat and usher in true peace, for as long as he reigns!"

The crowd intoned happily, their faces eagerly lapping up whatever words the woman said.

Her speech left Ferro with shivers, mostly from the power in her voice. The sheer certainty and the familiar cadence that reminded him so much of...

"Fear not to speak his name, for he is already amongst us. You will know His power, which will be as the ocean. Pray for him, for the year, the day, and the hour of his arrival is nigh. And when he cries for justice, cry back-"

"By our hands!" the crowd shouted.

Hifta chuckled. "I wonder what god they’re praying to." He idly popped a grape into his mouth.

The crowd bowed their heads and clasped their hands in quiet prayer. And in that moment the woman, the prophet, looked right at him. Right through him, in the same way that the Oracle had so many months ago...

Ferro started, looking around himself to make sure she wasn’t looking at someone else. But when he looked back, she was once more staring at the crowd.

"Go now. Wait, and grow strong. The day will come. When all shall end, and begin anew."

She saluted them, her hand on her heart.

"Shin Gir, save us!" the prophet shouted.

"Shin Gir, save us!" the crowd shouted back.

Then in a flash of light, the bandages, the mask, and the cloak all collapsed into a single heap. These were gathered and placed into a box, which disappeared into the crowd as it was carried away swiftly, as guards finally arrived to try and disperse the laborers.

"Ugh, they’re actually praying to Shin Gir?" Hifta’s jackal-like face twisted into a scowl, his long ears flicking in annoyance. "I feel dirty just hearing it." He sat up before shifting over to another part of the palanquin.

Some of the crowd was clearly covering for those fleeing with the box. In short order, they were met with violence, as the rest were dispersed or shoved towards the workers’ elevator.

Ferro did not envy them their fate, which was to mine the dungeon for precious materials, some of which could defy the laws of physics, and to help capture dungeon denizens for slaughter in the arenas above.

It was a task reserved for the truly lowest of the low. For criminals and murderers and those with nothing else to contribute to the world... or so everyone said.

But Ferro didn’t see that. He saw people, so desperate to live they would labor in the closest thing Ayther had to a hell that wasn’t in the sky. So desperate for a better life they would pray to Shin Gir, of all gods. So defiant, they would gather to pray as openly as the followers of any other temple, despite being watched and brutalized and kept in obvious squalor.

He noticed one of the worshippers drawing near, a scared-looking demonkin with ragged brown hair and red skin, her tail bandaged at a stub at the level of her knees.

"E-excuse me," Ferro called out as soon as she neared. "Excuse me!"

She turned, staring at him with green-yellow eyes.

"What?" she asked. "I’ve got work to do unless you’ve got a coin or summat."

"What do they call her? The one who speaks?" Ferro looked around furtively before unlatching one of his golden necklaces and dropping it to her.

She eyed him, looking around once more before she said, "We call her the Endmother."

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.