The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 249: Blue Flame

Chapter 249: Blue Flame

Ghostheart was amongst the latest urban legends to find life in Norneau’s busy scene.

Buoyed by those who claimed freedom thanks to his activities, and the influx of beastfolk from the west, hungry to learn more about a city that managed to fend off Maledict, the Duke of Heresy’s siege, the story spread like wildfire.

Some wanted to fight the mysterious demon, believing that he had stolen much of the Syndicate’s former wealth in the city. Others claimed he delivered warnings to those wished to own slaves. And still, others claimed that he could be summoned, with the humble use of magic to create a blue flame, and that those seeking emancipation for someone in the city would be met, while those seeking a fight would find one, and lose.

It was a blue flame rumor that Kir was investigating tonight.

Since his second strike against the Syndicate, Ghostheart had become the most hunted being in the city. Not just because of his activities, but because of what he’d inspired. Slaveowners dispossessed themselves of their slaves after he started targeting the locals. Those who didn’t started to be targeted by locals who believed in abolition.

Lumin’s influence meant the city was acted to purchase the contracts and immediately release the slaves, even hiring them for construction and sponsoring them into businesses to replace those lost by fleeing citizens during the siege.

But one of the entities Norneau had purchased from was the Syndicate, just before Kir’s second strike that killed all but the leader of the Syndicate office. It was an attack that left the man fundamentally unable to retrieve the gold he’d been paid, since Ghostheart’s frequent "appearances" at the harbor meant no Captain would carry it. Those foolish enough to try had been identified to Kir, who had paid each a... discouraging visit.

Tonight, it was a middle-aged houndkin woman who was carrying a lamp that emitted a bright blue flame. Watching her for a time, Kir saw she was walking in a circle from the docks to the main street.

Manasight told him that she was only channeling enough power to keep the flame alight. With a city as active as Norneau, it was just another light amongst many, but more than a few patrons of bars and night walkers noted her passing with looks of curiosity or disdain.

For a months-old urban legend, this Ghostheart thing has wings.

"You’re telling me," Kiryu replied to the thought without prompting.

Kir chose an alley just before the docks to appear from, wearing his warform and letting the inner glow of his mana shine between the cracks of his bone-like armor.

"You summoned me?" Kir asked, dropping his voice an octave, which wasn’t hard given his war form made him much taller than normal - about three and a half meters instead of his usual three.

"Thank the gods... you do exist!" The houndkin put out her torch, a wise move. "I’ve been walking the docks for three nights..."

"Why?" Kir asked, preferring to keep his sentences short to help avoid identification later on.

"It’s my husband. Some suspicious men talked him into a foolish expedition to Tree Amrita-"

"I don’t rescue soldiers," Kir said.

"He’s not a soldier! He has a little skill with magic, and a lot of mana, and all he does is make shoes. But now these men came around and forced him to get a tattoo and are saying they’ll pay him gold to leave the city with them. It’s suicide, I told him, but he insists it’ll be okay. Using him with storage magic like some sort of packmule! It has to be the Syndicate, right? They’ve tried hiring everyone else they could, and now they’re dragging him out there with rough men and the monsters and demons... begging your pardon of course..."

The ability to maintain spatial storage magic, even with the assistance of magic tools, required a large pool of mana. Thus, any mage or maven with enough mana to hold a decent amount always had a chance to make money as a courier. Because of its mass, Goldman would have had to pay more than the worth of the gold to teleport it, so hiring several mages capable of carrying dimensional storages made sense.

"Not many would seek out a demon," Kir noted. The woman had talked so fast, he couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

"But you’re one of the good ones, right?" She swallowed, sounding unsure. "Please... I’ll give you anything but my soul to get my husband back safe..."

"I take no bargains, contracts... or oaths..." The last reminded Kir of the person to whom he’d pledged an end to slavery. "Where are they traveling?"

"Along the lake. Those ruffians were talking about heading to the mesa cities, and they had this big iron carriage."

"When did they leave?" Kir asked.

"Yesterday morning!"

Shit.

Turning sideways to the alley, with a mighty flap of his wings, Kir took off straight up, before angling his path low along the wall as he rapidly flew away from the city.

Several guards cried out in alarm at his passing, but Kir was fast enough that the wall guards quickly decided to stop wasting their spells and arrows as he flew southeast and away.

"There goes your morning visit with Kordia."

"Taking out Goldman comes first. Stella might take care of her."

Kir had promised Lumin the human wouldn’t leave with the gold the city had paid to buy out the contracts of every slave he’d brought with him.

Was it shady double-dealing on her part? Yes. And Kir appreciated her for it, and her willingness to play along with his being Ghostheart. She’d keep the city’s coffers full, and Norneau could continue to lure the Syndicate to its shores, which meant more freed slaves and dead slavers. At least until the Syndicate got wise.

One of its wise ones, it seemed, was Kir’s current target. Reginald Goldman, who immediately went into hiding after Kir attacked a dinner party thrown for the city’s biggest slavers and up-and-coming merchants; who hadn’t been able to purchase people because the city demanded priority.

Kir had killed fifteen of the twenty-one attendees that night, according to the city’s report, but the would-be new head of the Syndicate in Norneau had escaped, hiding in the city and using agents to perform his will.

Between intimidating local slaveowners into freeing their slaves, hunting down Goldman’s agents, and getting into brawls with either street thugs or city guards - to say nothing of escaping - Kir had kept almost all of his nights busy. Even if he could survive on mana and with relatively little sleep, it was a lifestyle that was taxing on his mental and physical energies.

But soon it could all be over... or at least simmer down enough to let him get more proper rest.

He had no trouble seeing in the deep night since Heaven was at half-moon and Hell was full, the Eye of Hell peering down like a sharp, red iris. Coupled with his demonic, or perhaps his angelic, heritage and a spell tattoo that enhanced his senses, it might as well have been daylight.

Since the siege, Norneau had spent a small fortune on outpost towers at all the major roads and at the edge of the former demon camp. Because crews there tended towards one-week shifts, Kir thought it would be relatively easy to find out which of the three southeast roads the group had taken from the watchtower at the crossroads.

To their credit, as soon as Kir landed amidst the crenelations of the watchtower, both guards turned and cast spells at him.

"Oh shit... it’s a demon..." "It’s the Demon of the Docks!"

The spells broke against his shields, and he did not move to attack, since he was standing over the ladder.

"Which of you was on the morning shift yesterday?" he asked the quivering guards.

One wet his pants, the other pointed at the ladder between Kir’s legs. "B-Brock was," the older of the two said.

Stowing his wings, Kir reached down and pulled up the ladder, tossing it between himself and the guards. "Some privacy, if you would," he said before putting his legs together and dropping straight down, four stories, to the base of the tower where the beds were.

Brock, a stone elf with ruby-clear hair, didn’t take well to being woken up, but quickly adapted when he saw that he was upside down as Kir held him by the ankle.

"This morning, did you see a large, black carriage?"

"Headin’ along the lake road? Yeah. Had a bunch of beastkin mercs with it."

"How many?" Kir demanded, his tail lashing as he put some anger into the voice.

"Your stage voice is horrible," Kiryu judged in his head.

"I don’t know, twenty? Please don’t kill me Mr. Ghostheart."

Kir internally rolled his eyes, but there was a role he needed to fulfill. "Are you a slaveowner?"

"No, I’m a guard, they don’t pay us enough for that... A-And I don’t want to be. Everyone knows what you did to the Clines."

Who are the Clines? Kir wondered. But the elf didn’t seem to be lying so Kir let him go, before leaving out the front door, using the handle.

As Kir was spreading his wings to resume his flight, he heard one of the topside guards call out. "Sorry Brock. Is it safe to come down? Rert wet himself again."

"Oh piss off, Kenrie."

With an amused snort, Kir took off into the early morning light, hoping to get ahead of the daily fog.

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