The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 350: Blood And Snow - Usurper

Chapter 350: Blood And Snow - Usurper

Leviathan turned, and behind her, Amarena saw Halie, bruised and battered, her arms and legs replaced with shaded spaces like blankets of night around her flesh. The rest was hidden by her armor.

"Amarena... it took you long enough," Leviathan chuckled. "I had thought you were defeated by this usurper... But here you are. How?"

"What is this?" Amarena asked. "You died. I saw it!"

"I thought I’d sent you away... Ah, Maledict must have been watching." She stepped away from Halie, but kept her side to the woman. A mark of respect, coming from Leviathan. "You’ve grown... but your power is taking your life, as I feared. That is the price of controlling something you don’t understand... But how are you here?"

"This giant is my opponent," Amarena stepped between Leviathan and Halie. The latter looked up at her weakly. "We were fighting..."

"Ah, and now you are both connected to me... how strange. How unexpected. Maledict told me nothing of this possibility."

"You knew something like this could happen?"

"Speculation. In the past, Demon Lords were sometimes revived by loyal followers. By those who would sacrifice their bodies and minds. Much power was lost by this method, but it was a way of preserving knowledge and power. But time took the method from us, and the abyss knows how Maledict learned of it. Probably from that old sack, Kainur, if not in some dusty Goetic tome."

"Maledict revealed this to you?"

"He did. But I do not intend to use it the way he suggested. I have died, and it is because I am weak. The world needs the strong, Amarena." She shifted, down from her war form and to the more personable form Amarena last saw as a child. "My strength belongs to you now. Not this usurper."

"I would ask you to leave Halie alone then. Leave her body, if you can. But before that, I would speak with her," Amarena stepped closer to Halie.

"Go on then. We have only spoken through battle, until you arrived. I sensed my victory was nigh, but I do not want the body of a weakling, no matter how interesting her mavenry is."

"You fought her in here? While she fought Kainur outside."

"Is that who has been striking this body? I put myself forth, but have yet to take over her senses." Leviathan chuckled. "To fight two Dukes of Hell at once, perhaps I should reconsider your strengths, giant."

Halie glowered across the space at Leviathan, but spoke to Amarena. "You shouldn’t be here, Rena."

"Why? Because you chose Kir to kill you?" Amarena scowled. "He won’t do it. The moment he heard about your prophecy, he let me take this fight."

"No... No, he has to. Battle is how a metatron grows," she pleaded. "I’ve failed so much - "

"Then battle him, once I save you from what you’ve done to yourself. I refuse to let you die."

"Nothing will stop that now. None can survive this form of demonification."

"Did your prophecy tell you that?"

"No. Experience and study taught me that. I have known for two decades that this was my final battle. I have known why and how, and what I must do. I was shown it, I felt it, I lived it; thanks to that boy’s mother."

"Then tell me what’s supposed to happen, Halie. Make it completely fucking clear why you would throw away everything to get yourself killed!"

"I’m not throwing away everything, I’m protecting everything! You don’t understand."

"Then help me, Halie. Help me understand; because we arekilling each other out there!"

"You shouldn’t be here at all. He was supposed to come alone!" She looked aside for a moment. "Five days after I sent you out, I’m supposed to succumb to her. She jerked her head in Leviathan’s direction. He fights me alone, kills me, and you become the head of a new order."

"After, what? You kill everyone in the old one?"

"Yes." Halie glared up at her.

"Why?"

"Because they must die! There is no room for high ideals in the face of what’s coming. Through you, something would survive. Not enough to change things, but enough that after... afterwards, you would keep to the core of what the Knights wanted. Reforge it. Make it better. Without the chains that the Valrian Empire wrought for itself."

Amarena tensed. She looked down, at her swords. Once a single blade, broken and reforged. Patience and Time. She felt their names like a mantra. "What chains were those?"

"You know them, Rena. Valrarull banyk skalti."

She said the words in High Giantish.

Valria of the Myriad. The concept that had united the peoples of many heritages under a single banner... but not just that. It had united them against demons, for a time, and then against the will of Heaven, towards the end.

She had heard the phrase much during her first months as Halie’s apprentice. When the elders debated killing her, casting her out, or finding ways to restrict her training. In every case, it was Halie’s presence and Amarena’s willingness to fight that stopped them.

Valria of the Myriad. Just the Myriad.

Not demons.

Not her.

The words stoked her wrath. But she had long since cooled that fire. Two years of fighting for her place had tempered it.

For a long time, she stood silent and thought. Looking into Halie’s eyes as she felt the cold, hard wrath inside herself start to crystalize...

"You’ve grown, daughter. You are ready and more than that, able to receive my power now." Leviathan stepped behind Amarena, placing a hand on her shoulder as she came around to her side.

"Can she be saved?" Amarena asked.

"I do not know," Leviathan admitted. "Maledict hinted that in the past, Demon Lords could gift pieces of their heartstones to servants, empowering them. It... inspired me to leave you this part of myself. To see if it was true."

Amarena pondered this. But the uncertainty left her with nothing to hold on to. "What should I do?"

"Release me. Let me return to the battle," Halie said.

Leviathan growled. "It would benefit you to kill her. Claim your birthright. Though the bulk of my power lies with those who slew me, with my heartstone, you can rule the Wrathlands. Finish what I could not... Destroy Heaven."

Rena’s fists clenched. "I never wanted to rule. I just wanted to be strong. Strong enough to dance the way I want. To live the way I want. I don’t... I don’t care about destroying Heaven."

"Not even to avenge me? To claim the strength I forged to pass on?"

Amarena shouldered free of her mother’s touch. "One day, I might reclaim that strength. But it will be for justice that I wield my blades." She drew Patience and Time. "There is no justice in war for its own sake."

Leviathan stepped back. She seethed, her breath hissing as it left her. "So it’s come to this? A final, foolish challenge? I offer you my strength willingly, and you would deny it?"

Amarena inhaled a deep, sharp breath. "No. I do not deny it. But when I have it, it will be my strength. Mine. Not yours!"

The moment she raised her sword against her mother, a light shone from within her. Purple and strong, matched to the heartstone that form in that very moment.

Seeing this, Leviathan burst out laughing. "So be it. Show me ’justice,’ before I allow myself to fade into you." She gestured at Halie. "You know what must be done to have all of what is yours."

Amarena lowered her sword, stepping closer to her teacher once more.

The look of defeat on Halie’s face was haunting.

"Is this it then? All I’ve done... only to be judged for the sake of power? Killed, before I could atone..."

"You taught me well, Halie. Whatever your sins are, I’ll accept them for averting your plans." She hefted her swords. "I am a demon of my word. And your daughter has words for you too..."

"Enny?" She looked up.

"Knight Halie... my teacher. My friend. I sentence you to live."

She clubbed Halie on the side of the head with Patience.

The moment she lost consciousness, Halie’s form faded into nothing.

"I would have killed her," Leviathan said.

"I’m not you."

"No." Her mother embraced her, for the first and only time. "You are not..."

*

In the real world, Amarena fell backwards from Halie, Leviathan’s heartstone now resting in her forehead as it turned from black sheathed in red to a crystalline purple.

Halie fell, a single shard of purple still lodged in her rapidly healing forehead. She landed on her back and was still.

But Amarena...

Looking down, she saw her blood painting the snow red.

She felt a heat inside her. Fury and determination compressing it as it roiled throughout her form.

She fell to her hands and knees, her tail lashing. The force of her mana cast a wide circle as she screamed.

As she cried.

And then, she evolved.