The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 354: Blood And Snow - Fading

Chapter 354: Blood And Snow - Fading

As the blast pushed Kainur away, Kir switched Kangetsu Dar into repulsor mode and fired, holding the rifle in one hand as he did his best to ignore his broken arm.

Each shot sent the Duke of Pride further away from the city and toward the battlefield to the south.

Below, he sensed as a massive mana signature faded out. He could feel that Kordia was close to it, but not whether he or someone else was the fading source. He wanted to look, but he kept his eyes on Kainur even so. Firing, adjusting his aim as he charged the next shot with mana, then firing again.

Kainur fired off spells that kept going wide because of how Kir timed his shots, frustration and annoyance clear on his darkness-shrouded face as he failed to get spell after spell in between shots.

Even though Kir wasn’t damaging his opponent at all, he was pushing him further and further away from usable mana sources - he hoped.

More worrisome was that Kainur was beginning to figure out that the effect coming from Kir’s gun was not a thing of magic, but of magic creating a physical force that continued without it. The timing needed to keep pushing him back left little room for going on a true offensive, so if he figured it out, Kir needed to be ready to dodge.

The moment came too soon.

With a final shot, Kir put Kainur above the camp made for the demons, but his next shot seemed only to ripple Kainur’s form as it phased through him.

A moment later, the Duke fired off a spell that would have hit Kir dead-on if not for his shielding.

"A petty, weak trick, metatron," Kainur snarled. "Where is the might that Heaven and Hell once feared? Where are the Goetic arts thine father prizes so?" He cast spell after spell, feeling out Kir’s defenses, but was forced to pause to use the phasing trick that let him ignore Kangetsu’s impulse rounds.

"Tell more about them and maybe I’ll show you," Kir replied, delocalizing the source of a spell to make true lightning in order to distract Kainur as he switched over to Kangetsu’s mana bolt rounds.

When he fired off a stream of mana bullets, Kainur he was rewarded by several strikes as Kainur initially tried to phase out to avoid them.

So when he phases, attacks made of mana still hit... How the hell is he doing that?

"I think it has something to do with that crystal we saw back there," Kiryu said.

That seemed like quite a leap in logic.

"It’s not a leap, idiot! You vaporized him and that was what came back first."

"Do you have any idea how to counter it?" Kir asked.

"Yeah, but you’re not going to like it."

"Why not?" Kir dodged a series of strikes, flying wide circles around Kainur.

"Because it means you’re going to have to..."

An involuntary shudder ran down Kir’s spine all the way to the tip of his tail as he listened to Kiryu’s plan. It relied entirely on something that only he - to his knowledge - was capable of doing.

"Yeah. Exactly," Kiryu said.

"Final option only."

"Might be the only sure option. Especially since Kordia’s right below us."

Those were exactly the wrong words for Kir to hear at that moment, as he looked down to find Kordia healing Halie, about a hundred meters away, with no sign of Amarena.

What happened to -

A spell struck Kir, searing into his shield and clipping him on the ribs.

He looked up to find Kainur closing with him, slashing downward with his sword.

Kir raised Kangetsu to block, his weapons screaming as it took the brunt of the blow which sent Kir colliding with the ground.

A flash of pain lashed into him like lightning from his back as he bounced off the hard, frozen soil.

Then Kainur began to rain spells down upon him. A torrent of bolts that he was barely able to resist as he raised his unbroken arm to put up a thick, hemispheric shield, spinning it perpendicular to the magic aimed right for him.

The momentum imparted by his shield spun out Kainur’s spells into the ground around him, blending it into molten slagging mush as spell after spell struck.

It was hard to think with his body in such pain, but Kir still did his best.

Kainur’s spells have both magic and real force behind him... If he says he was once a Demon Lord then that means he’s probably existed for a long time...

"Probably also means he’s not fighting at full power," Kiryu added.

"No... I can feel he’s struggling a bit out here. As long as we keep him away from any people he can harvest... He prayed Kordia was strong enough to resist...

At the end of his prayer, however, he felt something nearby. A source of mana. Then another. And another. Dozens. Then hundreds...

A flood of demons, retreating from the city.

Had he been able to see it, he would have noticed the blurred figure that darted from one formation to another, beating back any who tried to return to the fighting.

Amarena was a purple blur as she sped faster than sound, breaking weapons. Disarming opponents. Fighting at speeds the demons she faced couldn’t understand.

For that one, long moment, everything seemed clear. The world around her virtually frozen as it moved slowly. So slowly she could count the crystals on a snowflake.

She was burning through her newly expanded mana at an incredible rate, all while her mother shared her final words.

Her final warnings.

"Heaven will have the bulk of my soulstone somewhere... I know not what they plan to do with it, but the weapon that almost killed me used more mana than I had ever seen. Do not underestimate the angels, as I did. But if you can touch my soulstone, its power will be yours. You are strong enough now. Stronger than I ever thought you’d be."

"Tell me why, mother. Why did you acknowledge me, as a child? Why did you raise me to the House of Wrath if you didn’t believe in me?" Amarena spoke out loud.

As Amarena threw the last of the demons from the city, standing before the ruins of the central gate, she finally felt herself slow. The crystal horn on her head lost much of its glow.

"Be better than me," the voice of Leviathan, Duke of Wrath, faded, taking her answers to the grave.

"Hmph," Amarena grunted, watching the fleeing backs of the demons.

A short moment later, the sounds of rushing footsteps assailed her.

"Rena!" a voice shouted. A man started climbing up the pile of rubble she stood on. "It is you."

She turned to find - "Knight Telan... how many of us are left?" She felt so tired, she wanted to sleep, but there was still a battle. Kainur’s army was already rallying beyond the walls.

"Less than a hundred Knights of the Order... they fought to buy enough time for the civilians to make for the fortress. Mostly just the Elder Knights and scholars."

Less than a hundred... out of thousands. She was too late save the Valrian Knights from their fate... but she had saved Halie from hers, she hoped...

"Knight Telan, return to the fortress. Take time to prepare, just in case I fail to stop Kainur. Guard what’s left of us."

"Yes, Knight Justiciam."

He could have disobeyed. He was the senior knight. But instead he rallied his fighters. Just before he departed, he turned to Amerena. "Victory to you, lover."

"Victory to us," Amerena replied.

Sliding down the pile of rubble, she started to sprint...

*

The edges of Kir’s shield flaked away in pieces under Kainur’s relentless assault.

With so many demons nearby, Kir felt every death as sudden voids in the nearby mana. And they still kept coming...

"Kir!"

Kordia’s voice alerted him as she sprinted over the molten ground, coming to a stop next to him as she held up her hands, growing a shield underneath his own.

A moment later there was a gust of wind and a the crack of a sonic boom before Amarena suddenly appeared on Kir’s opposite side.

"How can I help?" Amarena asked.

"He’s taking mana from the demons nearby," Kir reported quickly. "Some have things that he calls true soulstones - mana sources, without a person."

"That’s..." Kordia’s ears tilted in horror. "That’s one of the ultimate goals of blood magic."

"What do they look like?" Amarena asked.

"Clear crystals. That’s the best I can say. Supposedly they’re hard to see. Getting the demons away from here should help."

"I’ll find them," Amarena grunted. "But I was hoping you would let me strike Kainur."

"Do that after!" Kir let go of the remains of his shield, before reaching up with his good arm and producing another shield under Kordia’s.

With a crackle in the air, Amarena disappeared to perform her task.

"What should I do?" Kordia asked, clearly straining to maintain her shield.

A heavy crash sounded from above, and Kir felt both his and Kordia’s shields shatter under the force of a soulbound sword. Dropping through the halves of both shields, Kainur attacked.

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