The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 360: Interview With A Devil

Chapter 360: Interview With A Devil

The unreadable time of her imprisonment became slightly more pleasant as Malz continued to help Anko with the ancient devices.

Having more food gave her more mana, and her practice generating electricity from mana made her efficient enough that she could maintain a net gain in her mana reserves.

It was a careful balance to maintain, because of her natural inclination to share information with people she liked. And the more she learned about Anko, the more she genuinely felt she liked the demoness. Though there was one thing she found annoying about her, and that was the degree of saviorhood she was giving the person she was training to serve; Maledict’s son.

Especially because Anko had barely met the guy.

But Malz could be patient. She’d learned that much. What she couldn’t stand was the sudden influx of demons that made her time much noisier than it had been. It pointed to a dangerous trend if Maledict was starting to imprison his own.

There was a reason Malz preferred libraries, but she persisted despite the noise. After practically memorizing the route to the ’Escape Pod’ structure and the basics of how to use one of the pods, she’d learned much about the structure that was supposed to exist beneath the shell of metal she was imprisoned on.

Most of what she learned was from the map app on the ancient tablet. When she was alone, she’d sit for hours poking at the various names, some of which would open up subscreens describing facilities. Then she would check those names against the rather basic search function of the tablet’s internal memory.

It took her some time to translate, but her ability to read ancient angelic cleared itself of rust and even grew the more she read.

But there were some names that had no corresponding files. At least not in the tablet she’d stolen.

"Dimensional Juns- No - Junction..." she tapped the name of the proportionally large, pillar-like structure.

ACCESS DENIED - AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED

With a tsk, she tried the thing underneath that name, the missing heart of Heaven, that the ancients called "Anomaly Storage."

ACCESS DENIED - AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED

PrimaryComputer.

ACCESS DENIED - AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED

Whoever these ancient angels had been, they clearly liked their secrets just as much as modern ones.

She was wondering who the ancient authorities had been- certainly not the Council of Choirs -when her door started to click open.

In a flash, Malz hid the stolen tablet under her sheet as she fell onto her side, pretending to have been lying down as Anko entered.

Today, however, Anko didn’t have a box of artifacts under her arm.

And she wasn’t alone.

A demoness whose entire appearance screamed "succubus" was holding a robe between her hands.

"Malz, this is Janice," Anko introduced.

"Ugh, she’s filthy." Janice waved a hand and Malz felt the familiar touch of cleaning magics upon her skin. Then she tossed Malz the robe. "Put this on. Maledict wants to see you."

Malz complied slowly, slipping her featherbare limb through the back before she put her arms through the sleeves.

After spending so long in her cell, naked and cold, even the thin robe of silk felt warm. Or perhaps that was just the heat from having been carried.

"Can you walk?" Anko asked, helping Malz stand. The happy concern on her face made Malz feel like this might be the last time they saw each other. Maybe the demoness was about to get what she wanted.

"I think so," Malz replied.

She hadn’t been particularly active, and most of the weight she had from before her imprisonment had fled her from the starvation level of food she’d been given before Anko became her interrogator.

Her pace was slow as she left her cell for the first time in years.

Throughout the hall, the banging and crying and shouting of demons at their doors assaulted her ears. Guard demons, their hands heavy with the same orbs that had been used to drain her mana on a nigh-daily basis, came and went. And some glared at her as she passed them like a black-haired wraith.

Janice led the way, and Anko brought up the rear the moment they left the rectangular hole in the ground that had been her prison.

The lights of the metal city looked dimmer than she remembered them.

"Maledict’s in a good mood today," Anko said to Malz as they started to walk away from the city proper and toward the massive, floating tower that had been brought to Heaven from Ayther.

"Hush, child," Janice chastised, casting suspicious glances as the obviously starving demons who eyed them as they walked. Then she addressed Malz. "The only thing you need to remember is to be respectful. Maledict is not as tolerant as he was when you met."

"Compared to when he ripped my wing off and had me tortured for who knows how long?" Malz wanted to challenge. But she kept the words in her imagination. If Maledict was feeling good and generous, she’d do whatever she needed to help her escape.

For the rest of their journey to the tower, she occupied herself with fantasies of what she’d do once she was back amidst the luxuries of Heaven. She didn’t care much about avenging her situation - past ripping Maledict’s wings off herself before shoving a knife through his chin and into his brains - but she did try to occupy herself to keep from thinking about Rainier and Cassiel. And why neither of them had come for her.

A small surge of guilt rose in her as she realized lately she’d thought more about food than her lovers.

Once inside, she had to walk up a long series of winding, circular stairs.

She barely made it two floors before she was panting and sweating with exhaustion.

"I got ya," Anko offered the second time Malz paused. Lifting her into her lower arms, the demoness carried Malz the rest of the way.

Either she’s quite strong or I’ve lost too much weight, Malz thought to herself. She tried to count the floors, especially because the numbers didn’t match up with the markers, but they stopped after about forty flights, on floor 66. This tower’s missing a lot of levels...

Inside, it looked like Maledict had taken over some sort of lab. A very primitive one.

Piles of ancient tablets occupied a crate on a table. The broken ones on the table showed off innards of green stone and metal. Books sat open or in haphazard piles. A trio of chalkboards were covered in equations that Malz was not given time to parse as she was brought to the center of the room.

Maledict was seated at a table, staring down at a tablet of his own, which was lit up.

He’s figured out how to charge them, Malz realized. She could no longer leverage that in her favor. Which meant this was the moment he decided what to do with her. There was nothing else she had that he would want.

He did not stand as the three of them entered. There was no one else in the room. He looked up from his tablet after a moment, regarding the three of them one at a time.

"Good work," he grunted, clearing his throat. He seemed distracted. "The door please, Janice."

The demoness turned and moved to seal the room.

Malz was too weak to keep her manasight active, but she sensed the room was heavily warded against spying.

The Devil of Heresy, Duke of Tzal, smiled. "Malzkael. Welcome. I have little time for pleasantries, so I’ll get to the point." He gestured, and three chairs extracted themselves from under tables and books, coming to rest in an arc across from him. As a demon, he stood three meters tall. The very image of dark power.

Slightly gaunt, chiseled features. Purple eyes amidst black sclera. A crown of fire between his horns, and dragon-like wings on his back.

His black claws clicked against the tablet as he placed it directly in front of Malzkael.

"Answer my questions honestly, and your situation will improve. Lie to me, and your death will not be fast."

He tapped the screen with a claw. "What do you see?"

Her eyes ran along the edges of the screen. The place where various symbols indicated that this tablet had a weak network connection. With such a general question, Malz had a lot of room for error. But the familiarity of what was on the screen echoed up from the back of her mind.

"Mana flows. Those in Araqlun... and those down here."

"And?"

"They’re separated."

"And this?" he pointed at a place. A hotspot of mana. She knew it, from the map in the tower at the heart of Heaven’s capital. She read the label. "Caretaker Production..."

"Hm. So you can read Ancient Angelic. Good."

He sat. "Tell me about these caretakers."

"They’re monsters... but they only look after the world trees. Even Heaven doesn’t investigate them."

"Why?"

"Because they’re hard to kill, at least while in the mycelium layer, where there’s less mana than here. Killing even a small one causes the rest to attack."

"What weaknesses do they have?" he continued.

"I don’t know," Malz answered. "Wherever that place is, it will likely be swarming with them."

He reached across the gap between them and pulled the focus up to Araqlun. "This building has a larger mana draw than any other. What is it?"

Malz swallowed. "That’s... the Black Tower. Headquarters of the Executioners."

"Ah. Your old compatriots. Why does it require so much mana?"

This was a test. He already knew. He’d tortured knowledge of the Black Tower out of her ages ago.

"For the Lance of Heaven. That’s the only thing I can think of," she answered truthfully, staring at the highest reaches of the Black Tower, where the mana seemed most concentrated. Around a section labeled "Mana Enhanced Laser Ablation System." She had no idea what the words meant together.

Maledict withdrew the tablet, drumming his claws lightly as he eyed Malz.

"You still have uses. If you are willing to sign a Contract, I will allow you to -"

A cascade of mana suddenly washed over them.

Behind Maledict, outside the window, a crack had opened in the air. A perdition, but unlike any Malzkael had ever seen.

A figure exited, and at first Malz dared to hope that it was an angel.

But it was a demon. One who had to be much larger than Maledict to seem so tall even from here.

They unfurled massive wings, and a moment later a massive purple blast broke the wall, cascading debris around Maledict’s shields. He stood, a snarl on his face. The three women behind the Duke of Heresy were protected, but as Maledict’s form began to expand to match his challenger, it was obvious that protection was about to end.

"Maledict!" the demon shouted, his voice booming "Come and face me!"

Maledict turned. "Janice, have my generals evacuate the city. This battle is beyond them. Anko, take the angel and find shelter. Do not let her die."

"Who is it?" Janice asked, her face pale.

"An old foe," Maledict answered. "Santina..."

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