The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 390: Rain, Bound

Chapter 390: Rain, Bound

"Let’s make a deal..."

The words caressed Rainier’s ears in the first kindness he’d experienced since Helios’ maddened takeover of his mind and body, cutting through the layers of pain and the fog of a mind that had been Rain’s for mere moments.

Rain’s body did not so much pain him as it felt like it was snapping and burning and crushing against itself with every movement. Godflesh and mortal at odds with each other, yet still he forced himself to turn. To see what his attempt to escape, his attempt to end his suffering, had wrought.

Cassiel was dying.

Some corner of his mind had recognized the exhausted state in which she’d joined the battle. Dark, arterial blood seeped around the thin sword of Maledict’s warrior. Her breath stuck in her throat with every strained gasp.

She was a healer, but rare was the healer who could heal themself, even amongst angels.

But the worst thing of all was that Rain felt he had a choice.

She’d already discarded him, he thought. What did it matter if she died?

The idea warred with everything Rain had ever wanted to be, but now, freed from Helios’ anger and madness, he felt himself shudder with revulsion at how soothing apathy seemed. How easy it felt to turn the absence of her love’s warmth into the cold steel of hatred.

A choked, guilty sob was all he could manage as he stared at Cassiel through the tears in his eyes, before turning his gaze to Maledict.

"Can’t speak?" Maledict chuckled. "I know not how my son’s mana found its way into you, but I recall the same look in his eyes not too long ago," he mused. "It’s easy to see what you want, so I will speak the words for you." Mana surged inside the would-be Demon Lord. "I will save her, and you will serve and obey me. This Oath I make, and offer with my hand."

Maledict’s clawed hand hovered within Rain’s reach, the swirling black form of an oathmark visible as it twisted itself into existence, offering hope. The surge of mana from forging such an Oath, its terms so general as to encompass all that Rain could ever do, lit the tower like a beacon.

A choking sound drew Rain’s eyes as he saw Cassiel mouth one word...

"Don’t..."

"I am your only hope," Maledict said, his eyes glinting with some unrecognizable madness.

Rain drew a ragged breath. He felt the weight of the last few years in every twitch of his arm. He had tried to play by the rules. Had tried to do what Heaven and Ayther said was right. He’d tried doing good. He’d tried holding himself back from the vices that the angels themselves felt entitled to. He’d fought and bled, and given his body and labor for the sake of this place. And they’d taken everything, twisting him into a thing to be used.

No more.

If Rain would not be allowed his goodness in Heaven, then he would find it in Hell... and Cassiel would live.

This was his thought as he clasped Maledict’s hand. As he accepted the oathbinding mana that flooded him, branding itself over his unscarred left eye.

"Stand there, and hold still," Maledict’s first order settled over Rain like a calming mist. He knew little of Oath magic aside from what he learned in passing, but there was no punishment as he flinched the moment Maledict pulled the sword free of Cassiel’s chest. And he did not flinch as Maledict stalked amidst the dead and dying, gathering something of their mana and their essence as he channeled it towards Cassiel, forcing her wound to close.

Cassiel screamed as she was made to heal, a deep, red scar forming over where her chest had been pierced.

And then with a snap of his fingers, it was over, and Cassiel lay unconscious, breathing shallowly.

He cast his gaze about the room, then walked over to the demonkin who’d fought Rain while Helios possessed him.

"Up, Lucifer. Our work is almost done."

The half-demon rose, groaning and cradling a broken arm, his tail askew as well and stiffly held.

Then he turned once more, "Your name is Rainier, yes?"

Rain nodded. How does he know my name?

Maledict’s smile deepened. "Come," he ordered, walking Rain over to the panel that had occupied so much of Helios’ warped desires. Maledict’s eyes held the same fascination. "Show me how to create paradise."

That day, Heaven avoided two deaths, but it could not avoid the third.

The first deaths, what Helios had intended, would have been by fire and then ice. A final nova of mana, gathered over hours. Hours during which Maledict would have been driven to call for a retreat.

The true soulstones - those containing the lives and memories of great spirits, demons, and gods - would have been exposed to each other, the warring fragments of their disparate lives tearing Heaven apart, radiating outwards from the Black Tower and destroying everything.

Heaven’s shields would have fallen.

Dragon riders, mid-flight, would have seen their mounts give one final flap before their wings shattered like frozen paper.

The moon’s atmosphere would have collapsed and frozen, the world trees having no time to find stasis before the cold broke them from within.

A cold, sable husk of metal and death would have remained, silent and dark except for the singular glint of Araqlun. A silver mausoleum to power.

*

The moment Rainier clasped hands with Maledict, death by purpose became Heaven’s fate.

For twenty years since the disappearance of the only person he’d ever loved, Maledict had obsessed over her memory.

Every action, every word he could recall had been pored over, searched for meanings and hidden prophecy. Anything that would lead him back to her. To feeling whole again.

"We could build paradise," she’d said once, her hand caressing Maledict’s after a night of lovemaking. "There would be no Heaven then. No Hell. Just a sanctuary for all... Heaven was made for it, and Hell was made to receive it..."

Maledict hadn’t taken her literally then. But since coming to Heaven, he had discovered so much more. Through the angel he’d tortured, he’d found hints. From Heaven’s most ancient devices, he’d found secrets. Copying her face had opened up pathways to knowledge.

The path to paradise. A paradise that Heaven had been created to build, before the angels selfishly declared it theirs.

But to create paradise, Maledict needed authority.

The authority of one who’d seized it from the rulers who predated the angels themselves. Helios’ authority...

"The sun isn’t a source of mana. It’s a source of heat and light. Life takes those and makes mana," Alaes had cooed from Maledict’s side after he’d openly contemplated opening a portal to the sun to learn more about it. "Get too close, and it’ll burn you black... just like Helios," she’d touched his neck then, caressing him the way he liked.

"We demons have a similar tale, but it’s about a flier named Ikaros, who flew too close to the Eye..."

"I suppose the only difference is that Helios existed," Alaes had giggled.

Maledict remembered rolling his eyes, thinking the only difference between myths between their worlds was that Heaven said all its myths were true.

But then he’d seen it. The black and gold, gibbering face of madness, attached to a boy that felt familiar.

It had taken a moment for Maledict to recognize the boy from Malzkael’s descriptions. The one whose body had been rapidly taken over by godflesh, or as Maledict recognized it - malleable soulstone.

It had been a gamble, destroying the gibbering core that controlled him, but the authority had remained. Rainier had accepted the deal.

Now Maledict watched as his newest servant opened screens on the control panel for Heaven’s power supply, undoing Maledict’s clumsy shutdown before bringing him to the final display.

The readouts showed insufficient mana levels to start the process.

"I can reroute the power from Araqlun," Rainier said, willingly giving Maledict the answer to a question he hadn’t asked.

"Hmm, so there is no need to move the stones at all," Maledict hummed, realizing how crude his original plan had been. But he’d had to act while his people had power from the death of Santina. One stone, by his order the heart of Leviathan, had already been dragged to the hole Maledict had carved through Araqlun’s foundations. He saw it now rested at the bottom of the tree, another label in Old Angelic calling it an Unregistered Mana Source. "Do it," he ordered Rainier.

One final tap. And then Rainier spoke to the console in Old Angelic. "Emergency Authorization Alpha Helios... Let there be light."

*

Heaven’s foundations shook with power. Beginning around Araqlun, perfect breaks began, each a triangle that had enjoined to form the whole of Heaven’s sphere.

The roots of the mighty Yggdrasilis semperviren trees were nothing compared to the titanic forces of technology that had been designed to move by magic alone. They shattered, twisting and pulling apart each tree after countless millennia spent together. And yet, each world tree remained standing, for even in life their weight was meant to be borne by the metal beneath them.

The metal that turned its undersides towards the moon that hovered nearby, as Heaven drifted apart.

As Araqlun snapped free of its dead host tree, startling the demons who were gathering on the foundational floor.

*

On the panel, red and orange flashed. A warning Maledict did not understand. With the message blinking constantly, it took him a while to translate the words.

Beacon Detection Fault

"I don’t understand..." Rainier said, his face twisting.

But Maledict did. As he saw Heaven drifting apart, little bubbles of mana forming around each world tree, he knew that he had succeeded in destroying the home of his enemies, but had failed to find the path to paradise...

Lucifer spoke next. "My Lord, what do we do now?" the bard asked.

Maledict shook as he ran a hand through his hair and along his horns. He’d been so sure he would gain complete success, but now it was all going wrong...

"It’s far easier to destroy than to create," he murmured. He wanted the paradise the ancients had sought to build. He wanted to rule a "heaven" of his own making... It was his deepest wish that he’d shared only with Alaes. The one he’d held onto as hard as he could when she’d gone...

He breathed.

He let go.

"Come, both of you. We need to evacuate our people."

"Our..." Rainier said, before stopping himself. Maledict knew the look of a man desperate to relieve the pain of living. He had preyed on such men, back when he’d handled many contracts on behalf of his former master. Once, he’d have felt contempt, and perhaps glee, to find such a victim. Now...

Maledict felt no joy as he placed a hand on Rainier’s shoulder, but he put on a smile anyway.

"Welcome to the ranks of the fallen."

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