The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 397: Betrayal

Chapter 397: Betrayal

Amarena stood watch as Kir settled into his seat. The first few moments of his link with the fulcrum passed without anything more dramatic than the odd formation of gold that fused itself to his forehead, forming a downward triangle.

She could still feel him through the bond. Feel his mind and body settling into place.

But then the tent flap opened and General Hazzarn stepped in, fully armed and armored.

"I have felt the Duke’s mana waxing and waning twice over. What is the meaning of this, Char?" he challenged.

"Our Duke evolves. Stand witness, leave, or challenge us, his keepers," she said clearly and strongly.

Amarena was more than beginning to like Char. She had Kir’s mind for the bigger picture and more steel than Kordia, Kassin, and Lapins combined. Though they had yet to spar, she felt a rising desire to invite her while they waited on Kir.

The muscly demon huffed. "One against two? You mistake me for a fool." He was clearly outmatched, and yet he grinned. A moment later, his confidence was justified as the flap of the tent opened and every one of Kainur’s former generals stood ready.

"As you have kept your council with the Duke, we have kept it with each other," Zazel appeared, his voice far gentler than Amarena expected.

"You too, Zazel?" Char frowned.

"We have decided to leave, in order to seek out Heaven’s destroyer. Surely such audacity would come with a plan of survival. Come with us, Daughter of Pride. You need not be shackled to this fool," Hazzarn said.

Zazel’s many eyes twitched, his face spasming in some weird syncopation of muscles and blinks. "We did not come here to bandy insults, Hazzarn." He straightened himself. "A message went out to all the vectigals... I had thought to give you the chance to announce it, but you have broken our trust in this."

Amarena stiffened. A vectigal held contracts on behalf of their Dukes, or on their own behalf. They were instrumental in creating networks of beholden mortals on Ayther, and their very souls were thus rendered accessible to those with the correct means to contact them.

"Did you think you were your father’s only contract maker?" Zazel sighed in disappointment, looking to Amarena as he spoke for her benefit over Char’s. "A call has gone out... to gather at the Eye. There, Heaven’s destroyer will reveal himself. There, the conquest of Ayther will truly begin. Under a new Demon Lord. The first since Kainur fell from those heights." He turned, "You must have heard her call," he said to Char. "The servant of the Demon Lord."

"I heard, but I suspected a trap." Blood dripped from Char’s hand, her claws biting deep. Tension strained every line of her body. Amarena watched as complex emotions ran across her face. "You have seen what our Duke can do," Char said quietly. "He will save us."

"We do not wish to be saved," Hazzarn bellowed. "We wish to be victorious!" He turned to the crowd and said, "Come, Kainur’s daughter has chosen her death."

"Traitors!" Char shouted, her hands finally opening.

A half dozen spells snapped into place, binding Char.

"Don’t just stand there! Do something!" Char shouted at Amarena.

"You cannot stop us," Hazzarn said, a raspy, barbed tongue passing across his lips. He started to reach for Char.

"Hazzarn!" Zazel snapped. "We agreed to peace!"

Amarena was about to take a step closer to Char when she froze. A feeling of wrongness lashed her spine with cold dread as she felt the scream begin, and she turned to find Kir, his head slightly forward, and his mouth open, eyes half-lidded and the triangle of gold on his forehead aglow.

Blue-white light suffused him, twilight grey at the edges of every place his skin touched his inner light. The light shone from his eyes, his nose, his mouth.

His body did not scream, and yet she heard the wail through the bond.

An agony so complete it made her shudder just to feel an echo of it.

One that meant she could not move even if she wanted to, not as long as she stood before him...

And then, Kir’s body spoke.

"It never changes..."

His voice was quiet, tenebrous, and yet it was enough to silence the traitor generals and all others.

He shimmered in the air as he stood, not onto the ground, but in the air as if simply unfurling himself into a hovering stance, wings tucked behind him. And somewhere in the shimmers, Amarena alone saw the twisting, agonized face of her love.

But her hand could no more reach for her sword than she could breathe in the presence of such overwhelming might. For Kir had smothered the area in his mana, even through the raised reach and guard of his traitorous generals.

He blurred, and a moment later his hand touched Hazzarn’s arm.

It unraveled.

Blood and flesh and bone. Wisps of mana and even the bracers he wore, all of it turned to vapor and dust, leaving a clean shear at his shoulder, which burst with blood as soon as his body realized it was no longer whole. Blood vaporized off of Kir’s body the moment it touched him.

"I could tell Kir you betrayed him... but he’ll suffer enough without me," Kir’s lips spoke. "Go. Run. Tell your savior that I am coming..."

"Who the fuck are you?" Hazzarn gasped, his eyes darting in search for any advantage. But Amarena felt it. There was no mana to be had because it was all his. His very presence, his very authority dominated the area and left no room for opposition.

"Tell them," Kir’s eyes fell on Amarena, and suddenly she felt a barrier slam between her and the scream. She fell to her knees, knowing that if she did not speak she would die. "You named me once. Tell them!"

"Shin’ Gir..." Amarena uttered the name. She found, at last, that she could move, and so she slowly reached down, gripping her sword.

She drew and sliced at the same time, going for the neck...

But she couldn’t do it.

Her blade drew blood, but it would go no further.

She knew, then, that she would never be able to strike him down.

"I didn’t even try to stop you..." the god wearing Kir’s face shook his head, sending Amarena onto her side with a wave of his hand. The wound in his neck closed, the blood flaking away in mere moments.

Then, with motions that lacked Kir’s grace and patience, Kiryu reached into Kir’s storage and extracted his pipe, lighting it and inhaling.

"Fuck," he watched the smoke leaving his lips. Then sent the traitor generals free. "Move along," he gestured with a patronizing tone. His magic pulled on the ashfalls above them, a portal opening behind the generals, Hell’s Eye lighting the space beyond, orange and red on ash and black.

"Lady Char..." Zazel pleaded.

Instead of answering, Char looked away.

"Don’t get your panties in a twist. They’re the dead ones," Kiryu said as soon as the portal closed behind them. "In fact-guh!" Kiryu staggered, one hand coming up to his head as his control of the local mana faltered. "What the-"

"Girl! Tell me quick, where is Kir? What is this presence?"

The voice spoke through Amarena’s head, clear as day and familiar. A voice she knew from the mindscape where she had claimed her mother’s power.

The voice of a giantess, who was now demonkin...

"Halie?"

"No time. Tell me."

"It’s Kiryu Nasumi... Shin’ Gir. He has control of Kir’s body." Guilt flooded the admission. Her unwillingness to kill him as she’d sworn to do gnawing at her.

A portal screeched into existence, just behind Kiryu.

"This wasn’t supposed to happen..." Halie’s thoughts blurred into present-mindedness as she entered the battle.

Kir caught her punch as she stepped into the tent, off balance with her demon form.

From beyond the portal, Encke tried to run for her mother but it closed a moment later as another opened, a small portal that would let Halie punch Kiryu - only it didn’t, as Kir snapped his fingers and it simply disappeared.

In the chaos of their fight, the tent collapsed. Demons, unable to rush to the scene from the sheer oppression of Kiryu’s field of control, stood at the edges watching as the combatants rose.

Time after time, Halie tried to open portals only for Kiryu to snap them shut.

"I don’t see why the kid had a hard time fighting you. Your little portals have limits for how much mass can pass through before they collapse," Kiryu taunted. "And without mana, your time is almost up."

Halie’s skin, already ashen from her demonic transformation, had taken on the dark blue veins of mana corruption, but with a sickly inner glow. Amarena knew the sign. The razor’s edge between unlocking new power and burning one’s self out completely...

Suddenly a searing bold of lightning tried to arc its way into the fight, only to turn upward and dissipate harmlessly as Kiryu’s field kept it out.

"Mother!" Encke shouted.

It was all the distraction Halie needed.

With a rush, Halie opened a portal wide, to some place rocky and distant, spending all the mana her body could make as she forced Kiryu through.

At the last second, he kicked her away, sending her tumbling onto her back as the portal closed, and they were left behind.

Kiryu’s field of oppression left with him, and Encke rushed to her mother’s side.

Halie twitched. Her arms were seared along her nerves. Her tail seemed not to respond to her at all as Encke raised her into a hug.

And yet it was Halie who shed tears. "I’m sorry... I was too late..."

"Where did you send him?" Amarena asked, ignoring Encke’s sudden glare.

"A wilderness in Armedon, to buy us time," Halie confessed.

"Send me there! I owe it to Kir to stop him." Amarena choked on her breath as she finally let herself say what she’d realized the moment Kiryu stepped into Kir’s skin. "Shin’ Gir deceived us."

Halie raised her arm, trying weakly but barely shifting the mana before her. "I cannot..." She shook her head. "I cannot and it’s too late... Everything I fought for was to keep him contained. It’s too late..."

"What will he do, Halie?" Amarena asked. "What will he do?"