The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 422: Strange Friends

Chapter 422: Strange Friends

Amarena gripped the edge of one of the barely seaworthy vessels carrying less than a third of Kir’s Dukedom to the west.

No, a third was being generous. The camp had dissolved into chaos the moment Kir disappeared and his traitorous Generals failed to return. The majority of the army had abandoned them, aiming to march back east and north to re-occupy the former nation of Nyandor.

Even without challengers in power, the split had proved unavoidable as a second force split off to begin pillaging Montmorency. Char had done her best in those dark days, but the untimely appearance of Amrita’s army had forced them to choose.

In the end, what little was left of the army under Char was sacrificed to allow the precious days needed to fit eight thousand demons onto three boats, following the promise Kir made that they would find shelter in Norneau.

It was a promise Amarena doubted would go as easily as everyone hoped... especially now that Kir was gone, taken over by the side of himself he’d kept hidden.

Her grip tightened on the railing, splintering the untreated wood as she felt a stirring of rage from within. If only he’d told them sooner, she would have possibly made a better decision. Instead, she’d rushed to choose, and allowed her teacher, the Demon Breaker Halie, to cast him away - acting on her fear of Kiryu, a fear that had been placed within her by the true puppetmaster of the apocalypse.

Aelaes, the Daughter of Heaven and Kir’s mother.

After Halie’s banishment of Kiryo, Amarena was finally able to grasp more of the big picture after interrogating her former teacher, who had not expected to live this long. The maven had burnt her power down to the dregs in order to send Kiryu far away. Helpless and adrift, she’d confessed everything. Amarena hated herself for having played a part in it, for piecing together Kiryu’s identity as Shin’Gir, God of Destruction. For failing in her promise not to allow Kir to be subsumed by him.

Just as she’d failed to become the Valrian leader that Halie had wanted her to become. Those ideals of justice had tempered her wrath and become a part of her, but the Order itself had rejected her as absolutely as it could without making it official.

She’d grown out of her quest for strength and into the question of what she wanted to use that strength for. Then, those who professed to be the beacon of valor and justice had pushed her away for having the gall to be a demon who helped to save them. In the back of her mind she’d known this ever since she’d been sent away, but working with Kir and the nation he’d assumed control over had helped to keep her mind off of it... until now.

Now, Amarena didn’t know what to do with herself.

She knew what she felt though, and-

"Copper for your thoughts?" Char’s voice interrupted Amarena’s reverie.

Her sigh steamed a little in the cool evening air. "How are we doing on the water?" It was a hollow question, but one that would give Amarena a chance to "switch gears" as Kir sometimes said.

"Pulling the boats forward with water magic was innovative. With what our fliers tell me, my guess is we’re about a week out from the shore at this rate. Three if we make landfall and walk the rest of the way. Not that we can afford to waste that kind of time."

With Heaven’s shards on the way, any delay might seal their fate once they struck the planet.

Char came to rest next to Amarena, her pale skin and fine features a stark contrast to Amarena’s purple skin and muscles. She was somewhat conscious of the slight purple tint that washed over the demoness, the source of that light being the gem in Amarena’s forehead that jutted like a horn. A piece of her mother’s legacy. The legacy of Leviathan.

"You haven’t been sleeping," Char said when Amarena failed to follow up.

"I don’t really need it at the moment," she grunted.

"But you have the opportunity to rest, and you should take it, Rena," Char said softly. "I mean... it would benefit you to be at your most alert when we arrive in this Norneau."

Char and Amarena had softened to each other somewhat over the last weeks, if only because of their shared interest in survival. Though Char hid it behind self-interest, Rena could tell that she was beginning to trust her.

"I’m plenty alert, thank you," Rena replied. "I have no idea what stage of evolution I’m in now, but I haven’t really felt at all sleepy since... well..."

"You can say it. Since the battle against my father."

"Yeah."

"I suspect you are ’beyond your heritage,’ as my father would say. Whatever evolutions you experience from now on will be entirely your own, but no demon has ever evolved completely away from needing sleep."

"Tell that to Kir."

"Duke Kir is an exception, and only half a demon. There’s no telling what a metatron is capable of."

"Bearing the soul of the god of destruction, it seems," Rena countered bitterly. "And keeping it secret until it was absolutely unavoidable."

"I am familiar with such things... from my father. So I know the pain of secrets," Char tapped her fingers along the rail. "What will you do... when he returns?"

"You think he will?" Rena exhaled through her nose. "No... he absolutely will. The question is whether he’ll be the Kir I knew or someone else. I think the only thing I can do is play it by ear."

"What do you want to do, though? If not for him, then for yourself." Char watched Rena’s face, eyes searching.

"I want... to show people that demons can be good and just. Maybe that means founding my own order. Or maybe that just means not lowering myself into whatever shit comes my way. I am of Wrath, and yet I’ve come to find that I don’t just want to end up like my mother... Too strong for her own good." It felt strange to open up to Char, who was far more political than Amarena had a mind to be, but strange times made for strange friends.

Char looked up, at the ever-shrinking scar upon the sky. "I doubt Aytherians will care much for demonic justice."

"Not demonic justice. Mine."

"Even so," Char smiled sadly. "They will savage you for even the appearance of pretense while justifying their own."

Before Amarena could respond, a sudden cry from the aft deck drew their attention. Both demonesses hurried and were quickly pointed towards a distant object following the boats.

At first, Amarena couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. A warp in the air seemed to be chasing them, and it was only when the object neared that she saw it was a silvery, reflective orb. One that induced in her a fundamental sense of wrongness at its perfection.

When it finally neared enough for her to see it with manasight, the orb almost seemed to disappear thanks to a density of mana that was impenetrable. Darker than black, and yet blinding along the skin of the orb. It hurt to look at and so she quickly dispelled her manasight as she readied her twin shortswords Patience and Time for battle.

"What’s going on?" a voice asked from behind as Encke, a giantess and the daughter of Halie, pounded up the steps of the aftcastle. As soon as she saw, she scowled, "What is that thing? Why does it hurt to look at?"

"No idea," Rena answered.

Without bothering to ask, the mage gathered magic before her, muttering a short spell before sending a bolt of mana at the object. Encke’s attack struck true, but the orb simply continued through the spell, accelerating.

"It absorbs magic!" Encke reported.

"Let’s see if it can absorb this," Char hissed, gathering as much mana as she could into a massive spell that began to draw water up in glacial shards, blocking the path of the orb, only for the strange artifact to simply go up or around them. At least until... "Prison of Cocytis" Char quietly named her spell as it concluded with a gigantic pillar of ice forming around the orb less than fifty measures from the ship.

As the crackle of settling ice filled the air, a small cheer rose from those who had witnessed the attacks, but their relief was short-lived as the orb passed through the ice, leaving a hollow cylinder behind it.

It absorbed the ice too, Amarena realized as she noticed there were no signs of crumbling matter behind the device.

"Archers!" Char called, and the thwack of loosed arrows filled the air as a half-dozen demons tried to snipe the orb. Most of their shots went wide, but those that struck were simply absorbed, confirming that the artifact was able to overcome iron’s natural resistance to magic.

It did not bode well for their prospects of destroying or delaying the artifact. Yet even so, the moment the orb crested upwards, casting its shadow on the deck, Rena accelerated herself and prepared for battle.